May 16, 2008
Bush in Israel and the Democrat Melt Down
Well well, so Senator Obama and a whole slew of Democrats are all bent out of shape over what President Bush said in Israel. Here's the part of his speech before the Knesset yesterday that has them all in a tizzy:
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)
Note, of course, that no Democrat is actually named. If the currently outraged Democrats had been thinking, they would have issued statements that went something like this:
"One thing all Americans agree on is that appeasement doesn't work. As president, I will engage in tough, principled, and direct diplomacy just like Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan before me. And of course, no American president will engage with terrorists, least of all those who seek to destroy our stalwart ally, Israel. I look forward to celebrating the 65th anniversary of Israel's independence."
But nooooo, they had to all go off and through a big hissy fit.
Senator Obama showed why he'll never be qualified to be president:
I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days
and
That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world
"Divisive"? This from a senator who's party wants to force "gay marriage" on us through the courts; the most undemocratic branch of government? That is in bed with Movon.org, one of the most "divisive" groups out there? That panders to the nutroots crowd who regularly deride Bush and Cheney in the most vile terms?
Mark Salter nails Obama's M.O.
We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.
Rich Lowry lists Obama's "rules", and what is "off limits"
He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy").
Should we on the right take Obama up on his stated desire to have an oh-so-clean campaign?
We could take Obama's rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a "conservative" or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn't jump on his gaffes (like McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don't).
Oh, and he would have to stop lying about the meaning of Senator McCain's "100 years in Iraq" statement.
Obama's not alone, though, in his whining. Michael Goldfarb, blogging at The Weekly Standard, has usefully compiled a list of reactions. Here's one
(Senator Joe) Biden again did not mince words when discussing Bush's remarks, accusing the president of engaging in "long-distance swiftboating" with his speech in Israel. Biden also cited numerous examples of the Bush Administration reaching out to unfriendly regimes in Libya, North Korea and Iran, arguing that Bush's insinuation that the Democrats were soft on terrorism was "truly delusional ... and truly disgraceful."
The Democrats can sure dish it out but they can't take it.
So What of Appeasement?
The Democrats claim that they're not appeasers of dictators and terrorists. Are they?
Since Senator Obama is the one in the limelight, let's look briefly at his record:
Senator Obama: yesterday "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists..."Senator Obama November 1, 2007: "I would meet directly with Iranian leaders. I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. "
A quick look at the relevant website for the State Department confirms what we already know
Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism....Since Syria's 1979 designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has continued to provide political support to Palestinian terrorist groups.....
What really is the difference between meeting with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the leaders of those who sponsor them? Neither group could survive were it not for their sponsors.
Want more? Here's Obama at one of the Democrat debates last year:
Asked if he would be willing to meet separately "without precondition" during the first year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, Obama said, "I would."
Here he is again:
"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them...is ridiculous," Sen. Obama said in a debate last year. "One of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria."
What's ridiculous is the notion that such a meeting will not be trumpeted as a victory by the Jihadists. What Obama does not seem to realize is that the United States is not just an average run-of-the-mill nation. The President, Democrat or Republican, is not called "the leader of the free world" for nothing. Simply meeting with the President will be interpreted as lending legitimacy to regimes that are illegitimate and worried about it. Dictators, by their very nature, have no real legitimacy. The pseudo-elections in Iran and Venezuela (they probably have them in Syria, Cuba, and North Korea too) change this not at all.
So even if nothing is decided at these "talks", they will be portrayed as a victory by the other side. We can say all we want that no, they're not a victory for Iran/Syria/Cuba/North Korea/Venezuela, but it won't matter. The propaganda organs of our opponents will be out in full force, and in one of Bush's biggest failings he hasn't beefed up ours, so there won't be much of a response.
Not Just Obama
It's not just Sen. Obama who is an appeaser. Kathryn Jean Lopez has helpfully compiled a list of other Democrats the President could have been talking about, such as
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, freelance diplomat, who in December 2007 said: "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."Or, perhaps he meant Speaker Pelosi in April 2007: "I believe in dialogue. As my colleagues have said over and over again, unless you communicate, you cannot understand each other. You cannot reach agreement."
Or maybe he meant recent Obama endorser and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who, according to his own press release in February of last year, believes "the U.S. should step up our diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria."
...Or former Democratic presidential candidates and senators Chris Dodd and John Kerry, who met with Syria's al-Assad and said: "As senior Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, we felt it was important to make clear that while we believe in resuming dialogue, our message is no different: Syria can and should play a more constructive role in the region ...
Liberals typically bring up the fact that U.S. presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan met with Soviet leaders. This is true, but misleading. These were meetings well scripted out in advance, with little being left to chance. Reykjavik in 1986 was the exception, not the rule.
Further, Obama seems blissfully unaware that unscripted high-level meetings are highly risky. As often as not they backfire. Reykjavik backfired on Gorbachev. Khrushchev sized up Kennedy as a "weakling" in their initial meeting, prompting the former to believe he could get away with sneaking nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba. It's widely thought that Stalin snookered Roosevelt at Yalta. If nothing else, Obama should read Khrushchev's rants at Eisenhower or Nixon during some of their meetings. That alone would give him second thoughts.
So should we not "talk" with these regimes? I hate to sound Clintonian, but it depends on what you mean by "talk". A meeting with an Iranian representative in the back room of the Canadian embassy in Madrid? No problem. President-to-President talks surrounded by thousands of reporters? Hold your horses.
Lastly, in fairness I will say that President Bush's tough talk hasn't extended to the Saudis, who's export of Wahhabism is designed to destroy the West. Also, our dopey Secretary of State has been "pressuring Israel to meet with Hamas representatives". Side
On the upside, Senator John McCain tells it like it is
If Senator Obama wants to sit down across the table with the leader of a nation that calls Israel a stinking corpse--what is it that he wants to talk about with him?
Nothing.
Meaningful negotiations could take place if they stop sponsoring terrorist organizations...those are the preconditions for sitting down with the Iranians.
Exactly right.
Update
This is the guy who wants to negotiate with the dictators of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba (h/t Dagney's Rant)
I'm sure they'll all take him very seriously after he destroys our ability to respond to anything militarily.
What we need to do is spend more money on weapons, not less.
Posted by Tom at 8:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
December 2, 2007
Newt Nails It
Many of us on the right are increasingly dissatisfied with the Bush Administration's handling of the "war on terror". Most of us aren't even really happy with that term, and those of us who accept it tend to do so only because either they don't think it can be changed or because none of the other choices seem better.
The president started out strong after 9-11, and it seemed that there was a new sheriff in town. The rest of the world saw that after those attacks on our homeland we did not hesitate in quickly going to Afghanistan and routing the Taliban and al Qaeda there. A little over a year later we removed another cancer in the region by quickly smashing the Iraqi army and rolling into Baghdad.
The outlaw regimes of the world trembled and the rest of the world looked on in awe.
This is the type of respect that I want for our country. When Democrats, reporters, news anchors ask "how can the U.S. regain the respect of the rest of the world" they are looking for a politically correct answer along the lines of "pull out of Iraq, apologize for invading, and only do what the UN allows us to do". But that's appeasement, not respect (As a side note, why is it that no one thinks to ask "what can the rest of the world do to gain our respect?")
When Iraq turned out to be more difficult than anticiplated we stumbled, and in the years that followed slowly lost our way. I've detailed all this in numerous posts on this blog, but no one does it better than Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich is simply one of the most brilliant speakers there is. I heard him last year at CPAC
In an article posted the other day at Family Security Matters, he takes us through the genesis of our problem and how to fix it. Following are the most important excerpts, but I encourage you to read the whole thing
Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political Left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need. Because we are told if you are for a strong America, you should back the Bush policy even if it's inadequate, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can't work. So your choice is to defend something which isn't working or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. So this is a catastrophe for this country and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem. ...What's the primary source of money for al Qaeda? It's you, re-circulated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy.
...So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that's true while they attack Israel for being a religious state is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice that is stunning.
...So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don't even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable. This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they're Saudis.
...So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don't even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable. This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they're Saudis.
...We have created our own nightmare because we refuse to tell the truth. We refuse to tell the truth to our politicians. Our State Department refuses to tell the truth to the country. If the president of the United States, and again, we're now so bitterly partisan, we're so committed to red vs. blue hostility, that George W. Bush doesn't have the capacity to give an address from the Oval Office that has any meaning for half the country. And the anti-war Left is so strong in the Democratic primary that I think it's almost impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to tell the truth about the situation.
And so the Republicans are isolated and trying to defend incompetence. The Democrats are isolated and trying to find a way to say, "I'm really for strength as long as I can have peace, but I'd really like to have peace, except I don't want to recognize these people who aren't very peaceful.
...None of our enemies are confused. Our enemies don't get up each morning and go, "Oh, gosh, I think I'll have an existential crisis of identity in which I will try to think through whether or not we can be friends while you're killing me." Our enemies get up every morning and say, "We hate the West. We hate freedom." They would not allow a meeting with women in the room.
...Now what do we need?
We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they're weak, are ruthless when they're strong, demand mercy when they're losing, show no mercy when they're winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we're living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You'll be able to tell who won and who lost by who's still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn't going to stop this war. They're just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this happened. We had better design grand strategies that are radically bigger and radically tougher and radically more honest than anything currently going on, and that includes winning the argument in Europe, and it includes winning the argument in the rest of the world. And it includes being very clear, and I'll just give you one simple example because we're now muscle-bound by our own inability to talk honestly.
Iran produces 60% of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil but only has one refinery. It imports 40% of its gasoline. The entire 60% is produced at one huge refinery.
...n the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since Gen. Petraeus publicly said they are killing young Americans, we have not been able to figure out how to take down one refinery. Covertly, quietly, without overt war. And we have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful navy in the world to simply stop the tankers and say, "Look, you want to kill young Americans, you're going to walk to the battlefield, but you're not going to ride in the car because you're not going to have any gasoline."
...We had better take this seriously because we are not very many mistakes away from a second Holocaust. Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. Our enemies would like to get those weapons as soon as they can, and they promise to use them as soon as they can.
I suggest we defeat our enemies and create a different situation long before they have that power.
I don't think we're quite at the point where we need to take out that single Iranian refinery, or blockade their shipping, but we're getting close.
Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 1, 2007
Sarkozy Rocks
The more I read about the new President of France the more impressed I am. Consider this in today's Washington Times
New hints that France may rejoin NATO's military wing after a 41-year absence underscore a stunning foreign-policy shift under new President Nicolas Sarkozy.Gone are the Iraq war diatribes, the Palestinian sympathies, the close ties with Moscow and the crumbling ones with Washington — all trademarks of French foreign policy under former President Jacques Chirac.
With his penchant for jogging, American movies and summering in New Hampshire, the 51-year-old Mr. Sarkozy has embraced a decidedly pro-U.S. tone, even as his government scores trans-Atlantic points through sharpened rhetoric against Iran and overtures to Iraq.
I know that American conservatives have had quite a bit of fun bashing France these past few years, but as long as he's in power and keeps up like this, you won't read anything bad about France on this blog.
Not only does Sarkozy seek better ties with the U.S. and has stopped his anti-American bashing, he has even made statements about joining us in bombing Iran if it looks like they might get the bomb.
In case you're wondering, yes France does have a navy that would come in quite handy in any showdown with Iran. Their flagship is the Charles de Gaulle (R 91), which at 40,000 tones displacement is a smaller version of one of our Nimitz-class ships. But unlike the British carriers, which can only carry the Harrier, the Charles de Gaulle carries regular fixed-wing aircraft, including E-2c Hawkeyes. At only 40 aircraft it's hardly the equal of one of our carriers, but then again Iran isn't the Soviet Union.
We should be very happy if France would join us in any attack on Iran, and at least while Sarkozy is President stop needless French-bashing.
Posted by Tom at 9:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 12, 2007
Update II: New Rules for Going To War
Well that was fast. Just last Monday I published an updated version of our New Rules for Going to War if Liberals Were in Charge, and here already have one more to add.
Here it is:
* Every fatality in a hostile area requires its own formal investigation. This will be known as the Cpl. Pat Tillman Rule.
Here are the compete rules, including our addition
• The UN Security Council must approve all US action before it is taken
• A majority of nations in Europe must approve of and participate in military operations
• France in particular must approve, though they need not actually participate
• Before any ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a limit is set on US casualties, and we withdraw all forces the moment that limit is reached
• Before ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a timeline for disengagement is established before we go in. We must withdraw forces according to the established timeframe regardless of whether the mission has been achieved
• Members of Congress have the right to change their mind at any time for any reason and demand an immediate withdrawal
• It at any time a poll of the American people show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn. This is the Senator James Webb rule.
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that they do not support current tactics and strategy, those tactics and strategy will be immediately changed.
• No one who has not served in the military may speak in favor of offensive military operations
• No one who does not have at least one son or daughter of military age may express concern for the troops because obviously they do not understand what they're going through. This is the Senator Barbara Boxer rule.
• All troops that are in the United States, and have seen combat, must not be returned to combat until they have had a rest period equal to their time in combat. Further, no National Guard or Reserve unit may be deployed for three years after a deployment. This is another Senator James Webb rule.
• US allies must contribute as many troops as does the United States, as measured as a percentage of their population. This is the Senator Barack Obama rule.
• Any active duty general or admiral who agrees with the administration must be a toadie and only telling them what they want to hear. Therefore, all advice will be taken from panels of retired generals, preferably those who have been critical of the administration.
* Every fatality in a hostile area requires its own formal investigation. This will be known as the Cpl. Pat Tillman Rule.
• All of the rules are null and void if the president is a Democrat. This is another Senator Barack Obama rule.
Posted by Tom at 8:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 6, 2007
Updated: New Rules for Going to War
If we took the left at its word we'd have some awfully strange and restrictive rules we'd have to follow before and during any conflict. They're not at all like classic Just War Theory but they seem to be what some people want. I first posted them last January but it's time to add some new ones. So here they are, with the new ones at bottom
• The UN Security Council must approve all US action before it is taken
• A majority of nations in Europe must approve of and participate in military operations
• France in particular must approve, though they need not actually participate
• Before any ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a limit is set on US casualties, and we withdraw all forces the moment that limit is reached
• Before ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a timeline for disengagement is established before we go in. We must withdraw forces according to the established timeframe regardless of whether the mission has been achieved
• Members of Congress have the right to change their mind at any time for any reason and demand an immediate withdrawal
• It at any time a poll of the American people show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn. This is the Senator James Webb rule.
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that they do not support current tactics and strategy, those tactics and strategy will be immediately changed.
• No one who has not served in the military may speak in favor of offensive military operations
• No one who does not have at least one son or daughter of military age may express concern for the troops because obviously they do not understand what they're going through. This is the Senator Barbara Boxer rule.
• All troops that are in the United States, and have seen combat, must not be returned to combat until they have had a rest period equal to their time in combat. Further, no National Guard or Reserve unit may be deployed for three years after a deployment. This is another Senator James Webb rule.
• US allies must contribute as many troops as does the United States, as measured as a percentage of their population. This is the Senator Barack Obama rule.
• Any active duty general or admiral who agrees with the administration must be a toadie and only telling them what they want to hear. Therefore, all advice will be taken from panels of retired generals, preferably those who have been critical of the administration.
• All of the rules are null and void if the president is a Democrat. This is another Senator Barack Obama rule.
Posted by Tom at 9:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 1, 2007
Here's an Idea Guaranteed to Stir Up Trouble
Let's invade Pakistan.
So says Barack Obama in a speech to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars this morning
...let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.
What exactly Obama means by "act" he doesn't actually say. Maybe he just means a strike with a Hellfire missile from a Preditor drone, maybe special forces lifted in by helicoper, maybe an invasion by the 10th Mountain Division... who knows.
Either way, Obama seems not to understand the import of his words.
The speech is full of tough talk. Obama sounds like a regular warmongering conservative through most of it, full of threats and intimidating talk. It's also full of several outright lies, such as his claiming that the Bush Administration followed a "a deliberate strategy to misrepresent 9/11 to sell a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11." But never mind that for now. Jim Geraghty "Fisks" the speech brilliantly over at NRO. I don't have the time tonight to go through it line-by-line.
The main thing that strikes me about the speech is that typical of the left these days it's always to fight another war, to send troops to another location, to talk tough to someone else. Wherever it is we're fighing, he's against it. But boy he's tough when it comes to doing something else. Call me cynical, but I rather think that this speech today is more a response to Hillary's criticsm than anything else. If by some accident he does become president something tells me that the Democrat left will make sure that none of these strong words become action.
It all reminds me of the latter stages of the Cold War, when most Democrats could be counted on to oppose whatever weapons system was currently being proposed by the Pengagon; but in favor of something that was safely years down the road.
Instead of going on, I think that John Podhoretz has it about right so I'll just quote him
Obama is full of it. This country is never — never — going to stage a major military action against Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation of 170 million people that has nuclear weapons and whose admittedly problematic and troublesome regime has, to some extent, cooperated with the United States in the war against Al Qaeda both in ways we know and ways we have no idea about. The concern that this strategically vital county might become an Islamic fundamentalist state is, should be, and will be paramount in every and all discussions about how to conduct the fight against Al Qaeda.What's more, every serious person knows the United States won't invade Pakistan, even with Special Forces — since the reason we cancelled the proposed action against Al Qaeda in 2005 is that it was going to take many hundreds of American troops to do it. This isn't 15 people dropping like ninjas in the darkness. It's an invasion, with helicopters and supply lines and routes of ingress and escape. It would have had unforseen and unforeseeable consequences, but it would have been reasonable to assume the Pakistanis would have turned violently against the United States and hurtled toward Islamic fundamentalist control.
If the evil Bushitler Cheney Rumsfeld Monster wouldn't do it, nobody will do it. And you can bet there isn't a single person in line to run a Democratic State Department or Democratic Defense Department who would give the idea three seconds of thought. Obama is using Pakistan to talk tough, in the full knowledge that he will never actually pull the trigger.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff is hanging on by a thread. An attack into Pakistan would stir up an already unsettled hornets nest. If he were to be overthrown it is possible that radical Islamists would fill the void. This would be sending us from the frying pan into the fire. Just as the Shah was bad but Khumeini worse, it's hard to see a good outcome to a revolution in Pakistan.
For some reason I can't upload a map of the region tonight, but if you go and find one you'll discover that we can't get to Afghanistan without flying over Pakistan. Close that route off and we're screwed. The only other route from the Persion Gulf is over Iran, and I rather doubt they'll grant permission.
What I Would Do
There is no doubt that al Qaeda and the Taliban are in the Waziristan section of Pakistan, that this is a problem, and that as such we need to do something. That Obama doesn't seem to get that it's not so simple as making aid to Musharraf contingent on acting in the region, he is right that it is a problem we need to deal with.
I think that David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post, has found the best idea
The best answer I've heard comes from Henry Crumpton, a former CIA officer who was one of the heroes of the agency's campaign to destroy al-Qaeda's haven in Afghanistan in late 2001. After retiring from the CIA in 2005, he served as the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. He resigned from State in February and is now a fellow at the EastWest Institute and a private consultant.Crumpton argues that the United States must take preventive action but that it should do so carefully, through proxies wherever possible. The right model for a Waziristan campaign is the CIA-led operation in Afghanistan, not the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers are best suited to work with tribal leaders, providing them weapons and money to fight an al-Qaeda network that has implanted itself brutally in Waziristan through the assassination of more than 100 tribal leaders during the past six years. It would be better to conduct such operations jointly with Pakistan, but if the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf can't or won't cooperate, the United States should be prepared to go it alone, Crumpton argues.
"The United States has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens," says Crumpton. "We either do it now, or we do it after the next attack."
Crumpton proposed a detailed plan last year for rolling up these sanctuaries, which he called the Regional Strategic Initiative. It would combine economic assistance and paramilitary operations in a broad counterinsurgency campaign. In Waziristan, U.S. and Pakistani operatives would give tribal warlords guns and money, to be sure, but they would coordinate this covert action with economic aid to help tribal leaders operate their local stone quarries more efficiently, say, or install windmills and solar panels to generate electricity for their remote mountain villages.
This is a long-term plan but makes a lot of sense to me. CIA paramilitaries, mostly made up of ex-Special Forces and SEAL veterans, could do a lot of damage to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Crumpton's plan seems loosely modeled on the Vietnam-era SOG ("Studies and Observation Group") and other such operations.
So let's go get al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, but let's do so as quietly as possible.
Update
Looks like Obama's stirred up trouble in Pakistan with his comments. Nice guy, but not ready for prime-time.
Posted by Tom at 8:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 17, 2007
The Polls! The Polls!
So Senator Webb thinks that we need to pull out of Iraq because a NYT poll says that 55% of enlisted soldiers say we should withdraw from Iraq. He said this in a debate with Sen Graham last weekend on Meet the Press. Webb also used this argument when he made the Democrat rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union address last January.
It isn't just Sen. Webb, the anti-war folks in general use polling results incessantly to justify their demand that we withdraw now from Iraq.
Logically speaking this type of argument is called an enthymeme, which is a syllogism without one it it's parts; major premise, minor premise, or conclusion. Webb and those like him who use this argument don't spell out their reasoning, but based on what
We should base our policy on the latest poll
The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal
Therefore we should withdraw immediately
If those who use polls as part of their argument deny that this is their argument, which part are they denying? Most likely they'd deny the major premise (line 1). Perhaps what they mean is
We should base Iraq policy on the latest poll
The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal
Therefore we should withdraw immediately
or
We should base military policy on the latest poll The latest poll on Iraq says that most people favor immediate withdrawal Therefore we should withdraw immediatelyBut syllogisms 2 & 3 seem rather selective. If you're going to base Iraq policy, or military policy on the polls, why not policy in all areas? Why not decide other issues on the polls too, such as abortion, school choice, or illegal immigration? It is not clear why we should choose policy based on polls in one area and not another.
Perhaps, however, those who use polls as part of their argument are saying yet something else.
We should base our policy on poll readings if said poll holds firm over a period of time Polls on Iraq have said for some time that most people favor immediate withdrawal Therefore we should withdraw immediately
This is the only argument that really makes any sense. Unfortunately, those who make their argument based on polls rarely get into this level of detail, so I'm forced to guess.
Truth be told, I realize I am seriously overthinking this. My general observation is that people who make their arguments based on polls, whether they be conservatives or liberals, rarely think through what they are saying to this level. Most of they time they are simply pulling numbers to support a predetermined conclusion and we all know it.
And lets be clear, conservatives can be just as guilty of this as liberals. In the recent debate over the immigration (really amnesty) bill in Congress, some conservatives based their opposition to the bill on poll numbers which showed that the majority of Americans opposed the legislation.
But I think you need to be consistent. If you're going to use poll numbers to justify your position in one area, you've got to do it in others. You can't say, for example, that we should pull out of Iraq because the polls say we should, then take a position against school choice even though polls show the majority of Americans favor it.
We can get into a deep philosophical discussion on this whole matter of public opinion and public policy, and I'm sure it gets rather complicated, but since that isn't really the subject of this post I'll just touch on a few areas.
Of course in any republic public opinion matters. But this opinion gets to be expressed at regularly scheduled intervals called voting. The founding fathers were just as afraid of mob rule as they were of tyranny. They wanted a government somewhat insulated from the passions of the moment. This is one reason why our Congress is divided into two houses, in which the House most closely represents the immediate will of the people with the Senate a bit more insulated.
Once elected, should represenatives take notice of changes in the public mood? My answer is that yes they should take notice but they should be wary of making radical policy changes based on polls and focus groups.
A few months ago I wrote a post on the Democrat Party's "New Rules for Going to War" Two of my mock rules were
• It at any time a poll of the American people show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn
I guess I could call my latter rule the "Senator Jim Webb honorary rule for going to war".
It'd all be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. They didn't poll the troops in the Revolution, Civil War, WWII, or Korea, or any other war to see what they thought. Yes public opinion matters, yes it matters what the troops think. It's rather the modern obsession with polls, especially when they're used selectively and really to bolster predetermined conclusions that bothers me. And you just can't make public policy by turning to the latest poll, whether it's of the general public or the military.
Reasonable people can disagree about what exactly the public thinks we ought to do about Iraq, and how long they've felt that way. On the one hand I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as the anti-war left would have us believe, but at the same time there's no denying that there's a deep frustation and disillusionment.
But enough of my philosophical ramblings. The bottom line is that too many politicians and people in general use polls to justify predetermined positions. They also only use polls when it bolsters their position on an issue, and ignore them when they go against their position. I'm sure I've been guilty of this too on occasion. It's an easy trap to fall into.
The bottom line is that too many politicians, mainly in the Democrat Party but also in the GOP, are completely poll-driven and seem utterly devoid of principle. This needs to change.
Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 15, 2007
Consequences of Failure
What would happen if we left Iraq as soon as possible, as many now want? What if we just immediately halted offensive operations, returned to our bases, and began packing?
Austin Bay has come up with seven scenarios. Summarized, they are
1) Three new countries are formed; Kurdistan, Southern Iraq dominated by the Shia, and Anbar, controlled by the Sunni. The latter two fight over Baghdad, but the rest of the country is relatively peaceful.2) Full-scale civil war between Sunnis and Shias breaks out. Sunni Arab states aid the former, and Iran the latter. Iran sees this as an opportunity to expand its border. The Kurdish north remains relatively peaceful.
3) Turkey invades the Kurdish north. This scenario can be combined with others.
4) The Iraqi state quickly becomes a Shia dictatorship. Sunnis are either massacred or flee (or a little of both). The Kurds throw in their lot with the Shia in return for limited autonomy.
5) Chaos. This differes from #2 in that the country devolves into many factions, instead of two or more large warring parties. More than in any of the other scenarios, in this al Qaeda is able to use the situation to build up a series of terrorist training camps in the country.
6) The Shia tribes "gang up" and expel virtually all Sunnis from the country (note; I am not clear on how this differs from #4)
7) The democratic government holds, and ultimately proves popular. After several months, the Iraqi Army defeats all major rivals.
As Bay accurately concludes, only numbers 1 and 7 benefit all Iraqis, the US, and the civilized world.
At this point there's no way I'm going to try and predict which would happen if we withdraw.
Ralph Peters, along with Austin Bay a retired Army colonel, thinks that the result will be a massacre along the lines of what happened in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over.
I'll tell you what happens: massacres. And while I have nothing against Shia militiamen and Sunni insurgents killing each other 24/7, the overwhelming number of victims will be innocent women, children and the elderlyBosnia? That was just rough-necking at recess compared to what Islamist fanatics and ethnic beasts will do. Given that Senate Majority Misleader Harry Reid and Commissar of the House Nancy Pelosi won't tell us what they foresee after we quit, let me lay it out:
* After suffering a strategic defeat, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq comes back from the dead (those zombies again . . .) and gets to declare a strategic victory over the Great Satan.
* Iran establishes hegemony over Iraq's southern oil fields and menaces the other Persian Gulf producers. (Sorry, Comrade Gore, even that Toyota Prius needs some gasoline . . . )
* Our troops will have died in vain. Of course, that doesn't really matter to much of anyone in Washington, Democrat or Republican. So we'll just write off those young Americans stupid enough to join the military when they could've ducked out the way most members of Congress did.
* A slaughter of the innocents - so many dead, the bodies will never be counted.
Obviously Peters does not subscribe to Bay's scenario numbers 1 or 7.
Assuming neither 1 or 7 occur, we should not think that repercussions will be limited to Iraq. As Michael Rubin points out
The idea floating around Washington that Iraq can be separated from Afghanistan is naive. The Iranians, who interfere in both, have the same objectives in both. Iraq is a laboratory. If strategies applied there cause the U.S. Congress to embrace defeat, then those same strategies will be applied in Afghanistan.
And how long before those who tell us we need to "redeploy" so as to better fight al Qaeda will decide that Afghanistan isn't worth it after all? Not too long, I'll wager.
Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 25, 2007
Our New Friends at Fatah
The other day I wrote about the Bush Administration's plans to send Fatah $60 million in aid money in a post I titled "The Dead Bush Doctrine". Fatah, I wrote, is basically a terrorist organization that has no intention of accepting the existance of Israel. I provided some information about them which I thought bolstered my case.
In case you doubt me here's a tidbit from the Jerusalem Post (h/t NRO)
A Fatah faction and the Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for Sunday morning's Kassam rocket attack on Sderot, which damaged a home and left three people lightly wounded.
Love that "faction" bit.
These clowns aren't even a coherent organization. They're more an armed mob. The "faction" business only serves to give Abu Mazen Mahmoud Abbas an excuse to say he had nothing to do with it.
Andy McCarthy also reminds us of another faction, er, wing, within Fatah; Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (love that name).
Let's connect the dots here:The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are Fatah's terrorist wing. They have been a specially designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under U.S. law since 2002, and, as I noted here, have now taken to directly threatening the United States. (“We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the U.S. and other countries[.]…We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad.”)
Fatah's Abbas, our "moderate" "peace partner," maintains close ties to the Brigades — even if he didn't want to (which I doubt) he has no choice as they are very popular among Palestinians.
Even as the administration announced its strong support for Fatah in the wake of Fatah's ouster from Gaza by Hamas, Fatah's al Aqsa Brigades have continued to carry out attacks against Israel, in coordination with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another designated terrorist organization with a long history of working with Fatah.
As predicted here last week, Abbas will not try to disband the al Aqsa Brigades. Instead, he will be incorporating them into the Palestinian Authority Security Forces.
The administration, meanwhile, is pushing for a renewal of millions of foreign aid dollars for the PA, including for its security forces to buck them up against Hamas. Thus, our tax dollars will be directly underwriting and arming the al Aqsa Brigades (instead of indirectly underwriting and arming them, as they have been doing up until now).
BONUS ROUND: We were arming Abbas even before the latest outbreak of fighting between Hamas and Fatah. As a result, when Fatah got run out of Gaza, Hamas took control of caches of American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition.
So our new policy both arms terrorist factions designated as such under U.S. law and throws U.S. support behind an organization, Fatah, with a long history of terrorism, a constitution that dedicates the organization to the annihilation of Israel, an academic and media program that relentlessly inculcates hatred of Jews and the illegitimacy of Israel, and which doesn't even have the good grace, ability or will to stop its terrorist wing from launching attacks on Israel while the U.S. and Europe are publicly pressing for a renewal of financial and political support.
Super.
Hamas is in full bragging mode about the U.S. weapons they seized. Here's Mahmoud Zahar, a co-founder of the organization, as interviewed by the German magazine Spiegel (h/t LGF)
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What will improve for people in Gaza now that Hamas is in control?Zahar: The good thing is that we can now collect information about our enemies and informants from foreign powers. We will look for Israel’s spies.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Last week there were street battles in the West Bank between Fatah and Hamas militias. Fatah maintained the upper hand. How will Hamas loyalists defend themselves in the event of any new fighting?
Zahar: Let me ask you: How have we defended ourselves so far against the Israeli occupation?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: With bombs and attacks?
Zahar: Exactly. But you said that, not me. ...
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have been fully armed over the last few months. Are these weapons still in circulation?
Zahar: There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 — now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!
(emphasis added)
What are they going to do with their new weapons? "We Will Try to Form an Islamic Society" says Zahar.
But of course.
I suppose, though, I shouldn't be too hard on our president. After all, Israeli President Ehud Olmert said he would release "hundreds of millions" of dollars tied up in frozen accounts to Fatah, " a gesture to bolster the moderate Palestinian leader in his standoff against the Islamic militant group Hamas."
All through the 90s we propped up Arafat for just the same reason and look where it's gotten us. We never learn.
As a final bit of depressing news, Michael Rubin reminds us that the Bush Administration was once committed to democracy for the Palestinians. How times have changed.
Posted by Tom at 9:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 24, 2007
Fake Arguments against Democracy
The latest argument coming from the left is that by not supporting Hamas, the Bush Administration, and conservatives in general, do not respect Democracy.
Here's Jimmy Carter (h/t NRO)
The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Next up is a writer on the Daily Kos (h/t LGF)
The extreme contempt both Israel and the U.S. have for democracy means that, despite recent events in Gaza, the isolation and strangulation of Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza will likely continue. The probable Israeli response to Hamas’ assumption of power in Gaza will be to ease restrictions in the West Bank and engage in meaningless “peace talks” with Abbas, with the cynical aim of increasing his popularity relative to Hamas’. In the long-term, however, if Hamas remains resilient and does not submit to external pressures to relinquish power, we could very possibly witness a full-blown “‘Bay of Pigs’ type invasion of Gaza”, with Dahlan at its head.If what we want to see is a relatively stable Palestinian democracy with the capacity to engage in meaningful peace negotiations with Israel (and again I emphasise that these are not the objectives of the Israeli government), the policies we should follow are obvious, as they have been for months. The Hamas government should be recognised as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and should be engaged with in the form of meaningful final status negotiations.
Sorry, but I'm not buying this.
The whole issue raises interesting, and I don't think completely easy to answer, questions about the nature of democracy, and it's twin, liberty.
The short version of my answer is that there is a lot more to democracy than just the mechanics of voting. Carter I'm not so sure about, but I have to think that most liberals and even leftists know this full well. So when the folks at Kos berate conservatives for not accepting Hamas because they were elected, I have to think they're not being entirely serious in their criticism, because it's eithe that or they're outright apologists for terrorism. I have to think that most who spout this line are just blinded by their hatred of President Bush. In short, they've got Bush Derangement Syndrome.
After all, if the Ku Klux Klan started winning elections in the U.S., I can't imagine the left would accept their right to rule regardless of the fairness of the vote.
Likewise, the Nazi party won a plurality of the vote in the 1933 elections, coming in first with 43.9%, more than twice that of their nearest opponent. The election itself was relatively free and fair, but who today would say that it really represented "democracy"?
All of this brings to the forefront the central question of elections and their relationship to what we think of as "democracy": Is it just or acceptable for a non-democratic party to come to power through elections?
What is Democracy?
The US Department of State helpfully provides a longish definition. Here are some of the highlights
Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom.
Several "Pillars of Democracy" are listed
# Sovereignty of the people. # Government based upon consent of the governed. # Majority rule. # Minority rights. # Guarantee of basic human rights. # Free and fair elections. # Equality before the law. # Due process of law. # Constitutional limits on government. # Social, economic, and political pluralism. # Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.
Wikipedia says that
Liberal democracy is a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property.
I think that most Westerners can agree that all of the above are pretty good definitions of democracy.
Back to the Palestinian Authority
Clearly, then, Hamas does not qualify as an institution committed to democracy. Neither, for that matter, does Fatah. Therefore, when the Kos author talks about "extreme contempt both Israel and the U.S. have for democracy" we can conclude that he either has no understanding of democracy, is just off on a political rant and is thus guilty of lazy thinking, or is just an apologist for terrorism. Or, as I mentioned above, he's got BDS.
As for ex-President Carter, I think he's just a bitter old man. He never reconciled himself to this 1980 defeat, and for a Christian seems not to have learned how to forgive. He's thrown in with the worst dictators, has become a virtual anti-Semite, and I believe will be judged harshly by history.
The Algerian Example
What if a situation develops whereby a political party promises to dismantle the institutions of democracy if it is elected? What if it actually wins a majority of the popular vote?
Such a situation has actually occured, not once but several times in the post-WWII era.
In 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of Algeria's first multi-party elections. The ISF had promised to turn the country into an Islamic state and institute sharia law. After the voting, the military stepped in and annuled the elections. Western governments either applauded or remained silent. This led to a civil war, and some 160,000 people were killed over the next ten years. However, in the end the insurgents were defeated and a true democracy (republic, actually) is emerging.
What it Means
We in the West are good at the mechanics of voting. Through international agencies we can set up relatively free and fair votes most of the time.
But our record at installing actual democratic values has been rather hit-or-miss. We got it right in Germany and Japan. India has also turned out to be a stable democracy. We got it wrong in Zimbabwe and most other African states. El Salvadore seems to be doing well, but Nicaragua not so much.
Iraq somewhat parallels the Palestinian Authority. It was easy enough for us to set up voting, not so easy to convince people to respect each other's liberty.
In the end, then, we need to recognise that democracy is about more than voting. We need to think harder about what it takes to instill concepts of liberty in troubled regions, and not fixate on voting. This is a tough subject, and will require much thinking and trial and error in order to get it right in a place like Iraq. The first step, though, is to have moral clarity on the subject, and to recognize the true nature of democracy.
Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 23, 2007
The Dead Bush Doctrine
This past February Secretary Rice announced that the United States was going to "talk" with Iran and Syria over the future of Iraq. Although she quiclkly "clarified" that the talks would't be direct, it didn't really matter. After 9-11 President Bush announced that "you're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." Because both Iran and Syria are state sponsors of terror, at the time I announced that the Bush Doctrine was dead.
Now the Bush Administration has pledged it's support for Fatah in the wake of Hamas' takover of Gaza. We're even going to send them $60 million to "upgrade Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard and for other security expenses". No doubt in the months to come we'll see more announcements of programs designed to prop up Fatah, as our "partner in peace".
We allowed al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent terrorist groups refuge in Iran and Syria. We refused to attack their bases or supply depots there. We have done nothing about Hezbollah in Lebanon, other than force a "peace" settlement on Israel that does nothinb but give the terrorist group time to rearm.
For a few years Bush insisted on the "six party talks" format with North Korea, but has now seeminly abandoned that and has rewarded the DPRK with direct talks.
At the beginning of his term he refused to buy into the global warming hype, but at the recent G8 summit appeared to acquiese to at least part of the environmental agenda. While this isn't directly related to the "Bush Doctrine", I think it does show how far the administration has fallen in holding onto it's original beliefs.
All this is making the left chortle with glee. But then they've always wanted us to abandon Iraq to it's fate, make nice with every Palestinian terrorist group and Arab dictator (witness Speaker Pelosi's trip to Damascus).
Regarding the Bush Administration's new policy, I think that Andrew McCarthy has it right when he describes it as "Our Terrorists Are Better Than Your Terrorists"
The Palestinians are a backward people, indoctrinated toward brutality. They don’t rate a sovereign state or anyone’s help until they civilize themselves. Sovereignty is a privilege that implies acceptance of civilized norms — that is why we speak of states like Iran and North Korea as “rogues.” Regardless of whether there really are scattered Palestinian moderates, it is a dangerous fantasy to assume the Palestinian people, as a whole, are ready to be anyone’s peace partner.We are enabling their hatred when we provide support without insisting that the Palestinian people — not just Abbas and Fatah, but the people — convincingly foreswear revolution, terrorism, violence, ethnic-cleansing, and the goal of eliminating Israel. We are a generation or more, at least, from any hope of such developments. In the meantime, as long as we subsidize the hatred, we shall be buying more of it, while giving the Palestinians no incentive to reform.
Tough words about the Palestinians, but it's hard to see things otherwise. If by some magic every Israeli settlement disppeared and the Palestinians got an internationally recognized state tomorrow with at least part of Jerusalem as it's capital, all they'd do is use it as a base from which to attack Israel. And murder each other.
There isn't going to be any "two state solution", as long as either Fatah or Hamas are in charge. Neither wants to live side by side with Israel. We're only fooling ourselves by trying to play one off of the other.
What Fatah Stands For
Fatah is basically a terrorist organization. Its very name means "conquest", that which is supposed to happen during or after a jihad; the holy war leads to conquest. They don't choose these names by accident or without considering their meaning. Fatah was created by the late terror master himself, Yasser Arafat. It was operatives from Fatah which formed Black September, the group which carried out the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.
Today the organization is led by Mahmoud Abbas (or "Abu Mazen", or whatever name he goes by these days). If Arafat was a street punk grown up to be the local crime boss,
...suggested that the figure of six million Jews murdered by the Nazis was a false one, "peddled" by the Jews. To bolster that thesis, he quotes known Holocaust revisionists as authoritative sources. Seeking conspiracy theories that would serve Arab interests, Abu Mazen also wrote that the Zionist movement "led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule... to expand the mass extermination." Zionists, he contends, collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews, in order to gain sympathy for the creation of the State of Israel.
And this is the guy we're trying to make nice with. This is insane.
Look at Fatah's Constitution. Under "Goals", we have
Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.Article (13) Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens' legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.
"Complete liberation" does not mean the West Bank and Gaza. It means that and the whole of Israel too.
Here's the Fatah logo, which you get get straight off of their website at Fateh.net
According to Wikipedia
The Fatah official emblem shows two fists holding rifles and a hand grenade superimposed on a map of historic Palestine (i.e. British Mandate borders, including present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip)
In other words, they want the whole thing.
Elsewhere, on their website, Fatah insists on the "right of return".
The Right of Return is one in which the Palestinians insist that the refugees, and their descendants, allegedly displaced during the 1948 war of independence, have the right to return to Israel proper and claim the land that they say they owned. Depending on which website you believe, this would mean anywhere from 3.5 to 6 million Arabs moving into Israel, a country of 6 million Jews and 1 million Arabs. The clear purpose of the "right of return" is to destroy Israel.
See now why peace with Fatah is impossible?
Until they change their ways we are wasting our time with them. President Clinton was probably smart when he invited Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Camp David in 2000 to try and hammer out an agreement based on the 1993 Oslo Accords (the ones which established the "roadmap for peace". Arafat refused all reasonable offers, and the situation has deteriorated every since. Anything we do for them needs to be conditioned on improving their record on human rights, corruption, and terrorism, as Eric Cantor suggests. To do otherwise is to lend aid to our enemies. You know, the ones the President Bush at one time said we were against.
Posted by Tom at 11:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 3, 2007
The Iranian Hostage Crisis: The Use and Misuse of "Soft Power"
For some years now elites in places like Europe and Canada have been peddling the idea of "soft power" in international relations.
Harvard Professor Joseph Nye is the architect of the idea of soft power, having laid it all out in his 2004 book Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. In the preface to the book, Nye defines soft power
[Soft power] is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced.
The Publishers Weekly review on Amazon identifies Nye as "assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and is certain to be a key player in a new Democratic administration." So his is not a name to forget.
My brief investigation of Nye and his ideas seems to show that he's not a limp-wrist liberal who eschews hard power. Indeed, the Publishers Weekly review also says that he "gives credit to President Bush and his neoconservative advisers in their projection of "hard" military and economic power." Unfortunately we also get the same old tired "go it alone" criticisms, as if we had only waved the "soft power" magic wand a bit harder the "allies" would have all fallen in line.
But for all the benefits of soft power, they're not doing the captured British sailors and Royal Marines much good right now.
As the invaluable Victor Davis Hanson pointed out today;
Since 9/11 we have been lectured on the advantages of "soft" power, especially in the context of the economic engine of the EU used for moral purposes. But if the Europe Union is still extending trade credits to a belligerent that has committed an act of piracy against a fellow member, then there is neither soft or hard power, but no power at all.
To give Nye credit, he knows that soft power has limits
All power depends on context -- who relates to whom under what circumstances -- but soft power depends more than hard power upon the existence of willing interpreters and receivers. Moreover, attraction often has a diffuse effect, creating general influence rather than producing an easily observable specific action.
So nothing in this post should be construed as criticizing him directly. Indeed, from what I can tell, soft power has a lot to offer as a long-term strategy for dealing with Iran. The regime is hated by most of the people. We should be able to leverage that better than we have. I've offered my own criticisms of our policy in the past.
The Current Problem
But as we said above, soft power has its limits, and one of them is that it is simply inapplicable in the current situation.
Richard Fernandez pointed out the other day that had Prime Minister Blair "gone ugly early" by doing something such as immediately expelling all Iranian diplomats from his country and (hopefully) persuading at least a few European allies to do likewise, the situation today would be completely different. He could have frozen assets and the like. Taking a few simple steps like these would have placed the ball in the mullah's court. They, not Blair, would have had to take the first step towards diplomacy.
As it is, it was Blair who went the diplomatic route first. This took the pressure off of Iran and put the ball in Blair's court. Thus, it is Blair who looks like he is begging for a solution rather than Ahmadinejad.
Of course, there is also absolutely not even a hint of a threat of military power from the British. As VDH says in the article linked to above, Blair is both speaking softly and carrying a small stick.
How Long Will It Last?
A few days ago I tended to think the whole thing would be resolved fairly quickly. Yesterday I wrote that
The diplomats (will) work out some weasel words whereby the British say in effect "we don't think we violated Iran's sovereignty but if we did we're sorry and won't do it again". Immediately upon the release of the hostages Iran will crow that this language means that the UK agreed to never attack it.
I still think this is the way it will end, but now I'm not as sanguine that this will happen quickly. The more I think about it, the way things are going now the mullahs have every reason to string this out as long as possible. Their objectives are 1) to divert attention from their nuclear program, and 2) to show the Sunnis who's really in charge.
David Pryce-Jones pointed out today that the players are now caught in an "honor-shame" conundrum. Each demands an apology from the other, but since an apology means shame, a direct apology is out of the question.
The only ways out of this impasse are the exercise of immense ingenuity to devise a formula that saves the face of all concerned, or unarguable force. Caught in exactly this same predicament over Iran's nuclear program, the powers are equally uncertain how to play their hand. Shame and honour values are conducive to irrational emotion. The 15 now in prison are likely to have to endure a long and agonizing ordeal.
If Blair had moved quickly and decisively all this might have been avoided. Iran might just have said "uh, it really was a mistake, we meant to just turn their boat around" In setting this up, and you better believe they've been planning to seize hostages, the Iranians bet on Western weakness. Nothing I've seen so far has lead me to believe they calculated wrong.
Posted by Tom at 8:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2007
New Rules for Going to War
If we take the anti-war crowd at their word, here are the new rules we'd have to adopt before committing American forces in the future:
• The UN Security Council must approve all US action before it is taken
• A majority of nations in Europe must approve of and participate in military operations
• France in particular must approve, though they need not actually participate
• Before any ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a limit is set on US casualties, and we withdraw all forces the moment that limit is reached
• Before ground, sea, or air forces are committed, a timeline for disengagement is established before we go in. We must withdraw forces according to the established timeframe regardless of whether the mission has been achieved
• Members of Congress have the right to change their mind at any time for any reason and demand an immediate withdrawal
• It at any time a poll of the American people show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that their support for military operations goes below 50% the troops are to be immediately withdrawn
• It at any time a poll of active-duty military personnel show that they do not support current tactics and strategy, those tactics and strategy will be immediately changed.
• No one who has not served in the military may speak in favor of military operations
• No one who does not have at least one son or daughter of military age may express concern for the troops because obviously they do not understand what they're going through
Posted by Tom at 7:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
No More Realism
Whatever foreign policy we as a nation adopt in the future, let it not be "realism".
Yes, the situation in Iraq is such that it must distress even the most die-hard Wilsonian optimist. Whatever mistakes we have made after our invasion, if Iraq comes totally unglued it will ultimately the fault of the Iraqis. If enough of them cannot or will not appreciate what we are trying to give them, in the final analysis that's not our fault. We have handed them a republic, and it is up to them to keep it.
Today, however, there seems to be a growing chorus of voices saying that we should return to a sort of "realism". Jim Baker and his Iraq Study Group are seen as wise sages counseling the naive, stupid, or evil (or sometimes all three) neo-cons of the Bush Administration.
People who call themselves liberals sneer at democracy, chorteling that all it has achieved was Hamas in control of the PA and Shiite extremists in power in Baghdad. It is assumed by many that the natural state of the Arabs is to be governed by dictators of one sort or another. Not only natural, but safer. More stable.
Who better to shred such thinking than Victor Davis Hanson:
Prior to Iraq, there was some American guilt over past realism, whether stopping before Baghdad in 1991, playing Iran off Iraq, cozying up to dictatorships, or predicating American Middle East foreign policy solely on either oil or anti-Communism. ... Arab intellectuals and much of the Western Left once decried Bakerism and called for a new muscular idealism that put us on the side of the powerless reformers and not with the entrenched authoritarians. But if we fail in Iraq, then again, fairly or not, the verdict will be far more sweeping than simply the incompetence of the Bremer proconsulship or the impotence of the Maliki government.
Indeed it will be. But even more important than that is something else:
... Democrats and liberals should likewise realize that for all their hatred of George Bush and the partisan points to be gained by coddling up to the libertarian and paleo-conservative Right, George Bush’s embrace of freedom was far closer to their own past rhetoric than almost any Republican administration in history. And such an effort to foster democracy was in the long run smart as well, since ultimately a free Iraq would be the worst nightmare of the Islamic jihadists — as we read repeatedly in the rantings of Dr. Zawahiri.
Ouch.
But it's true. George Bush is doing what liberals have always said we should do; spread democratic ideals instead of supporting dictators who would oppose the communists and/or sell us oil. The difference between them and him is that instead of giving speeches before Washington elites he put words to action.
We are in our current position precisely because of diplomats such as Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker who value stability uber alles. Preserve the status quo at all costs. Don't rock the boat. As long as we get our oil, who are we to care if they want to live in the 9th century? Human rights? That was useful against the communists, but they're gone now.
You don't have to believe everything Natan Sharansky said in The Case for Democracy to believe that this policy was wrong. For too many years we ignored or pandered to whatever Arab or Persian dictator was in power as long as we got basing rights and a steady flow of oil. While such thinking held short-term benefits, you can only keep the lid on a pressure cooker for so long.
So we went into Iraq for a variety of reasons, WMD being the primary one but hardly the only. The resolution passed by Congress on October 11 2002 listed many reasons, one of which was:
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
Ok, so things haven't exactly worked out as planned. But all is not lost either, and readers of this blog know that I think it necessary that we give it our all to save the situation, and this means supporting the president's latest plan.
Once upon a time the left would have applauded, no, cheered, the thinking embodied in the Iraq Liberation Act. They're the ones, after all, who spent much of the Cold War denouncing the US policicy of supporting "authoritarian" regimes on the justification that they were better than "totalitarian" ones.
I understand that there's an anti-war movement. Leftist groups such as ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice will always be with us. Our media culture will create a Cincy Sheehan if none exist. What I don't understand, and what distresses me, is that so many in this country seemed to have joined with them.
In the article cited above, Hanson points out that whatever happens in Iraq, one day it will all be over. What then?
The Democrats are a strong and ever more vocal anti-war constituency. Some indeed, think Murtha or Rangel, are considered party leaders. The Republican party is flat-out in disarray, McCain and Leiberman seemingly being the sole voices of reason on the Hill.
Is it to be thought that Clinton's Kosovo adventure was the "perfect war"? Hanson again
Before Iraq, wild-eyed reformers talked of a new military paradigm of sanitized war, following from wins in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, or Serbia. Bombing from on high with GPS ordinance and a few paratroopers or special forces were the supposed future — not old fashioned, everyday artillery, armor, and infantry.That either/or dichotomy was, of course, absurd. But if we withdraw defeated from Iraq, like it or not, there will be the charge made that the United States should not commit sizable Army and Marine forces abroad on the ground — period, under any circumstances, at any time.
Vietnam and now Iraq will substantiate in greater detail what we tasted in Lebanon and Mogadishu — the impossibility of using large conventional forces in chaotic conflicts that will inevitably turn asymmetrical and terrorist. In that regard, an army on the shelf will fossilize, as we lose confidence that it can ever achieve anything worth its losses. Generals will promise victories in the sort of rare conventional wars they can easily win, and decline the more common messy ones they cannot.
John McCain puts some hard questions to the withdraw now crowd on his website. So far, I have not seen any serious answers. The left, the palecon right, and those simply out to save their own political skins are creating a monster, and if they succeed in their ambitions it is going to haunt us for a long time.
Posted by Tom at 8:11 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
October 26, 2006
Hanson Demolishes the Talkers
From NRO's The Corner today, here's Victor Davis Hanson:
In the last 24 hours I have heard some of the craziest things of this entire war.The Palestinians are complaining about the Israeli security fence on grounds that it perpetuates "racial segregation" — in a way perhaps suicide bombers do not? Or the state-run Palestinian megaphones with their usual "apes and pigs" rants?
At a meeting the other day with some political scientists, I was lectured by some that there was nothing such as jihadism in the comprehensive sense. That is, that Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. simply have entirely separate agendas, understandable (i.e., Israel, "occupation" of Arab lands) and particularist grievances, etc. rather than a deeply shared anger at the West that originates from a common sense of lost pride and frustration, brought on by recognition of failure when zeal and religious purity do not restore honor or influence in the age of globalization.
I thought these who advocated such nonsense might at any second suggest that because Mussolini's fascists, Hitler's Nazis, and Tojo's militarists all had quite different agendas, separate racial ideologies, and particular aims in WWII, then, they could hardly be lumped together as the Axis that threatened Western republics and needed a generic anti-fascist response. All during the Vietnam War, we were lectured daily about the intricacies of Vietnamese, Russian, and Chinese Communists — their rivalries, hatreds, and quite separate aims-as they combined to defeat the United States, and trumped their own tensions with an all-encompassing hatred of Western democratic capitalism.
There is also an Alice in Wonderland flavor to the current Democratic response to the Korean and Iranian crises. We talked to the Koreans all during the 1990s as they prepared nuclear materials.And now are told that we have a catastrophe since we have not recently talked to them. We talked all during the 1990s with Syria — and got nothing. Bill Clinton has always praised Iranian democracy; so, we talked to Tehran too, both stealthily and overtly.
So what is this obsession with talk, talk, talk? It reminds me of all those discredited British empty-headed pacifists and aristocrats who wanted to keep talking to Hitler after the fall of Poland, even after the fall of France, right up to the Battle of Britain.
Ditto that.
Posted by Tom at 9:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2006
Reasons for Hope Amid Despair
Some of my recent posts have been pretty pessimistic, and while sometimes that's needed, it's also never a good thing to wallow in despair. No situation is so bad that it cannot be salvaged, and so despite out current troubles there is hope.
First up, is the media. Victor Davis Hanson in "Hope Amid Despair" points out, for example, that if there was ever any doubt that much of the media was helping the terrorists (unwittingly or otherwise), they are now completely discredited.
The globalized media is absolutely discredited after the coverage of Lebanon. Reuters has destroyed its reputation, gained from 150 years of world reporting, by releasing doctored pictures and tolerating staged photo-ops. Almost all the Western media outlets failed to distinguish Lebanese civilian from military casualties — as if the Hezbollah terrorists they never filmed and never interviewed never died.
Indeed, thanks to the unprofessional reporters abroad, and their disingenuous chiefs back home, the world never saw the killers who sent the rockets nor many of their civilian victims on the ground in Israel. Nor did the reporters apprise their audience of the different landscapes in which they worked: candor in Israel might win loud disagreement; truth in Lebanon meant death. It would be as if Reuters, AP, or the New York Times embedded its reporters within the Waffen SS, beaming daily reports back home about the great morale and noble suffering of the Wehrmacht as it advanced into the snowy Ardennes.
Next, up are Iran and Syria
Iran and Syria unleashed Hezbollah because they were both facing global scrutiny, one over nuclear acquisition and the other over the assassination of Lebanese reformer Rafik Hariri. Those problems won’t go away for either of them — nor, if we persist, will the democratic fervor in Afghanistan and Iraq on their borders.
Let't also not forget that Israel did significant damage to Hezbollah. The latter may have claimed victory, but it's not as if they are still the fighting force they were a month ago.
We still don’t know the extent of the damage that Hezbollah suffered, but it perhaps took casualties ten times the Israelis’ — losses — not to be dismissed even in the asymmetrical laws of postmodern warfare. Hezbollah’s leaders were hiding in embassies and bunkers; Israel’s were not. For all the newfound magnetism of Nasrallah, he brought ruin to his flock, and fright to the Arab establishment around Israel.
Further, the war may have simply taught Israel how to do it right next time. When the ceasefire proves to be a fraud, for surely it will, won't it reveal the impotence of the UN and those who always drone on about "international solutions"?
A surprised Israel now has a good glimpse of the terrorists’ new way of war, and probably next time will attack the supplier, not the launcher, of the rocketry. And when the Reuters stringers go away, the “civilians” of southern Lebanon, off-camera, might not be so eager to see more real fireworks lighting up their skies — or far-off, pristine Syria and Iran in safety praising the courage of the ruined amid the rubble. Note how Hezbollah already is desperately racing around the craters to assure its homeless constituency that it has enough Iranian cash to buy back lost sympathies.Even the ceasefire can come back to bite the Islamists and their supporters. Hezbollah won’t be disarmed as promised, much less stay out of Katyusha range of the border. And that defiance will only reveal the impotence of the Lebanese and the U.N., reminding both that they have talked themselves into a corner and now are responsible to keep caged their own pet 7th-century vipers. This can only work to Israel’s favor when the next rockets go off, since no one then will be proposing an “international” solution — although it will be interesting to see whether Jacques Chirac talks of the “nuclear” option once his soldiers begin to be picked off by Hezbollah
Lastly, the London airplane bomb plot proved the fallacy of dealing with domestic Muslim extremists through "multiculturalism" once and for all. To this I would also add the terrorist plot in Canada revealed a few months ago. Both countries worshiped at the altars of "tolerance", "diversity" and "multiculturism", and all it got them was hatred and bombs.
In a larger sense, the foiled London terrorist plot won’t endear either Islamists or their appeasers to millions in the world who face travel delays, cancelled flights, and body searches — on top of paying billions more to the Arab oil producers who in response whine even more in their victimhood.
In the light of recent developments in the Middle East, this might not seem like much. Those who are blind to the threat of Muslim extremism because of their hatred of George W Bush or Tony Blair will not change. We see this in their chortling over their "victory" in court over the Terrorist Survelience Program. But perhaps the average citizen has learned a bit this past month, and, as Hanson says, " that is a sort of progress after all."
Posted by Tom at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2006
Let's Get Back to Being Feared
Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince to instruct a, well, prince, in the art of diplomacy and foreign affairs. From the Wikipedia entry
In answering the question of whether it is better to be loved than feared, Machiavelli writes, “The answer is of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” As Machiavelli asserts, commitments made in peace are not always kept in adversity, however commitments made in fear are kept out of fear. However, a prince must ensure that he is not feared to the point of hatred, which is very possible.
In the time between our invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, until it became clear in mid 2003 that the insurgency in Iraq was real and wasn't going away anytime soon, we were feared. More specifically, President Bush was feared.
Being hated was to some degree ok, as long as we were feared. During this time it appeared that we had shaken off the lethargy of the 80s and 90s whereby we let innumerable terrorist attacks go unpunished. Now, by heavens, we were going to use our military might. If the Europeans wanted to come along, fine. If not, so be it. We have the power to "go it alone" if need be, anyone who doesn't like it can get stuffed.
Today we are not feared. We are only hated. I was thinking abou this today, and was going to write about it, when I happened upon an editorial by Gerard Baker that appears in tomorrows London Times in which he says what I was thinking (hat tip NRO)
You (President Bush) invaded Iraq because you argued you would be able to bring about a peaceful, democratic society in the heart of the Arab world, a step vital to the eradication of modern terrorism. Many of us supported the project because we believed the stakes were so high that you would not stint in committing the resources necessary to achieve it.But you tried to do it on the cheap. If many of us miscalculated the scale of the threat Iraq posed, there was no excuse for the woeful lack of preparation by your Administration for the task of pacifying the country.
The outcome? A broken nation on the verge of civil war, prey to the avarice of tyrannical regional neighbours, violently immolating itself and nurturing new generations of terrorists.
Ouch. But not necessarily inaccurate.
You supported and perhaps even encouraged Israel to invade Lebanon last month, after repeated provocations by terrorists. The aim — a good one in principle — was to crush Hezbollah, weaken its Syrian and Iranian sponsors and put Lebanon on a path to long-term, terror-free stability. But when the largely aerial campaign predictably failed and equally predictably led to the world’s media reaching their one-sided conclusion about Israel’s “aggression” , you quickly backtracked. You encouraged Israel to accept a ceasefire that amounts to the country’s most serious defeat in its 57-year history.The result? A strengthened Hezbollah and a new Arab hero, Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah; a reprieve for the beleaguered Assad regime in Damascus and a further fillip to Iranian ambitions; a strategic setback for Israel and the condemnation of Lebanon tragically to replay the turmoil of the 1980s.
Not entirely our fault here, Israel is partially to blame. But when it happens on your watch....
You rightly identified Iran as the gravest threat to the West’s long-term security and you pledged to bend US policy to ensure that it did not gain the regional hegemony that would allow it to blackmail the world into acquiescence of its hateful ideology. Above all, Iran would be stopped from getting the bomb.The result? The despised regime in Tehran has emerged as the true hegemonic power in the region, leeching on the battered bodies politic of Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, elevating its brand of Shia fundamentalism into position as the dominant force in the Islamic world and continuing on its path towards nuclear status.
Yup. We're headed for a showdown with Iran, but it probably won't happen for a few years. As Henry Sokolski illustrates in an article that appeared today in National Review, our approach is all carrots and no sticks. How long before we finally learn that won't work?
Going it (mostly) alone is fine, Baker argues, if you are agressive and tough and stay that way. But somewhere along the line we got cold feet. We chickened out. Ours was a risky strategy, one that certainly was going to alienate much of the world. But again, that would have been ok if we had been tough and hadn't tried to do it on the cheap.
Now we have the worst of all worlds. Not only is the US despised around the globe, it can’t even make its supposed hegemony work.It’s one thing to be seen as the bully in the schoolyard; it’s quite another when people realise the bully is actually incapable of getting anybody else to do what he wants. It’s unpleasant when people stop respecting you, but it’s positively terrifying when they stop fearing you.
What we have now is a situation in which the world’s only superpower, with the largest economic and military advantage any country has ever enjoyed on Earth, is pinned down like Gulliver, tormented by an army of fundamentalist Lilliputians.
So can Bush get us back on track? Unfortunately, I doubt it. He's out of political capital, and his administration is curiously lethargic about our current situation. A few weeks ago I wrote that it seemed like it was 1938, with Iran playing the role of Germany. I still think that valid, but the difference is that there is no Churchill on the horizon to save us.
Let's get back to being feared.
Posted by Tom at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 4, 2006
1938 Redux?
Several commentators at National Review have written recently that what they see happening in the world resembles nothing so much as the 1930s.
In the 1930s Britain and France appeased Hitler. Anything to prevent the horrors of what they called The Great War, they said. The United States stood on the sidelines, naively thinking we were secure in our isolationist policies. The elite mocked Churchill as a drunkard alarmist.
Today many in the West so no danger from Iran or the various terrorist groups that cannot be negotiated away. The elite today mock George Bush and Tony Blair.
First up is Michael Ledeen, who points out that although "9/11 was supposed to have been the wakeup call," "we are again asleep". The problem now, he says, is that we fail to recognize that it's not just about fighing "insurgents" in Iraq, or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran and Syria are behind much or most of it, and behind that is a virulent form of radical Islam. Although I still say that going into Iraq put us on the strategic offensive, Ledeen points out that since the invasion we have been playing defense.
Meanwhile, a collection of frauds, writing in places like Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Mother Jones, continuously recycles a story saying that a neocon (code for “Jewish”) conspiracy duped Bush into going to war in Iraq, and is now arranging the invasion of Iran.
For those that forget, President Roosevelt was treated to the same sort of nonsense from the likes of people like Father Coughlin, who accused the president of "leaning toward international socialism or sovietism on the Spanish question." Indeed, as Ledeen says
It is the Thirties again. Many of the statements above apply to Franklin Roosevelt’s first two administrations, and to the political atmosphere of those dreadful years. Then, too, the mounting power of what became the Axis was ignored. As my father often reminded me, a few months before Pearl Harbor, at a time when Nazi armies were long since on the march, the draft passed by a single vote. Apologists for Hitler and Mussolini were legion, and some of our leading intellectuals were saying that American democratic capitalism was a failure, and we would do well to emulate the European totalitarians.
Continuing this same theme, Victor Davis Hanson reviews some of the apologists of that era
...nevertheless it is still surreal to reread the fantasies of Chamberlain, Daladier, and Pope Pius, or the stump speeches by Charles Lindbergh (“Their [the Jews’] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government”) or Father Coughlin (“Many people are beginning to wonder whom they should fear most — the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.”) — and baffling to consider that such men ever had any influence.
Tell me, what is the difference between any of the above cited men and Michael Moore or Markos "Screw them" Moulitsas? Or Pat Buchanan, for that matter?
And how are our "allies" In Europe responding to all this? Hanson continues
There is no need to mention Europe, an entire continent now returning to the cowardice of the 19