The defeat of Richard Lugar in the Indiana Republican Party primary for Senate last night tells me two things. First, it says that the national security centrist position continues to erode. Losing Lugar reminds me of the defeat a few years back of Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the patron saint of professional military education. Second, it makes me wonder if the great Midwest is turning away from internationalism and back to its pre-World War II isolationism.

I remember someone trying to sell to me the materialistic view that the Midwest only turned away from isolationism when grain exports became a big deal after World War II, especially as we elbowed Argentina out of the European market. At the time I didn't buy it. But I wonder -- now that grain is a corporate enterprise, employing far fewer individuals, maybe Midwesterners don't see any reason to engage in the world.  

Here's another, harsher take.

Our nation's two most wrongheaded wars were launched by Texans. This is not a partisan crack -- LBJ was a Democrat, and George W. Bush a Republican. But it is a regionalist crack--the more I listen to Rick "Lynch Mob" Perry, the more I think we may need the following constitutional amendment:

"No citizen of the state of Texas may be eligible to serve as president of the United States until five decades have passed since the end of the last war waged by a president from Texas."

More here from Abu "Multilateralists R Us" Muqawama.

In 1974, the military became all volunteer. In the 1980s, the Reagan tax cuts began a huge transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, top 1 percent of American society. Normally we don't connect these two events, but with the passage of time, I suspect we may come to see them together as the moment when the wealthy checked out of America and moved into physical and mental gated communities.

I've already talked about how over the last 30 years, the proportion of wealth going to the top 1 percent has gone from 10 percent of annual national income to almost 25 percent, a greater share than in the Roaring '20s. And many of the readers of this blog have contributed thoughts about the All-Volunteer Force, especially how many American parents no longer have a sense of skin in the game.

In a nutshell:

Wikimedia Commons

(The chart shows inflation-adjusted percentage increase in after-tax household income for the top 1 percent and the four quintiles, between 1979 and 2005.)

I bring all this up again because when I think about the Tea Party and the broader national mood of anti-incumbency, I suspect it all is part of a growing national distrust and dislike of elites. If Washington is getting whupped today, Wall Street can't be far behind on the hit parade. While I have problems with the Tea Party, I do think it is correct to suspect that the elites are not doing their part. So where I think this winds up is probably a sharp populist backlash, in five or 10 years, when all the national bills really start coming due. Ireland today may be America soon. Get ready for increase in income tax rates. But, as the wealthy will tell you after a few drinks, occupational income is really for the little people. The real game is capital gains taxes, and the rate there is just 15 percent. I suspect it will double sometime down the road.

And while we are at it, let's have a parallel debate about national service, OK?

Bringing back a draft does not mean bringing back the draft we saw in the 1960s. Rather, I think we design a new deal that offer a three-part set of options:

The military option. You do 18 months of military service. The leaders of the armed forces will kick and moan, but these new conscripts could do a lot of work that currently is outsourced: cutting the grass, cooking the food, taking out the trash, painting the barracks. They would receive minimal pay during their terms of service, but good post-service benefits, such as free tuition at any university in America. If the draftees like the military life, and some will, they could at the end of their terms transfer to the professional force, which would continue to receive higher pay and good benefits. (But we'd also raise the retirement age for the professional force to 30 years of service, rather than 20 as it is now. There is no reason to kick healthy 40-year-olds out of the military and then pay them 40 years of retirement pay.)

The civilian service option.Don't want to go military? Not a problem. We have lots of other jobs at hand. You do two years of them -- be a teacher's aide at a troubled inner-city school, clean up the cities, bring meals to elderly shut-ins. We might even think about how this force could help rebuild the American infrastructure, crumbling after 30 years of neglect. These national service people would receive post-service benefits essentially similar to what military types get now, with tuition aid.

The libertarian opt-out. There is a great tradition of libertarianism in this country, and we honor it. Here, you opt out of the military and civilian service options. You do nothing for Uncle Sam. In return, you ask for nothing from him. For the rest of your life, no tuition aid, no federal guarantees on your mortgage, no Medicare. Anything we can take you out of, we will. But the door remains open -- if you decide at age 50 that you were wrong, fine, come in and drive a general around for a couple of years.

A PUK candidate was blown up in Diyala Province.

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

Someone killed 13 people in al Anbar province, many of them relatives of a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Is this more pre-election jockeying, or what? The Baghdad government is calling it a tribal dispute. That may be true -- but it certainly is what I would say if I wanted to just chalk it up to those rowdy Anbaris.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening in Anbar?

KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images

In the new issue of the New York Review of Books, Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group offers a good summary of why he thinks the coming year will be a turbulent one in Iraq. I think he is right -- and that 2010 will stand alongside 2003 and 2007 as a turning point. In short,

...just as Odierno will be pulling out his first combat brigades, starting in March, Iraq will be entering into a period of fractious wrangling over the formation of a new government. If Iraqi national forces fail to impose their control, an absence of political leadership could thus coincide with a collapse in security; if politicians and their allied militias resort to violence, the state, including its intelligence apparatus so critical for maintaining internal stability, could fracture along political, ethnic, and sectarian lines."

Fasten your seat belts. Meanwhile, here is a bunch of headlines from this morning:

• Bomb wounds 4 civilians in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 10:37:30

• 4 wounded in 3rd explosion in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 09:03:50

• 2nd sticky bomb in Baghdad wounds 5 people
  November 4, 2009 - 08:22:02

• 3 wanted men nabbed in Wassit
  November 4, 2009 - 08:07:17

• Sticky bomb injures 7 people in western Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 07:33:56

Bfelice/flickr

And that means you start chewing on your fingernails, too:

... the U.S. strategy rests on an undemocratic, corrupt and weak central government, a president who cheated his way into office in an election held under American supervision, an election that even the government of Afghanistan concedes was stolen. The script couldn't have been improved if Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar had put himself to the task.

Can this get any worse?

What I'm hearing today from some of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan is: uh-oh. . . . For the Taliban, Karzai's assumption of a second presidential term validates their argument that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is terminally corrupt and must be overthrown; re-energized, they will recruit and fight harder."

Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

As predicted (at the end of the post) in this blog on Friday, old Abdullah Abdullah is threatening to pull out of the Afghan run-up.

Here is a comment from my friend Mac McCallister, who has spent a lot of time on the ground in dangerous places recent years:

My prediction... He won't [pull out]... He is only maneuvering for a better deal... more access to spoils.

We have helped create this situation... and may actually still be manipulating the process. We have weakened Karzai by calling him out... (blood in the water).  We have strengthened Abdullah Abdullah with hagiographic fawning in the popular press... Karzai needs us more than ever becasue we have explained in no uncertain terms that we can always change horses.

Abdullah Abdullah's faction is now taking advantage of the situation to gain at the expense of his rival... "Never let a good crisis go to waste"... Abdullah Abdulah can not allow this power play to get out of control... and he will therefore manage the "crisis" accordingly. He can't rule A-stan and he knows it.. Abdullah Abdullah now needs us more than ever..

Win-win for the U.S.  My compliments to Sec of State Mrs Clinton and her strategists.

The Pashtun Karzai is still the front-man in this charade... In the meantime all will send delegates to Abdullah Abdullah to talk him off the ledge... The negotiations to keep Abdullah Abdullah in the game will be interpreted by all that Abdullah Abdullah has both credibility and legitimacy. In the end.. Abdullah Abdullah's faction will be offered a greater share of the spoils... Karzai will be President... and the government will continue to frustrate the hell out of us.

Or maybe not...  

I understand the sentiment in an anti-Karzai campaign, but I find it kind of creepy, reminding me of turning on President Diem, which turned out to be a bad move.

Btw, can you guess what Abdullah Abdullah's favorite band is?

Department of Defense

Here's a new sweepstakes: Who do you think is running away from the United States government faster, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki or Afghan President Karzai? Right now, Karzai is four lengths in front. But I think Maliki might catch up later this year or early next. He runs well on a muddy track. 

(HT to Mr. S. Attackerman)

Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

The Iranian election is getting interesting. Last week, Reuters reports, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of corruption. Now old Rafsanjani comes swinging back, accusing the little guy of "misstatements and fabrications." He has a bunch of clerics from Qom over in his amen corner.

Old Juan Cole has a good roundup of events relating to the election, such as a massive rally against Ahmadinejad in Tehran that wasn't broken up by the police. Among the stories he cites is one carried by the official Iranian news agency in which presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi calls Ahmadinejad a dictator: "I say so because he does not abide by the laws, so why should we not call him a dictator?"  

ALI RAFIEI/AFP/Getty Images