Long War SITREP

It is common for our Left to say that President Bush has been a disaster, driving allies away and creating far more problems than he has solved. He is, they say, the worst president ever presiding over the worst foreign policy blunders ever made in our history. The Left's champion, whoever he or she will be, will have much work to do to undo that damage, they charge.

President Bush has thirteen more months to go in the war on terror that he has led since September 11, 2001. President Bush named an Axis of Evil of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea that represented the threat of state sponsorship of Islamo-fascist terorrism as practiced primarily by al Qaeda, and nuclear proliferation that might lead jihadis to gain a nuclear weapon.

With our intelligence communities telling us that Iran has suspended their nuclear weapons programs, perhaps I should willingly suspend my disbelief and accept this as a triumph.

The Left thinks that the collective heads of the Right, which they figure must include me, must be about to explode with this NIE, so intent are we on "rushing to war" with Iran these last four years or so. Of course, my position has always been that if you strike a king, kill him. I wanted regime change figuring a normal country wouldn't want nukes or could be trusted with them. Iran under the mullahs can't be trusted with box cutters, let alone nukes.

But I feared our intelligence agencies weren't good enough to help a revolt of a population generally pro-American against a regime despised by most Iranians. So if the choice is between letting Iran under the mullahs go nuclear and striking Iran's nuclear programs, I'm on board with the strikes to buy time.

So now we apparently will aim for containment and nuclear deterrence, perhaps hoping to undermine Iran's mullahs for that regime change from within. And if Iran truly is years from atomic weapons, we have time for containment and could change our minds about a strike on their nuclear facilities.

So in the spirit of accepting good news when it presents itself rather than working my head up into dangerous head-exploding pressure by seeking only to poke holes in the analysis, perhaps a quick review of the state of the threats we faced on 9/11 is in order.

Al Qaeda: Bin Laden was routed from his Afghanistan sanctuary. Al Qaeda's Taliban host was overthrown in Afghanistan and replaced with a democraticly elected government. Al Qaeda lost their Pakistan sponsor when we flipped Pakistan to oppose the Taliban. [UPDATE: Oh, and I forgot our operations in the Philippines to help that government defeat jihadis there.] Al Qaeda has been thwarted from attempting to take over Iraq where al Qaeda is now being hunted down. Al Qaeda was thwarted in Somalia when Ethiopia overthrew the Islamic Courts movement that has seized control of Mogadishu. Lebanese troops also defeated an attempt to install al Qaeda jihadis in that country. The Arab and Moslem worlds have cracked down on jihadi activities and financing--even Saudi Arabia. Public opinion polls show suicide bombing in the name of Islam and al Qaeda have suffered severe drops in popularity in the Moslem world. Arabs are even tentatively starting to speak of reforming their societies and governments rather than just blaming the West and jews for their ills. [UPDATE: Remember that according to war opponents, Afghanistan and then Iraq were supposed to cause the Arab "street" to rise up in anger and overthrow pro-American governments.] Europe has cracked down on jihadis within Europe using police methods our ACLU would not approve of. NATO has joined us in Afghanistan to fight jihadis there. And al Qaeda has failed to match their 9/11 strike.

Problems remain, however. The Taliban may not be sponsored by Pakistan anymore, but they've managed to infect the tribal areas with their vision of Islam and carve out a sanctuary for the Taliban and al Qaeda that have resisted half-hearted Pakistani efforts to fight them and our very limited covert actions. Al Qaeda still retains enough support and capability to pull off a major attack. And Afghanistan could revert to anarchy or hostility if we do not pay attention and devote enough resources to solidifying our gains. Drugs remain a major supply of money for our enemies.

Iran: Iran's military remains weak. Iran has halted its nuclear weapons programs. Iran has slowed its support for Shia death squads in Iraq. Europe remains with us in efforts to negotiate a halt to Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. We have organized an alliance of Arab states concerned about Iran's power that will contain Iran in the Gulf. We are planning missile defenses in Eastern Europe to shoot down Iranian missiles to bolster this containment policy. We have sea-based anti-missiles to bolster this defense. We will retain significant conventional military power around Iran for decades to come.

Problems remain. Iran still sponsors terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as in Lebanon and Gaza. Iran has essentially colonized Syria turning that country into a puppet. Iran could reverse its decision to halt nuclear weapons programs. Iran continues nuclear work in other areas that could benefit weapons. Iran may have made agreements with North Korea, Syria, and even Venezuela to hide some components of their nuclear programs. We still can't be sure that containment and nuclear deterrence will work if leaders who control Iran see themselves as Islam's warriors more than Persian.

Iraq: We destroyed Saddam's cruel and aggressive regime. Iraqi sponsorship of terrorism was ended. We made sure that Saddam could not restart his WMD programs that were clearly in place and ready to resume once sanctions were weakened. While nuclear work was clearly at a low level by 2003, chemical weapons could have been deployed rapidly from a decision to go ahead. We have established a democracy in Iraq that is our ally against terrorism. The Sunni Arabs have turned on the jihadis and terror, and are beginning to make peace with the government. The Kurds have remained in Iraq despite their de facto independence from 1991 to 2003. The Shias have largely turned on Sadr and other Iranian puppets.

Problems remain. Corruption must be combatted. The Kurds must be kept in the tent. We must watch the dwindling pro-Iranian Shias. We must keep the Sunni Arabs from returning to supporting terrorism. We must no allow al Qaeda to reconstitute itself in Iraq. We must ensure that democracy does not become a formality as it is in much of the Arab world and simply cover for dictatorship.

North Korea: We have gained agreement with Pyongyang to halt and disable nuclear programs and give up declared nuclear assets. We have gained verification measures to check this. We have moved our ground forces away from the DMZ where they were vulnerable to North Korean artillery. North Korea is far weaker today militarily and is on shakier ground internally than in 2001. We have strengthened our alliance with Japan to counter North korea and America and Japan are deploying ship-based anti-missile systems to protect against North Korean missiles.

Problems remain. North Korea could have shipped out nuclear materials to Syria or other countries ahead of our verificatin efforts. North Korea could still have nuclear programs we don't know about or that we can't prove exist. North Korea could still sell information on nuclear weapons that would be difficult to stop. North Korea could reverse course at a whim.

Nuclear Proliferation: We ended the Khan nuclear network and have signed up scores of nations in support of naval efforts to fight proliferation of nuclear weapons. Something Syria has done in the nuclear field--it is unclear what--has been destroyed by Israeli air and ground attacks.

Problems remain. The knowledge is out there and sixty years old. Proliferation can likely only be slowed and not stopped. Efforts to defend ourselves from nuclear missile attack could be reversed. Ultimately, as long as the hate of jihad remains, means to kill us will be obtained.

So, if we take at face value all the progress we've made, we can say that President Bush has crippled al Qaeda by taking out their Afghanistan haven and chasing them around the globe, defended our homeland, defeated or nullified all of the Axis of Evil, diminished the popularity of al Qaeda and terror in the Moslem world, started the trend of real democracy and reform in the Arab world, and rallied Western and Arab governments to fight Islamo-fascism and nuclear proliferation.

So what will it be, Bush haters? Have we succeeded in Iran or must the next president look forward to fighting a nuclear-armed Iran? Did we defang North korea or should we ready ourselves for Pyongyang regime change? Is al Qaeda on the run or must we bolster domestic law enforcement methods to defend ourselves and invade Pakistan's tribal areas to finish the job?

What a delightful dilemma for them. Delightful for me, that is. not so much for them. Honestly, whose collective heads are in danger of exploding?

I don't have that head-exploding problem. I am nuanced enough to understand we've made progress, avoided the worst, yet have much more work to do in order to defend ourselves, defend our gains, and advance further. The 2007 NIE may be right or partly right. The 2005 NIE may be right or partly right. Both think Iran will get nukes eventually, the question really only being whether nuclearization is "imminent"--that magical standard for military action.

I am not intellectually crippled by the new NIE on Iran. I read it all. We may have had more success than I believed, but Iran's rulers remain a threat. We appear to have more time, but given enough time, Iran will have nuclear weapons. And Iran's mullahs still want them. All this per the NIE itself. Go read it. The NIE also says nothing about the threat of a mullah regime with nukes--only the current program status and projected dates for that regime to go nuclear. If the mullahs still rule Iran when they go nuclear, we will have failed in my estimate.

Yet we are clearly far better off today on Iran, and on the rest of the security problems we woke up to confront that clear day on 9/11/2001.

So go check your own skull pressure gauges. Mine are still in the green.