Battle for Baghdad

We either don't have enough troops in Baghdad or we aren't using them effectively. Although extra troops were sent to Baghdad to clamp down on the violence, after more than a month (?) the violence seems to be up in Baghdad. A lot of this is Shia death squads meting out revenge, mind you, and not just enemy attacks, so it is tough to just count deaths as a metric. But since both types of violence have to be suppressed it is hard not to conclude that the effort is not working.

It is hard to draw any other conclusion since the focus on Baghdad has not tamped down the violence. In an urban sprawling area of six million people from the three main groups, it is certainly a complex task. But it must be pacified or the fact that the rest of the country is mostly quiet will be lost in the film coverage of terror attacks and ethnic murders.

As a result we will deploy two brigades that could have been kept home to keep our brigades at 14 instead of dropping the total to 12 in September. [We did have 15, so when did one leave?]

And we will send a battalion held in reserve in Kuwait to Baghdad.

Perhaps 800 to 1,000 men is not that much in such a large city. If numbers are the issue, the Iraqis better send more troops and police in. If how we are using the troops is the problem, well that's rather a more difficult task, I'm afraid.

We shall see. And we shall see if the enemy can be suppressed without matching the enemy in the brutality of methods used. That's the only question, I fear--not whether the Shia-dominated government will win.

UPDATE: Strategypage explains that so far the effort isn't working. And says the reason is both not enough troops and not enough effective use of security forces:

The six week effort to bring down the mayhem rate in Baghdad did make it clear that, more people and better communications would make a difference.

Still, in one sense this is an effort that goes way beyond the enemy. There is lots of violence not associated with the enemy. But the wider random violence creates the image of widespread enemy violence:

No, the big problem is simply driving the common criminals off the streets. The Shia death squads, and Sunni Arab terrorists, are just components of the lawlessness that tormented Iraq even before Saddam was overthrown. In his last years, Saddam was using government sponsored thugs, and plain-old-criminals, to persecute real, or potential, rebels. Now, all these thugs are either out to simply steal and extort, or to settle old scores (the terrorists and death squads.)

The efforts to reduce the volence in Baghdad will continue. And until this violence is brought under control, it will be a constant source of enemy propaganda success and provide opportunities for sectarian violence.

UPDATE: The US and Iraq have agreed to rework our campaign in the capital city:

"Obviously the violence in Baghdad is still terrible and therefore there needs to be more troops," Bush said in a White House news conference with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki, on his first trip to the United States since becoming prime minister two months ago, said he and Bush agreed that training and better arming Iraqi forces as quickly as possible, particularly in the capital city, was central to efforts to stabilize the country.

And remember, the difficulties we are having are because we won't use Saddam methods to crush opposition an a month of slaughter and then bulldoze 100,000 Iraqi Sunnis into mass graves. A growing number of Sunnis realize they are running out of time before Shias (with an assist from angry Kurds, too) insist on ending the Sunni violence regardless of the methods--and running out of time for our troops to remain in Iraq to stop the Shias from doing this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Secretary Rumsfeld addresses our response. In addition to more American and Iraqi troops:

[They] have fashioned a proposal which calls for some increases in Iraqi security forces, a slight change in the mix, and some changes in the Ministry of Interior approach I think is the word.


He is focused very much on the reality, as we've discovered, that intelligence is central to success in this effort. It is -- it's not as though you're competing against big armies, navies and air forces where you can go out on the street and find the "enemy," quote/unquote, to go tackle because when you go out in the street, they disappear.


And so it is -- it is a situation that requires a healthy intelligence capability, the support of the Iraqi people, the linkages between the intelligence community and the Ministry of Defense forces and the Ministry of Interior forces and coalition forces. And so strengthening the ministries is important.

This is war. The other side acts and reacts. So do we.

Maneuver Units Versus Troops Density

Modular brigades for the Army prompted quite a stir over whether combat power was being added or decreased by the changes. Much of this debate, I think, reflects the pull between preparing to fight conventional armies and fighting insurgents. It is quite the dilemma.

On one side, critics of the reorganization to our modular brigade combat teams say having only two line (Maneuver) units in a brigade combat team (BCT) reduced our effective combat power. Note that Stryker brigades stayed with three maneuver battalions of three companies each.

The other side defending the new BCTs said that the critics ignored the recon battalion and neglected that each line battalion was going from three to four companies each.

I sided with the company-based analysis and did some crude calculations here. We'd have more line (or "maneuver") companies.

But I also worried that the recon units were too light and we'd probably have to heavy them up.

This article addresses the complaints with some detail. It is older but I just found it. One section addresses the issues I noted:

Army Secretary Francis Harvey told Lieberman the IDA study “missed the mark” because, in fact, the service’s modularity concept actually increases maneuver units below the battalion level.

“When you do all the arithmetic . . . what we call the pre-modular force had 323 companies, [while] the post-modular force has 532 companies,” Harvey said. Companies typically number 120 to 170 forces.

Schoomaker, testifying alongside the secretary at the mid-February hearing, agreed.

The Army plan foresees “four companies per battalion, whereas before we had three,” according to the service chief. “And we’ve also added a reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition squadron. . . . So the reality is if you want to count maneuver elements, there’s actually 11 now inside of a brigade instead of nine in the old [unit design].”

Army officials say the designs for heavy and infantry BCTs call for four companies per battalion, but Stryker brigades will continue to field three companies per battalion. The Stryker is a wheeled combat vehicle making its debut in Iraq.

“In a small unit fight like Iraq, platoons and companies are the real measure of combat power,” agrees one Army officer.

Recon battalion’s value under debate

Yet several note that already-redesigned units, like the 3rd Infantry Division that deployed to Iraq last year, found the reconnaissance units inadequate to the task and were forced to augment their two-maneuver- battalion brigades by borrowing units from other forces.

“No one in the 3rd [Infantry Division] truly regards these humvee- Bradley [fighting vehicle] units as having either the firepower, armor or manpower to undertake complex missions like armed reconnaissance in wartime,” says one retired officer.

“We never said these [BCTs] are never to be augmented,” responds one service proponent on active duty. But by creating the smaller brigades, the service is “getting more [troops] into the rotational force,” this officer says.

Some Army proponents take issue with IDA’s decision not to count the reconnaissance battalions as supplying any combat value at all. In its analysis, IDA regarded maneuver forces as comprising only infantry or armor troops – “as if that was the sum total of combat power,” says one supporter of Schoomaker’s concept for the brigades.

Operating in M3A2 Bradley fighting vehicles, armed reconnaissance troops associated with the heavy BCTs are better armed and protected than dismounted infantry, according to this officer. The heavy BCTs – whose maneuver units include M1A2 main battle tanks and Bradleys – also field sniper troops for the first time.

Reconnaissance troops attached to infantry BCTs, though, move across the battlefield in humvees. The lighter footprint offers them greater mobility and agility than their heavy counterparts, but also can make them more vulnerable to enemy attack, officials say.

How much value do the recon battalions add to the fight? “Let’s not ask the Army,” says a redesign advocate. “Let’s ask the adversaries” who fight against U.S. forces, the officer said.

Though “you don’t want them caught up in a decisive battle,” they do offer firepower, survivability and lethality, the service proponent says.

“We have maintained comparable direct and indirect lethality, increased organic [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] capabilities two- to three-fold, and increased access to internal fires,” according to an e-mail a proponent of the Army design sent in December to general officers, obtained by ITP. “The point to be made is that combat power is not just your organic capability, but also the ability to leverage external capabilities.”

This article notes way more line companies than even I calculated. Though with the recon battalions having six platoons, you'd have to count this unit as three two-platoon companies to get to eleven companies in a brigade. (At five Humvees and three Bradleys each, these are larger platoons, I admit, so perhaps they are equivalent to three full companies--but they are still too light).

Also noted is my worry about the lightness of the recon unit. Combat experience in Iraq already requires units in the field to be augmented. I think against a conventional enemy this would be even more apparent.

This article also addresses my point that calling in outside firepower is a key to success in conventional battle. As I noted in my Defanged? post, German World War II divisions fought with two-battalion regiments on a very high intensity Eastern Front and managed to fight well as long as their artillery support was intact.

Even if the recon battalion is good for fighting conventional battles because it calls in firepower; but not good for insurgencies because it is too small and light, it can be augmented for the latter mission. Remember, air defense and artillery units will be cross-trained as infantry for stability operations, so could be plugged into the recon unit to beef it up.

And on the augmentation issue, a recent press conference with a brigade commander in Iraq showed that his brigade was augmented with a additional battalions and even additional companies and platoons:

I'd like to begin by saying that this is not just an Army brigade; we are the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armor Division. We like to call ourselves the "Ready First" Combat Team. But we're really composed of all four services -- Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine. We have five battalions from the 1st Armor Division, but we also have a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division; we have a battalion from the 8th Marine Regiment, and we have numerous companies and platoons from the Army and the Marine Corps, and Navy and Air Force personnel in key supporting and staff positions.

So a unit designed for high-intensity combat can be bulked up with troops for counter-insurgency. Still, I'd heavy up the recon battalion even if the decision is made not to enlarge it to three or four three-platoon companies instead of six platoons.

One question I have is whether in high intensity combat, the battalion or the company is the unit we should measure. As time has gone on, the basic units of maneuver have dropped down in size. Once you just had your "army" and there was nothing smaller. Then you had "left," "center," and "right." Then corps were formed and maneuvered. Then divisions. Then brigades and regimental combat teams were the basic units moved around. Now we think of battalions as the basic unit as the reorganization critics contend. With our new divisions acting like old corps and our new brigades like old divisions, can we say that companies are the new basic unit to be maneuvered?

If so, then the difference between organizng for counter-insurgency and for major combat operations has narrowed considerably and we are near the point where we won't be tugged between the two missions as much.

Just in case we are still at the battalion-basis, I'd heavy up our recon battalions so that they are fully capable of closing with the enemy like our line units. That is how we used to treat our recon units. Armored cavalry regiments were massive anti-tank forces that screened corps and in the Iraq War major combat operations, the 3rd ID's cavalry squadron ripped apart enemy conventional forces while leading the division north. And in history, recon units usually start out light from peacetime theory about speed and agility and then heavy up as combat teaches that you have to survive to gain information. I'm fairly shocked that we have gone back to the peacetime lesson during war.

Of course, since the new brigades based on the Future Combat Systems will have three battalions each (with four companies each, I'm assuming, to keep balanced teams. And further assuming that we'll scrape up the extra manpower needed by successfully moving some Army jobs to civilians, freeing up Army slots), I guess the opposition to the two-battalion brigade has won the debate.

We'll have more battalions and more companies. Dilemma solved.

Not Quite Eager to Die

I noted that the Afghan Taliban seem fairly immune to being defeated so we have to kill them. We've killed lots already but they hadn't given up on their offensive. Sometimes you just have to kill your enemies. Corpses make little trouble.

Well, the casualties the Taliban have suffered have at least given them reason to stop fighting for now:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have called a halt to their Summer Offensive. They pitch this as a "pause" while they wait for people to starve (a drought in the south has halved the wheat harvest there, putting over two million people at risk of starvation) and for the Hizbollah attack on Israel to get Afghans suitably enraged. At that point, the Taliban will call upon the 300,000 men who used to serve in their army and police force, to lead the population in a national uprising. This will bring the government down, and the Taliban back to power. That's the Taliban explanation for their timeout.

Few friends in Afghanistan. Few successes against the Coalition or government. And fewer gunmen to go on suicidal attacks on government and Coalition forces.

The Taliban pause is significant considering they were going all out to hit the new NATO forces and discourage NATO countries from fighting in Afghanistan. Instead, the Taliban got a bit discouraged.

So killing the enemy does have a good effect. A third of them dead got them to pause. At some level, it will get them to give up entirely. Or we just shoot for 100% dead, I suppose. That erases that problem of whether to give them attorneys and culturally sensitive meals.

Oh, and note that the Strategypage post that notes the discouraged Taliban is separated by the prior Strategypage post noted in my linked post by about three weeks. It is often difficult to see and appreciate the difficulties of our enemies. They don't advertise their problems. Our difficulties in contrast are easy to see. So we can think we are failing to win even as we kill the enemy is lopsided battles. Yet now the Taliban are clearly discouraged.

Pursue the enemy. Kill them. That is always discouraging.

Too Tired to Win?

Our troops shouldn't be even thinking about what is going on back here that seems to threaten our support for winning.

Our support for the war should have no expiration date. So suck it up, saddle up, and press on.

V

And remember, too, as I've mentioned before, we are trying to win by saving our enemies from themselves. If we grow too tired to win this Long War the compassionate way, we will be forced to win very ugly:

[L]et us hope that democracy prevails in Iraq, that our massive aid is actually appreciated by the Middle East, that diplomacy ultimately works with Iran, that Syria quits supporting terrorists, and that Hamas and Hezbollah cease their rocket attacks against Israel -- more for all their sakes than ours.

We have the power to destroy our enemies. It is just that we've decided not to use it that way. Not yet anyway.

Still Not France So We're Still Going it Alone

America and New Zealand have been on the outs military cooperation-wise since 1985 when the New Zealand government got ansty about nuclear weapons on our ships and we refused to exclude them when going to New Zealand (or even confirming their existence on our ships).

Well, after twenty years, we are moving closer together. The New Zealand foreign minister stated:

"We committed ourselves to a forward-looking relationship as two countries and to strengthening that relationship in the future," Peters said after meeting in Washington with Secretary State Condoleezza Rice.

Well this is about time. It has been a while since we even had nukes on our ships, making New Zealand objections rather moot.

I was annoyed at their attitude at the time during the height of the Cold War, but we have new threats to worry about. This is no time to harbor grudges over past perceived slights. New Zealand's military is small but they are good quality troopers.

So add New Zealand to the growing list of countries who are moving closer to us despite the caricacture of the Left that we are unilateral cowboys alienating the world. At this point, France and Russia are about the only two major countries left to really join us.

No Method. Just Madness

So all the talk of whether Iran is trying to distract the G-8 from Iran's nuclear ambitions by initiating the Lebanon fighting or whether Iran is following Hizbollah's initiative may be missing the point.

Is Iran stirring things up to create the chaos for the end times that will bring the 12th Imam back, signalling the final victory of the Shias?

Iraq the Model notes ominously:

Both Ahmedinejad and Sadr believe it is their duty to pave the way and prepare the ground for the rise of the Imam whose rise, according to their branch of Shia Islam, requires certain conditions and a sequence of certain events; the story is too long to discuss in one post so I'll just move on to offer my observations…

We are seeing some signs here that make us think that Iran and its tools in Iraq are trying to provoke the rise of the imam through forcing the signs they believe should be associated with that rise. One of the things that do not feel right is the sudden appearance of new banners and writings on the walls carrying religious messages talking specifically of imam Mehdi. These messages are getting abundant in Baghdad and in particular in the eastern part of the capital where Sadr militias are dominant and a special number can be seen in the area of the interior ministry complex.

The interesting part is that these banners appeared within less than 24 hours after Hizbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. Coincidence?

I don't think so.

So, Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon may not be the end of this Iranian mischief. If the objective is just pre-salvation chaos, will we see Iran's friends start killing in the Balkans, Argentina, Europe, Somalis, East Africa, and wherever else the Pasdaran reach? Could the Iranian government actually start a wave of killing the opposition within Iran just to add to the chaos?

Yes indeed, lovely decade we're having here.

Still Not a Civil War

The increase in casualties in Iraq among civilians is disturbing:

According to the U.N. report, 2,669 civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. Those numbers combined two counts: from the Ministry of Health, which records deaths reported by hospitals; and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which tallies the unidentified bodies it receives.

But it still doesn't signify the start of a civil war. Strategypage explains what is happening:

The "war" in Iraq has come down to a competition between Sunni Arab and Shia death squads, to see who can rack up the highest body count. While most Iraqi Sunni Arabs fear for their lives, and continued ability to live in Iraq, the Shia radicals fear only Sunni suicide bombs. The bombing attacks increasingly target radical Shia militias, mainly those loyal to Muqtada al Sadr. Lacking the equipment and trained personnel to carry out an efficient counter-terror operations, Sadr has ordered his guys to just go out and kill lots of Sunni Arabs, any way they can, each time an Sunni bomb goes off in a Shia neighborhood. This has been going on for the last three months, leaving nearly 10,000 civilians dead. The Sunni terrorists and Shia death squads stay away from Iraqi and foreign troops and police. Even with al Qaeda crippled, there are still several Sunni Arab groups, mainly driven by a radical religious views ("Shia are heretical scum"), who believe that the Shia can still be terrorized into submission. Or, as some believe, a "civil war" can be triggered. This, so the myth goes, will arouse the Sunni Arab masses. Some radicals believe that the Sunni Arabs are actually the majority of Iraqis (actually, they are less than 20 percent, closer to 15 percent these days as more of them flee the country). Other radicals believe that, if Shia death squads kill enough Sunni Arabs, the Sunni Arab nations will be forced to invade and crush the upstart Shia once and for all. It's left rather vague exactly what the U.S. forces would do if Syrian, Jordanian, Kuwaiti and Saudi troops suddenly entered the country.

This is ugly, but there is no chance that Sunnis can break away and control their own territory and defend it in a classic civil war. The Kurds couldn't do it with the advantage of living in mountains until we declared a safe haven for them after the Persian Gulf War by patrolling the air space over northern Iraq.

"Civil war" in the case of the Shia-Sunni killings spiraling out of control means that the small Sunni minority gets killed or driven out of Iraq by the majority Shias. And this happens if the Shias give up on the possiblity of Sunnis making peace and stopping their insurgency and terrorism. Sistani's calls for restraint could falter in the face of Sunni terrorism and lead to really widespread Shia revenge attacks. If you count this as a civil war, then a civil war has been raging for decades. But before, the Sunnis were doing almost all of the killing and only in the last few years have the Shias and Kurds been able to dish it out too with their increasing power.

So the Iraqi government must now stop Shias from killing Sunnis and convince Sunnis to lay down their arms. Both must be done at pretty much the same time to keep the cycle of killing from feeding on the killings by the other side. And the mostly Shia government is willing to fight the Shias doing the killing after being understandably reluctant to crack down on fellow former victims:

But now, with Zarqawi dead, and most of the country at peace, more and more Sunni Arab tribal chiefs, politicians, business leaders and clerics are resigned to Shia domination. That means giving up the Sunni Arab warlords, gang leaders and terrorist chiefs, the people that make most of the violence happen. It's not like the Sunni Arab leadership can just push a button, and make their bad guys go away. In Arab culture, the process moves a lot more slowly, and involves lots of talking, coffee, promises, deceit and drama. Apparently the drama has been convincing, because the Shia politicians running the country have persuaded Shia military and police units to go after Shia death squads. All of this is going to take months to play out. There will be cries of "Betrayal!" from the Shia community. Some Shia cops and soldiers will balk at busting fellow Shia, even if the perps are stone killers with dozens of bodies on them. However, the national leadership has agreed that peace with the Sunni Arabs, and an end to the vengeance killings, is necessary. Making this happen is the next crucial battle in the war.

Yes, this is ugly. But it is also progress, as difficult as it may seem to conclude. When the internal threats come more from your own side threatening to wipe out the enemy than from the enemy that has resisted for three years, you are defeating the enemy.

This fight against the Sadr types is a battle that must be won. But we've won the others. This is delicate but we can win this, too.

Rubble Does Cause Trouble

After some talk of how brilliantly Israel is isolating the battlefield prior to launching a ground attack, some are questioning the target set the Israelis are going through.

It is not isolating the battlefield.

And it is not pressuring the Lebanese government or people to turn on Hizbollah.

And just forget Michael O'Hanlon's analysis. This is not like Kosovo. First of all, the war isn't over so comparisons of this nature are a little premature. Second, even if Israel never sends in ground troops in large numbers, this is not like Kosovo. In Kosovo, we bombed Serbia to stop Serbian (Yugoslavian) conventional troops from committing ethnic cleansing against Moslems in Kosovo and to support Kosovo rebels.

Lebanon is not like Serbia. Lebanon is not inflicting pain on the local Shias who are protected by Hizbollah against Lebanese conventional forces trying to commit genocide. Perhaps if Israel was running an aerial campaign against Syria to get them to rein in Hizbollah you could make a better case to compare it to Kosovo; but even then you wouldn't be talking about stopping Syrian troops so the comparison would still be weak.

The point is that Israel's targets don't make sense to me. And to others.

Glory Be

Taiwan ran through an anti-invasion exercises this month:

The "Chinese Glory" maneuvers were meant to test Taiwan's army, navy, air force and marines against the forces of its longtime rival mainland China, just 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing remains committed to bringing the self-governing island back into its fold — possibly through the sort of beach-landing invasion that the exercises simulated.

So, the Taiwanese practiced holding the beaches. I imagine the PLA main effort--if it comes--will be through the ports, so this 1944-style practice is not terribly relevant to how I think China would invade Taiwan.

Still, practicing to hit ships at sea is useful regardless of where they are heading. Though I'd feel better if their best fighters, the F-16s, practiced aerial combat instead.

And at least Taiwan is working on making their reserves readily available. The claims they "made good progress" are more an indication of problems to work on than an indication the problems are solved.

Remember, exercises to deter the potential enemy are more theater than they are training.

I hope the same is true of Chinese invasion exercises. Because 2008 is only two years away.

New UN Force for Southern Lebanon?

So the 2,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) hasn't exactly kept the peace in southern Lebanon. Or stopped Hizbollah from turning northern Israel into a shooting gallery.

But ever hopeful, the international community wants a ceasefire to send a larger and of course far more effective UN force into southern Lebanon. To do what I don't know. I mean other than protect Hizbollah and allow the UN to generate press coverage about doing "something" to preserve peace. I'm sure the stout fellows of this new and improved UN force will take on the killers of Hizbollah and send them packing if they even think of nosing around their old rocket-launching sites.

You scoff at the idea that the international community will stop Hizbollah? You simpleton!

The international community must be angry with Hizbollah. I mean, the UN didn't authorize Hizbollah to attack Israel. So there was no international test, right? Hizbollah launched an illegal war, right?

Given the history and capabilities of the UN, I suggest the new UN force in Lebanon be called UNIFAIL. Or possibly UNIFUTILE.

Or am I being too cynical?

UPDATE: UNIFIL's mandate expires on July 31, 2006. Considering that its three missions in 1978 were to A. Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces; B. Restore international peace and security; and C. Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area, I'd have to say that UNIFIL should just be allowed to lapse since in 28 years UNIFIL only seemed to focus on that first mission.

Good God ...

I'm used to reading reports of North Korean cruelty and depravity but is this report by a refugee from North Korea possibly true?

Standing at the podium in a US congressional office building, 'Joseph' told a horrific story, of the proprietor of a popular restaurant in the North Korean town where he once lived.

"That person killed and canibalised 13 people," he said.

'Joseph' said restaurant owner preyed on young children who were forced to scavenge in the streets for food.

"They brought them in, gave them a bath and then they choked them to death," he said. "Then they cleaned them up and butchered them, and made them into a Korean delicacy and say 'this is made with pork.'"

The United States quietly granted refugee status to six North Koreans, the first to be admitted to the country under a 2004 US law, in May.

My God. You know, when I first read it my reaction was simply, "well, isn't that interesting." I mean, I'm so used to the absolute disgusting nature of the regime in Pyongyang that even cannibalism barely registered. I almost just clicked and moved on.

But then I recoiled from just passing off the charge of cannibalism of children as just another ho hum atrocity of the Kim regime. If this wasn't worthy of a post because it was just one more terrible thing of evil that the regime has done and continues to do, it would be a quiet weary surrender on my part to that evil.

If true, "evil" doesn't even begin to describe that regime. And tolerating such a hideous regime--let alone dancing with the thug Pillsbury Nuke Boy--should be beneath us.

Let the North Korean regime die. Don't save them with aid. Stability that preserves this Hell hole is just wrong.

Make My Day

This post says that Iran retains the ability to cause problems in Bosnia and may open a new front here if the Lebanon adventure looks bad:

There is concern among Bosnian contacts that, if Iran feels things are going badly in Lebanon and that the war needs another front, it would take little to ignite Bosnia. It would not be hard to do and the international presence in Bosnia is greatly reduced. So is the intelligence capacity developed in the late 1990s.

Yes, Iran has assets in Bosnia. But attacking in Bosnia isn't so much a new front to threaten us as it is a threat to Europe that draws in Europeans to fight Iran in the Balkans and probably leads them to support our fight against Iran inside Iran itself.

I certainly can't rule out that Iran might think this is a good idea. If Iran opened up a Lebanon front to distract us from the nuclear issue, they may have just put their Hizbollah and Syrian allies at risk by drawing in the asset of the Israeli military to our side in the struggle against Iran. And to be fair, CNN will probably report a Bosnian front as a brilliant Iranian move.

But really, a Bosnia front isn't much of a threat in my opinion. A "new front" should stretch our assets and not add assets to our side.

Mobilizing?

On television tonight, a STRATFOR analyst said that Israel was in the process of "mobilizing a couple more divisions." Which implies at least one is already being mobilized.

This is for a major ground invasion to hit Hizbollah on the ground in the next few days, he said.

If this mobilization report is true, there will still be room for miscalculation on somebody's part for an escalation to a war with Syria and we'll have to see if Iran backs Syria and what the Israeli security agreement with Turkey includes.

And again, I'd sure like to know if Syria really is mobilizing reserves. If Damascus does this, Israel will need to mobilize much more to keep Syria from trying to capture the Golan Heights with a temporary edge in troops. And once Israel mobilizes fully, they pretty much have to attack fairly soon since the Israelis can't afford to have so many reservists out of the economy for long.

Loose Nukes

Keeping terrorists from getting nukes involves far more than stopping countries from giving terrorists nukes or stopping terrorists from building their own. Keeping existing nukes from being stolen by terrorists or given to terrorists by sympathizers in nations with nukes is also important.

We are doing this in yet another quiet program whose very silence allows critics of our policies to say we are doing nothing to fight terrorism because Iraq is "distracting" us:

Without too much fanfare or publicity, the United States is providing nuclear armed nations with advice on developing "fail safe" and other technologies to secure their nukes. Help is also provided for improving security at the storage sites for nuclear weapons. While some of this discreet assistance involves American military secrets, much of it is no more than pointing out the commercial technologies and services available from American and European suppliers. The recipients of all this help appear to include India, Pakistan, China and Russia.

I knew about Pakistan and Russian efforts. The Chinese and Indian efforts are interesting.

Dress Rehearsal for the First Blogged War

Blogging on breaking events, often as original reporting, was just hinted at in the invasion of Iraq but has come of age in the campaign to defeat insurgents and terrorists in Iraq.

Winds of Change calls the Lebanon Crisis the first blogged war. I guess this is true in a sense. But Kosovo was the first Internet war. Yet it was too short to really show the new powers of the Internet. We had to wait until the Iraq War to see the Internet really used to cover the war. I suspect that we won't see the full impact of a Blogged War in this crisis. My guess is that the Iran Campaign will be the first Blogged War. And it will be blogged even from inside Iran as the fighting goes on. I guess the only question is whether the Lebanon Crisis expands into the Iran Campaign or whether the campaign to overthrow the mullahs begins separately on our timetable.

Like every other ramping up of news technology, it will seem to overwhelm our ability to comprehend and make the prior methods seem slow and plodding--and providing time for thinking about the events.

This is a trend that has been going on ever since the telegraph and the Crimean War at least.

We can see the next step. What comes after blogging wars?

Restraint, Proportionality, and Effectiveness

From the beginning I have not been happy with Israel's response over Hizbollah's attack. Or the Hamas attack for that matter. Israel's right to defend her people from bloody attackers is clear, but I have my doubts about how Tel Aviv is doing it.

While it may certainly be true that Lebanon has an obligation to secure its territory to prevent it from being used to attack Israel, in reality Lebanon does not yet have that power. Attacking Lebanon to punish the government for failing to do what it cannot do is folly. Lebanon without Syrian overt control is better than it was with that control. Are we to undo this progress by giving Syria an excuse to go back into Lebanon to "protect" Lebanon? I bet Syria is hard at work trying to get an Arab League mandate to do just that. And if they can't get that, they'll just try to get their spies back to Lebanon in force.

The excuse I've heard some give for attacking the transportaiton infrastructure of lebanon is that Israel is prepping the battlefield by "isolating" Hizbollah. Israel hitting the Beirut airport and roads to Syria to isolate the terrorists, cut off their supplies and route for retreat is completely ridiculous. Even a massive air campaign could not cut off small groups of terrorists who can flee off roads and whose supply needs in the long run are minimal and whose supplies for the next several months are already in Lebanon.

Our far more massive aerial assault did not completely cut off the far larger conventional Iraqi army camped in Kuwait in 1991 even after five weeks of attack. Several hundred thousand enemy troops ate and had ammo to fight even after our tonnage of bombs dropped. What chance does Israel have of actually cutting off a terrorist group scattered all around south Lebanon and mixed with the population?

If Israel worries Syria might send armored forces into Lebanon, hitting roads into Lebanon makes some sense to slow the Syrians down and leave them vulnerable to air attack. But isolating and cutting off Hizbollah? Not a chance.

Israel should say to hell with proportionality and hit Hizbollah as hard and as fast as they can before Sunni Arab states succumb to public pressure to "do something about Israel" and before our efforts to stall the UN from calling for a ceasefire fail. But Israel should also show restraint and slow down the erosion of tacit support for hitting Hizbollah by avoiding Lebanese targets except in extreme circumstances. Even if they are of use to Hizbollah. The Lebanese are not the enemy.

And remember that in the end, Syria is crucial for supporting Hizbollah and Iran is crucial for propping up Syria.

We have many reasons to destroy the mullah regime in Iran: nukes, terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Lebanon and Syria.

UPDATE: Well, if this escalates it won't be because Israel want to. Israel will not take on Syria or Iran:

Israel stressed it did not plan to target Hezbollah's main sponsors, Iran and Syria, during the current fighting.

"We will leave Iran to the world community, and Syria as well," Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Army Radio. "It's very important to understand that we are not instilling world order."

It is all the more important to stop hitting Lebanese targets if this is the case. My main question for this decision is whether Israel is thinking tactically in wanting just to hammer Hizbollah. Because absent any follow-up moves to unroot Hizbollah from southern Lebanon, in time Syria and Iran will reconstitute Hizbollah. Or is Israel assuming we will take out Iran soon so there is no reason to go after Syria? Remember, Hizbollah would not be as potent without Syria providing aid and a transit point for supplies from Iran; and Syria wouldn't be as potent without Iran propping them up. So why limit the fighting to Hizbollah? Is this tactical or strategic thinking at work?

Follow the Leader

So is Iran instigating this Lebanon crisis or is Hizbollah dragging Iran along?

Luttwak sees Iran as leading. This is certainly the conventional wisdom:

Instead of passively awaiting the inevitable sanctions, Iran's leaders decided to start a Middle East crisis of their own by organizing attacks against Israel. Their aim is to discourage the US and the Europeans from starting another crisis against themselves - financial markets and everyday politics in Europe especially can only tolerate so much conflict.

That gambit could also bring another benefit. Iran's claim to Muslim leadership is now being badly undermined by conflict in Iraq, where Iran supports the Shi'ite militias that are killing Sunnis. Every bloody day of bombings and executions in Iraq reminds Arabs that the Persian leaders of Iran are not Arabs, and it reminds Sunni Muslims everywhere that the Persians are not Sunnis. Attacking Israel overcomes all divisions among Muslims and gains Arab gratitude for Iran's help.

IRAN'S MOVE was prepared in a series of meetings with its local allies, both Hamas of Palestine and the Hizbullah of Lebanon. Khaled Mashaal, the overall Hamas leader who remains safely in Damascus under Syrian protection, traveled to Teheran at one point, where he received some $50 million in cash.

Peters thinks Iran is following:

AS soon as Hezbollah commandos snatched two Israeli soldiers from northern Israeli, we were told Iran was behind it. Utterly wrong. That raid was a Hezbollah-conceived copy-cat operation launched impulsively to piggyback on the Hamas seizure of an Israeli soldier in Gaza the week before. The Iranian government was as surprised as anyone.

Iran was dragged into the mess thereafter. But - while President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is always delighted to give we-will-bury you speeches - Iran's best interests just now are served by avoiding violent confrontations with Israel while Tehran tries to persuade the world that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes. Iran's fanatics don't just want to capture or kill six Israeli soldiers. They want to kill 6 million Jews.

The Iranians were blindsided, but had to back their clients (as Germany had to back Austria in 1914).

Hard to say. I do tend to go with the conventional wisdom on this issue. I think Iran is leading. Just because Luttwak's analysis shows Iran to have badly judged Arab government reaction to the clash doesn't mean that Iran didn't assume that Sunni Arabs would rally even to Shias in a conflict with Israel. Worked in the past, after all.

And Iran may have underestimated Israel's will to respond forcefully to the attacks since Sharon passed from the scene.

But at some point, the question of who started the parade is irrelevant. If Iran rushes to the front even though Hizbollah started it, it becomes Iran's parade.

Was World War I any less a world war because Germany allowed its ally Austria-Hungary to push Germany into offensive war with France which then dragged in Britain? Once Germany decided it had to act, it was Germany's war.

Unless Iran decides to cut its losses and abandon Hizbollah to its fate and the protection of the UN who will in time pressure Israel to stop fighting, this war could widen even if Iran did not direct Hizbollah to attack Israel.

Still, though I think this fight has the potential to widen and the chance of miscalculation increases the longer the fight lasts, a number of experts (via Austin Bay) think the war will not spread.

So if Iran isn't ready to fight Israel and is willing to let Hizbollah get smashed up, if Israel is willing to settle for damaging Hizbollah and lets Syria and Iran off the hook, if we are not ready to confront Iran over other issues yet, and if Syria doesn't panic and strike first fearing they'll get hammered anyway if they sit still, then we may just see a local fight that leaves the major players readying for a future war.

But I'll wait and see how Syrian and Israeli mobilizations go before I call it one way or the other,

Two Wrongs Make a Time Column

Joe Klein isn't high on my list of respected columnists:

But it is also clear now that a major consequence of George W. Bush's disastrous foreign policy has been an emboldened Iran. The U.S. "has been Iran's very best friend," a diplomat from a predominantly Sunni nation told me recently. "You have eliminated its enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. You have even reduced yourselves as a threat to Iran because you have spent so much blood and treasure in Iraq."

First of all, our enemies simply do not look at our commitment of 129,000 troops in Iraq out of over 2 million total forces and conclude we are helpless. Before Iraq, our enemies saw our uncommitted power and thought little of attacking us since they assumed we didn't have the guts to fight them. Now, with less than ten percent of our forces, we have smashed the Taliban and Saddam's regime and have created hundreds of thousands of allied Iraqi and Afghan troops to help us fight the jihadis.

Does anybody doubt that our enemies fear us? Do they really see us as helpless because of Iraq? Come on! If China overran Mexico and Canada at the cost of 10,000 killed in action for the PLA after five years of fighting, would we seriously be gloating that we had the weakened China right where we wanted them?

Iran is seriously in a bad position with our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do not become confused on this as Klein is.

And after starting out with his assumption that our policy is making things worse, Klein sees confirmation in a Sunni diplomat's analysis? The Sunnis despise the Shias. The Shias are seen by Sunnis as heretics and lower class bumpkins who shouldn't be allowed to write with sharp objects let alone run their own countries. Of course the diplomat from a predominantly Sunni country is going to be upset we knocked down an uber-Sunni Taliban state and elevated the Shias over the Sunnis of Iraq. Bad precedents from a Sunni point of view, don't you know?

So don't take Sunni advice on the Shias as completely unbiased. I'd want to know who the Sunni diplomat is before I take his statement at face value as Klein did. But I'd expect Klein to take it at face value. It is too convenient for him not to believe it.

Amazing. Somehow we should still be in search of those elusive mullah moderates who will make a deal with us.

Eagle Claws, Beak, and a Whole Lot More

Hizbollah is being hammered and Arab states aren't rallying to their cause as they probably assumed. So what might they do to reverse their losses as Israel prepares to send in ground troops?

Austin Bay notes that a lot of American citizens are in Lebanon and potentially at risk if Ahmadinejad pines for his youthful glory days and tries for Embassy Seizure II or something like that:

The US prepares to evacuate American nationals. If Hezbollah gets desperate, Americans in Lebanon could become real human hostages. Don’t dismiss the terrible thought out of hand. Iranian revolutionaries took the US Embassy in Tehran hostage. As StrategyPage noted, this is an Iran-Israel war, with Hezbollah and Hamas as Iran’s proxies. Of course taking American hostages opens the door for US reprisals. George W. Bush won’t dither like Jimmy Carter.

There will be no Desert Two fiasco if Iran or their proxies Hizbollah take this step. All we need is an excuse and we will go after the mullah regime. I just don't believe President Bush intends to leave this task to the next president.

Mobilization

I've already noted that the fighting over Hizbollah in Lebanon could spin out of control.

Well, as I noted, Israel is mobilizing troops (via Real Clear Politics):

The IDF on Sunday mobilized a reserve infantry division in preparation for a possible ground incursion into south Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

And so is Syria:

Meanwhile, Al-Arabiya television reported that the Syrian military was mobilizing its own reserve divisions.

If Syria is mobilizing divisions, Israel will need to mobilize tank divisions and not just a single infantry division to fight Hizbollah.

And then the price of miscalculation goes up.

UPDATE: After reading another story that said Israel was mobilizing three brigades (three per division), I read another story on Wednesday that said Israel is mobilizing three battalions (three per brigade). So this is not a major mobilization for a general war against Syria. If the story represents the whole mobilization story, of course. And I need to read something about what Syria is mobilizing.