Death of Westphalia

The Treaty of Westphalia established the dominance of today's nation-states:

It is often said that the Peace of Westphalia initiated modern diplomacy, as it marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states (or "Westphalian states"). This was caused by the first time mutual acknowledgement of each country's sovereignty. Subsequent European wars were not about issues of religion, but rather revolved around issues of state. This allowed Catholic and Protestant Powers to ally, leading to a number of major realignments. It also cemented Germany's internal divisions, keeping it from uniting into one nation-state. It is the Peace of Westphalia that is most often pointed to as the foundation for studying international relations.

Secretary Rice is revamping our State Department to actually reflect our current world and promote our interests in the actual world rather than in the lost world of imperial halls and heads of state meeting in conferences to decide the fates of continents:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed "transformational diplomacy."

The State Department's culture of deployment and ideas about career advancement must alter now that the Cold War is over and the United States is battling transnational threats of terrorism, drug smuggling and disease, Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University. "The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them," she said. "The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power."

When nation-states no longer have the monopoly on the use of world-altering power and when states cannot control the threats from disease and terrorism that gestate inside their borders, we must not be hobbled by being chained to the capitals of the world.

The Treaty of Wesphalia has taken another and perhaps a decisive hit by our action. Not that national governments are irrelevant. They are still easily the major players. But when small groups can--possibly with the aid of nations--threaten to kill hundreds of thousands of us, national borders can no longer restrain our military or diplomatic actions.

We've already intervened militarily to save Bosnians, Kosovars, and Kurds from their national rulers. It is about time our diplomats could go where they are needed before the JDAMs fly.

Allies and enemies have already declared Wesphalia obsolete, and Rice is pulling the plug by this action.

What the heck. We weren't a signatory anyway. But that won't stop the Left from arguing President Bush has abrogated another international agreement.

Democracy Begins

The Iraqi December election results are in:

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance captured 128 of the 275 seats in the Dec. 15 election, down from the 146 it won in January 2005 balloting, said commission official Safwat Rasheed.

It needed 138 seats to form a government on its own.

So the talks begin on forming a government. As I've noted before, the real test isn't when the majority takes power from election results. Majorities can take power by force, too. The immediate test is whether the losers--especially the Sunnis--accept the loss and work within the system.

Down the road the test is whether losers pack their offices and leave when somebody else wins in an election.

Still, on the heels of three free elections, forming a government is important. And these first steps would never have been taken but for the American-led effort to free Iraq and "impose" democracy by gunpoint.

Unclear on the Concept

As I've read over the years in the debate over Iran, some opponents of doing anything but trying to bribe the mullahs of Iran into giving up nuclear weapons (a futile hope, I believe) like to argue that Iran reasonably wants nukes to deter enemies such as America.

Kurtz notes a post at Winds of Change about invading Iran that assumes, like he does, that Iran already has nukes it begged, borrowed, or stole; and is now just trying to get the means to produce them on their own:

At Winds of Change, Tom Holsinger makes a sobering and powerful case for invading Iran. (HT Glenn Reynolds). Holsinger’s case is an extraordinary read. What stands out most is his conviction that the Iranians may already have a few bombs made through purchases of nuclear material (or perhaps whole devices) from Korea. If so, this confirms what I’ve been saying about Iraq for some time. (See my Corner post “Preempting WMD’s.”)

So, Iran wants nukes for deterrence and has secretly acquired some. If so, I would like to pose Dr. Strangelove's question:

Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?

Even the Israelis let it be known they have them for deterrence. Hell, the Iraqis deliberately let it be assumed they had a nuke program far more advanced than it was in 2003. But the Iranians have a secret "deterrent"?

If Iran has nukes, they sure as heck don't want them to deter anybody.

Is This Real Enough?

Does the so-called "reality-based community" see Iran as a dire threat today?

I only ask because so many opponents of the Iraq War proclaimed they were really just interested in confronting an imminent threat and they were not simply ultra-pacifists to the degree that they'd rather see us lose than tarnish our image by fighting. So this piece is quite enjoyable in a sick sort of way:

Many critics of the war in Iraq tried to insulate themselves from accusations of pacifism by asserting that they would back military action if it were a real threat like, say, North Korea.

Well, now we've arrived at the brink of a threat more pressing than North Korea, creating a real honesty test for the people who made themselves feel better by offering up a hypothetical threat that they would actually favor responding to.

Anyone hiding behind the North Korea facade needs to step forward and get behind the possibility of acting against a nuclear Iran.

So after letting the Europeans dress up in their formal surrenderin' suits for three years now, with nothing to show for their efforts but an Iran under control of a certifiable psycho on the verge of having usable nuclear weapons, I have to ask one question.

Is this threat imminent enough for you? Well?

Can we at least agree that we cannot let Iran get nuclear weapons? Just agree on that. Is that so hard? And then we can quickly debate our options and how much time we have to prevent that which we agree is the worst possible outcome. And if it makes you feel better, it won't help President Bush's reelection campaign since he cannot run again.

Orifice of Delphi

So what is Osama telling us?

Having fallen into bin Laden's diabolically clever plot to provoke us into wiping his face all over Southwest Asia, the quite possibly un-dead Osama is graciously offering us a truce if we will only accept:

"We do not mind offering you a long-term truce with fair conditions that we adhere to," he said. "We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America."

What good timing! Just in time to be wrapped into the Murtha advance-to-the-rear he's still peddling.

But don't think he couldn't hurt us if we wanted to:

"The delay in similar operations happening in America has not been because of failure to break through your security measures. But the operations are happening in Baghdad and you will see them here at home the minute they are through (with preparations), with God's permission," he said.

I guess Osama misjudged the difficulty of the post-September 11 occupation of his newly conquered caliphate. But he is now deep into planning for the rest of his war should we refuse his truce offer. Finally! People more interested than Democratic leaders in long-term detailed plans prior to action!

Sorry doofus. When you told us it was a battle to the death, we engaged on those terms. Die you murderous freak and all your spawn. No friggin' deal.

And if this statement is in effect an ultimatum to us, and Osama does have a terror attack ready to go in America if we refuse his generous offer, should we call off our signals eavesdropping now?

It is also odd that he apparently says the attack will happen "here at home." Why refer to America in either terms of "here" or "at home"? He didn't say "at your home," after all. Is the attack on America going to occur in America--our home, in Pakistan--presumably his current address, or in Saudi Arabia--his home of birth? Or, if he is in Iran, could he be talking about an Iranian nuclear test as the operation rather than terrorism? Or it could just be a translation issue. At The Corner, Pharris translates a different part as saying the attack will be "inside your country."

I would take the threat seriously, though. Step up that wiretapping of terrorist phones and especially those they talk to here in America.

He's truly a regular Orifice of Delphi.

UPDATE: As I think about it, this is more worrying. If Iran is hosting al Qaeda as seems likely, what could bin Laden be doing to help his new patron and protector? Since Iran is conducting operations in Europe (the talks with the EU-3), Iraq (supporting terrorists) and Venezuela (supporting Axis of El Vil member Hugo Chavez in his nutty ambitions) to keep us busy long enough for Tehran to go nuclear, could bin Laden be just another distraction? And what better distraction than a really big operation in America?

Seriously, guys, tap those phone calls. This is no time to worry about the ACLU.

Right Click to Destroy

When the dominant form of warfare matches your society's general knowledge base, you will have an advantage in warfare over enemies without that kind of society to support their soldiers.

In World War II, the internal combustion engine war, American troops had an advantage over their allies and enemies because in any given squad somebody was probably a grease monkey who could fix the engine if their truck broke down. Troops of other countries who did not come from a car culture would sit by the side of the road waiting for the motor pool guys to come fix their broken vehicles.

Today, in the computer culture, the guys who played Doom all day in the basement have the edge in modern warfare:

American troops appear to have a considerable advantage because most of them grew up playing video games and using PCs. More and more military equipment uses computers, or are basically electronic gadgets. American troops require a lot less time to learn how to use this stuff, and tend to be very good with it. This extends from fire control systems in armored vehicles, to new radios, electronic rifle sights and training systems (which are very similar to those video games.) Many other countries have to spend a lot more time training their troops to use this stuff, and the proficiency of the troops is never particularly good. This effect is often seen when this high tech American equipment is provided to foreign troops who didn’t have such an electronic childhood.

We'll have this advantage until others catch up with our Game Boy generation.

Or until our own society moves beyond the technology it shares with our tools of war. Then there will be a lag until our military again catches up with society in how it fights and our troops are familiar with the tools of war before their first head shave in basic training.

So how does our military predict the technologies of our future society and design weapons of war based on that prediction in time to tap that natural knowledge?

We probably can't, so we'd best be prepared to adapt our military as fast as possible to match society's dominant theme.

But we can count our blessings that our soldiers have grown up playing with the tools of war in time for the current war against a savage and determined enemy that dreams of slaughtering us in the tens of millions.

Control-Alt-Delete, boys. Control-Alt-Delete.

Makes You Miss the Shah

Remember when the Shah of Iran was really bad?

The psychopaths who run Iran now make him look like Santa Claus by comparison. Can't we get somebody like him to run the mullahs out of town?

A coup by sophisticated and serious members of the military would be great news. Even better would be a popular uprising. And best of all would be a combination of the two. An Iran with an old-style military dictatorship charged with defending democratic institutions would be an enormous, epochal victory for the West and for the Middle East. That would go a long way toward guaranteeing success in Iraq and would neutralize the threat of the Iran's nuclear ambitions, even if they decided to pursue a bomb. After all, the argument about nuclear weapons is no different than the argument about guns. The threat is from the people who have them, not from the weapons themselves. Lots of countries have nukes; we only need to worry about the ones run by whack jobs.

Alas, while there's reason to believe the White House shares this view in theory, there's less reason to believe it's doing that much about it in practice.

Of course, Jenkins (via RCP) thinks we can't strike Iran successfully. Sadly he doesn't actually argue about the technical merits as much as he says it would be wrong to stop Iran under the mullahs from getting nukes. We should instead, he lectures, learn to like the mullahs and their new nukes:

Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.

Who couldn't bring himself to love Ahmadinejad with nukes?

Another Brit, Heffer (again via RCP), says we can't avoid dealing with Iran one way or another:

As we survey, with appropriate unease and foreboding, the events now unfolding in Iran, we might like to reflect on one of Enoch Powell's less well-known, but most universal, obiter dicta. "The supreme function of statesmanship," he once wrote, "is to provide against preventable evils."

We seem to have fallen somewhat short of this ideal both for ourselves and in terms of something called "the international community". True, we could hardly have prevented the Iranians electing what, by most objective standards, is a raving madman to run their country.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes in the coming of the Mahdi and something approximating to what Christians term the apocalypse. He also sincerely believes that Israel should be wiped off the map and that the Nazis did not murder six million Jews. I think we can agree that such a man ought not to have a nuclear weapon and, if we can't, then those who dissent should urgently seek psychiatric help.

Who would have thought that the hated and evil Shah would be the high point of Iranian history from 1978 to the present? Our Left assured us he had to go. So go he did.

Ah, memories.

And now we have an evil we are striving to prevent. Or one that we should be striving to prevent, that is. We are striving to prevent this evil, aren't we? Or will we learn to love the unlovable?

Keep Him Talking

The Iranians are upset that America and France (!) have agreed that it is pointless to talk to Iran when Iran clearly doesn't want to negotiate anything but the terms by which they get nuclear weapons:

The United States and France rejected Iran's request for more negotiations on the Islamic republic's nuclear program, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying Wednesday "there's not much to talk about" after Iran resumed some atomic activities.

As European countries pushed ahead with efforts to have Iran brought before the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused them of trying to deprive Iran of peaceful technology.

"We are asking they step down from their ivory towers and act with a little logic," Ahmadinejad said. "Who are you to deprive us from fulfilling our goals?

"You think you are the lord of the world and everybody should follow you. But that idea is a wrong idea."

Earlier, Iran's foreign minister said he did not believe the country would be referred to the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions. However, diplomats say the council is unlikely to take those actions since China and Russia, two veto-wielding members, oppose referral.

Tehran's defiant tone came as the United States and France rejected Iran's request for a resumption of negotiations, saying Tehran must first suspend its atomic activities.

Interesting talk of logic coming from that whack job again. Logically, we need to remove his regime. His goals involve smoldering craters on our soil or our allies. And if Ahmadinejad keeps talking, he'll give us the excuse to crater his regime first.

UPDATE: As I said, at least Ahmadinejad is willing to speak. And we don't even need to connect any dots to figure out what he intends for us. Just listen to him talk. And refuse to look away reassuring yourself that he doesn't really mean it.

One way or another, the mullah regime in Iran has to go. I'm willing to debate how. With a deadline in the very near future to resolve the debate.

This Government Has 22 Minutes

Via The Corner, this story on scary Liberal Party ads warning against the nefarious plots of the Conservative Party:

Earlier in the campaign, the Conservatives proposed a change in military deployment. In major Canadian cities, they would station about 100 regular soldiers and 400 reservists per city to respond to local natural disasters.

The pledge led to the Liberals' ad, Mr. Martin said, which begins with the sound of a military drumbeat and a blurred image of Mr. Harper's face. As the Conservative leader slowly comes into focus, a narrator reads words that are flashed on the screen: "Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities.

"Canadian cities. Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up. Choose your Canada."

Canadian martial law? Yeah, right. Just getting the bilingual phrase cards into the hands of both troops would take too long.

Apparently, "some idiot" approved the ads:

In British Columbia yesterday, Liberal candidate Keith Martin apologized at an all-candidates' meeting for the ad.

"Some idiot went and sent it out with the other 11 ads, and it was never sanctioned by the party, never approved, and we are completely appalled that this went out. We apologize to the men and women in the uniform," he said.
...

Paul Martin said yesterday he personally approved his party's hard-edged television advertisements, but he insisted they are not "attack" ads that unfairly malign Stephen Harper.

I never heard that military ad, but I have heard on the station I listen to in the morning commute others mentioned:

Mr. Martin said the rest of the ads released on Tuesday are not unfair because all they do is cite Mr. Harper's own words -- many of which the Liberals pulled from a 1997 speech Mr. Harper delivered to a conservative U.S. think-tank.

In scary voices, voters are reminded that scary American conservatives might like Stephen Harper. I had to laugh.

Harper appears on track to win.

Ooooh! Scary.

UPDATE: meant to link to Steyn for the official countdown.

Oh, They Have an Iran Strategy

The headline to this article states:

"Moscow Not Ready to Back Iran Strategy"

Moscow is not ready to back sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear weapons.

This is not the same as saying Moscow is not backing an Iran strategy. It is a sign that Moscow is not willing to back our Iran strategy.

Do not become confused (as one of my old drill sergeants loved to say). Moscow has an Iran strategy. It consists of complicating our life and ensnaring us in legalities to ensure that threats to us develop. The Russians pine for their glory days and anything that could harm us still unfortunately resonates in their soul.

So cut the Gordian Knot and bypass the UN on this problem:

The UN was supposed to be a tool to enhance collective security against threats to the peace--not a shield to prevent collective security against those threats. The thugs of the world use the rules to entangle us in legal knots so we cannot use our power to stop them.

The Russians (and Chinese) will not cry for long or with much feeling if we are hit with an Iranian-built nuke.

Cut the Gordian Knot and deal with Iran outside the UN. Nobody else will fight for our interests and safety.

UPDATE: Russia's strategy is a "two-stage" plan according to this. If I may summarize, in stage one the IAEA will have debate about referring this to the UNSC, but without actually voting to refer to the UNSC. The second part of their strategy is quite literally the "two-stage" part when Iran announces it has intermediate-range ballistic missiles loaded with nukes. At that stage the esteeemed diplomats of the international community commend themselves for a really splendid job of trying, say talks are pointless and action impossible (what with the nutjobs having nukes, don't you know?), and then get hard at work on writing the multi-volume cloth-bound report festooned with bright ribbons and lots of official wax seals to go in Kofi Annan's personal library.

Surrender Now!

Ted Galen Carpenter has a new book coming out (via Mad Minerva) that will tell us how to avert a war with China over Taiwan.

If his past pronouncments on China and Taiwan are any guide, the book will be for us to surrender now while we can. As I wrote when the book was plugged several months ago:

Carpenter is dispassionately arguing that we should simply surrender to the new guy on the block--a communist tyranny that naturally wants to snuff out freedom in its neighborhood lest the virus of liberty bring down the party.

There is nothing dispassionate about just giving up.

I simply don't trust anything Carpenter writes.

Siege

I wrote earlier that I think any aerial campaign against Iran (with special forces, too, involved) would last weeks and would have to be much more than just attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Since such a long campaign would give Iran a chance to respond with their own military, we'd need to hit any elements of their military plus command and control assets that could counter-attack.

Caerdroia notes another military option for dealing with Iran:

But, who says that's what our objectives have to be? We have sufficient troops to occupy the southwestern oil fields and terminals, to ensure the oil keeps flowing, and to occupy Iranian territory at key points like the Straits of Hormuz. We have sufficient forces to strike Iranian nuclear, security, military, government, and key infrastructure sites (like power plants) effectively indefinitely, and can ruin Iran, both in their nuclear program and their military and their civilian infrastructure. If this does not bring about regime change by revolution, it at least moves the security threat several years, or more, down the road.

This is something to think about. I tend to think of military actions in terms of pursuing total victory by marching on the enemy capital. I looked at an invasion scenario over a year ago. This general outline would work to support a military revolt, too, as I preferred.

But we did win in the Persian Gulf in 1987-1988, in Bosnia in 1995, and in Kosovo in 1999 with limited military objectives. Even though our military operations were insufficient to win alone, other factors contributed to make our limited operations successful.

So could we do this? Occupy southwest Iran to control the oil fields and the Gulf to control the export routes?

We'd need to control territory west of the Zagros mountains from Dezful (this controls access to the north and would block Iranian reinforcements coming south from the Tehran region) at the northern end of a box mesuring 100 miles west to east and 150 miles north to south.

Plus we'd need to capture Kharg Island and the Hormuz islands plus smaller island and oil platform bases. This is almost an inversion of the outlined invasion scenario that actually avoided invading Khuzestan to focus on taking Tehran and blocking troops in Khuzestan from heading north by taking Dezful.

The Marines in about division strength could handle the islands and possibly some points on the mainland in the Hormuz region. Some years ago I read that our planned digitized heavy division was designed to hold a 120-mile by 80-mile box. So assuming three brigades per division for this footprint, we'd need 5 brigades to hold the territory in southwest Iran and defend it against Iranian regular forces. Add several more to hold lines of communication and crucial assets like the Ahvaz airbase and the Abadan-Khorramshahr region on the border. Call it 8 brigades at minimum. Perhaps the British would contribute one brigade making our commitment seven Army brigades--with at least 4 heavy brigades--and three Marine regimental combat teams.

Note that we'd have to hit Revolutionary Guard forces (Pasdaran) at Dezful but the rest of the southwest region has regular army units. If we can get the regulars to defect, we'd be in business.

The attitude of the Iranian army is the key, I think. If we want to choke off Iranian revenue and gasoline imports, we could just grab Kharg and the other Gulf islands. But to keep the oil fields intact, we'd need to invade Khuzestan in the southwest. And to keep this from being an ugly fight, we'd need to establish a Free Iran in controlled territory with Iranians in charge and trying to rally support in the rest of Iran. With Iranian military units on our side, we'd have a real base for laying siege to the mullah regime.

The siege would not beat Iran on its own. Like the 1987-88, 1995, and 1999 operations, where we needed outside events to make our military actions bring success, we'd need additional factors to bring success--in this case a building popular revolt emboldened by a free government in a liberated zone and energized by hardship caused by a blockade.

The question is how long it would take to break the regime. If our operations in Iraq truly scale down to 100,000 troops by the end of 2006, we might simply be shifting an existing commitment of 17 brigades in Iraq to one of 10 in Iran and 7 in Iraq. With added brigades in our active Army we could maintain this level as long as recruiting holds (and our public's and government's will to endure).

If the security situation in Iraq continued to improve allowing Iraqis to take over completely the combat tasks of counter-insurgency (and perhaps that would happen faster with Iran otherwise occupied and not in a good position to support Iraqi terrorists), we might look forward to further reductions in Iraq, making our Iran commitment part of a smaller overall war commitment that we can afford to continue. We might essentially be putting off our assumed 2006 deployment relief based on drawing down in Iraq (without hitting Iran) to 2007 or later based on a drawdown in Iraq and a partial commitment of those forces to a limited operation in Iran.

Sanctions won't work. Iran has oil and unless the sanctions break Iranian will or prompt a revolt in the short run, eventually the sanctions would spring leaks. A blockade that we enforce might work over time, but is an act of war by itself. And consider that in history, blockades often had elements ashore to support the naval blockade. So a limited blockade that holds Iran's islands or a more thorough siege that adds Khuzestan to what we take would not be any more war-like legally speaking than a simple blockade from at sea.

And heck, this could be done along with the aerial campaign to destroy the nuke facilities.

Still, such a siege would not be decisive alone. And we'd have to really worry that this could escalate from an assumed limited war in Khuzestan. After all, a limited war is exactly what Saddam hoped for when he invaded Iran's Khuzestan in 1980.

Would we be able to gain that extra factor of regime change that builds on the effects of the liberated zone to bring final victory?

I admit I am uneasy with a limited military campaign since it is not decisive alone and requires more perhaps outside of our control to make it work. And it could spiral out of control and escalate, stressing our military if Iran manages to resist. Yet as an alternative or supplement to an aerial attack or immediate regime change if that is not possible, this should at least be explored.

Unless we decide we can live with an Iranian nuclear arsenal under the control of the mullahs. We can't be that blind, can we?

The End of the Barrage

For the longest time, fire support gave you a choice of fairly precise tube artillery that took some time to put metal on target and inaccurate rockets that put lots of metal on an area in a short time. We relied on tube artillery while the Soviets and others like rockets, too.

With MLRS we finally entered the rocket barrage race and found them quite useful to hit enemy artillery pieces before they could move and with a beaten zone large enough to compensate for inaccuracy.

Well, the rocket barrage is now history:

The U.S. is no longer buying unguided rockets for its 227mm MLRS multiple rocket system. All future purchases will be guided rockets. The primary guided rocket is the M30, carrying a 200 pound high explosive warhead, and using GPS for navigation. That means that at maximum range (over 60 kilometers), each rocket will still land within 10-20 feet of the aiming point. This gives MLRS the same accuracy as JDAM bombs. With the 60 kilometer range, one MLRS vehicle (carrying twelve rockets) or a HIMARS truck (carrying six rockets) can provide smart bomb accuracy for any troops within range. The smaller (200 pound) warhead is often preferred, particularly for urban fighting (where adjacent buildings may contain civilians.)

This is why we don't need so many independent artillery brigades and why we are converting lots of them to other more-needed units.

Losing divisional artillery able to support any subordinate brigade as our Army moves toward brigades instead of divisions as the basic unit isn't a big deal if the brigade's own organic artillery can deliver precise firepower and is augmented by air power.

This will have a tremendous impact on supply, too, when mountains of artillery shells and rockets don't need to be manufactured and moved to the theater and then forwarded to link up with artillery units for re-supply.

And given the preference our troops have shown for JDAMs delivered by the pilots over less accurate artillery, this is a wise move if the Red Legs want to keep their jobs.

This is really an amazing development.

Speed Bump

Via Real Clear Politics, the Iranians and Venezuelans are getting chummy:

With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chávez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.

I've noted this before as well. Hugo Chavez was once just a harmless (to us) crank and a threat only to his own people. He was, as I called him, a member of the Axis of El Vil. We had bigger worries to address than some tinpot lunatic with delusions of grandeur and recycled Marxist sloganeering.

As Chavez has gone more bonkers, I've wondered when he will get promoted to Axis of Evil status and require our serious attention.

And now we may be at that point. It would have been nice to have stopped this lunatic years ago but our resources are limited and I don't know how we could have done it without diverting resources from more immediate threats.

The question is why is Chavez trying to become a threat to America?

I mean, I can see why Iran likes this arrangement. Trying to create a closer target for America might keep us from dealing with Iran long enough for Tehran to go nuclear.

But why would Chavez go along? What is possibly in it for him?

We need a public campaign to support the democrats in Venezuela so they can resist Chavez's slow campaign to destroy freedom in Venezuela. We can't afford to spare the effort to deal with Venezuela more forcefully even if it is a good thing to do. And we can't afford to let Venezuela become a Cuba-Iran hybrid dedicated to harming us and their neighbors.

And as we continue to focus on Iran instead of being diverted by Chavez, what else will Iran give to Chavez to make us notice Venezuela and tempt us to deal with the closer threat before we get to Iran?

Like we haven't enough to worry about.

UPDATE: Watchman at Vital Perspectives has written that Iran is seeking a wider alliance in Latin America: "A dangerous alliance is emerging between Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Iranian President Ahmadinejad recently spoke with the leaders of all three Latin countries in efforts to strengthen diplomatic and strategic ties. " Wonderful. Although I like to think that the Bolivians aren't necessarily a lost cause.

I would like to add a speculation and a comment. On speculation, is this a sign that Iran doesn't think its Syrian alliance to resist us in Iraq can hold us off long enough?

As a comment, Iran's alliance-building move is another example of the truism that if you give an enemy time, they just might use it. Iran is using the time the Europeans have provided them with pointless negotiations over a matter the Iranians never intended to negotiate away--their eventual possession of nuclear weapons.

Provocation

Belmont Club notes that right now we don't lack the means to hammer Iran but the will to do so.

If we put pressure on Iran but do not cross the line into combat, the nutball rulers of Iran might break and hit us out of worry or otherwise do something that convinces the Western public that we must take action:

This makes the feint the deadliest weapon in the US arsenal. Sending air wings to exercise in Southwest Asia, for example, is something the Iranians will deeply resent. But should they respond -- even if they could? It was said of Admiral John Jellicoe that he was the only person capable of losing the First World War in an afternoon, because as commander of the British Grand Fleet, he could throw away the foundational power of Britain in a single naval disaster. It may equally be said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alone can strip Iran of its invulnerability to military action in a single rash moment. In that sense he is not, as some pundits think, the worst possible leader Iran could have at the moment. On the contrary, this unstable, bellicose man is from another point of view the answer to all his enemy's prayers.

Unless Ahmadinejad hits the Women's Studies Department at Berkeley I seriously doubt there is much that Iran could do to convince a lot of the Left that Iran is a threat.

But Iran could break and provide the excuse to go after the mullahs. In the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians while still in the initial throes of the revolution, managed to restrain themselves in the Gulf despite the de facto alliance of the West with the Iraqis:

Passivity in the naval war was frustrating for Iran. No Iraqi shipping traffic was vulnerable to Iranian counter measures since Iraqi trade went through neighboring states such as Kuwait or Jordan. Iran could only attack neutrals and despite enduring Iraqi air raids Iran struck only 14 times against ships traversing the Gulf. The frustration was building, however, and Tehran threatened "grave consequences" if the nominally neutral Arab Gulf states continued to ship supplies to Iraq. Still, Tehran ordered nothing rash enough to provoke American intervention to safeguard the West's oil supplies.

But in time, just watching Western ships essentially shielding the Iraqi war effort in the Gulf sent Iran over the edge:

Iran lashed out at others in October 1987. The frustration of failing to crush Iraq, of witnessing America lead the West into the Gulf in force, of enduring air attacks against her oil lifeline, and of seeing the militarily weak but wealth Arab Gulf states funnel money to prop up Iraq's military pushed Iran to the brink of irrationality. When Iraq was the country that had invaded Iran in the first place back in 1980 this seemed too unjust and proof that the world was against their revolution. On top of this, Iran received no sympathy when, in July, Saudi security forces bloodily suppressed Iranian "pilgrims" after they tried to mobilize a pro-Iranian demonstration in the heart of Saudi Arabia. On October 3, 1987, Iran crossed the line into irrationality. Unable to defeat her one enemy Iraq, Iran massed between 30 and 50 speedboats for an attack on Saudi Arabia's off-shore oil terminal at Khafji--the one used by the Kuwaitis and Saudis to sell oil in Iraq's name. Saudi Arabia responded by deploying warships and fighter aircraft. Iran pulled back but five days later in another confrontation the Saudis sank three speedboats.

Iran, apparently not satisfied with defeat at the hands of Iraq and then Saudi Arabia, even struck an American flagged tanker, Sea Isle City, with a Silkworm missile while it lay in Kuwaiti waters. The United States retaliated with Operation Nimble Archer on October 19, 1987, during which three Iranian oil platform bases were attacked. Many Iranians knew that a course of confrontation with America was foolish but the short term satisfaction of striking out at those who helped Iraq--even the United States--was beginning to win out over reason.

By April 1988, during Operation Praying Mantis, the Iranian navy went on its death ride and the US Navy smashed the cream of the mullahs' fleet.

If we need a pretext to strike, the only question is whether we have the time to apply the psychological pressure on Iran. Or will Iran sit and take any pressure we put on them with the prize of nuclear arms encouraging them to swallow their pride and soothe their nerves.

Ultimately, I'm not comfortable with a strategy that relies on the Iranians doing something stupid to justify action. They may save us from our timidity. But that's a helluva bet to make when Charleston is our bet on the table.

Unworthy

As Iraqi political parties attempt to form a coalition government, don't let the poor hand the Sunnis have lead you to feel sorry for them as they whine about the process:

Al-Ani [of the Accordance Front, the main Sunni Arab coalition] said his delegation asked Barzani to "put pressure on other parties" to meet Sunni demands for greater minority rights.

The Sunnis are demanding that voting be held again in some provinces, including Baghdad — the country's largest with 59 seats in parliament.

Sunnis also are seeking Kurdish help in pressuring Shiites to accept amendments to the constitution adopted by national referendum in October, including a provision that keeps the central government weak in favor of strong provincial governments.

Remember how the Shias and Kurds were treated when they had the poor hand:

"As you work with the victims, especially the children -- their clothing, the baby bottle, the little shoes, just like the ones we bought for our daughters years ago, the little hands, so expressive in death -- you have to try not to get into the heads of the monsters who did this, or it becomes overwhelming. You look at a perfectly knitted baby bonnet with two bullet holes in it, and you think, these could be your own kids."

The Sunnis need to shut the hell up and remember who they are and what they did. They've gotten a far better deal than they ever gave.

Sucker Punch

The CIA's strike in Pakistan failed to kill Zawahiri. And now Pakistanis are protesting:

Pakistani intelligence officials said the reported target, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri, had been invited to the attacked village for a dinner marking a Muslim festival on the night of the missile strike but he failed to show up.

With the government's alliance in the U.S.-led war on international terror groups already unpopular in this Muslim country, the deaths of at least 17 people in Friday's attack have stoked widespread anger.

Some 10,000 people demonstrated in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, chanting "Death to America" and "Stop bombing against innocent people." Hundreds also rallied in Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Peshawar, burning U.S. flags.

We all know that Pakistan is not the most uniformly enthusiastic partner in the war. Pakistani intelligence is downright fond of the Taliban, in fact.

So if we relied on Pakistani intelligence for the targetting information, does anybody really think it was beyond their intel people to sucker us into striking after they warned Zawahiri to stay away?

And then make sure some innocents were there to be hit? Really, given how we lawyer up our targetting, does anybody really think we would have struck at Zawahri if we thought he was surrounded by innocent civilians? We Would not have done it so we clearly did not know innocent civilians were at the target site.

Third, after sucking us in to strike, keeping Zawahri away, and setting up some civilians to be killed by us, how hard would it be for the Pakistani intel people to instigate some spontaneous demonstrations against our presence in Afghanistan?

I don't like to think of myself as overly suspicious, but this just stinks of a setup job by Pakistani intelligence. Pervez Musharraf should be very worried.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit, Confederate Yankee argues for the explanation that we did indeed get some terrorists--just not the big guy--and that this is just another game of "you killed puppies and children" that the enemy peddles and our media magnifies. It is certainly the simpler explanation.

Surge Capability

The Navy's new policy of not routinely keeping carrier battle groups forward deployed and instead preparing for a surge policy to get six carriers into a fight in a matter of a few months always had a glaring hole in it--our carriers are based on opposite sides of the country and massing them would be difficult. The reason is that our carriers cannot transit the Panama Canal because the locks are too small.

In 2004 we had the Summer Pulse exercise that a lot of people mistakenly believed put six carriers off of Taiwan as a show of force to warn Peking off. In fact, the exercise surged carriers near their home ports and was only intended to show that we could put six carriers off of Taiwan if we really wanted to. The matter of how we would quickly mass them anywhere quickly was not really answered to my satisfaction.

But Strategypage notes that the Panama Canal is due for an upgrade and the $8 billion upgrade will make it suitable for our big decks:

The U.S. has a major interest in an expanded canal, as it will accommodate the Navy’s current fleet of aircraft carriers, as well as any foreseeable future one well into mid-century.

The canal opened in 1914 and immediately made our ability to concentrate our battle fleet quite easy. It effectively increased our fleet size since ships could rapidly swing between the Atlantic and Pacific as needed. The new and improved Panama Canal will have a similar impact, making our surge capacity much more of a threat to potential enemies.

Reserve Force

The US announced that we would not deploy two brigades to Iraq, reducing our brigade strength to 15 in the next rotation early this year.

I figured that the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which we are keeping in Kuwait as a reserve just in case it is needed in Iraq, can also serve as a force to protect Kuwait should we take action against Iran. If the Iranians strike toward Basra as they did many times in the 1980s, we'd have a powerful combat unit to reinforce the British.

What I did not immediately appreciate is that 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, which will largely remain in Kansas as it sends 1,000 troops to Iraq to assist in training Iraqis, could still be a substantial reserve force in case Iran acts up. Presumably the brigade troops could still be airlifted in to fall in on whatever equipment it would have taken over if deployed as first planned. Or it could fall in on pre-positioned equipment in Kuwait (assuming we have reconstituted the brigade set we used for the original invasion).

With a substantial amount of Iraqi units controlling their own battle space, presumably we could also scrape together several more brigades on short notice to stop any desperate Iranian attacks into Iraq.

Geography Matters

Every once in a while I will note some article that describes a Chinese weakness. Those who disregard China as a threat like to point these out, too, in order to discount China as a threat to us.

I point them out, note that I wouldn't want to trade places with China, and then note that it doesn't matter. Not that power comparisons are irrelevant but that geography must be considered, too. A China that is twice as strong as it is today could not threaten us here in the Western Hemisphere. A China twice as strong would be a force to be reckoned with in East Asia.

And that is what is important. We can project significant power globally. But when China can project significant power 500 miles from their shores, they will be a major threat to our interests, as I noted here:

In World War II, neither Japan nor Germany (and certainly not Italy) were global powers. Yet they were threatening enough, were they not? Get over the idea that a threat is only a threat if it can reach St. Louis. And really, if the Chinese get their way within 500 miles of China against our allies, the impact will reach St. Louis.

So it was with some interest that I read this report highlighted by Defense Industry Daily:

My thesis is that with certain new equipment and strategies, China can pose major problems for American security interests, and especially for Taiwan, without the slightest pretense of catching up with the United States by an overall measure of national military power or technology. Although I firmly agree with those who are skeptical about China=s prospects in significantly closing the gap with the United States, I believe that certain Chinese military capabilities combined with the political geography of East Asia pose significant security challenges for American security strategy in the region. As commonly defined, the basic elements of that U.S. strategy are: (a) deterring attacks on allies and friends; (b) maintaining East Asian bases for global power projection; and (c) preventing spirals of tension among regional actors whose relations are plagued by both historical legacies of mistrust and contemporary sovereignty disputes.

The debate over whether China will become a peer competitor or a near-peer competitor is certainly fascinating, but quite irrelevant to our near-term concerns. Because we must go half way around the globe and China needs to go a little over their horizon to reach regions of high importance to us, China is a threat long before they ever become a peer competitor. That is the wrong standard by which to judge China.