Geopolitical Diary: An Israeli 'Turning Point'

April 7, 2008

Israel launched a major, nationwide military exercise on Sunday. Scheduled to last five days, it is designed to simulate air and missile attacks against Israel, including “unconventional” weapons — which we would assume refers to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The exercise will test Israel’s ability to protect its population and maintain continuity of government and military decision-making in the event of such an attack.
The Israelis have emphasized that the simulation is not an attempt to raise tensions in the region, nor a cover for an attack on either Lebanon or Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday, “The goal of the exercise is to check the authorities’ ability to carry out their duty in times of emergency and for preparing the home front for various scenarios. There is nothing else hidden behind it.”
The code name of the exercise is “Turning Point 2,” a choice that bears some scrutiny because code names have become public relations tools. From Operation Peace for Galilee (Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982) to Urgent Fury (the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983) to Iraqi Freedom, the code names selected by Western countries have less to do with the desire for security than the desire for a clear message. (Turning Point 1 was a much smaller exercise that took place last year. However, given rumors flying around the region right now, anything called “Turning Point” will raise eyebrows, even if it was used before.)
Thought was given by the Israelis to the name “Turning Point.” That choice was intended to deliver a message, and deliver it to two audiences. One audience is the Israeli public. The other is Israel’s adversaries, ranging from Hamas and Hezbollah to Syria and Iran. That a message is being delivered along with the exercise is clear. The meaning of the message, however, is more opaque.
“Turning point,” as Winston Churchill used it in World War II, is that moment in which the trend of the war shifts away from one side and toward another. It is a decisive moment, a point of rectification. From the Israeli standpoint, there would appear to be three conflicts that need to be rectified. The first is the Israeli confrontation with Hamas in Gaza, where an extended stalemate appears to be in place. The second is Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah: The Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006 defined a balance between Israeli and Hezbollah forces that is unsatisfactory to Israel. Many Israelis would argue the need for a turning point there — a reinitiation of conflict to change the outcome of 2006 — and Hezbollah has been claiming that this is Israel’s intent. The third of Israel’s conflicts has been in its relations with Iran. Israel has asserted that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon and delivery system that will threaten Israel. An elimination of that threat through offensive, defensive or combined efforts would certainly be a turning point.
The Israelis may have in mind one or more of these actions taking place simultaneously. A combined action in Gaza and the Bekaa Valley would represent an attempt to achieve a turning point in the Israeli strategic position. Either or both of those offensives might trigger missile attacks using chemical weapons. Therefore any operation that would be intended as a turning point in the regional conflict might well contain a defensive scenario against a large-scale chemical attack on Israel from weapons deployed in Lebanon or possibly Syria.
The Israelis could also be conducting a necessary exercise for implementing defensive warfighting scenarios under unknown circumstances. They might have chosen the code name simply to jangle nerves in the region. However, over the past weeks we have seen everything from U.S. Sixth Fleet naval vessels moving close to the Lebanese coast, to very convincing reports of Syrian troop movements along the Lebanese border. Jangling the nerves of the region seems superfluous.
The name might simply mean that from this moment forward, Israel is ready for unconventional air and missile attack. Or it could be intended as a signal that Israel is interested in a broader turning point. Either way, code names are not casually chosen and the code name for the largest anti-WMD defensive exercise that Israel has ever undertaken was not pulled out of a jar.
“Turning Point” is an interesting choice

April 6, 2008
Iraqi Forces and Militia Clash in Baghdad

By ERICA GOODE and MICHAEL R. GORDON
BAGHDAD — Sharp fighting broke out in Baghdad’s Sadr City district on Sunday as American and Iraqi troops sought to control neighborhoods used by Shiite militias to fire rockets and mortars into the nearby Green Zone.

But the operation failed to stop the attacks on the heavily fortified zone, headquarters for the Iraq central government and the American Embassy here. By day’s end, at least two American soldiers were killed and 17 wounded in the zone, one of the worst daily tolls for the American military in the most protected part of Baghdad. Altogether, at least three American soldiers were killed and 31 wounded in attacks in Baghdad on Sunday, and at least 20 Iraqis were killed, mostly in Sadr City.

The heightened violence came on the eve of congressional testimony in Washington by General David H. Petreaus, the senior American commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to defend their strategy for political reconciliation and improved security in the country.

The Green Zone attacks Sunday were, symbolically at least, a sign that forces hostile to the United States are still able to strike at the heart of the American nerve center and seat of government power in the capital of Iraq.

The attacks were sure to feature prominently in the upcoming hearings, giving ammunition to Democratic critics who argue that Iraq is not making progress, as well as Republicans who say it would be foolish to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq quickly.

The attacks also came as Iraq’s national security council intensified pressure on the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political group led by Moktada Al-Sadr, the powerful anti-American Shiite cleric, to disarm. In a statement, the council declared that all political parties must immediately dissolve their militias and surrender their weapons if they wished to participate in elections.

The timing of the statement was seen as message meant in particular for Mr. Sadr, who represents the biggest political threat to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his associates, and who derives much of his support from Sadr City, the sprawling area of Baghdad that has been encircled by American and Iraqi troops for more than a week.

Violence in Sadr City first flared more than a week ago after Prime Minister Maliki began a flawed military campaign to retake the southern port city of Basra from Shiite militias. The Basra operation ended only after American and British forces rushed to help reinforce the assault.

The fighting in Baghdad had calmed considerably in recent days. On Sunday morning, though, Iraqi troops backed up by an American Stryker squadron moved through a southern section of Sadr City, and were met by militia fighters armed with rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

After the Iraqi soldiers came under attack, American forces, equipped with Abrams tanks, and troop-carrying Strykers and Bradley fighting vehicles rumbled to the scene. An American helicopter fired at least two Hellfire missiles at militia fighters armed with rocket propelled grenades, and blasted one of their vehicles. Later at least one militia-fired rocket hit the Jamilla market, a heavily frequented part of Sadr City, where clashes left at least 20 people dead, Iraqi officials said.

At large whoosh from a nearby rocket disrupted a briefing held by Iraqi and American commanders for a small group of reporters at the lone American Army and Iraqi combat outpost in Sadr City, prompting correspondents and soldiers to duck for their lives. The news conference, given by Gen. Abud Qanbar Hashim, the Iraqi commander for Baghdad, and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey W.Hammond, who leads the American division charged with securing the capital, began as bursts of gunfire rattled nearby streets.

General Hammond explained later that the projectile was probably an errant 107 millimeter rocket aimed at the Green Zone and launched from north Sadr city.

Mr. Maliki has issued a series of seemingly inconsistent decrees in recent days about his willingness to take on militias. General Abud said that the Iraqi operations in Sadr City were not aimed at any specific political movement, a statement that seemed intended to reassure Mr. Sadr’s followers, but he insisted that Iraqi security forces would take action against any militia brandishing arms.

“The main thing is that arms should be in the hands of the state. And we will never allow any armed group to carry arms as an alternative to the state to provide security to the citizens,” he said.

The immediate concern for the American forces was more tactical: trying to shut down the mortar and rocket attacks that have become a daily problem for the Green Zone.

Moving into the streets and allies, American soldiers have taken up positions in abandoned houses, living in primitive conditions and trying to fend off counterattacks from a group of enemy fighters that appeared to have a well-organized system of command and control.

Michael Boom, sergeant major of the First Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment, said more than 1,000 American and Iraqi troops were operating in his sector. He said that the recent fighting began on March 25 when the Americans heard that Iraqi checkpoints were being overrun.

“My soldiers pushed out to help the Iraqi security forces reestablish the checkpoints. In some cases, we actually took over the checkpoints until they could get forces back there,” he said. “My companies have been taking direct fire every day.”

On March 28, the Americans moved to take control of the militia rocket sites to try to blunt the attacks on the Green Zone. The militias responded with a heavy counterattack the next day.

“They obviously wanted to retain that ground and maintain their ability to shoot rockets with impunity,” said Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, the commander of the squadron. “They have a command and control structure. They have a plan in place.”

The fighting increased Sunday as Iraqi forces began to clear a neighborhood to the east of the outpost, with American support.

Over the last week, Mr. Maliki has also been trying to recoup the political damage he sustained when his American-supported military assault in Basra met with intense resistance from militias. After a six-day stalemate, high-level negotiations resulted in Mr. Sadr issuing a statement on March 30 ordering his followers to stop fighting.

On Sunday, the security council, whose members include Mr. Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Mahmoud Mashidani, the speaker of the parliament, and representatives of the major political parties, demanded that the militias be disbanded as part of a 15-point statement issued Sunday morning. The statement also called for all parties to "appreciate the role of the Army in imposing security and order in Basra and the rest of the provinces."

Mahmood Uthman, an independent member of Parliament who is part of the Kurdish Alliance, said that he doubted the Sadr group would go along. Mr. Sadr and his followers, he said, were likely to insist that any call for disarmament be applied to other political parties with militias, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose armed wing is the Badr militia.

Luway Smessem, the head of the Sadr party’s political committee, said that while the group agreed with much of the statement, party officials had "reservations" about some points, including the demands that militias disband and that Mr. Maliki’s Basra campaign be supported.

“The Mahdi Army is not a militia,” he said. “We don’t have masked fighters and everyone knows who we are and who are commanders are.”

Until Sunday, the last time an American soldier had died from attacks on the Green Zone was in July of last year.

In addition, a rocket fired Sunday at a military base in the Rustimiya neighborhood of Baghdad killed one American soldier and wounded 14.

A third rocket landed just outside a checkpoint at the entry of the Green Zone, sheering off the corner of a building and wounding five Iraqi civilians. The rocket landed 50 yards in front of vehicles driven by employees of the New York Times.

The force of the rocket, one employee said, ripped a four-inch deep hole in the road’s tarmac surface.

“All the cars started speeding toward us, like cockroaches out of a drain, trying to get away from there as quickly as possible," the employee said.

Mohammed Razak, 16, who works at a bakery in the first floor of the building that was hit, went back to work soon afterward.

“The souls are given to us by God and he is the one who decides to take them,” Mr. Razak said. “It’s our living and we have to keep working.”

--endit--

Ahmed Fadam, Stephen Farrell and Qaid Mizher and employees of The New York Times in Baghdad contributed reporting

Remember when America wasn't so democratic?

Americans spend little time remembering our history, preferring to focus on current and future accomplishments. That attitude gives us a bit of attention-deficit disorder when it comes to judging other countries' political evolutions. We simply cannot understand why they shouldn't be able to quickly put together a democracy like our own.

The harsh truth is that most developing countries that embrace markets and globalization do so as single-party states. Sure, many feature a marginal opposition party, just like the Harlem Globetrotters always play -- and beat -- the Washington Generals, but they're still single-party states. Mexico was like this for decades, as was South Korea and Japan. Once economic development matured enough, a real balance took hold and power started shifting back and forth between parties. Malaysia heads for the same tipping point today.

Americans, especially experts and politicians, typically view these regimes with a certain disdain, wondering how a public can put up with a manipulative political system where elites decide who runs for high office and only a tiny fraction of the public has any real influence. We demand more competition, more suffrage, and freer elections -- now!

But take a trip back with me to the beginnings of our own country and let me try to convince you that America needs to display more patience with such developments, because what we often demand of others we certainly had a hard time achieving quickly for ourselves.

Remember this: Our country was born of revolution, including a nasty guerrilla-style war waged by a ragtag collection of militias against the most powerful military in the world at that time. We fought dirty, even launching a surprise attack during a religious holiday. We persecuted fellow citizens who sided with the occupational authority. The enemy branded our military leader a terrorist. In fact, its Parliament was the first in history to use such terminology to describe our violent attacks against its commerce.

True to our radical extremism, we "elected" this rebel military leader our first president in 1789. I say "elected" because, for all practical purposes, he ran unopposed. Less than 2 percent of our country's population was actually able to cast votes, as roughly half of the states chose electors in their legislatures -- rich land-owning patricians selecting one of their own. This rebel leader ran unopposed again for re-election three years later in 1792.

When the general finally stepped down in 1797, he was replaced by another revolutionary leader -- an unlovable enforcer whom the revolutionary elite trusted with a number of unsavory jobs over the years. Catch his life story on HBO right now. Like the general, this radical lawyer wasn't associated with an organized party. His revolutionary credentials were beyond reproach.

Our third president, one of the world's most notorious radical ideologues, ushered in a period of single-party rule in 1800. During that election, only six of 16 states actually allowed the "people" -- just white men who met certain qualifications -- to vote directly for the president. Certain racial groups were denied the right to vote, as were women. This one-party rule, subsequently dubbed the "era of good feelings," extended almost a quarter-century, getting so stale at one point that an incumbent president ran unopposed.

Finally, a whopping 48 years after we issued our famous Declaration of Independence declaring all men equal, we conducted a presidential election in which three-quarters of the states let their citizens vote directly for candidates.

Four years later, in 1828, America finally saw an "outsider," meaning someone not from the first revolutionary generation or its immediate progeny, actually win the White House. Naturally, he was another war hero, who, over his eight years in office, brutalized his political opponents so much that they mockingly dubbed him "King Andrew." The "king" then displayed the Putinesque temerity to handpick his successor, earning him the equivalent of a "third term."

This was the first half-century of American political history. It took us 89 years to free the slaves and 189 years to guarantee blacks the right to vote. Women waited 144 years before earning suffrage.

I know that's all in the past, but that's my point: It took America quite some time to develop this democracy we cherish.

Remember that when you decry "sham" elections abroad or declare single-party states "dictatorships." Because if mature, multiparty democracy was so darn easy, everybody would have one.

(Thomas P.M. Barnett is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Contact him at tom(at)thomaspmbarnett.com.)

Bush Listens Closely To His Man in Iraq
In White House Deliberations on War, Gen. Petraeus Has a Privileged Voice
By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 6, 2008; A01

For months, a debate raged at the top levels of the Bush administration over how quickly to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. But the discussion shut down soon after President Bush flew to Camp Arifjan, a dusty Army base near the Iraqi border in Kuwait, in January for a face-to-face meeting with the man whose counsel on the war he values most: Gen. David H. Petraeus.

During an 80-minute session, the president questioned his top commander in Iraq on whether further troop reductions, beyond those planned through July, would compromise security gains. According to officials familiar with the exchange, Petraeus said he wanted to wait until the summer to evaluate conditions -- and Bush made it clear he would support him and take any political heat.

"My attitude is, if he didn't want to continue the drawdown, that's fine with me," Bush said before television cameras later, with Petraeus standing by his side. "I said to the general: 'If you want to slow her down, fine; it's up to you.' "

In the waning months of his administration, Bush has hitched his fortunes to those of his bookish four-star general, bypassing several levels of the military chain of command to give Petraeus a privileged voice in White House deliberations over Iraq, according to current and former administration officials and retired officers. In so doing, Bush's working relationship with his field commander has taken on an intensity that is rare in the history of the nation's wartime presidents.

Those ties will be on display this week, when Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker report to Congress on progress in Iraq, and when Bush is expected to announce a decision on future force levels. By all accounts, Petraeus's view that a "pause" is needed this summer before troop cuts can continue has prevailed in the White House, trumping concerns by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others that the Army's long-term health could be threatened by the enduring presence of many combat forces in Iraq.

Bush's reliance on Petraeus has made other military officials uneasy, has rankled congressional Democrats and has created friction that helped spur the departure last month of Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon, who, while Petraeus's boss as chief of U.S. Central Command, found his voice eclipsed on Iraq.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Bush should rely primarily on the advice of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Not only are they General Petraeus's superiors," Levin said, "but they have the broad view of our national security needs, including Afghanistan, and the risks posed by stretching the force too thin."

Administration officials say it is natural that Bush would give extra weight to the views of his commander on the ground, especially one whose congressional testimony in September helped deflect efforts to force a withdrawal. Current and former officials also said Petraeus has gained Bush's trust largely because he is delivering results in Iraq, after the president lost confidence in the strategy pursued in 2006 by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then a top commander in Iraq; and Gen. John P. Abizaid, then chief of Centcom.

The president felt frustrated that he could not "get out of either Abizaid or Casey any coherent description of how we were going to defeat the enemy" as sectarian violence spiraled in Baghdad, one former official said. That led Bush to overrule his military advisers last year, order a "surge" of 30,000 additional U.S. forces to Iraq, and search for a new field commander who would be more in line with his views on how best to wage the war.

In an interview, Gates dismissed the notion that Petraeus has unusual access to the White House on Iraq, stressing that Bush hears the unfiltered views of several key military players: Petraeus; the Centcom chief, who brings a broader perspective on the Middle East; the Joint Chiefs, who are responsible for the health of the military; and Gates himself.

"I want to make sure the president does not just listen to one voice," said Gates, emphasizing that "Petraeus does not have any special line to the president."

Others see Bush's reliance on Petraeus as part of a larger pattern. "It is part of Bush's overall management style -- to cede responsibility to a lower level and not look carefully at critical issues himself," said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan-era official who has parted company with such longtime friends as Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney over the war. "Originally on Iraq, it was whatever Rumsfeld wanted. Then it was whatever Jerry Bremer did," he said, referring to the former Coalition Provisional Authority chief. "And now it is whatever Petraeus wants."

Historically, a Departure
Bush's relationship with Petraeus marks a departure for modern war presidencies. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton left it largely to their military advisers in Washington to communicate with field commanders, according to scholars of civilian-military relations.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, for instance, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell established himself as the sole broker between George H.W. Bush and the field commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Similarly, during the war in Kosovo, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former supreme commander of NATO, reports that he worked through Clinton aides and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen; when Clark came to the White House to brief officials about his war strategy in 1998, he spoke with national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, not the president.

But during the George W. Bush administration, improved videoconferencing technology has allowed the president to communicate to an unprecedented degree with commanders on the battlefield and, his advisers say, immerse himself in the details of the war. Bush has also held videoconferences with Casey and other previous Iraq commanders, but after Petraeus and Crocker were appointed last year, the process was institutionalized in a regular Monday morning war council between Washington and Baghdad. (A similar Afghanistan meeting takes place every two to three weeks, a White House spokesman said.)

Before Petraeus took over as head of Multi-National Force-Iraq in early 2007, he had had little interaction with Bush. Indeed, after his stints as commander of the 101st Airborne Division and as head of U.S. training efforts in Iraq won much media attention, the White House initially had reservations about tapping Petraeus for the top spot in Baghdad, a move suggested by Rumsfeld, among others.

But according to current and former administration officials, Bush thought that the war effort needed shaking up and that Petraeus, a West Point graduate and Princeton PhD widely considered one of the smartest officers of his generation, might prove an effective communicator with the public and the White House.

Indeed, those who have witnessed the Monday videoconferences describe Petraeus as a gifted briefer who moves beyond the dry recitation of the metrics of battle -- enemy killed and captured -- to describe how military developments interact with political ones. "He tees up issues that are ripe for decision-making, as opposed to going through the charts," said one person familiar with the sessions.

Bush, sitting in the White House Situation Room, often takes the lead on political issues, such as dealings with Iran or Iraqi politics. But officials said he is deferential to Petraeus on military matters. The president "sets the goals," Gates said. "He expects the military professional to handle the mission."

While Bush and Petraeus are said to have bonded over their love of exercise, administration officials describe their relationship as more professional than friendly. "You have a field commander and you have the president of the United States," Gates said. "They aren't backslapping buddies."

Still, the weekly sessions provide Petraeus a rare opportunity to present his ideas to the president and to work out problems trapped in interagency conflicts. Bush, meanwhile, can speak directly to his field general, get a real-time portrait of conditions on the ground and signal priorities to the full chain of command, including Gates, Mullen and the Centcom commander, all of whom are usually on the video with Petraeus and Crocker.

"It is a strange command relationship," observed Stephen D. Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus in Iraq. While it has worked well in some ways, he said, "it creates the potential for a fair amount of mischief."

'A Confluence of Interests'
Such mischief may have been on display last year, when Petraeus outmaneuvered Fallon for the president's ear on Iraq strategy. People familiar with the tension said Fallon was an early skeptic of the troop buildup and wanted U.S. engagement to end more quickly -- but found himself the odd man out when it became clear that Bush favored Petraeus's view.

Military officials said Fallon was known to refer to Petraeus and other commanders in Iraq as "the boys" in Baghdad, with whom he differed over military planning and the scale and pace of the drawdown. Fallon and other top military officials have also voiced their concerns to Congress, in public testimony and behind closed doors.

Petraeus has dismissed reports of conflict with Fallon as overdrawn, while Gates said that Petraeus, Fallon and the Joint Chiefs each "had a different analytical framework" on Iraq, but "ended up in the same place" last September.

In the months since that meeting in Kuwait, other key figures have fallen in line. Gates, who had previously raised the prospect of a faster pullout, indicated that he could live with a "pause" after meeting with Petraeus in Baghdad in February. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although nervous about the strain Iraq poses on U.S. forces, appear ready to live with it, as well. Meanwhile, Fallon abruptly resigned last month.

Some officials said Petraeus is pushing on an open door with Bush. The president has privately expressed impatience with military concerns over the health of the force, telling the Joint Chiefs that if they are worried about breaking the Army, the worst thing would be to lose in Iraq, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Petraeus, who considers himself an apolitical general, has sought to present independent military judgment: He has consistently sounded a more sober note on Iraq than Bush, and once again he will not vet this week's testimony with the White House -- a move that drew wonder in military circles last fall.

But Army Col. Lance Betros, a historian at West Point, sees a mutual interest binding the president and the general. "Bush's political legacy is at stake; he wants desperately for things to succeed in Iraq," he said. "Petraeus is a general; we do not hire generals to fail. . . . They are on the same wavelength; they have the same objectives. It's a confluence of interests, not necessarily a personal relationship."

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Our Racist, Sexist Selves


By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 6, 2008
To my horror, I turn out to be a racist.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground
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The University of Chicago offers an on-line psychological test in which you encounter a series of 100 black or white men, holding either guns or cellphones. You’re supposed to shoot the gunmen and holster your gun for the others.

I shot armed blacks in an average of 0.679 seconds, while I waited slightly longer — .694 seconds — to shoot armed whites. Conversely, I holstered my gun more quickly when encountering unarmed whites than unarmed blacks.

Take the test yourself and you’ll probably find that you show bias as well. Most whites and many blacks are more quick to shoot blacks, no matter how egalitarian they profess to be.

Harvard has a similar battery of psychological tests online (I have links to all of these from my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground, and my Facebook page, facebook.com/kristof). These “implicit attitude tests” very cleverly show that a stunningly large proportion of people who honestly believe themselves to be egalitarian unconsciously associate good with white and bad with black.

The unconscious is playing a political role this year, for the evidence is overwhelming that most Americans have unconscious biases both against blacks and against women in executive roles.

At first glance, it may seem that Barack Obama would face a stronger impediment than Hillary Clinton. Experiments have shown that the brain categorizes people by race in less than 100 milliseconds (one-tenth of a second), about 50 milliseconds before determining sex. And evolutionary psychologists believe we’re hard-wired to be suspicious of people outside our own group, to save our ancestors from blithely greeting enemy tribes of cave men. In contrast, there’s no hard-wired hostility toward women, though men may have a hard-wired desire to control and impregnate them.

Yet racism may also be easier to override than sexism. For example, one experiment found it easy for whites to admire African-American doctors; they just mentally categorized them as “doctors” rather than as “blacks.” Meanwhile, whites categorize black doctors whom they dislike as “blacks.”

In another experiment, researchers put blacks and whites in sports jerseys as if they belonged to two basketball teams. People looking at the photos logged the players in their memories more by team than by race, recalling a player’s jersey color but not necessarily his or her race. But only very rarely did people forget whether a player was male or female.

“We can make categorization by race go away, but we could never make gender categorization go away,” said John Tooby, a scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who ran the experiment. Looking at the challenges that black and female candidates face in overcoming unconscious bias, he added, “Based on the underlying psychology and anthropology, I think it’s more difficult for a woman, though not impossible.”

Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, agrees: “In general, gender trumps race. ... Race may be easier to overcome.”

The challenge for women competing in politics or business is less misogyny than unconscious sexism: Americans don’t hate women, but they do frequently stereotype them as warm and friendly, creating a mismatch with the stereotype we hold of leaders as tough and strong. So voters (women as well as men, though a bit less so) may feel that a female candidate is not the right person for the job because of biases they’re not even aware of.

“I don’t have to be conscious of this,” said Nilanjana Dasgupta, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “All I think is that this person isn’t a good fit for a tough leadership job.”

Women now hold 55 percent of top jobs at American foundations but are still vastly underrepresented among political and corporate leaders — and one factor may be that those are seen as jobs requiring particular toughness. Our unconscious may feel more of a mismatch when a woman competes to be president or a C.E.O. than when she aims to lead a foundation or a university.

Women face a related challenge: Those viewed as tough and strong are also typically perceived as cold and unfeminine. Many experiments have found that women have trouble being perceived as both nice and competent.

“Clinton runs the risk of being seen as particularly cold, particularly uncaring, because she doesn’t fit the mold,” said Joshua Correll, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. “It probably is something a man doesn’t deal with.”

But biases are not immutable. Research subjects who were asked to think of a strong woman then showed less implicit bias about men and women. And students exposed to a large number of female professors also experienced a reduction in gender stereotypes.

So maybe the impact of this presidential contest won’t be measured just in national policies, but also in progress in the deepest recesses of our own minds.