Life Without an Effective America

Iran works with North Korea on nuclear missile technology. It's only fair that South Korea and Saudi Arabia cooperate, too.

If our Left tries to get international arrest warrants for those 47 US senators who penned an open letter to Iran's mullahs warning them that they really can't get the agreement of their dreams by coming to an agreement with President Obama and his court jester, Kerry, I dare say that the senators will get asylum in Saudi Arabia:

As U.S. and Iranian diplomats inched toward progress on Tehran’s nuclear program last week, Saudi Arabia quietly signed its own nuclear-cooperation agreement with South Korea.

That agreement, along with recent comments from Saudi officials and royals, is raising concerns on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies that a deal with Iran, rather than stanching the spread of nuclear technologies, risks fueling it.

Ya think?

The article also notes the possibility of Saudi Arabia getting some pay back on their long support for Pakistan's nuclear work and aid in general:

A number of senior Arab officials have warned the White House in recent months the Saudi government could seek Pakistan’s aid in developing nuclear technologies — or even buy an atomic bomb — if it sees an agreement with Iran as too weak.

And while Iran seeks long-range nuclear missiles, Saudi Arabia doesn't need that kind of headache to reach Iran, which has a poor air force and third rate air defenses if Saudi Arabia buys Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 fighter bombers.

Although nuclear missiles are an option.

Heck, if I was the Israelis, I'd think about providing secured nuclear warheads to the Saudis:

What if Israel, despite its rhetoric, does not believe they can strike Iran absent an American green light? A green light that an America determined to score a final deal with Iran will not provide.

If Israel can't risk alienating us by striking Iran and is sure that Saudi Arabia will get nuclear weapons from Pakistan in response to a nuclear Iran, might not Israel provide nukes that perhaps have safeguards built in to them to prevent them from being launched at any target but Iran?

If Israel hard wires them for whatever targets in Iran that Saudi Arabia is willing to target, could the warheads be locked up so they can't be reprogrammed or disassembled for their raw materials?

Could the weapons be designed to degrade to inert condition within a couple years (they do, anyway, because of a special gas required--in our designs, anyway), requiring Saudi Arabia to rotate the weapons back to Israel for replacement that often?

For Saudi Arabia, they'd have better quality nukes than Iran's North Korean- and Pakistan-derived design, and would not risk antagonizing India over nuclear cooperation with Pakistan.

And maybe other states in the region would feel safer with Saudi nukes that can only be fired at Iran, thus stopping post-nuclear Iran nuclear proliferation at one more--Saudi Arabia.

Shoot. We might even be quietly relieved that Saudi Arabia doesn't go the Pakistan route if we accept Saudi nuclear ambitions as readily as we accept Iran's nuclear ambitions.

I don't know if that is even possible. But we provided NATO allies with our nukes that in theory they could drop on the Soviets if it came to war. Surely, the technology is a little better now.

One last thing. Note how despite all the lefty complaints about Israel's nukes, it's only when Iran stands on the verge of Obama-sanctioned nuclear capability that Arab states seriously think about whether they need nukes, too.

UPDATE: Speaking of drooling idiots who fail to see the lack of worry that Israel will use their nuclear weapons short of national extinction.

Breaking an Army

The idea that it doesn't make sense to help Ukraine resist Russia's invasion is nonsense.

I've long argued that Russia needs to pay a price for their aggression against Ukraine and that helping Ukraine fight Russia is the way to do it.

A report indicates that the year-long war is straining Russia's military. Do read it. It isn't long.

The war has been low level against a small fraction of Ukraine's combat forces, yet Russia is compelled to bring in troops from all over Russia, compel draftees into becoming "contract" soldiers, putting troops from different units together to form battle groups for the Donbas, and even using Interior Ministry troops behind the lines to keep Russian troops from retreating.

And this is aside from the financial cost.

Also interesting is that the Russians have sometimes provided command and control and specialist troops and sometimes committed their troops to the front. This may reflect my uncertainty about what the Russians were doing--they did both depending on the time.

It is not futile to help Ukraine fight Russia. By insisting it is futile, we only help Russia win by compelling Ukraine to give up through lack of alternatives.

UPDATE: I found the article in that now-dead link at the Internet Wayback Machine.

One Down

Iraqi forces have planted their flag in Tikrit:

Iraqi government forces and allied Shiite militias began consolidating control over most of the city of Tikrit on Wednesday, declaring they were on their way to a strategically and emotionally significant victory in their nine-day offensive against Islamic State militants there.

Given the disparity in forces--tens of thousands versus hundreds--this isn't too shocking.

What is interesting is that the jihadis didn't decide to fight. They decided that the time for Paradise was not this place or this time.

They could have stood and died in place, making the city fight bloody for both sides and civilians caught in the crossfire.

What remains to be seen is whether the jihadis fled or went underground to wage a terror campaign against the Iraqi forces.

And it remains to be seen whether the terrorists can call on local support to shield the terrorists.

But in the short run, this is good. The Iraqis took back a city and (so far) the Shia militias supported by Iran haven't massacred Sunni Arab civilians.

If we do plan a drive on Mosul in the spring, the outcome of this operation does not set back that timetable.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. The jihadis have apparently hunkered down in the city center:

The [Iraqi] military source said the insurgents still held the presidential complex and at least three other districts in the center of Tikrit, holding up further army advances with snipers and bombs.

So now we'll see if the ISIL defenders are eager for Paradise.

Math is Hard!

Given Hillary Clinton's argument that it was too tough for her to handle two phones (or one phone with two email systems?), perhaps she can be the new Barbie programmer. You remember that recent assault on women, right?

The story begins on a quaint morning. Barbie is typing away on her laptop. Barbie’s little sister Skipper asks her what she’s up to, and she enthusiastically responds that she’s designing a game for children. Skipper asks if he can play the game she’s designing, but Barbie shrugs happily and says, “I’m only creating the design ideas. I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!”

Barbie needs help to cope with a computer virus, too.

Remember the grief that toy company got for that?

And now a leading contender for the presidential nomination of one of our parties can't handle email.

UPDATE: While only partly related (Carville does do some math!), I strongly believe that denying Hillary Clinton the presidency is worth it for no other reason than to keep that human gargoyle, James Carville, from becoming a common sight on our evening news again.



Good grief. He's Gollum and Hillary is his precious.

Or Is the Air Force Speaking About a Contested Budget Environment?

The idea that the Air Force is peddling that the A-10 isn't intended for a "contested" environment and requires a "permissive" environment is just nonsense.

So the A-10 is a fragile thing that can't be risked against a shooting enemy?

[Air Force General Herbert J. “Hawk”] Carlisle insisted that the summit was not about A-10 politics or damage control. He suggested there is big misunderstanding about the Air Force’s commitment to close-air support and about what it will take to operate in enemy airspace in future wars. “This week was about taking everything we've learned and continue to get better so we can operate in contested environments.” ...

The problem with the 40-year-old A-10 — nicknamed the Warthog for its ungainly appearance — is not its performance today but its future inability to fly in defended airspace, Carlisle said. “In a permissive environment and some level of contested environment, the A-10 operates extremely well,” he said. In highly defended airspace, the A-10 is “going to have a challenge, so the F-35 is the next step.”

The A-10 was designed to kill Soviet tanks coming across the inter-German border in the teeth of the world's most contested air environment during the Cold War. It was not designed to sit in their hangars until the Air Force and our NATO allies could achieve air superiority.

The plane was designed to hit Soviet armored spearheads while the air fight up top took place, take damage, and keep flying, with armor and two engines in the rear and away from ground fire, which were designed (if my memory is accurate) to break away without destroying the plane, allowing the plane to limp home with just one engine.

Let's look at Global Security's description of the rugged design of this plane designed for a "permissive environment":

The A-10's survivability in the close air support arena greatly exceeds that of previous Air Force aircraft. The A-10 is designed to survive even the most disastrous damage and finish the mission by landing on an unimproved airfield. Specific survivability features include titanium armor plated cockpit, redundant flight control system separated by fuel tanks, manual reversion mode for flight controls, foam filled fuel tanks, ballistic foam void fillers, and a redundant primary structure providing "get home" capability after being hit.

All of the A-10's glass is bulletproof and the cockpit itself is surrounded by a heavy tub of titanium. Titanium armor protects both the pilot and critical areas of the flight control system. This titanium "bathtub" can survive direct hits from armor-piercing and high explosive projectiles up to 37mm in size. The front windscreen can withstand up to a 23mm projectile. Fire retardant foam protects the fuel cells which are also self sealing in the event of puncture.

The redundant primary structural sections allow the aircraft to enjoy better survivability during close air support than did previous aircraft. Designers separated all of the crucial battle and flight systems. The wheels can roll in their pods, which lets the plane perform belly landings without significant damage to the aircraft. Dual engines are mounted away from the Warthog's fuselage; if one is destroyed, the other can propel the craft to safety. Dual vertical stabilizers shield the hot exhaust from Russian-designed heat seeking missiles. The A-10 has two hydraulic flight control systems, backed up by a manual flight control system. This redundancy allows the pilot to control a battle damaged aircraft, even after losing all hydraulic power. Furthermore, redundant primary structural and control surfaces enhance survivability. Lastly, the long low-set wings are designed to allow flight, even if half a wing is completely blown off. No other modern aircraft -- including the F-16 -- can survive such punishment. The wings themselves are set low to allow for more weaponry to fit beneath the aircraft.

Yeah, what a wuss plane, just waiting for the air-to-air guys to provide a permissive environment for the A-10s to fly in.

I also don't like the notion that the recent history of the A-10 in providing close air support doesn't count because the A-10 was designed to take out Soviet tanks that really wasn't a close air support role.

I also contest the notion that CAS was not intended. In 1988, as I've related before, A-10s practiced night gun runs using our basic training night firing training as their own training aid.

I don't know how the Air Force brass defines "close" air support, but when a pilot is training on how to fight close to troops firing M-16s at night (without night vision gear), we're talking really close.

(Not that we experienced that level of close, but they were close enough for the pilot to see our muzzle flashes.)

But as that first article notes, the Air Force has reacted to the backlash against their effort to rid themselves of this troublesome plane:

In an unprecedented move, top Air Force leaders last week convened a “Close Air Support Summit” at the Pentagon with senior officials from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard Bureau and Special Operations Command.

Ah, a summit. Meetings. Maybe even PowerPoint presentations. And light refreshments. How splendid. Thanks a bunch. Nice to know they care.

Like I said, jointness talks, but money walks.

And we know what the Air Force leadership prioritizes. A summit is no way to build trust with the Army.

Oh, and in a further effort to kill the A-10 while maintaining the fiction that the A-10 requires a permissive air defense environment, the Air Force says they are now thinking about a cheap plane that really only can operate in permissive environments:

The U.S. Air Force is looking at Textron Inc's Scorpion and other aircraft to address future needs for low-end air support missions given its plans to retire the aging fleet of A-10 Warthog planes in coming years, a top general said Friday. ...

But growing threats in the Middle East and other areas - coupled with huge budget pressures - were forcing military officials to also look at a low-cost successor for the A-10 for less challenging or more "permissive" environments, he said.

This Plan B comes after the failed attempt to call the A-10 a friendly fire queen.

And I don't even trust the Air Force to buy that poor substitute. I suspect it will be studied until the day that the last A-10 is put in storage. Then the Air Force will discover that the Scorpion takes scarce ground maintenance troops away from the F-35, and we're darn close to getting the F-35 to fire its cannon any day now.

Face it, the case for the A-10 is strong.

The Air Force is squandering the result of more than a decade of excellent close air support for ground troops that went a long way to erasing suspicions about the Air Forces's interest and ability to provide effective ground support to our troops.

Let's Talk Treason, Shall We?

Nearly half of our senators sent an open letter to the Iranians telling them that they can't come to an agreement with America if they just go through President Obama. The Left has been outraged.

"Treason" has been coming easily from the lips of the Left. Holy Dissent be damned, I guess:

More than 155,000 people by Wednesday had signed a petition to the White House urging charges be filed against 47 Republican senators who they say committed "treasonous" offenses by writing Iran's leaders about ongoing nuclear negotiations.

But let's talk treason shall we?

Let's talk Ted Kennedy:

Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

Huh.

And remember, I was disdainful of Speaker Pelosi's trip to bow to Assad of Syria, but I didn't charge treason or any such rot. I just had no respect for it.

Given the body count in Syria under Assad, was Pelosi right to think Assad could be our partner in talk?

UPDATE: Back to Iran. The Left is saying the letter is treason, which is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Amazingly, Iran has to be an enemy for this charge to work.

And as for Iran? Does this sound like the letter gave them aid or comfort?

Mehr quoted [Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei as saying: "Of course I am worried, because the other side is known for opacity, deceit and backstabbing.

"Every time we reach a stage where the end of the negotiations is in sight, the tone of the other side, specifically the Americans, becomes harsher, coarser and tougher. This is the nature of their tricks and deceptions."

So in the negotiations, who is providing the aid and comfort to Iran?

Oh, and for the record, I think our administration is idiotic and unworthy of directing our foreign policy. I don't think they are treasonous.

But it does anger me that there is a not insignificant number of those on the Left easily flinging the "treason" charge.

UPDATE: Well, at least the critics haven't questioned the patriotism of the senators, right?

UPDATE: Wait. What?

During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies. The secret channel was Ambassador William G. Miller, who served in Iran during the shah’s rule, as chief of staff for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and as ambassador to Ukraine. Ambassador Miller has confirmed to me his conversations with Iranian leaders during the 2008 campaign.

So Iran blew off talks with Bush 43 to wait for President Obama? (Tip to Instapundit)

I eagerly await the petition for the 48th arrest.

UPDATE: This is late but I ran across it and it is very appropriate.

A Matter of Convenience?

Hillary Clinton could have spent the 58 seconds it takes to download a gmail app to her iPhone. It was not as "convenient":

Hillary Clinton, under attack for using a personal email address to conduct U.S. State Department business, defended the practice on Tuesday as a matter of "convenience," but her comments failed to calm critics, who accused her of secrecy.

But no, it was more convenient to buy a domain and server, set it up on her own property, have security guard it (and continue to guard it), and not mention it at all over the last couple years despite requests for her State Department emails and her defense that she has obeyed all the laws (what about policies that got her employee fired for using private email?) regarding email retention?

And I love that "critics" accuse her of "secrecy." Calming the critics is the issue rather than the secrecy, apparently.

How convenient.

Nixon in a pantsuit.

Grant Me That This is Funny

I wasn't impressed with the way our left embraced Thomas Piketty as their Great Left Hope for income redistribution (by the goverment).

Thomas Piketty isn't too impressed, either:

Progressives such as Princeton economist Paul Krugman seized on Mr. Piketty’s thesis to justify policies they have long wanted—namely, very high taxes on the wealthy.

Now in an extraordinary about-face, Mr. Piketty has backtracked, undermining the policy prescriptions many have based on his conclusions. In “About Capital in the 21st Century,” slated for May publication in the American Economic Review but already available online, Mr. Piketty writes that far too much has been read into his thesis.

Though his formula helps explain extreme and persistent wealth inequality before World War I, Mr. Piketty maintains, it doesn’t say much about the past 100 years.

Apparently, the economic science isn't as settled (in their favor) as our left wing thought.

UPDATE: Related:

The United States on Monday declared Venezuela a national security threat and ordered sanctions against seven officials from the oil-rich country in the worst bilateral diplomatic dispute since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013.

Remember when our Left loved Venezuela and the redistribution of income policies that the Left said Hugo and his mini-me Maduro implemented, but which have run the economy into the ground and made even the Obama administration conclude that those nutballs in Caracas are dangerous?

You have to admit, redistributing increasingly worthless currency in Venezuela will be useful as even toilet paper is in short supply.

Do Not Become Confused

The idea that Russia is right to fear that the near-toothless Europeans pose a threat to Russia is nonsense.

Here's one such nonsensical defense of Russia that rests on a foundation of pure nonsense:

Just for once, let us try this argument with an open mind, employing arithmetic and geography and going easy on the adjectives. Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 square miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding?

You have to be either really dumb or really smart to ignore the differences in those changes in territorial control in order to argue that the European Union is the real aggressor.

Russia lost that valuable territory because the people in that territory did not want to be part of Russia's empire. So when Soviet power wavered, they got out just as fast as the could and did not look back.

Russia has tried to make closer union with Moscow more attractive to those who were once within the Soviet Union itself, but has had no success outside of areas where Russian military power has solidified that union.

And Putin's Ukraine adventure is making even Belarus nervous about Russian intentions.

The European Union--and I'm no fan of the European Union, mind you--grew because nations have voluntarily joined (even if popular sentiment was sometimes lukewarm, elected governments did choose to enter the EU).

So the author has gone easy on the reality that requires appropriate adjectives to fully describe.

And unless the EU gets its own army, as the EU Commission president wants, EU members are free to leave the European Union:

"A joint EU army would show the world that there would never again be a war between EU countries," Juncker told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "Such an army would also help us to form common foreign and security policies and allow Europe to take on responsibility in the world."

The EU doesn't see NATO as its armed wing, I guess, as the above nonsensical case has it.

And this is humorous, in a are-you-freaking-seriously-arguing-this sort of way:

There is no obvious need for an adversarial system in post-Soviet Europe. Even if Russia wanted to reconquer its lost empire, as some believe (a belief for which there is no serious evidence), it is too weak and too poor to do this. So why not invite Russia to join the great western alliances? Alas, it is obvious to everyone, but never stated, that Russia cannot ever join either Nato or the EU, for if it did so it would unbalance them both by its sheer size. There are many possible ways of dealing with this. One would be an adult recognition of the limits of human power, combined with an understanding of Russia’s repeated experience of invasions and its lack of defensible borders.

This alone inclines me to the really stupid side of the explanatory spectrum.

NATO has been weakening since the Soviet Union collapsed and spent more effort trying to fight in Afghanistan--continuing the battle against jihadis that the Soviets lost--than it did in expanding military capabilities in new eastern European NATO members. Yet that caused the adversarial system developing?

The idea that Russia is too weak to reconquer its lost empire surely indicates that the author doesn't really believe that the USSR's loss of all that valuable territory was because  of the EU "conquest" of some of it.

And the claim that there is no evidence that Russia wants to reclaim their empire is nonsense as well.

Putin has said the fall of the USSR was a tragedy, has claimed special interest in ethnic Russians and in their "near abroad" (that would be foreign and sovereign members of the UN, to you and me), has sought to pull the former members of their empire into a closer union with Russia (gosh, no real interest there), and has used growing military power to regain bits of "lost" territory where they could, in Chechnya, Georgia, and now Ukraine.

And Russia continues to rebuild their military power.

Further, the idea of expanding NATO to include Russia is nonsense. If NATO is unwilling to see Russia's threat to Europe as a reason to have sufficient military power, is NATO really going to commit itself to defending Russia's control of their Far East against potential Chinese claims of losing valuable territory to Czarist Russia when China was weak?

And once again, I'll ask, just where would the boundary of Russia lie if the goal is to make Russia feel territorially secure? The Rhine River? The English Channel? Long Island?

I'm sorry Russia has experienced repeated invasions. But Sweden, Poland, France, and Germany don't have enough military power to invade Russia. America doesn't have that military power, for that matter.

And Mongolia is no longer a threat, too, if we're to maintain the fiction that once someone was a military threat to Russia it always will be.

(Say, how come Russia's more recent military threat to Western Europe doesn't allow us to worry about invasion if Russia gets to worry about more distant invasions? Doesn't a lack of defensible borders work in both directions?)

The ability of some Westerners to excuse any aggression as somehow understandable and justified, while dismissing our own security worries, is just amazing.

Do not become confused. Russia under the paranoid Putin is a growing threat to Europe and we should be grateful that NATO has extended itself as far east as it has.

And if the author's real beef is with the EU? Well, I'll share that hope that the EU dies.

UPDATE: Strategypage notes that Russia has had more success in getting their "near abroad" to integrate a little more closely than I remembered:

[In] 2014 Russia also agreed to provide Kyrgyzstan with half a billion dollars in economic aid in order to get Kyrgyzstan to join the Eurasian Economic Union. Earlier in 2014 Belarus and Kazakhstan were persuaded to join this new economic union with Russia. Armenia later joined as well. The Eurasian Economic Union became effective in 2015 and allows goods to move freely in all member countries (containing 176 million people and $4 trillion in GDP) without customs levies. Several other nations are also considering joining.

Kazakhstan has also agreed to become part of a unified multi-national air defense system sponsored by Russia. Belarus has also agreed to join and Armenia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are also expected to sign on as well. All this is more than helping out a neighbor with their defense needs. This is the less violent Russian approach to rebuilding their empire. For over a decade Russia has been proposing things like customs unions, military cooperation and rebuilding the old Soviet air defense system that used to defend everyone in the empire.

But I doubt Russia will find that they can leverage arms supplies and low tariffs to political control. Who would take that risk now?

Good Times. Good Times

If we come to a nuclear agreement with Iran, I guess we can look forward to reviving all the nuanced discussions of whether Iran's nuclear weapons status is imminent and whether we have sufficient proof to say Iran is cheating.

Iran will go nuclear and we will do nothing.

Oh, and then we can revive talk of nuclear deterrence.  Because we all remember how we considered that such an ideal situation during the Cold War.

Our options aren't good after all this time. Yes, we can be grateful that Iran hasn't gotten nukes as past worst-case estimates have given us (See? isn't the imminence debate fun?)

Striking Iran is now more difficult because Iran's knowledge base and institutional base is so much larger that Iran will have less trouble rebuilding what we wreck.

Add in the impossibility of knowing how much of Iran's nuclear program is actually in other countries (as it is with North Korea and was in Syria before Israel blew up a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea), and we have to admit that striking Iran to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions is more difficult now.

Of course, I've always held that regime change is the best way to remove Iran's nuclear threat; and that attacking Iran just buys time.

But I'd rather have that purchased time without a nuclear Iran, if that is our only choice.

ARGGHHHH!!! For God's Sake, Stop the Stupidity!

What is with the persistent notion that President Obama coming to an agreement with Iran that turns Iran into our security partner is a "Nixon goes to China" moment?

Here we go again with the idea that a deal with Iran would be a similar geopolitical triumph:

Obama's 'Nixon Goes to China' Moment?

I have no doubt that the president wants a major foreign deal for his "legacy."

But the reason we have the expression, "only Nixon can go to China" is because Nixon had a solid anti-Communist record and so had the credibility to argue that moving to ally with communist China to resist the Soviet Union was in our interest.

In what alternate universe has President Obama earned credibility for his resolve to resist anything other than Republicans and the dread Straw Man?

A deal with Iran wouldn't be a "Nixon goes to China" moment. It will be a "Chamberlain goes to Munich" moment, with equally wrong-headed boasts that we have achieved peace for our time.

Although if President Obama claims we've achieved "peace with honor," maybe I'll reopen the Nixon comparison.

Of course, that utterance would still leave the Munich comparison open. So the scale of our defeat may be subject to debate--after we awaken from our nice quiet sleep, of course.

UPDATE: Stupidity continues:

News that 47 Republican senators sent a signed letter to Iran's leaders warning them against cutting a deal with the Obama administration had many Americans openly questioning whether the action constituted treason.

I sincerely doubt that "many" Americans are actually questioning that.

If Iran is the enemy in question, Democrats should be careful about throwing that charge around. Just who in this drama is "giving aid and comfort" to Iran, a country that has the blood of a lot of Americans on its hands?

That letter gave Iran a lesson in separation of powers, and that an agreement with President Obama not ratified by the Senate is not an agreement with the United States.

Of course, Iran might think two more years are enough.

UPDATE: I don't know if actual people are questioning the letter, but Democrats sure are.

But their charge of "treason" or like attacks questioning the patriotism of Republican senators rests on shaky ground for them. It rests on the notion that Iran is our "enemy."

You can't have treason if you don't have an enemy to give aid and comfort to, no?

So perhaps this is progress. The Left has generally defined nations as either friends who are not pure enough to be our friends and countries we just haven't tried hard enough to make our friends. "Enemies" had no place in their lexicon.

Maybe Republicans should amend the AUMF against ISIL to include Iran, eh?

And check out Hillary Clinton desperate for people to believe the vast majority of her private off-the-books emails were about funerals and cat videos and talk about anything but that:

"There appear to be two logical answers. Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander-in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letters' signatories," Clinton added.

Look! Squirrel Republicans!

Say, here's a third logical answer. The Republican senators are letting Iran (and our president) know that if the Iranians manage to get a deal from President Obama and that idiot savant, Kerry, that is so good for Iran's nuclear ambitions that the mullahs cannot avoid concluding that God really is on their side, that our Senate will not go along with the fiction of peace for our time.

UPDATE: If President Obama wants a real "Nixon goes to China" moment for Iran, here's an old post of mine that argues that only a future President Obama could get away with striking Iran.

Their Psychological Problems Are Our Problem, Unfortunately

The funny thing is, for all of Russia's paranoia about Western plots to undermine and destroy Russia, we actually don't have any interest in Russia's collapse or defeat.

That NATO-Russian relations have reached this stage is just ridiculous and the Russians should be embarrassed by their paranoia:

NATO and Russia exchanged heated language reminiscent of Cold War days on Thursday with accusations of sinister geopolitical plotting and human rights abuses flying across an increasingly deep divide.

NATO's top U.S. civilian official, Alexander Vershbow, said Thursday that "an angry, revisionist Russia" was stopping at little to re-establish its clout in Europe, including redrawing "borders by force to achieve its goals."

But what are we supposed to do? Just let Russia push their borders west until Moscow feels secure?

Paranoia of the kind that grips Moscow these days can never be assuaged.

Even as we have to resist Russian efforts that threaten the West, we don't want our efforts to cause a further collapse of Moscow's territory that allows China to pick up the pieces, either formally or by local proxies cutting deals with Peking.

In my frustration over Moscow's actions and attitudes, I've written that Russia would get what it deserves if China pounces on their Far East as Russia fixates on a false threat from NATO.

While Russia might deserve that outcome, I actually don't want that to happen.

I don't want China to gain territory at Russia's expense and I really don't want Russia with their paranoia and large nuclear arsenal to feel like they are being dismembered by a vast plot of foreigners that includes America as well as China.

Russia under Putin is the sick, angry man of Europe (of Eurasia, actually) whose threat to the West lies as much in their collapse as in their hostility and aggression, as I wrote after Russia's aggression against Georgia:

Now we have to figure out what to about the Russia Question: An angry sick man of Europe that has nuclear weapons and enough residual conventional power to threaten small neighbors, whose potential for collapse is as disquieting as their aggressive stance.

As much as I have so little respect for our American and European allied leadership to handle the problems, I'll never claim that dealing with Putin's Russia is easy.

UPDATE: Putin's attitude is spreading:

After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time since the Stalin era, observers say.

That's nice. Many in Russia really do think we're out to get them, when in reality we've hardly given them a thought over the last 25 years except when they invaded Georgia and Ukraine.

A Short But Exciting Life

As Russia makes a play to be a major actor in the eastern Mediterranean, don't forget that the Black Sea bastion that Russia would need to sustain their effort in the Mediterranean is far more vulnerable to NATO even after the seizure and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Yes, Russia is making advances in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

But even if Russia has more capacity to force the Turkish straits than the Soviets had (or if Russia can turn Turkey away from NATO), NATO now has the geographic position to contest Russia's forces in the Black Sea:

A NATO flotilla arrived in the Black Sea on Wednesday to train with ships from the Bulgarian, Romanian and Turkish navies, the U.S.-led Western alliance said.

It is just 6 ships, including one of our missile cruisers, but it reflects that we have a position on the western shore of the Black Sea now, with Romania and Bulgaria as NATO members.

Add to this the Turkish control of the southern shore, Ukraine's control of the northwest, and Russia's lack of control of all of the east where we have the potential of having a presence in Georgia (not a NATO member but a friend).

Of course, I think air power from all these land areas is the best threat we can pose to Russia's control of the Black Sea. Even as Russia makes a play for influence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, their power to exercise influence is a peacetime-only power.

If it comes to a shooting war, Russia's Black Sea military power will be fighting for its life and not worrying about supporting anything in the Mediterranean Sea.

Every Support Short of Help

Secretary Kerry is explaining the developing deal with Iran over their nuclear ambitions:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Paris to brief European officials on the status of nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Europe's help is important because if Iran cheated, we couldn't act without their resolute support when confronted with a foe.

Wait. What?

EU foreign ministers showed little appetite on Saturday for stepping up pressure on Russia over Ukraine, preferring to give a fragile ceasefire a chance before deciding whether to apply more sanctions or even to extend existing ones.

Russia violated international law and agreements to seize Crimea from Ukraine and invade eastern Ukraine's Donbas region; Russia directly intervened in the fighting between Ukraine's forces and Putin's hand puppet astro-turf rebels to prevent Ukraine's forces from defeating those secessionists; Russia violated a ceasefire to capture the Donetsk airport; and Russia violated another ceasefire before the ink was even dry to take Debaltseve from Ukrainian forces.

But because at this moment Russia isn't shooting at anyone, the Europeans want to give peace a chance.

Yeah, we can totally count on the Europeans to back a resolute response to any Iranian cheating.



As with so many problems, too many in the West are eager for our enemies to get to stage 4.

The Difference It Will Make, At That Point

The administration that didn't notice that Secretary of State Clinton wasn't using a secured government email account until they read it in the paper will notice if Iran is cheating on a nuclear agreement?

And just as important, if Russia or China managed to get at those emails, as Mark Steyn wonders, what kind of "flexibility" might they expect from a President Clinton to keep them secret--presumably the intent of Clinton for setting up an off the books email account and server to store them.

The New Calculation of MAD

Guess who's credit rating is in trouble.

For quite some time, people have argued that we can't confront China because of our debt that China holds. That is, China could wreck our economy because we owe them so much money.

I had my doubts about whether that was true. If push came to shove, why wouldn't we just repudiate our debt to China citing a war situation? And short of war, could China afford to sell off that debt to harm our credit? Would there even be buyers?

And if the threat was that China would stop buying our future debt (as an investment, remember), where would they put their money that would be safer? And if they didn't buy our debt, how would we continue to buy their products that keep their economy humming and their people reasonably quiet under Communist Party rule?

Regardless of how that situation would have played out in the past, China has passed us--by far, a quick Google search says we are on the order of 80%--in debt-to-GDP ratio:

According to a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), China’s debt has quadrupled from $7 trillion in 2007 to $28 trillion as of mid-2014, reaching 282 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and higher than the level of the United States. Continuing its current pace of growth would see China’s debt reach 400 percent of GDP by 2018, the equivalent of Spain.

Commenting on China’s debt explosion, the report said: “Several factors are worrisome: half of loans are linked directly or indirectly to China’s real estate market, unregulated shadow banking accounts for nearly half of new lending, and the debt of many local governments is likely unsustainable.”

Although it isn't entirely clear if we are comparing all debt--national, local, and private--to make the comparison. Perhaps just saying China's debt is "higher" includes more than just our federal debt level that I cited above.

Regardless, even if China's debt hasn't grown much worse, we at least have a situation of Mutually Assured Debt. China doesn't have the strangle-hold on us that so many people have assumed.

Maybe China can't really afford to buy Greece, after all.

Heck, maybe Russia should worry about China's debt. What if China's debt compels them to confront Russia for resources in the Russian Far East that China has now-dormant claims on?

So Explain Why Iran Will Sign a Nuclear Agreement

The Obama administration says that a nuclear agreement with Iran is the only way to avoid war.

I assume this means that the repercussions of Iran getting nuclear weapons is so bad that we would have to attack Iran to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons.

So my question is, if it is worth going to war with Iran to keep them from getting nukes, is it worth avoiding a bad agreement to keep Iran from going nuclear?

Because the administration seems to assume that the only choices are war or whatever deal that Iran (who wants nukes) will accept.

Isn't there a major flaw in the administration's logic?

If You Want 16 Ships ...

When nothing is left, you make more with what you have.

SOUTHCOM needs 16 ships, according to its commander, General Kelly:

So as I said, I don't need a warship. I need a ship, something that floats, with a helicopter. … We think it takes 16 of those things to accomplish the 40-percent mission,” Kelly told reporters.

The Navy needs their high end ships elsewhere and needs the small hulls in the Persian Gulf. So nothing is left.


Something that floats and carries a helicopter is a low standard. Modularized auxiliary cruisers could do the job.

Putin's Not Lovin' It

Does our anti-Russian evil know no depths?

Russian officials sharply criticised US fast-food giants Coca-Cola and McDonald's on Thursday for their "unhealthy" products, comparing aggressive advertising campaigns to a war on citizens.

Ah, the Burger Tsar is not amused. You will have it Putin's way, after all.

To be fair, I don't think we can be blamed for the McVodka Happy Meal.

Unclear on the Concept

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently struck a nerve with his speech to Congress on Iran:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu basically said that the only acceptable deal was a perfect deal, or an ideal deal,” [U.S. Representative] Yarmuth said. “It’s like the child that says, I want to go to Disneyland every day, eat ice cream and drink Coca-Cola every day, and not go to school.”

I certainly hope that Representative Yarmuth has a key position on the Committee on Nothing of Importance, because what Netanyahu really wants is for Israel not to be nuked by Iran.

And a less than perfect nuclear deal might actually lead to that outcome. What a spoiled brat, eh?

Somebody needs some schooling on Iran. And the man who didn't go to Congress that day to get the lesson isn't Netanyahu.

Please God, Let Them Build It. Please, Please, Please, Please, Please

Russia wants a super-dooper-carrier:

Moscow is planning to build at least one giant aircraft carrier, even larger than the US Nimitz class of supercarriers, to give Russia's navy the ability to project power around the globe, according to naval chief Viktor Chirkov.

The new carrier is still in the early planning stages, and many experts doubt Russia has the ability to construct such a vessel. But Admiral Chirkov's announcement does come amid a massive naval buildup that will see the Russian navy receive 50 new warships this year alone.

Please God, let them build it. Hell, build 3 or 4.

Diplomacy is the Art of Saying "Nice Doggie" Until You Find a Rock

I think I may have identified the problem with our diplomacy.

Is the man serious? Is the joke about the State Department needing an "American desk" accurate?

Simply demanding Iran's capitulation is no way to get a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday as he wrapped up three days of talks with a veiled dig at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I wasn't a droning senator for years--and don't own any spandex--but I think demanding Iran's capitulation is exactly how to get a nuclear deal that prevents Iran from going nuclear rather than one that gets Kerry a Nobel Peace Prize.

I think squeezing Iran until they believe that only having to give up their nuclear ambitions is a glorious win is exactly what we need to do.

But no, Kerry apparently believes that being the honest broker about whether Iran can kill millions of people in a nuclear Holocaust as they want or nobody as we want is the subject of give and take.

And Kerry is considered our least effective Secretary of State? Incroyable!

UPDATE: And we're so far from a policy of demanding capitulation that it isn't funny. Says the president's Deputy National Security Adviser:

“The purpose of the agreement is not to bet on the notion that Iran will moderate. The purpose of the agreement is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon throughout the duration of the agreement.”

So the agreement is one where we capitulate to Iran in ten years? Or perhaps fifteen?

I'm sure the Iranians will rub Kerry's tummy and say "nice doggie" as much as they need to.

 Incroyable.

When a Body Count Matters

I'm not sure what could impress Putin with the need to halt his aggression against Ukraine and deter further aggression other than more dead Russian soldiers.

One of our generals is on board this method of resisting Russia:

While emphasizing the U.S. still seeks a diplomatic solution to the crisis, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said in Berlin that helping Ukraine with weapons would increase the stakes for Russian President Vladimir Putin at home.

“When mothers start seeing sons come home dead, when that price goes up, then that domestic support begins to shrink,” he said.

He said Ukraine needs intelligence--which I assume means battlefield intelligence--counter fire capability--meaning the ability to fire back at Russian artillery--and something to stop tanks--which would mean infantry anti-tank weapons and probably engineering help to create obstacles. I'd say anti-tank mines, but they are politically incorrect these days.

But by all means, help Ukraine kill Russian soldiers at such a level that Putin can't hide the fact.

Heck, Putin isn't shy about increasing the body count of Russian foes. Why should we be more skittish?

Indeed, maybe Ukraine should be holding moving burial ceremonies for dead Russians in their custody and publishing them online.

Perhaps it has seemed crude for me to be arguing for an effort to kill Russian soldiers all along, but that's the reality of stopping Russia. General Hodges just stated the obvious.

UPDATE: Remember, it seems that Putin was willing to murder the dissident Nemtsov to keep the deaths of his soldiers as subliminal as his wars:

[An associate of Nemtsov,] Yashin said he and Nemtsov had spoken about the Ukraine report about a day and a half before his death.

"He told me he had been in touch with relatives of Russian soldiers killed there and he was planning a trip to Ivanovo to talk to the parents of those killed soldiers," Yashin said.

"He said in the very near future he was going to assemble and put in order various evidence and documents directly proving the presence of the Russian military on the territory of Ukraine and, accordingly, (exposing) President's Putin's lies that there are no Russian servicemen there."

Nemtsov had also settled on a title for the report, Yashin said. He was planning to call it: "Putin and the War".

Little dead green men aren't as cool.

UPDATE: For this NATO official's statement to be true, the identities and total count are necessary:

“Russian leaders are less and less able to conceal the fact that Russian soldiers are fighting – and dying – in large numbers in eastern Ukraine,” Alexander Vershbow said at a conference in Latvia on Thursday, adding that NATO believes the deaths are making the conflict increasingly unpopular among Russians.

So far the "little green men" are polite and bloodlessly victorious. The concealment is still working.

The Narva Fulcrum?

Could Russia's Putin destroy NATO's credibility to defend its members in Estonia, thus undermining Ukraine's reasons to seek the protection of the alliance?

NATO is planning a rapid response unit and mounting more exercises. But is this really enough to stop more “little green men,” whether in Russian uniforms or not, from sparking another conflict? As Malcolm Chalmers, research director at the Royal United Services Institute in London, recently told me: “The danger is that Russia next bites off a bit of Estonia, then asks what NATO is going to do about it.”

Narva is the bit of Estonia that Russia might see as the fulcrum they can use to topple NATO's reputation, as I discussed recently.

Before the Crimea Crisis, I mentioned moving Marine Corps equipment from Norway to Estonia, although once the crisis broke I had second thoughts about the survivability of that equipment and later suggested Latvia instead, when I considered what we might do if Putin goes big.

Who Says "They" Aren't Making More Land?

China is creating the capacity to fight for islands in the South China Sea to enforce their claim of most of the region as part of China. So are we.

China claims the bulk of the South China Sea as their new (and watery) City of Sansha (no, not that Sansa).

Lacking a little thing called "land," China is correcting that deficiency:

Satellite photos show China making rapid progress in building new islands in the Spratly islands. Some of these new islands are large enough for airstrips long enough to support warplanes, but most are suitable only for light transports and helicopters. This, however, makes these new islands suitable as staging areas for helicopter raids on nearby small islands claimed, or even occupied, by another nation. In effect, these new islands have become permanent aircraft carriers dotting the disputed islands of the South China Sea.

That's where our new Marine Corps presence in northwest Australia that will eventually become a battalion-sized force comes in:

[In] the context of the South China Sea where very small islands could be the battlefields, a small and well trained amphibious force capable of projecting platoons, companies, or the entire battalion to seize control of those small islands will have big effects.

It won't rise to the level of island hopping in World War II, but don't think that an islet hopping campaign featuring Marines figuratively raising the stars and stripes won't get China's attention.

Let's hope that the South China Sea becomes a kill sack for Chinese forces should it come to a fight.

What About the Post-Agreement Plan?

If President Obama succeeds in getting a nuclear agreement with Iran that includes even an effective ten-year pause in Iran's nuclear activities, what do you think will happen after the "mission accomplished" banner is strung up at Geneva on the hotel where the agreement is signed?

I'll tell you what happens. We will have given notice to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt that they have ten years to get their own nuclear weapons into operation.

This will be the result given to a world by a president who was given a Nobel Peace Prize for his potential to achieve nuclear non-proliferation during his presidency.

Even the people hopped up on hope and change fever back when leg tingles were all the rage, the Nobel Peace Prize people, may have actually realized their folly:

Norway's Nobel Peace Prize committee on Tuesday demoted its controversial chairman Thorbjoern Jagland in a move unprecedented in the long history of the award.

The organisation, which said the former Norwegian prime minister would remain as a committee member, gave no reason for its decision.

However the renowned diplomat had drawn sharp criticism shortly after becoming chairman in 2009 for awarding the prestigious Nobel to newly elected US President Barack Obama.

The move stunned the world and the recipient alike, as Obama had been in office less than nine months and the United States was still waging simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yeah, bad career move. All the more evident given that the recipient bombed the moon on the day he received the prize and since then has taken the lead in wars on his watch.

Have a super sparkly day.

Outreach

I hope Democratic leadership wasn't the target audience for Israel's prime minister in his speech to Congress:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States on Tuesday that it was negotiating a bad deal with Iran that could spark a "nuclear nightmare," drawing a rebuke from President Barack Obama and exposing a deepening U.S.-Israeli rift. ...

Underscoring the partisan divide, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called the speech "an insult to the intelligence of the United States" and said she was so "saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran” that she was near tears.

Let's hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu's outreach speech to the wider Democratic world works better than President Obama's outreach speech to the Islamic world.

UPDATE: Stratfor reminds us that Israel once earned a prime place in our alliance thinking because we needed their help to resist Soviet efforts to dominate the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The collapse of the USSR ended that need and so our alliance thinned out.

The 9/11 attack thickened the alliance as we fought common jihadi foes (in inspiration if not the actual groups involved). As we try to distance ourselves from too large of a direct role in that fight, relations are bound to thin out again.

I don't think that Israel has as much to worry about in becoming one of many allies we are trying to count on in the region.

Israel was fine when Iran under the Shah was our Gulf pillar and we had Turkey in NATO and Saudi Arabia as a friend in the Gulf, too. Israel as a democracy with a more common heritage will make them first among equals, at least.

Yet I don't share Stratfor's seeming confidence that we can come to terms with mullah-run Iran through a nuclear deal that makes Iran an ally again.

I just don't believe that it is possible to become a friend with Iran under the mullahs, especially if they get nuclear weapons capability.

Nor do I see our fights in Iraq and Afghanistan showing we can't pacify those jihadis. We did build states with forces capable of fighting those jihadis (rather than hosting or supporting jihadis) with our campaigns--if we stay to help them as long as they need our assistance, of course.

From Israel's position, Putin's efforts to regain a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean with their help for Assad, their basing rights in Cyprus, their expansion in the Black Sea rear area, and renewed contacts with Egypt which is out of favor with us lately, will tend to increase Israel's importance to us.

China Buys Greece?

As I speculated earlier, China has reasons for wanting port rights in a Greece desperate for cash. And China has the inside track on getting those port facilities in Greece:

While the world watches the ongoing debt negotiations between Greece and its international creditors mainly for their impact on the Greek and eurozone economies, the talks have already put Beijing’s plans for a strategic transport system meant to further integrate Europe and the Mediterranean with the Chinese market back on track. The new leftist government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens had initially announced plans to halt the privatization of Greece’s largest seaport, Piraeus, alarming investors from the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, which is keen to take a majority share in the Greek facility. But as part of the four-month bailout extension reached earlier this week between Greece and the so-called troika made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Greece has reversed course and will go ahead with previously agreed-upon privatizations, including Piraeus.

Cosco is counting on turning the port into a key junction of its proposed “One Belt and One Road” transport system, a mammoth project in which Beijing aims to build both an overland corridor and a maritime route connecting eastern China to Western Europe.

"Privatization" in this case means essentially selling the port to China.

And thus the "treaty port" humiliations are avenged.

While Piraeus will not be a military base, it will be under Chinese control and their financial leverage over Greece will allow China to pressure Greece to allow Chinese warships to use the facilities if there is a Mediterranean contingency (as there was in Libya in 2011) that might require Chinese naval deployments.

And China can't get a formal base anyway, unless Greece leaves NATO since NATO rules prohibit such a thing.

But China "gets" Greece while their junior partner Russia had to settle for Cyprus.

Been There, Done Something Similar to That

When I read the headline that our F-15s would launch satellites, I thought, what's the big deal?

During the Cold War the F-15 demonstrated the ability to launch anti-satellite weapons. Given miniaturization of satellites, putting an actual satellite into orbit should be child's play:

DARPA officials hope the program can deliver satellites under 100 pounds within 24 hours notice and for a price tag under $1 million.

Of course, the first two comments at the top mention the old anti-satellite history of the plane.

But it is still neat.

Man Cave

Well I'll be... Is hornswaggled the appropriate term? That Toronto tunnel was innocent:

Toronto’s mystery tunnel has turned out to be a place for a couple of guys to get away from it all, more a “man cave” than a terrorist threat.

After being stumped for more than a month by a 33-foot-long, hand-dug and carefully reinforced tunnel to nowhere, the Toronto Police said Monday that they had identified two men in their 20s who did the backbreaking work.

“These two guys dug a hole to hang out,” a getaway, Constable Victor Kwong said. He added, “Kids do it, but I’ve never seen anyone in their 20s do it.”

I would have bet good money otherwise.

But now we have another question to answer.

Assuming these guys aren't Hobbits, how bad are their home lives that "hanging out" in a narrow and damp literal man cave is considered a better option?

And wouldn't it have been better to make their cave wider and taller rather than 33 feet long?

Toronto's reputation in the rest of Canada has not been improved.

The Coming Civil War in California?

Natural disasters are natural. Oppressive governments that make matters worse are man-caused.

The idea that global warming is one of the causes of the Syrian Civil War is nonsense. Stresses from natural disasters is normal--slaughtering people in reaction is not.

While it is not nonsense to say that natural disasters can sow discontent in people, even if Syria's climate has warmed to cause mass migration to cities, since the planet's temperature has been flat for 18 or so years now, the cause of that changing climate in Syria is not global warming. Weather changes. Climates change.

Second, it is nonsense to even think of weighting the change in climate more than the sectarian divisions caused by a minority government sponsoring sectarian terrorism abroad while bloodily repressing their people and keeping most resources for the regime's favored sects.


To their credit, the study authors themselves don't say global warming caused the civil war. But that is what will be repeated and that's the only reason this study got reported.

And the case is undermined by the explanation that Syria's average temperature has gone up 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.

That revolution was a long time coming, apparently.

But you'd better hope that drought doesn't cause civil war. Because another article in the same journal says California's drought, too, is the fault of global warming (but what about the "pause?"):

In a separate study, also published in the same journal, Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, said the long-time upward trend in California's temperatures have caused the current drought there to be worse, regardless of the initial cause of lack of rain. Diffenbaugh didn't see much of a change in rainfall, but a big one in terms of warming.

I'll note that other climate scientists say the drought is purely local conditions. Which, given the "pause", makes sense.

But if that study is correct, I assume that Sacramento will begin barrel-bombing the San Fernando valley while San Francisco gears up their chlorine gas bomb arsenal.

Funny enough, the article ends up bolstering one of the main objections of we "deniers" to crippling economic growth to halt our contribution to (the currently "paused") global warming:

While they are different places, there is a connection between the two droughts and climate change, Kelley said. It shows that a wealthy United States can bounce back from a big drought and a country like Syria sometimes can't, he said.

Apparently, it is possible to cope with changing climate if you aren't a poor dictatorship that stokes sectarian differences to remain in power. Don't give Assad a "get out of jail free card" by blaming global warming.

And note, too, that while the global warmers want greater government control to fight (the currently "paused") global warming, the study also noted that Syrian government policy contributed to the problem:

Using satellite images, Kelley's team confirms that over-pumping of ground water in north-eastern Syria because of government subsidies for wheat production depleted a source of irrigation that farmers could otherwise have used when rains failed. Meanwhile, the Syrian government slashed food and fuel subsidies. "This resulted in agricultural collapse and mass migration," says Kelley.

So maybe California isn't out of the woods yet, depending on what policies they order.

Alagore Akbar!

The Other Oil War

Iranian fanboys have gained power in Yemen and Iran is sending help. Another asset to potentially wield an oil weapon against Arab Gulf states is created.

Here come the Iranians:

The first direct flight from Iran to Yemen's capital arrived on Sunday, as the Shiite rebels holding Sanaa formalize ties with the regional Shiite powerhouse.

The flight underscores how the rebels, known as Houthis, are strengthening their grip over state institutions and exercising sovereign power in Sanaa, even as the country's president insists he is still in charge after fleeing to the south.

It contains "humanitarian" aid. No mention of anything else. More planes will follow.

Aside from harming our effort to kill al Qaeda in Yemen, this potentially adds another link in an Iranian effort to counter-attack Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states that export oil.

Arab states in the Gulf have long had to contend with Iran's ability to interfere with oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran looms over and which contains Iranian islands that can add to Iran's ability to base forces to block oil exports.

Arab states have sought to use pipelines across to the Red Sea--and then north through Suez or south into the Indian Ocean more, and Iraq once used pipelines through Syria as alternatives to the Hormuz route.

Iran has sought influence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Sinai, Sudan, and Eritrea, which could serve as platforms to contest oil flows through these alternative routes.

Now Iran could get Yemen in their camp to help plug the southern Red Sea route.

That would give Iran quite the oil weapon of their own--if we can't sell oil, nobody can.

Normally, I'd take some comfort that Iran is under financial pressure from sanctions and from Saudi efforts to depress oil prices (Iran's major source of income) and so supporting Yemen could add to their money woes and ultimately accelerate Iran's problems supporting all their friends in crime.

Nor do I assume that Iran can keep this asset since the Sunni Arabs are likely to regroup and resist.

But of course, if Iran holds this gain for now, Iran counts on John Kerry delivering a deal that President Obama desperately wants that will save Iran's economy (and pave the way for nuclear weapons) before all the past-due billing notices arrive in Tehran, according to their foreign minister:

"Our negotiating partners, particularly the Western countries and particularly the United States, must once and for all come to the understanding that sanctions and agreement don't go together," he said in Geneva. "If they want an agreement, sanctions must go... We believe all sanctions must be lifted."

And this will be called smart diplomacy by our administration. What the Hell! Nobel Peace Prizes for everyone!

The Other Option

I've long assumed the general outline of an Obama administration nuclear deal with Iran is quite clear. Iran will pretend not to have a nuclear weapons program; and we will pretend to believe them.

Yet I've held out hope that Iran itself would save us from such a bad deal because of their utter contempt for us and their refusal to even pretend to bow to us in their certainty that God is on their side and backs their nuclear efforts.

Yet our best and brightest is on the job:

Nuclear negotiations with Iran have reached a "far more advanced stage" than ever before, a senior administration official said Friday, expressing hope that negotiators may be able to conclude a partial agreement by the end of March..

While "there are still gaps" between Iran, the United States and the five other world powers involved in the negotiations, the official said, "obviously negotiations have advanced substantially."

Yes, John Kerry already has a place on the mantel selected for his Nobel Peace Prize resulting from a deal:

Kerry is traveling to Montreux, Switzerland, for a Tuesday meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the nuclear issue.

Kerry will again be accompanied by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a sign that the talks are delving deep into the details of a possible agreement. The Energy Department oversees the U.S. nuclear stockpile and employs the government's experts on nuclear fuel.

You tell me, is Kerry more likely to make progress on actually convincing Iran that they don't want nuclear weapons; or make progress on convincing Iran to pretend they don't want nuclear weapons?

This path was stupid when we started it and it will be dangerous if we finish it.

Netanyahu's speech to Congress better be really good if the Obama administration is to be deflected from its course.

Yet our administration treats Netanyahu worse than they'd ever treat the Iranians.

Maybe Netanyahu should let loose with a few "Death to America!" rants to earn the respect of President Obama and his chief diplomat.

President Obama has long said that "all options are on the table" when it comes to halting Iran's drive for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, one of the increasingly likely options on the table is not halting Iran at all.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: Iran may yet save us from our delusions by refusing to pretend even a little to give up their nuclear goals:

Iran on Tuesday rejected as "unacceptable" U.S. President Barack Obama's demand that it freeze sensitive nuclear activities for at least 10 years, but said it would continue talks aimed at securing a deal, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"Iran will not accept excessive and illogical demands," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying by Fars.

My hope is that Iran's contempt for us is so great that they find it too distasteful to pretend they are halting or even delaying key elements of their nuclear program.

The Pre-Spring Offensive

One thing that annoyed me about complaints directed at our plans to take Mosul was that they seemed to assume that the forces earmarked for the offensive were the only forces available in the Iraqi military.

If there is an American-advised offensive by Iraqi and Kurdish forces sometime in the next couple months, recent actions will affect the operation.

First, ISIL forces launched what could be considered a spoiling attack:

Islamic State suicide bombers and fighters struck targets on Saturday in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra, where security forces and their Shi'ite militia allies have been gathering for an offensive against the radical Sunni militants.

But the attack doesn't seem to have interfered with preparations for the Iraqi offensive north:

Iraq is deploying 27,000 troops to retake the city of Tikrit from Islamic State, in a mission that will test the military’s ability to stage major offensives against the group before trying to capture its stronghold in Mosul.

The state-sponsored al-Iraqiyah television said that paramilitary forces, a term that usually describes Shiite militias, are backing up police and army soldiers. The forces will also seek to liberate other areas in the Salahuddin province, where Tikrit is located.

If successful, this will advance the jumping off point for an offensive aimed at Mosul. And it isn't calling on the troops earmarked for the Mosul attack, it seems, since the Tikrit offensive is based on Shia militias which we don't operate with (because of Iranian influence and concerns about their discipline).

While I don't like it that Iran is gaining influence by funding and organizing their local version of Hezbollah in Iraq, hopefully we kill two birds with one stone if the offensive uses pro-Iran Shia militias to fight ISIL jihadis.

The Iraqis are hoping local Sunni Arabs have tired of living under ISIL rule:

Iraq's prime minister called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State group Sunday, ahead of a promised offensive to retake Saddam Hussein's hometown from the extremists.

Haider al-Abadi offered no timeline for an attack on Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad that fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer.

There is no word about when the attack will take place. It should be soon if this is to advance the jumping off point for the Mosul offensive in the spring.

And I'm still waiting to see what happens in Anbar where our Marines (and others, I assume) are also training Iraqi forces.

UPDATE: Moments later, I see that the offensive against Tikrit has begun.

I don't expect this to be pretty since basically two armed and fanatical mobs are going into battle.

The Iraqi mob will at least have some trained guys for support. But the ISIL mob has a lower degree of difficulty since they just need to hold and die in place within Tikrit.

UPDATE: We aren't providing air support because the Iraqis didn't ask us for it.

UPDATE: Actually, we aren't providing air support because this is an Iranian-led offensive and we don't want to be associated with any slaughters of Sunni Arab civilians:

No American air support is being used and the Americans say that is because Iraq did not request any. The real reason for no U.S. air support is the fact that this is an Iranian operation and if American smart bombs and missiles were used the Iranians would blame the Americans for any civilian casualties.

And there is this about the Iraqi Shia militia leading the attack on Tikrit:

Iran has trained these guys to think of this as a religious war, of Shia against fanatic Sunnis who see Shia as heretics to be murdered on sight. Iran has trained the militia to see this as a very personal battle in which death is martyrdom and as much a reward as victory. The problem is that ISIL trains their people the same way so the U.S. (and many Iraqi Army commanders) expects an epic bloodbath made even more horrific by mass murder of Sunni civilians.

In many ways, a higher body count among the pro-Iranian Shia fanatics and ISIL fanatics is ideal.

The one thing I'll say in caution about the force of fanaticism is that it will propel true believers to kill and die rather than surrender or retreat--right up until the moment when it doesn't and the true believers flee. Iran experienced that loss of morale in 1988 after looking like true believers since 1980 in their war with Iraq.

But you can't tell when that break will happen.

UPDATE: Actually, on reflection, this Iranian-led offensive could explain that controversial CENTCOM briefing on the Mosul offensive that we are planning.

Perhaps we didn't want to leave the impression that only Iran is on the job in Iraq.

And maybe we wanted to establish the wisdom of our deliberate approach if Iran leads a bloodbath offensive.

This is better than believing we had no idea that the Tikrit offensive was going to begin.

An Army and Not a Mob

Following the war in Vietnam, our Army was figuratively decimated. It took a long time to reorient the Army and rebuild its ability to fight. Compare that experience and outcome with the Army that came out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given that many on the left insist we lost both the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War (after demoting it from "good war" status after the Iraq War wound down), why didn't our Army and Marines suffer from those defeats after the war? Why did they continue to be effective with good morale and training? Shouldn't they have been broken as they were after our justly deserved (remember, from the left's point of view) defeat in Vietnam?

Of course, victory versus defeat is a difficult judgment. Even in Vietnam we defeated the North Vietnamese and left South Vietnam intact, if battered and without full control of their territory. Reliant on our support and facing a major conventional threat from Hanoi, South Vietnam fell to a North Vietnamese invasion a little over two years after we left.

In Iraq, a little over two years after we left, jihadis took over large parts of Anbar and then overran large parts of the north, including Mosul. Yet Iraq did not fall. And we returned to help Iraq hold the line, and (we say) eventually reclaim their territory.

And in Afghanistan, we are nearly out with the intent of having all our troops out in two years, despite the continued presence of enemy forces in (mostly) the south and east. The outcome remains in doubt, at least, with reasons to believe either outcome could happen.

But regardless, our ground forces--especially the Army--were broken after leaving Vietnam--and it didn't need to wait until the fall of Saigon to break. Not broken after Iraq--even after the ISIL offensives. And not broken after largely leaving Afghanistan--and who thinks it would break even if the Taliban regain control in two years?

The key is that in Iraq and Afghanistan, we withdrew units. They retained cohesion and as units they know they did their jobs and did their jobs well. And it doesn't matter if you judge those wars lost or won.

In Vietnam, as I've noted before, we withdrew individuals rather than units and left an increasingly smaller mob of individuals behind to hold the line until we pulled them all out.

There are other differences, too. We had the draft back then and have volunteers now. The casualties in Vietnam were nearly an order of magnitude greater than the combined casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. And public support for the troops was sustained in the latter wars even as support for keeping the troops fighting declined, in contrast to the hate for the troops that existed during Vietnam in some circles.

(Indeed, I always assume that support for the draft today on the left is motivated by the desire to recreate that hate to undermine our ability to fight wars.)

But I think that unit cohesion is the key to maintaining an effective military even in defeat. Remember, war from the foxhole gives you a different perspective than looking at the large-scale maps and pondering the grand sweep of the war.

If you are in the foxhole, you judge success by what is going on near you and not the bigger picture.

I've noted before that my limited experience in the military only gave me hints about what those who go to war experience. But I did get hints. And one of them was this difference between perspectives.

Such as the night my unit was going into the field for a training exercise to test our knowledge on the new equipment we had been trained on. That night, word of the August 1991 coup in Moscow came across the radio in our barracks.

That was of intense interest to me. Yet over the next four days, during which I never had more than a five-hour stretch of sleep, my focus was on using our new equipment, including a teletype machine we'd soon ditch for a field fax machine, rather than following the coup that was taking place in a nuclear-armed state recently defeated in the Cold War.

So don't let anything interfere with our unit cohesion. Don't take shortcuts to save money, even during sequestration, because we want an army in our barracks and not an armed mob.

Who Knew Maduro is a Racist?

Venezuela's Maduro is taking actions against Americans in his hare-brained notion that America is plotting against him.

President Maduro is an idiot. But he's an increasingly dangerous idiot:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Saturday his government had detained U.S. citizens, including a pilot, on suspicion of espionage, in a move likely to strain already tense relations between Washington and Caracas.

Maduro also said his government would order a reduction in the number of U.S. embassy staff in Caracas and prohibit some U.S. officials from entering Venezuela in retaliation for a similar U.S. measure last year. Venezuela would also require U.S. citizens to obtain visas before visiting, he told a rally.

The Venezuelan president, long at odds with Washington, has renewed accusations in recent weeks that the United States is seeking to topple him.

Is Maduro just presiding over the final stages of the destruction of Venezuela that his idiot mentor started?

Or is he thinking of making the big leap from the Axis of El Vil to the Axis of Evil?

And should the Dutch worry? Because if something happens, European NATO states have too much to worry about in Russia and Libya to really extend a hand for some islands in the Western Hemisphere.

If Maduro wants an easier target, there's Guyana, I suppose.

Je Suis SNL

Good grief, it seems like only yesterday that we were all Charlie. But now there is controversy over a Saturday Night Live skit?

If we can't mock evil idiots, who can we mock?



Mock them. They may be evil, but they are evil idiots.

Maybe more mockery will take away some of the allure of joining these breathing pieces of garbage.

Or did we disrespect the Nazis with this?



Yeah, right in ISIL's face when they claim to be the master religion.

Je suis SNL.

Finding the Nixonian Common Foe

If President Obama wants a "Nixon goes to China" moment for his presidency, perhaps there is an option less stupid than hoping Iran is the place he should go to.

Have no doubt that a nuclear deal with Iran is stupid. The ultimate stupidity by an administration that bizarrely believes it is achieving global success with a policy of not doing stupid sh*t.

The stupid sh*t continues to multiply.

But maybe there is something President Obama can do to get a legacy other than one of bumbling strategery.

Consider that China would love to see Russia fight with America and NATO in Europe. China has supported Russia over Ukraine in words and deeds (although China benefits from the latter).

A rising China that could sit out that blood-letting between their major rivals for dominance would be in a good position to claim the throne and pressure their neighbors to submit to Chinese dominance.

Consider that Russia would love to see China fight America in the Pacific both to take us down a peg and to keep their Far East (stolen from China) off of China's immediate focus until Russia can restore their military power to Soviet levels when Russians were a threat to Chinese territorial integrity and not vice versa.

Russia and America both have an interest in not wrecking each other in a war so that China can pick up the pieces at the expense of both of us.

What if NATO and the Russians come to a new agreement on conventional forces in European NATO and Russia west of the Ural Mountains?

What if we focus on limiting the heavy forces that each of us deploys in this region to a level that does not allow either to reasonably pose a threat to take large amounts of territory?

Russia would be free to deploy heavy forces of tanks, heavy anti-tank focused infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery east of the Ural Mountains while we would limit similar forces in Europe.

NATO countries could have some heavy forces in Europe just as Russia could have some heavy forces in European Russia, and to compensate for lack of European territory outside of the treaty area we could host sites in America to store the bulk of the heavy equipment of our continental NATO allies.

That way, even continental Europeans would have to ship over heavy forces across the Atlantic to pose an offensive threat to Russia.

We'd have to adjust the totals to account for the ease of movement by rail versus by sea.

And the Europeans could even have rotations at our National Training Center against our OPFOR to hone their conventional skills by flying in troops to use their stored equipment here.

We and the British would still need prepositioned heavy equipment in Poland, I think, but otherwise we could restrict actual ground troops in newer NATO countries to lighter forces (like paratroopers and Stryker units) unsuitable for leading an offensive and better suited for power projection missions into the arc of crisis from West Africa to Afghanistan, just as the Russians would have fewer and lighter forces close to NATO.

Only a serial apologist for America like President Obama could sell to our left wing a deal with Russia that allows each of us to focus on China and avoid war with each other.

Now that would be a reset.