Clear for Action

Iran's Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) navy taunted three of our ships in the Strait of Hormuz, as I related here. Here is the press conference on the incident. To review the basics, Vice Admiral Cosgriff explained:

With respect to the encounter yesterday morning local time in the Strait of Hormuz, I think the facts are known to many of you. USS Port Royal, USS Hopper, USS Ingraham were in bound the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz routine transit.

In the early hours of the morning, daylight hours of the morning, they were encountered by five total small high-speed craft that we assessed to belong the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy. The five boats approached the formation on the formation's starboard bow in international waters slightly inside the gulf from the apex of the strait, broke into two groups, one to one side of the formation, one to the other. The groups maneuvered aggressively in the direction of the U.S. ships. They were called on radio; they were -- ships' whistles were sounded, those sorts of things, to draw attention to the fact that their maneuvers were a cause of concern to the commanding officers.

At one point during this encounter, we received a radio -- the ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing our ships and that the ships might -- the ships would explode, the U.S. ships would explode. Subsequently, two of these boats were observed dropping objects in the water, generally in the path of the final ship in the formation, the USS Ingraham. These objects were white box-like objects that floated, and obviously the ship passed by them safely.

The encounter continued, with the boats maneuvering close to stern and after -- under 30 minutes total, they returned in the direction from whence they came, to the north, back towards Iranian territorial waters.

I was mostly interested in the incident as an example of how the factional nature of Iran's governing class could be exploited by a faction eager to start a nuclear war--even if that faction doesn't control the atomic weapons that Iran will deploy.

Yet it isn't all about an example, but the incident itself. Ralph Peters thinks we should have blown away the boats as a lesson:

We should've sunk every one of them.

Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later?

Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.

They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

Peters has an excellent point. I think we had good reason to exercise restraint in this incident. We don't want to reshuffle the deck in Iraq by giving the Pasdaran the leverage to reignite their full support for Shia thugs attacking our troops and murdering Iraqi civilians by making other factions worry that we are itching for war with Iran.

On the other hand, we don't want to be lulled into thinking that Iranian speedboats will always pull away without pulling the trigger. While one reporter in the press conference asked why our big ships are afraid of little speedboats, the question is stupid. Given that if we shoot first a quarter of our people will cry "Tonkin Gulf!" I'm sure our Navy instinctively feels that we must be prepared to absorb the first blow before we can respond. Under those circumstances you'd be stupid not to worry about letting small boats close to expensive warships. Anyone ever hear of the Cole for Pete's sake? And I don't rule out that the American commander on the scene rightly determined that he had time before he had to shoot. But what of the next time? What if next week harassment isn't the intent and attack is?

So we need to be ready for the next incident. We need to take advantage of the fissures in Iraq's ruling mullah class to target the provoking Pasdaran naval elements without striking the assets of other factions or visibly striking Iran to cause a reaction inside Iran that allows the provoking faction to trigger general war or allow factions eager to fight us in Iraq to regain freedom of action.

To that end, we must make sure the other factions in Iran know that the next time the Pasdaran sends their speedboats at our ships, we will sink every one that gets within 250 meters of our ships. And we will strike other Pasdaran naval elements at sea within 5 miles of any of our ships as a further lesson. But, we assure them, such a strike is not the beginning of a general war against Iran or a broader strike against Iranian assets.

So warned and reassured, the Iranian factions not involved will probably not want to get involved. We smashed up Iran's naval forces pretty well in the late 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War without provoking full war. We could do it again and teach the factions that poking the United States is not the best way to win their internal political battles.

We will need to monitor the Iranians closely and be ready to strike the blow with our assets in the region and not just the ships targeted by the Iranians. Get the job done quickly within four or five hours and then announce the end of the incident.

If the Pasdaran think they can get away with spooking us like this, they may think they can get away with an actual attack--and ride our passivity to an advantage in the Byzantine struggles for power in Persian Iran.

We could afford to run a risk this time, so I think Peters is wrong that we lost this round. But I think Peters is right in his logic about the next time.

We need to treat the next approach by Iranian boats as the attack run it might very well be. Clear for action, Navy.

UPDATE: Austin Bay writes about the incident and the previous incident involving the capture of British sailors and marines:

Both incidents fit into a consistent historical pattern, one the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen believes the U.S. government ignores at its own long-term peril. "It is never surprising when the Iranians attack us," Ledeen told me the day after the gunboats' display of moxie, "because they have been attacking us for 30 years."

The best long-term U.S. strategy is political and economic -- encouraging an active domestic political opposition to Iran's clever religious leaders while whittling away at the clerics' graft-crammed Swiss bank accounts. This incremental strategy, however, takes time and perseverance.

True, the long-term strategy requires us to pressure their finances. But in the short run, the Iranians may attack us. Take no comfort from the fact that it will merely be a faction of Iran's power structure.

Nor am I convinced that we must risk an actual attack to avoid "playing into their hands." These provocations bolster the radical factions by allowing the instigators to show how brave they are and to argue that we are too weak to respond. The temptation to actually attack one of our ships will seem to be not too much of a risk if they convince themselves we will not react. So the risk isn't just from reacting and provoking a unified Iranian response.

Yet if we squeeze Iran's finances and make sure the other factions know that we will strike the offenders narrowly, I think we can avoid "playing into their hands" and further isolate the madmen who sally forth to taunt our warships or even attack them.

The video of the incident seems to show that we truly had time to blow them away if we had to--it isn't like they were within RPG range.

UPDATE: The Weekly Standard writes that this indeed could be practice for a suicide boat attack that also lulls us. We should, therefore, respond at the next close encounter but we may be able to send a message without shooting. Maybe we could use one of those nausea-inducing "non-lethal" weapons we've developed. It would be a darned shame if one of those boats flipped because the driver was too sick to control the thing.

Catalyst for Exchange

Strategypage writes that nobody is in charge of Iran:

The various cleric controlled bureaucracies keep themselves out of trouble with each other by following a "live-and-let-live" policy. So one faction can support terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, while another insists that the government is doing no such thing. There are some general rules followed by all the factions. These are based on Iranian tradition and custom. First, don't do anything that will cause great and obvious harm to the country. Namely, keep us out of war. The losses of the 1980s war with Iraq are still vivid in everyone's mind. It is believed that the main leadership factions have agreed to keep nuclear weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists. But the Iranians won't discuss this openly, as their official policy is that they have no nuclear weapons program.

So I'm supposed to be comforted that the main factions agree that the real fanatics (Hah! That's quite a distinction over there.) shouldn't be allowed to play with nuclear weapons?

What if the main factions change their mind? What if a minor faction wanting to be a major faction decides to make their play based on getting a nuke to the real nuts? What if the real nuts just take a nuke? What if the real nuts become a major faction?

Heck, what if the real nuts who want to nuke Israel manage to get non-nuclear weapons like nerve gas and manage to kill hundreds of Israelis? Might not the threat of an Israeli nuclear retaliation get the major factions to use those nukes before Israel can respond? Or wouldn't the main factions then respond to an Israeli nuclear strike with an Iranian nuclear strike?

Really, why couldn't the real nuts engineer a nuclear attack on Israel through means like this:

Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in the Gulf, said five Iranian fast boats moved aggressively toward the U.S. ships in international waters and their actions were "unduly provocative."

"The ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing on our ships and ... the U.S. ships would explode," Cosgriff told reporters at the Pentagon via videolink from his Bahrain headquarters. ...

Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said after the Iranian threats a U.S. captain was in the process of ordering sailors to open fire when the Iranian boats moved away.

The Iranians reportedly radioed the US ships that "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes." They also dropped boxes in the water, obviously pretending to put mines in the water.

We were nearly ready to open fire when the Iranians backed off. It wouldn't matter if these jokers from the Pasdaran were just one faction of many and didn't control Iran, we could have been at war with all of Iran. Although if the other factions are horrified at that thought, a response tailored to blowing away Pasdaran naval elements without targeting Iranian assets deep inside Iran might be a way to deal the Pasdaran faction a blow without triggering a general war.

Next time the Iranians might open fire. Or we might blow one away before it gets too close as a warning not to play those games. But at least the stakes might allow for a cooling off because nukes aren't in play--yet. What if an Iranian faction uses similar tactics to trigger a nuclear war?

This decade truly sucks.

Oh wait, what am I thinking? Iran has no nuclear program!

I have moderate confidence this decade no longer sucks. Nighty night.

Once More, With Feeling

Now Madeleine Albright, the worst secretary of state in my living memory, is lecturing on our foreign policy?

We have been told to be afraid so that we might be less protective of our Constitution, less mindful of international law, less respectful toward allies, less discerning in our search for truth and less rigorous in questioning what our leaders tell us. We have been exhorted by the White House to embrace a culture of fear that has driven and narrowed our foreign policy while poisoning our ability to communicate effectively with others.

Forgive me if I don't go through her alternative perspective of reality. There has been a veritable Parade of Idiots lately and I'm just darned tired of defending what actually happened one more time. I'm not so much amazed that such rot can get published but that the authors can dress themselves each morning. Go read the others, here, here, here, here, here, and here, if you wish. It isn't like she has an innovative or new thought to add to the ritual slaughter of reality that her fellow authors have already committed.

My God, she's a doddering fool, a cynical power seeker, or a shameless liar. Or all three, I admit. Why limit her capacity for sheer wretched awfulness?

Magna Carcass

The European Union will slowly kill democracy in Europe, as the very undemocratic nature of the union's formation should indicate.

Mad Minerva notes the absolute contempt the European Parliament has for even its own members of parliament who resist the leadership of the Euros (from the Telegraph):

Before Christmas, almost entirely unreported here in Britain, the proceedings of the European Parliament were brought to a halt by an unprecedented uproar. Just after the EU's leaders had flown back from signing their new treaty in Lisbon, the Portuguese prime minister Jose Socrates, as the EU's acting "president", was in Strasbourg for a ceremony to celebrate the signing of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, part of the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

During his speech, some 50 MEPs of both Left and Right and from several countries, following a plan made by the Nordic Green Left group and supported by several British Conservative and UK Independence Party MEPs, unfurled banners emblazoned with the word "Referendum". The protest was intended to bear dignified, silent witness on behalf of all those countries, including Britain, that are now to be denied referendums on the treaty. But when ushers were ordered to remove the placards and other MEPs began shouting abuse, some of the demonstrators began shouting back.

The scene became so unedifying that the television coverage of the proceedings was cut off. Several group leaders made pompous speeches deploring the "football hooligan" behaviour of those MEPs who, as one put it, "had shown contempt for the dignity of Parliament". The ceremony concluded with the majority of MEPs standing reverentially to attention for the "European anthem" - which is one of the very few items dropped from the rejected Constitution to justify the pretence that the virtually identical new treaty is somehow a completely different document.

Nothing like this had ever happened in the Parliament, but never before has the EU's ruling elite shown such contempt for those they govern - all those voters who were promised referendums and have been denied them. Beginning with the decision of the European Council last June that there could be no further debate on the wording of the treaty which it alone had decided - itself an unprecedented flouting of the rules - it has been an astonishing coup d'etat.

There are many European states whose surrender does not surprise me. But Britain? The Great Charter of Liberty, first wrestled from a British monarch in 1215, is to be Euthanized with nary a peep from Parliament--or any other legislative body in Europe.

And freedom in Europe begins its slow death at the hands of bureaucrats sitting in grand offices in Brussels. And the Europeans hardly seem to care. Or even notice, really.

What is that about the banality of evil? I'm starting to thoroughly depress myself.

Pakistan Briefing

Though this is a New York Times article, it is by John Burns. Unlike most of his colleagues at that paper, he is honest and diligent in his reporting even though I don't agree with him all the time. If he says something I disagree with, I need to review my notes at the very least.

He discusses Pakistani politics. You might not recognize it given the post-Bhutto assassination talking points that put a halo around Bhutto:

The legend cultivated by Pakistani politicians like Ms. Bhutto and her principal civilian rival, Nawaz Sharif, cast the generals as the main villains in stifling democracy, emerging from their barracks to grab power out of Napoleonic ambition and contempt for the will of ordinary Pakistanis. It is a version of history calculated to appeal strongly to Western opinion. But it has been carefully drawn to excuse the role the politicians themselves have played in undermining democracy, by using mandates won at the polls to establish governments that rarely amounted to much more than vehicles for personal enrichment, or for pursuing vendettas against political foes.

William Dalrymple, a British author who has written widely about India and Pakistan, put it bluntly in an article for Britain’s left-of-center Guardian newspaper in 2005. “As Pakistan shows, rigid, corrupt, unrepresentative and flawed democracies without the strong independent institutions of a civil society — a free press, an independent judiciary, an empowered election commission — can foster governments that are every bit as tyrannical as any dictatorship,” he wrote. “Justice and democracy are not necessarily synonymous.”

I respect his writing and take him very seriously. Rule of law and process are key. I hoped Bhutto would help move Pakistan toward this objective. But let's not make her a saint in death who was destined to achieve these goals until her death. And let's not forget that elections and rule of law are still our objective in Pakistan to gut the appeal of the jihadis to people who are tired of military rule and political corruption in equal measure.

And never forget, Pakistan is the ultimate result of foreign policy realism in action. Be careful what you wish for. Enjoy the reality.

Danger Close

In the face of the jihadi offensive in Pakistan, I wrote that we'd have to get more involved in Pakistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda there, and that Pakistan must embrace our help rather than look away while we launch an occasional attack while hoping nobody notices:

Still, with the Taliban getting waxed the last two years as they've sent cannon fodder to Afghanistan and jihadis thinking that they could win in Pakistan and possibly believing that the Islamic bomb is there for the taking, we might be seeing the end of the Afghan campaign of the Long War.

Not that the fighting there will end anytime soon. But the fighting in Pakistan may take center stage. With Pakistan's army finally entering the fight and al Qaeda looking to join in, the campaign is broadening. We are seeing the beginning of a general Taliban Campaign that spans Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And with our need to protect supply lines through Pakistan, we may begin to play a far more active role in fighting inside Pakistan.

All those in America who have urged us to abandon Iraq and focus on Afghanistan--with some even demanding we intervene in Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden--may find that our dwindling role in Iraq will free us to do exactly that--join the Taliban Campaign in force to team up with Pakistani army forces to suppress the jihadis in the tribal areas and finally hunt down bin Laden.

We have a common enemy. We should act like allies.

Well, we are working out options with the Pakistanis to use our special forces in Pakistan:

The administration of President George W. Bush is considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan where Al-Qaeda is showing new strength, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday.

The danger is, this isn't the movies. Putting small groups of special forces into Pakistan on their own is risky. Jihadis move about in large groups--hundreds at a pop. Our teams would be vulnerable to attack and even if we can call in air strikes to save them, we might be forced to kill scores or hundreds of tribesman to do so.

I hope we will use special forces as attachments to Pakistani units to call in our firepower. I hope our special forces and CIA teams can troll through Waziristan with suitcases filled with hundred dollar bills as they did in Afghanistan in 2001 to buy alliances and information. And I hope our participation is part of a coherent campaign to defeat the Pakistani Taliban and not just long shot hopes that we might nail bin Laden this year with an air strike or ground assault.

UPDATE: Pakistan insists on maintaining the fiction that no American or Coalition forces operate in Pakistan:

"Pakistan's position in the war on terror has been very clear -- that any action on Pakistani soil will be taken only by Pakistani forces and Pakistani security agencies," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.

"No other country will be allowed to carry out operations in Pakistan. This has been conveyed at the highest level," he said.

Yet even if the report of expanded US special operations authority is true and the Pakistani denials a formality, it shows that Pakistan has not decided to really take the jihadi threat seriously and team up with us to crush them. Pakistan clearly thinks that openly siding with us against the jihadis is more dangerous than the jihadis themselves. We live in a strange world.

Squeal Like a Pig

[There] seems to be some kinky kind of competition on the Western left to be, metaphorically speaking, Islam's lead prison bitch.

Well, insert "Islamofascism" for "Islam" and I'm on board with that assessment. Much of our Left is effectively abandoning moderate and reasonable Moslems, who are also targets of the jihadis, in favor of letting the worst among Islam define the Moslem world's ideology and then claiming to embrace that twisted belief system in the name of tolerance.

Compassion in action, eh? So soon they forget this. Canadian troops in Afghanistan have stood up to the jihadi murderers who thought Canada was the weakest link. The Canadian troops showed the enemy that Canadian troops are mean bastards you don't want to cross. But back home, Canadian civilians worry that Mark Steyn might offend Moslems by discussing the jihadi problem that Canadian troops fight every day.

If Canadians think Mark Steyn is the enemy rather than murderous jihadis and their enablers, truly the surrender reflex up north may be too well developed to unlearn. Will Canadians decide they are honored to be victims of the jihad?

I'm just disgusted.

UPDATE: More on the Canadian troops in Afghanistan. I am thankful for Canada's contribution and commitment to this fight. Strategypage rightly notes that simply noting casualty rates of Canada--with no safer support troops to dilute the rate--with American rates that include large numbers of support personnel who supply and support the entire alliance effort is not a fair comparison. Even here, sometimes it is noted that Marines sustain higher casualties than the Army as a proportion of the total forces. That comparison too, without knocking Marine commitment or losses, fails to account for the large logistical tail of the Army that supports both Army and Marine combat units.

Pre-Defeated

You win when your enemy believes deep down that they are beaten. Until then, they will fight on despite losses or what they hope are temporary setbacks. That is why it is necessary to pursue enemies to utterly destroy them once they start running. Even a victory can be nullified if the enemy is given time to regroup and recover their morale.

So when Der Spiegel's Washington correspondent, Gabor Steingart, speaks of 2007 as a year of victory for our jihadi enemies and defeat for the West (and in particular America under Bush), I can only conclude that he has believed deep down all along that we are defeated. His analysis is stunning in its ability to spin a good year for the good guys (that's us, Mr. Steingart) into a year of defeat.

Steingart writes:

Ongoing difficulties in Iraq. A Taliban offensive in Afghanistan. And now the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. For the West, 2007 has been a year of failure and missteps.

Fascinating. Our "difficulties" in Iraq are part of a far better Iraq that we have fought to achieve allong with our Iraqi and Coalition allies. Our enemies, still wanting to win, continue to fight.

The Taliban offensive in Afghanistan resulted in lots of dead Taliban. Fire up the victory hookah, eh?

And since when is it our responsibility to protect every politician in every corner of the world?

He goes on:

The Thursday assassination (more...) of Benazir Bhutto is a huge, shocking and possibly even historic triumph for the enemies of democracy. Even worse, the attack was the gruesome culmination of what has been a successful year for them.

It is also not reaching too far to say that the shots that fatally wounded Bhutto in Rawalpindi Thursday also killed off any hope that the Islamic world could find peace of its own accord in the foreseeable future.

This is making too much of Bhutto. The fate of one billion Moslems did not turn on Bhutto's life or death. The jihadis will find their victory short-lived. The reality is that the enemy is desperate to fight in Pakistan. Out of options elsewhere, the jihadis have abandoned their safe haven there in order to attack. The jihadis have created a new enemy by striking in Pakistan. The new year will be bloody but the jihadis are not about to storm the palace and take over Pakistan.

He has a glimmer of sentience when he notes that Islam is not in any position to right its own house any time soon. But don't get your hopes up. Don't for a moment he thinks that this might mean there is a real war going on because of that failure to right their own ship.

As for America and Bush, the assassination demonstrates:

This world power has rarely looked so powerless -- and Bush has rarely looked so helpless.

The reality is that we don't control every action in every corner of the world--I wish we were that good! It is unfortunate that Bhutto was murdered. It shows the hatred of our jihadi enemies. But it isn't the end of the world. She isn't indispensible. And it isn't our fault. If we'd assigned Blackwater personnel or Navy SEALs to protect her, how would that have looked? Bhutto wanted to lead Pakistan. She had to navigate the dangerous waters of Pakistani blood sport politics. Pakistanis must beat the jihadis.

Steingart's lessons?

Lesson one: The conflict with radical Islam is not the hobby of a US president gone berserk. This will become all the more clear next November when American voters go to the polls. Bush, who cannot run for re-election due to term limitations, will go, but the conflict with Islam will remain. In fact, it is growing more intense. That, at least, is what the murder of this exceptionally brave woman in Pakistan has given to the West: a high degree of clarity. The radical Islamists will not tolerate any democrats, even if they come from their own countries.

So far, so good. He sounds like a Neo-Con here, admitting that it isn't so much what we do that the jihadis hate but democracy itself. But don't get your hopes up, this is his high point. You see, it quickly becomes clear, if it isn't already, that Steingart thinks we made it more intense by fighting the jihadis.

Lesson two: Bush will not be in a position to do much to end this conflict. He is a war president and an unsuccessful one at that. Even if he talks about diplomacy, it sounds like preparation for war.

Where to begin? This is a Long War. Bush had to start the fight when we were attacked. Someone else must finish it up. Certainly, one reason the fight will be passed on is that people have fought Bush tooth and nail to stop him from fighting the war. Who knows when the end of the war will occur? I sure don't. And it is amazing that Bush is considered a warmonger whether he wages war or pursues diplomacy--his opponents just hear war.

Lesson three: The classic military intervention -- Bush's formula against the danger of terrorism -- has not been successful up to now and will not be so in the future. And the situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan is clearly not one where any sort of military operation should be considered.

He says this a lot but offers no argument let alone proof that military intervention has been unsuccessful. The Philippines, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia have all been subjected to American military intervention in varying degrees. And intervention has taken place around Africa and in other locations in low-key efforts by small detachments to strengthen locals against jihadi efforts. All successful. And that includes Afghanistan and Iraq where thug regimes were destroyed and the thug terrorists were killed in large numbers with those governments now our allies fighting at our side.

So what do we do about the jihadis who hate democracy? Well, he says that the jihadis have reflexive resentment of the West who they blame for their problems. So the best thing to do is nothing and let their problems be their undoing. And he speaks approvingly of the West doing nothing against the nuclear-armed and mighty Soviets in 1956 and 1981 when Hungarians and Poles resisted Soviet control:

Soviet Communism broke apart all by itself a short time later.

President Bush would likewise have been better served had he kept the troops home instead of sending them into Iraq. The invasion resulted in high human and political losses, without an identifiable benefit on the other side of the balance sheet. Having marched into Baghdad in 2003, however, the US cannot now leave.

Wow, that is concentrated idiocy. The Soviet Union just broke apart "all by itself" he says! Perhaps it sounds better in the original German. He goes on:

In Afghanistan, NATO would have been well-advised to concentrate exclusively on capturing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, instead of digging wells, building schools and trying to push the underdeveloped country toward democracy at the barrel of a gun. Such activism has helped few and has done little to promote democracy.

Really? By the time we were into the nation-building stage, Osama was hiding safely in Pakistan in their sanctuary. And like many war opponents, we aren't pushing democracy at the barrel of a gun (that's how Germany got democracy, of course). No, thug theocrats are trying to kill democracy with guns. We are using our guns to defend democracy. Big difference. But not to him, I guess.

And let me include his final paragraphs in full so you don't miss the nuances of his errors:

In short, the best argument against military intervention is its record of failure. It is rarely worth the expense and rarely worth the human lives lost and ruined.

But does that mean we should capitulate? Should the West sit on the sidelines sipping tea? Absolutely not.

The West has to protect itself and its people with everything modern technology has placed at its disposal. The West needs to be prepared to talk and negotiate with all those who are willing to talk -- even if they happen to be thugs. And of course there is an important role to be played by the military and by secret services -- but primarily in the service of targeted operations against terror camps and cells. While mass invasions have proven useless, pinprick operations continue to have an important place in the West's arsenal.

And perhaps it is once again time for European diplomacy to open up a new way of seeing things to the Americans. In the altercation with the Soviet Union and the communist bloc, Europe found success. Many in the US were set on a confrontational course while Europeans preferred an easing of tensions. It was the English Prime Minister Winston Churchill, just eight years after World War II ended, who voiced his conviction that, wherever possible, a measured, more patient and less aggressive foreign policy was the way to go.

Speaking before a Congressional group in June, 1954, Churchill said that vigilance was indeed a necessary component of dealing with the Communist bloc. But, he went on, "It is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war."

Good grief. The combination of historical illiteracy and poor analytical abilities is astounding. We saved the Afghans from the Taliban and al Qaeda. We saved Iraqis from Saddam and are saving them from jihadis and Iranian thugs. We saved Kosovo Moslems. We saved Bosnian Moslems. We saved Somali Moslems from starving. We saved South Koreans. Our Cold War efforts saved Western Europe and freed Eastern Europe. We saved Germans and Japanese and Italians in World War II. We saved countless peoples under the boots of Nazi, Fascist, and Japanese military rule. We freed our slaves. But no, I mean other than those meager examples, we've saved nobody with military intervention.

Although I confess if Steingart is typical of German thinking, I'm starting to think maybe I want our 250,000 dead from liberating Germany from the Nazis back. Maybe that wasn't worth it. We should have talked to the Nazis. And if the Nazis got a little too visible in their oppression, we could have shelled a coastal city now and again.

And ah yes, the Cold War was a mere "altercation." Just an unfortunate misunderstanding. And in case Steingart didn't notice it, we didn't go to war with the Soviet Union. Nor did we just ignore them and let their internal problems stop them. We resisted the Soviets and defended our allies until our pressure and their internal problems collapsed their economy and willpower. Quoting Churchill's advice to avoid nuclear war in order to advocate Steingart's policy of getting along with thugs and lobbing cruise missiles for no point but to pretend we are tough is ridiculous.

Steingart has learned nothing of America or our part in history. He's been defeated since before the first shot was fired at us and nothing has changed his mind or enlightened him further. He could write his drivel that his readers eat up in Berlin and save his bosses a few Euros for having him in Washington. Perhaps he should be Der Speigel's fashion writer, instead.

Well, He Got His Name Right Anyway

George McGovern pens a bizarre diatribe against President Bush arguing for his impeachment (along with Cheney) so unhinged that it requires a point by point rebuttal.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

This is nutso territory. These people really can't move on from anything. The Supreme Court validated the election. And by virtually any standard of a recount that might have been held, American newspapers concluded that Bush won. Indeed, by the very narrow standard that Gore wanted the recount, Bush would have won. If you want to talk vote suppression, let's talk the Gore effort to suppress military votes in Florida. Face it, the election reflects what we know--the nation is divided politically. Bush won in 2000 and again in 2004. Get over it.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

We are not at war with Iraq. We are at war alongside a sovereign Iraqi democratic government in a fight against barbarous enemies. The Kurds and Shias are happy Saddam is gone and even Sunni Arabs see us as their best hope against paying the price for their past support of Saddam and jihadi suicide bombers. The war was legally declared by a Republican House and Democratic Senate, which continued to the logical conclusion our official policy of regime change signed by President Clinton.

McGovern has our casualties correct but by mistating the nature of the war he wrongly concludes they are wasted lives.

As for the so-called study of Iraqi casualties, that was a piece of propaganda the likes of McGovern are eager to believe contrary to the facts. Explain to me how our press missed those mounds of bodies? The monetary price is high but we spend cash to minimize blood--ours and innocents. It is no more accurate to say we borrowed to fight in Iraq than it is to say we borrow to finance Medicare or welfare or any other budgetary item. Given that our GDP is the highest in our nation's history, it is ignorant to simply state our debt is the highest. I mean, duh. Our proportion of debt to GDP is in line with other advanced industrial countries and below that of many.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Congress declared war. Period. That's what the authorization to use force was. Certainly, Congress didn't recite the magic words "we declare war," but few military actions in our country's history have used those words. We waged an undeclared naval war against France at the end of the 18th century and the Tripolitan War in the early 19th century was waged with the consent of Congress but without a declaration of war. Clearly, our founders understood the intent of the founders. Further, using those magic words today automatically unleashes a series of acts to nationalize the country as was done in World War II. This automatic trigger was created in the Cold War under the fear of a Soviet first strike that would destroy Congress' ability to enact such laws from scratch. That's why we don't "declare war" now.

Further, the UN has ratified our presence in Iraq repeatedly, and remember that Iraq was in violation of the ceasefire that suspended the UN-authorized war in 1991. Exactly two wars (against North Korea and Iraq) have had UN authorization--both waged by America I would add. International law does not deny us the right to judge our own defense needs. It is beyond me why we should be judged uniquely as UN charter violators when every war waged by every other nation (except for those who participated in the wars we led in Korea and Kuwait) lacked a UN authorization. And if the 1991 was the gold standard, why was the vote in Congress to authorize force closer than in 2003? Shouldn't the blessings of the sainted international community have made those votes unanimous? And why no complaint that Congress didn't actually "declare war" in 1991? My how times change.

McGovern's allegations of prisoner torture and abuse are laughable. While isolated abuses, mostly cases of humiliation and not torture let alone physical abuse, have taken place, they pale in comparision to our enemy's routine practices of butchery and cruelty. And we punish those who violate our standards. This charge is particularly grotesque under the circumstances.

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?

It happened in part because the Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an "imminent threat" to the United States. The administration also led the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks -- another blatant falsehood. Many times in recent years, I have recalled Jefferson's observation: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

The Clinton administration, the press, and Congress spend the 1990s arguing that Saddam posed a threat with WMD. Look it up. President Clinton bombed alleged Iraqi chemical facilities in Sudan and Iraqi nuclear facilities in Iraq. Bush never argued that Saddam had nuclear weapons and never claimed Saddam was an "imminent" threat. Why else did we spend so much time gearing up for that war? You will only find Democrats using that word.

The administration never ever implied that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Oh, the anti-war side constantly charged that but could never find more than an isolated comment taken out of context and argue that somehow swamped every other statement by the administration to the contrary--let alone the constant harping on this by the anti-war side. The administration argument was that in light of 9/11, we couldn't risk the likes of Saddam passing WMD (gas, bugs, radiological, or nuclear) to terrorists who clearly want us dead in large numbers.

And just as many misquote Jefferson, "my country" in McGovern's quote refers to British American which was taxed and ruled by Britain without our consent. Again, a Dowdified quote stripped of context. Nice try, nimrod.

The basic strategy of the administration has been to encourage a climate of fear, letting it exploit the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks not only to justify the invasion of Iraq but also to excuse such dangerous misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government agents. The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world -- more than a billion people. Another shocking perversion has been the shipping of prisoners scooped off the streets of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other countries without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus.

Climate of fear? Our people hardly know we are at war. The only fear-mongering is the constant refrain that Bush has or is about to impose fascism. Yet Bush stood for reelection, accepts court rulings and laws against it's policies, accepted the loss of Congress, will step down in one year, endures book after book charging him with crimes and mistakes, and NYT reporters continue to attack the administration rather than sit in hidden jails. Yeah, that's quite the Bushtatorship.

As for illegal phone tapping, that has consisted of traffic analysis at home looking for patterns to identify terrorist communications, the interception of selected calls between US phones and identified terrorist-related phones, and listening to certian foreign-to-foreign calls that go through our system simply because of the structure of the global telecommunications network right now. Google knows more about you than Bush does.

Bush has repeatedly called Islam the religion of peace and goes to great lengths to separate terrorists from Islam as a whole. It is the anti-war side that contributes to the identification of Islam with terror by refusing to accept that jihadis draw motivation from their perversion of Islam.

And prisoners of war do not require habeus corpus and we continue to examine and release prisoners from Gitmo--some of whom return to killing. Indeed, it was once considered immoral to charge enemy prisoners with crimes. Yet we face unlawful combatants who violate all the rules of war and we are condemned. We give them far more rights than they are entitled to.

Although the president was advised by the intelligence agencies last August that Iran had no program to develop nuclear weapons, he continued to lie to the country and the world. This is the same strategy of deception that brought us into war in the Arabian Desert and could lead us into an unjustified invasion of Iran. I can say with some professional knowledge and experience that if Bush invades yet another Muslim oil state, it would mark the end of U.S. influence in the crucial Middle East for decades.

The intelligence community only said it had high condience Iran stopped a narrowly defined set of nuclear weapons programs and had a moderate level of confidence that Iran did not resume those programs. Many of our allies have expressed shock at the conclusion drawn that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. As for McGovern's professional knolwedge and experience, that and a buck will get you a cup of coffee. Oh, and McGovern should tell George Clooney that we won't be doing anything about Darfur since Sudan is Moslem and exports oil.

Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry of their administration, their policies -- especially the war in Iraq -- have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States. Consider the difference between the policies of the first President Bush and those of his son. When the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait in August 1990, President George H.W. Bush gathered the support of the entire world, including the United Nations, the European Union and most of the Arab League, to quickly expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Saudis and Japanese paid most of the cost. Instead of getting bogged down in a costly occupation, the administration established a policy of containing the Baathist regime with international arms inspectors, no-fly zones and economic sanctions. Iraq was left as a stable country with little or no capacity to threaten others.

McGovern acts like we have been attacked at home since 9/11 and he ignores the pre-9/11 history of Moslem terrorist attacks on Christians, Hindus, Jews, and other Moslems. He ignores the long string of attacks on Americans by jihadis from Beirut to East Africa to the Cole. Yes, we ejected Iraq from Kuwait in 1991--a war our Left objected to at the time. And at the time our Left ridiculed us for being "mercenaries" fighting for a war that others paid for. How times change.

And leaving Saddam in place in 1991 just led to more terror and oppression with Saddam doing his best to harm us and his neighbors until we drove him from Baghdad for good in 2003. That so-called stability was the quiet of a cemetery. Our Left condemned our sanctions and no-fly zones for killing Iraqi children. Saddam paid for Palestinian suicide bombers, repeatedly threatened the Kurds and invaded once despite our no-fly zone, even threatened the Kuwaitis with invasion again overtly in 1994 and later more subtly, and was well on the way to eliminating the weakening sanctions in the face of the Left's outcry and the conviction in the Moslem world that we were causing mass death in Iraq.

Further, while al Qaeda invaded Iraq after we destroyed Saddam's regime, we have smashed them on this battlefield of Osama's choosing. It' like blaming our invasion of Italy in 1943 for "causing" the Germans to invade Italy. And Moslems increasingly view Osama and terrorism as wrong, according to international polling. So much for that ridiculous charge.

Today, after five years of clumsy, mistaken policies and U.S. military occupation, Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody civil strife. It is no secret that former president Bush, his secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and his national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, all opposed the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Iraqi was not a breeding ground of terrorism, it was an importer of terrorism. And we have killed jihadis in large numbers while the Moslem world could see that terrorists killed Moslems just as readily as they killed infidels. McGovern again fails to see that we are defending innocent Iraqis from savage murderers aided by foreign Sunni backers of jihadis and Iran's backing of Shia death squads. And spare me the 1980s realism of Baker and Scowcroft that has failed to adapt to changing realities even after two decades of dramatic change.

In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

It was the worst natural disaster in US history with responsibilities shared at local, state, and national levels. Why was Mississippi OK and New Orleans uniquely plagued? Perhaps a look at Louisiana and New Orleans mistakes would bear more fruit than complaining about the federal response to the "worst natural disaster in US history" that only seemed to screw up in one city.

McGovern is a disgrace to America. He served our country in the skies over Germany dropping bombs on German cities. All I can say is that the distance from 1945 to today is great by any measure you want to use to judge his transformation to nutball. His charges are ludicrous and his ability to actually believe them indicate his complete separation from reality. One wonders how he submitted his column to the Post given it was surely written in crayon.

The Post should be ashamed of publishing this unhinged diatribe against the administration that will surely be cited as the prime example of Bush Derangement Syndrome distilled onto one page.

UPDATE: You know, what is particularly maddening is that McGovern probably killed more civilians during his bombing runs over Germany than every American aircrew that has fought over Iraq and Afghanistan during the entire war. He can shove his moral superiority if he doesn't see that our forces fight with honor just as his comrades did under far less restrictive rules of engagement.

UPDATE: My comment above is hyperbole, I hope it is clear. On another note, McGovern couldn't even get his own history right let alone our country's. In his article, McGovern says he is advocating impeachment of Bush even though he didn't support impeachment for Nixon. Volokh Conspiracy notes that McGovern did indeed call for the impeachment of Nixon.

It seems very typical for the Left to try to persuade by claiming the current problem is unique in its requirement to listen to the Left. So now McGovern claims to have been against impeachment of Nixon and that Bush 43 is so much worse he deserves impeachment where Nixon did not. This is much like the anti-war side opposing Desert Storm in 1990-91 and only now in their attack on the current Iraq War do they claim falsely to have really been all for the Persian Gulf War. Which means, as they try to convey, that you can believe that their opposition isn't reflexive or anything like that. Feh.

We Can Wait. Can They?

The North Koreans claim to have provided a full disclosure of their nuclear programs back in November and won't do anything else until we start coughing up goodies.

We say they haven't disclosed a full disclosure:

Washington says it has evidence that Pyongyang imported material which could be used in a secret uranium enrichment programme. The North has never publicly admitted any such operation.

On the issue of the nuclear declaration, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the United States was "still waiting" for North Korea's full account of its nuclear programmes.

"We are awaiting the declaration, and we want it to be complete, full and accurate, and so that's what we'll be looking for. And we don't have that yet," he said.

But the North's foreign ministry said it had drafted a report in November last year and notified Washington of its contents, adding that "the DPRK has done what it should do."

This doesn't worry me. Let the impasse roll on:

Personally, I simply want the talks to drag on while North Korea implodes. Every month the talks go on, the more North Korea's military machine deteriorates. Each month, North Koreans head toward the point when fear is outweighed by desperation.

Talk, talk. Die, die.

Why They March

When I woke up today, I saw that two soldiers died in Sadiyah two days ago:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Jan. 3 in As Sadiyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked their unit using small arms fire during combat operations. Both Soldiers were assigned to the Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Killed were:

Maj. Andrew J. Olmsted, 37, of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Cpt. Thomas J. Casey, 32, of Albuquerque, N.M.

Andrew Olmsted? Yes, that Olmsted. It is always just a bit painful to read the death notices from the war every day or so. Lately, it has not been quite as much of a burden because the notices are less often and the weight of accumulating victory lessens my worry that their sacrifices might be in vain. But reading a name I know, a blogger and writer, hurt a bit more. Many military bloggers will be saddened that Olmsted has been killed.

Captain Casey, who died in the same combat, probably won't get the same blogosphere treatment. His is just a name unknown to all but his friends and family. The circle of grief will be smaller for Thomas Casey but far more intense than for Major Olmsted because Casey's mourners will be restricted to friends and family and not include email contacts and readers.

Both died for their country whether they think of it that way or not. Each swore to defend our nation and constitution. And each pledged to give away some of their freedoms to defend ours. They had no choice about what war they would be sent to. It could have been the "good" war in Afghanistan or the "bad" war in Iraq (by the anti-war side's logic). Or it could have been South Korea. Or someplace comfortable. Dying in Sadiyah wasn't their choice. Serving in Iraq wasn't their choice. But serving their country as soldiers was their choice. I took the same oath at one time. It is a powerful feeling to pledge so much. And these two soldiers paid the price for their honor and commitment.

I contrast their choices with the self-absorbed anti-war side. Those people protest Iraq and feel good about themselves. But how selfless are they, really? They chose their war to protest. There are lots of wars going on now. What if, in order to protest, they had to sign of with the Protest Corps and were assigned which war to protest?

PC: "You and you: Iraq."

Protesters: "Yes!! I was hoping for this assignment."

PC: You: Afghanistan."

Protester: "But that's the good war!"

PC: "You and you: Somalia."

Protesters: "Somalia? Aww come on! Nobody even knows about Somalia!"

PC: "Suck it up. It won't impress the hirsute chicks but there's a war on dudes. Moving on. You two: Philippines."

Protesters: "Is there even a war going on there?"

Yet protesters get to pretend they are the ones who are morally superior to our "mercenary" soldiers. When the shooting gets close, the human shields march home. If the weather is poor, protesters won't march in the same numbers. Or if there is a Grateful Dead concert that night, of course. They march if it feels good or if they just feel like it.

When the shooting starts, that's when a soldiers's job begins. Whatever the weather. Regardless of where they'd rather be. Whether they want to be there or not. Whether they agree with the war, the war's objectives, or the conduct of the war. They march to the sounds of the gunfire to protect the rest of us. Because they have honor and risk their lives to uphold their honor.

So thank you Major Olmsted and Captain Casey. I'm sorry you were killed. I am grateful that men and women like you march toward the sound of the guns.

Rest in peace.

Medical Malpractice

I don't want to make too much of this since jihadis seem to be inspired to kill over any little perceived affront. But it might be time for those on the Left who claim Iraq inspired Moslems to become jihadis to consider whether jihadis are inspired to kill by the actual liberation of Iraq from a thug ruler or by the reports of a fictional Iraq of wanton American killing of Iraqis that the anti-war side promotes:

Three weeks before the 2006 midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, a shocking study reported on the number of Iraqis who had died in the ongoing war. It bolstered criticism of President Bush and heightened the waves of dread -- here and around the world -- about the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Published by The Lancet, a venerable British medical journal, the study [PDF] used previously accepted methods for calculating death rates to estimate the number of "excess" Iraqi deaths after the 2003 invasion at 426,369 to 793,663; the study said the most likely figure was near the middle of that range: 654,965. Almost 92 percent of the dead, the study asserted, were killed by bullets, bombs, or U.S. air strikes. This stunning toll was more than 10 times the number of deaths estimated by the Iraqi or U.S. governments, or by any human-rights group. ...

CBS News called the report a "new and stunning measure of the havoc the American invasion unleashed in Iraq." CNN began its report this way: "War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis, or more than 500 people a day, since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports." Within a week, the study had been featured in 25 news shows and 188 articles in U.S. newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Editorials in many major newspapers cited the Lancet article as further evidence that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, and the liberal blogosphere ridiculed Bush for his response. Prominent mainstream media outlets quoted various academics who vouched for the study's methodology, including some who said they had reviewed the data before publication.

Within a few weeks a backlash rose, although the contrarian view of the study generated far less press attention than the Lancet article. In the ensuing year, numerous skeptics have identified various weaknesses with the study's methodology and conclusions. Political blogs and academic journals have registered and responded to the objections in a debate that has been simultaneously arcane and predictable. The arguments are arcane because that is the nature of statistical analysis. They are predictable because that is the nature of today's polarized political discourse, with liberals defending the Lancet study and conservatives contesting it.

It was apparent to me that the charge was preposterous. I didn't believe the earlier 2004 study let alone the 2006 crapfest, or any other allegation that there are mountains of bodies that the press just hasn't noticed in Iraq despite every anti-American photographer looking for a Pulitzer operating in Iraq.

The article on the 2006 Lancet piece goes into problems in the entire process. Not the least of which is that this is just another example of civilian institutions becoming just another front in the war directly supporting one side in a conflict.

Just as Iraqis have paid a price for our Left's vigorous dissent, people are dying at least in part because true believers are twisting the facts to achieve an objective the believers think justifies the trashing of previously trusted institutions.

Over the last several years, I've asked if we should even care about the opinions of the Moslem street if they really oppose the liberation of Iraq. Even the non-Left anti-war side here will concede it is good that Saddam is gone (right before the inevitable "but ..."). The real problem is that the Moslem street doesn't have an understanding of Iraq even that advanced. They truly believe, because of their press, the Western European press, and selective reporting of Western news such as the Lancet propaganda attacks, that we are slaughtering innocent Iraqis.

Will there be a backlash against the corruption of once-trusted institutions perverted for the sake of promoting our defeat once Iraq calms down and the world starts to notice that the Iraqis like us, are grateful for our help, that we were very careful when using our weapons, that dead Iraqis were almost totally the victims of jihadis and Sadrist militias, and that the only mass graves are from Saddam's era?

Man. I really am an optimist.

Wag the Dogs

The media is increasingly aware of the threat of Shia militias, often supported by Iran, like Sadr's bunch of thugs:

In 2007 the United States military put its most dangerous enemy on the run. In 2008 it may face an even more entrenched foe. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the primary target of the American troop surge and counter-insurgency strategy, appears to be on its last legs after a year of being attacked from all sides. But Shi'ite militias, which have deep roots in Iraq's Shi'a communities and the Shi'ite-dominated government, may now pose a more serious long-term threat.

I've been arguing this point for nearly three years now. When you stop being distracted by shiny objects and the daily car bomb, you should have been able to see that the Sunni Arabs of al Qaeda could only kill and not take over just as it was true that the Baathists and Sunni Arab nationalists lacked the numbers to take over against the Shia- and Kurd-dominated government. Even after years of fighting us, they did not build up the numbers to be a real threat. And the gangs are a profit-seeking force for violence and not a politically focused threat. Logically, given the weakness of the other sources of violence, a threat based on anti-democratic forces within the majority Shia was the long-term threat.

And the article makes the point that we've had to be careful taking on Sadr and related Shia militias. As I've noted, if we lose the Shias, what's the point of staying in Iraq? We liberated them and so angering them by appearing to target Shias--even Shias suspected of working with Iranians--will generate more and more sympathy the longer such an overt conflict takes place.

But we have been careful. The article overstates the power of the Shia militias by failing to note the results of our campaign to divide the militias and target only the irreconcilable killers. The article fails to note the increasing taint of Persians and corruption that the militias displayed since August 2004. Sadr hasn't taken us on in the streets because we blasted him twice in 2004 (carefully, I should add, fighting even close to mosques without providing Sadr with any incident he might exploit) when he tried that route. And the militias--never commanding the sympathies of more than a sizable minority of Shias--have shown themselves to be thugs and corrupt thugs to boot. Their support isn't as wide as it once was.

What I do worry about is that the Iranians will mobilize their Iraqi allies and their infiltrated Iranian agents posing as Iraqis to astroturf a "mass" uprising. One problem is that such a staged event needs the extra violence once provided by al Qaeda to create a larger mass of violence that a shallow uprising could exploit by operating within that existing violence. I don't think such a pageant could possibly defeat the Iraqi government. But it could panic enough people in America to retreat. The question is, have the Iranians given up on fighting us in Iraq? Is the decrease in attacks by Iranian-supplied weapons a result of Iran giving up or lying low waiting for the right time to attack?

I feel better about dealing with the Shia militia threat today than I have at any time in the last three years. The trend the press is noting only now is largely a fading trend. The threat all depends on whether Iran is still willing to wage war on us in Iraq.

Back to Basics

Strategypage adds an interesting twist in the increasingly recognized trend of al Qaeda shifting their focus from Iraq to Pakistan:

Meanwhile, al Qaeda has pretty much admitted defeat in Iraq, and moved on to try their luck in Pakistan and Israel.

Israel? Sure, as unlikely as winning in Pakistan is, at least al Qaeda can comfort themselves that they are at least trying to win a bigger prize.

And sure, al Qaeda failed to make Somalia their backup jihad after the Ethiopians swept into town a year ago. They need to go somewhere with Iraq and Afghanistan not working out for them.

But really, focusing on Israel? In what world does this make sense? I cannot think of a harder target. And if al Qaeda is pinning their hopes on the Palestinians to carry them to the glorious caliphate, people who have proven to be the most self-destructive people on the planet, I cannot imagine just how desperate bin Laden is.

Still, when the business is taking a beating, perhaps it is best to get back to that core jihadi business model--killing Jews.

Combat Air Support

I thought it was a mistake at the time to hold off our Marines in the First Battle of Fallujah and essentially hand it over to jihadis in April 2004.

The Arab-language media was instrumental in building the pressure that led the Bush administration to reverse course and halt the assault:

A secret intelligence assessment of the first battle of Fallujah shows that the U.S. military thinks that it lost control over information about what was happening in the town, leading to "political pressure" that ended its April 2004 offensive with control being handed to Sunni insurgents.

"The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion — coalition victory," read the assessment, prepared by analysts at the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC.

"But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. ... The effects of media coverage, enemy information operations and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations," concluded the assessment.

When the media can bend reality, I don't know why our press wonders why supporters of the military distrust them as a group? Sure, this report was about Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, but when much of our press writes as if they have no personal interest in our victory and even seem to want our defeat, the military-press gap will lead to distrust of reporters.

I will say, to our media's credit, that in the Second Battle of Fallujah the report credits the Western reporters with rebutting new charges of excessive civilian casualties.

As a word of caution, it is certainly possible that we judged our support among the Shias as too weak to really continue the offensive in the face of the negative and inaccurate news coverage. Remember, this was just the beginning of the Baathist-jihadi alliance that alienated Shias and drove them to support us. Before the summer of 2004, the Shias remembered our abandonment of them in 1991 after they rose up against Saddam. While happy Saddam was gone, they weren't ready to trust us again. After the enemy attacks lasting from April to August 2004, the Shias stopped blaming us for bombings and started blaming Sunni Arabs.

Before our real-time 24/7 media, it used to be the case that the winners wrote the history. Now, those who wish to shape the outcome write the instant history. Of course, when we tried to shape the instant history by paying Iraqi papers to print true stories we wrote, we just get slammed for it.

Can't Risk that Moderate Level of Confidence

Our intelligence agencies are pretty sure that Iran stopped their narrowly defined military nuclear programs in 2003. They have only moderate confidence that they haven't been restarted since. Yet our media and permanent foreign policy elites have concluded that Iran is not a threat.

So Iran's Supreme Leader makes an interesting admission when he declines to want ties with America:

Khamenei said restoring ties with the U.S. now would "provide opportunity for security agents to come and go, as well as for espionage."

"It has no benefit for Iranian nation," state radio quoted him as saying at a student group meeting in the central province of Yazd. It would be an "opportunity for U.S. infiltration, traffic of their intelligence agents and espionage of Iran."

People often ask why we are "afraid" to talk to enemies. Will anybody ask this about Iran?

No. Because we know why Iran doesn't want open relations with America. They can't have an inconvenient truth exposed that Iran is still hell bent on getting nukes, now can they?

People in the West are devoting their lives to worrying about carbon footprints when all I really care about are plutonium footprints. Silly me.

But perhaps Ahmadinejad will buy nice carbon offsets to make up for detonating a low-yield nuke or two. Then it will be planet friendly!

The Audacity of Dopes

Why do people who know nothing about defense matters insist on lecturing on defense matters?

Glenn Greenwald (tip to Weekly Standard), a case in point, believes that we spend too much money on defense:

Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world's spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place country, China, spends. "Only" about $150 billion of the total U.S. amount is attributable to the two active wars we're fighting, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, even if one wants to excludes those amounts, the basic picture remains the same. ...

In indisputable sum, we are the world's empire, in a state of permanent war readiness. In American politics and policy, there is no distinction between "peacetime" and "war." We're the most militarized country in the world by far, on permanent war footing, far beyond what anyone could ever remotely argue is necessary for "defense" or a "strong defense," no matter how broad a definition one wants to adopt for those terms.

Let's recount his cluelessness. Stay with me, this will take a bit. Allow me the privilege of simply ignoring the foolish "empire" remark.

One, since 2002 it has formally been the policy of the United States to maintain a margin of superiority that it will discourage potential enemies from even trying to match us:

We know from history that deterrence can fail; and we know from experience that some enemies cannot be deterred. The United States must and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy—whether a state or non-state actor—to impose its will on the United States, our allies, or our friends. We will maintain the forces sufficient to support our obligations, and to defend freedom. Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.

If we were talking about any social program this would be called a wise preventative measure that saves money in the long run by forestalling the need to spend much more if we wait to solve a problem after it emerges. Anybody want to wonder if the Twin Towers would be standing today if we had taken bin Laden into captivity in the mid-1990s? We still spend less of our GDP on defense than we did in the Cold War, so this burden is not going to break us.

Second, we spend money to avoid spending lives. Our budget pays for excellent equipment and thorough training that spares both our troops and civilians in the battle area.

Third, a lot of our budget goes to personnel compensation and payments to veterans.

Fourth, we have a significant nuclear force whose purpose is solely to keep conflicts from going nuclear and which do not add to our conventional combat ability. China does not have anywhere near the cost we have. Most countries don't have this cost at all.

Fifth, basing spending comparisons with a starting point of 1998 starts us nearly a decade into the "procurement holiday" where our defense spending declined as our military was reduced in size. We could get away with not buying new equipment because as we cut force levels, the best of the equipment we had could be given to remaining units and we still had plenty of spare equipment in reserve. We actually did judge we were in peacetime and reduced our spending quite a bit. Since 9/11, spending has gone back up. The problem isn't that our country doesn't recognize the difference between peace and war, but that our Left doesn't really believe we are at war. If our enemies don't stop trying to kill us, in what world does it make sense to simply stop fighting those enemies?

Sixth, we are a global superpower. Unlike any other country in the world, we can deploy our military anywhere on the globe to defend our interests and our allies, supply it, and win a war. Even wealthy Europe couldn't spearhead two fairly minor military interventions in the nearby Balkans in the 1990s. Unless you find it acceptable to fight with China east of Hawaii should it come to war rather than off of China's coast, don't talk about the cost of fighting away from our homeland. We saw what terrorists can do to us when they wage war on our soil. Don't think a nation with that capability would do less harm.

Seventh, in regard to China, our military is surely far superior to their military and will remain so for decades, I judge. Although Peking's lack of transparency about defense spending is definitely a worry in the long run. But remember that in 1941, Japan's economy was about a tenth of ours. China's is what? Forty percent of ours? Like Japan in 1941, China today can threaten us just by being able to project power into their own neighborhood. If China can dominate the air over and water around Taiwan only 100 miles from their coast for several weeks, Taiwan could fall and we'd see quite the fallout. It would be a signal event demonstrating our inability to protect allies close to China. The effect on India, Pakistan, Central Asia, South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Australia could shake our alliances and friendships.

I count our country lucky to be able to afford enough defense spending to actually, you know, defend ourselves from actual and potential enemies. Is that actually "too broad" of a definition? What other country can actually say that they spend enough to protect themselves? I mean what country that doesn't count on us to defend them can say that?

Funny enough, the ranks of those who say we spend too much include many who say we failed to equip or train our troops properly for the war--supposed deficiencies that would cost money to correct. Pick a complaint, people. Do we spend too little or too much? Pick only one.

Hey, for those who think a film critic is qualified to opine on foreign policy, I guess his piece is about par for the course. Heck, it even has color charts!

Give me a break. I won't comment on the costume authenticity of Off-Broadway plays if people like Greenwald will stop offering advice on defense policy.

You've got to know your limitations.

The Taliban Campaign

Since the summer, I've noted the increased jihadi attention to Pakistan and predicted that Pakistan would become the next front--the Taliban Campaign. I also argued that the Pakistanis would need to welcome more of our direct help in their western frontier regions to battle the greater threat.

More analysts are coming to the same conclusion:

"Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flashpoint in the coming year," US think tank Strategic Forecasting said in an evaluation of al-Qa'ida's tactics as the Islamist group comes under mounting pressure in Iraq.

With the "rapid spread of Talibanisation" in Pakistan's insurgent northwest, the country would become "especially important if the trend in Iraq continues to go against the jihadis and they are driven from Iraq", the assessment says.

"As the global headquarters for the al-Qa'ida leadership, Pakistan has long been a significant stronghold on the ideological battlefield. If the trend towards radicalisation continues, the country could become the new centre of gravity for the jihadi movement on the physical battlefield."

The Stratfor assessment coincided with reports from Washington suggesting US Special Forces would expand their presence in Pakistan in the new year.

While the issue of Pakistani nuclear weapons makes this campaign appear the most dangerous yet, I don't think the jihadis can draw to an inside straight and seize control of Pakistan.

Indeed, by taking what was once their secure rear area and turning it into an active front, the jihadis may be on their last jihad.

A Dangerous Vote

The United States claims that a Taiwanese referendum planned for March on whether the island democracy should be independent or still claim to be part of one China is dangerous:

Washington has repeatedly criticized the planned vote.

"We think that Taiwan's referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name Taiwan is a provocative policy," Rice said last month. "It unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage."

Perhaps. By this view, a vote for independence will only provoke China to invade Taiwan.

Given that China is building up forces and consistently claims Taiwan, I get the feeling that invading is a matter of calculating the balance of forces and not any Taiwanese declaration. As far as Peking is concenred, Taiwan's de facto independence must be ended regardless of the legal situation.

Further, I've come to think that Taiwan made a mistake not declaring independence between 1992 after the Soviet Union collapsed and 1996 after the Chinese fired missiles over Taiwan but before Chinese arms build ups reached today's point.

If that logic still hold true, might not the Taiwanese one day regret failing to press for independence now? Rather than just wait for China to decide to attack, shouldn't we be looking for an opportune time to have Taiwan declare independence when China cannot effectively respond?

In one sense, that is what Taiwan is doing--sort of--by having a vote on "independence." One thing that isn't considered, however, is the impact of the Taiwanese voting "no" on that question.

Given all the talk of a "yes" vote provoking an invasion, the irony is that a "no" vote might simply provide China with the justification for doing what they have always claimed they will do--absorb Taiwan and make it part of China even if they must use military force. If the Taiwanese vote no, the Chinese could claim to be rescuing the Taiwanese who have declared at the ballot their desire to be part of China.

If the Taiwanese vote on this question, the least dangerous vote for them is a "yes" vote. If the Chinese really want a smooth Olympics, the Chinese will have to quietly accept the declaration for many months--perhaps missing a window to strike while the disruption of the status quo is fresh. Or, if the Chinese aren't planning to attack Taiwan this year, ramping up an invasion as a result of the vote before the Chinese think they are ready might lead to a Chinese military defeat.

Or, if China attacks prior to the Olympics, at least their claim to be speaking for Taiwanese will be obviously false and the Taiwanese may have a stronger sense of freedom that will boost their morale and ability to hold out until we can help or even defeat the Chinese. On the downside, there might be a smaller chance that the United States and Japan will intervene if the Chinese strike quickly.

Interesting times.

Kiss My Largess

European elites want a European Union that can defend itself and rise to superpower status. While many spoke of a nuanced soft superpower, others spoke of a common foreign policy and an EU military structure separate from NATO. Either objective seems to grow less likely as time goes on. The Europeans simply won't spend the money to create the military they need to match their boundless ambition. And the fruitless European talks with Iran the last four years over their nuclear programs don't exactly strike me as an example of soft power defending European interests. Still, many here would welcome a stronger EU to check our power.

If the Euros can't out power us softly or with hard power, these people uncomfortable with American power will settle for Europeans directing American soft and hard power. Their fallback position is to make America the ideal European Union that cannot be built. You see, Europeans want American leadership again. But funny enough, they want us to lead them to where they already want to go:

Of course, the America that the world wants back is not the one that preemptively invades potential enemies, bullies allies or disdains international law. The demand is for an America that rallies other nations prone to sitting on the fence while international crises are boiling out of control; for a superpower that comes up with innovative initiatives to tackle the great challenges of the day, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and violent Islamist fundamentalism. The demand is for an America that enforces the rules that facilitate international commerce and works effectively to stabilize an accident-prone global economy. Naturally, the world also wants a superpower willing to foot the bill with a largess that no other nation can match.

Of course not? Can't have America being America. Pity that an America of that high-minded largess didn't exist in 1917, 1941, and the entire Cold War era to preserve Western civilization when Europeans were too bloodthirsty smashing Europe apart from within or too exhausted to defend it from external threats. Good grief. The absolute nerve of this position is enraging.

Preemptively invading potential enemies? The Afghanistan Campaign followed 9/11 and was blessed by NATO. In regard to Iraq, we were already at war with Iraq having violated the terms of the ceasefire. And the United Nations has repeatedly blessed our presence there. Who did we preemptively invade without any cause or recent history ? Cuba? Venezuela? Iran? North Korea? Syria? Sudan? China? Anybody??

We bully allies? Our allies leave Iraq when they want if they came to help at all, refuse to fight in Afghanistan, restrict themselves to nonmilitary help, and routinely scold us in public. We never insist on help, never retaliate, and instead express gratitude for help freely given. In what possible way do we bully allies? If they feel guilty and uncomfortable as we bear the burden of our common defense, that isn't our problem now is it?

And what international "law" do we violate? We abide by our treaty commitments and international agreements. We do not feel obligated to abide by treaties and agreements we have not ratified or signed. International law is not the same as domestic law. The world can insist that their agreements amongst themselves without our concurrence amounts to international "law" but that is hogwash.

So the world wants us to rally fence sitters to solve the crises of the day? That's what we've tried to do regarding nuclear proliferation, Islamo-fascism, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. Where has that gotten us? We've led. Damn few enough have followed. And where we've talked, we've gotten a North Korea and Iran which pretend not to have nuclear ambitions and Euros pretend to believe them. Which leads to the next silly statement by Naim.

Naim says Europe wants "innovative initiatives to tackle the great challenges of the day." No, Europe doesn't want "innovative" solutions to any of the problems cited--Europe and the Europeans at heart want stale collectivized conventional wisdom solutions to these problems. They're just mad we don't go a long with their lame ideas.

As for bolstering commerce, what the heck do they think we do? And I'm not even talking about the stabilizing impact of our Navy. We allow the world to export to us with hardly a complaint while other countries protect themselves from our exports. Will China absorb the world's production? Will Germany? France? Hah!

And then there's this bit: "Naturally, the world also wants a superpower willing to foot the bill with a largess that no other nation can match. "

Naturally! Naturally? I nearly spewed my drink when I read that. I see, we should do what the Euros want and be friggin' grateful that we're allowed to pay for it. Oh thank you sirs, we are unworthy!

Like I said, the Euros know that Euros won't pay for that type of a superpower so they want America to be the EU that the EU can never be. As an American, I naturally tell the Euros at heart (and not all Europeans are Euros just as truly as America has Euros at heart) to take a long walk off a short pier.

What these Euros and Euros at heart want is a powerful America directed by the sophisticated policies of a Brussels elite. Tamed by nuance, we should do what Euros want in the world yet remain strong enough to be unleashed to save the Euros from their feeble state when real enemies threaten them.

Screw that idea. We're Americans, damn it. Should we ever cease to be Americans the world will be in deep trouble. These Euro-worshippers can shave extra close and kiss my largess, thank you very much.

Any Good Soldier

I have not been eager to create a constabulary corps to fight insurgencies. I think it is folly to create a specific force unsuitable for the higher end of the conflict spectrum when I contend any good soldier can fight insurgents if properly led. Make sure we have certain specific counter-insurgency (COIN) units and leaders who understand COIN, and we can use forces primarily intended for conventional high intensity warfare in COIN.

When reading A Better War, a 1999 book by Lewis Sorley that focuses on the post-Tet Vietnam War, I was struck by the demonstration of my position. After years of big unit operations under Westmoreland, Abrams turned our efforts on a dime after he took command in June 1968:

"The tactics changed within fifteen minutes of Abrams's taking command," affirmed General Fred Weyand, who was in a position to know. ...

What Weyand saw was a dramatic shift in concept of the nature and conduct of the war, in the appropriate measrues of merit, and in the tactics to be applied. ...

[Abrams understood that the] "object was not destruction but control, and in this case particularly control of the population.

There was no retraining of our forces. No creation of new COIN units. Just a determination to use our existing soldiers trained and experienced in the big unit fight for COIN to protect the people while still fighting the big units. It worked.

And of course, it worked in Iraq without bringing in a new army. When instructed to secure the population instead of relying on Iraqi forces to do the job, our forces secured the population.

Stop creating a problem where there is none. We have good soldiers and Marines. Lead them and tell them how to fight and they will fight that way. Our troops are disciplined enough to kill or protect. Just make sure those doing the leading know what the hell they are talking about.