EUnclear on the Concept

Is it really possible that thirteen days past the latest deadline that the EU is still trying to get Iran to agree to what we demanded they stop (Uranium enrichment) at that latest deadline?

Um, yes:

The European Union is to issue new calls to Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, after the six world powers trying to strike a nuclear deal with Tehran failed to agree on a joint statement at a UN atomic agency meeting here.

Is it even possible for the EU to accept no for an answer? What exactly is unclear about the Iranian position and why does the EU think that the key is asking the question exactly right? This isn't a problem of nuance. The EU is splitting hairs while the Iranians seek to split atoms.

Six months ago I despaired at the infinite EU patience:

Thirty days to comply here and thirty days there. Pretty soon we're talking about real time. Time enough for nukes, the mullahs are assuming. I see no reason to judge their optimism wrong if we really are counting on the Iranians to surrender their nuke ambitions.

I ran across this post by accident. I'm sure if I looked I'd find far more posts like it. I mean, it isn't as if reflexive bowing and scraping is a new trait of the European Union.

Potential Threat No More

Our problem with Islamic extemism did not begin with the fall of Baghdad or even the election of 2000. It was visible sixty years ago.

Via The Corner is this analysis of the Moslem world done in 1946 by an American intelligence analyst. His conclusion:

If the Moslem states were strong and stable, their behavior would be more predictable. They are, however, weak and torn by internal stresses; furthermore, their peoples are insufficiently educated to appraise propaganda or to understand the motives of those who promise a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Because of the strategic position of the Moslem world and the relentlessness of its peoples, the Moslem states constitute a potential threat to world peace. There cannot be permanent world stability, when one-seventh of the earth's population exists under the economic and political conditions that are imposed upon the Moslems.

It is a potential threat no more. Sixty years of the same factors undermining the potential of this part of the world and the potential of fanatics from this world to get the bomb that only we possessed in 1946 have made the threat very real and very dangerous.

It is tempting to ask what if we had sought to repair the Moslem world starting in 1946 instead of 2001. But that is pointless. At that time, we were trying to repair the dysfunctional European world still recovering from fascism and Japan still recovering from militarism after the guns of World War II fell silent. We had much to do. And shortly, before we'd made much progress in seeing the former Axis countries and their victims rebuilt, the Iron Curtain would come down. In order to rally forces to stop Soviet and then Soviet and Chinese communism during the Cold War, short-term stability held in place by friendly islamic dictators was more valuable than facing a potential threat from the Moslem world. We had little choice. Would you trade a loss in the Cold War for a repaired Moslem world? A Moslem world that might then have simply succumbed to a new disease from communism triumphant?

And even if you think our Cold War victory was inevitable, could our leaders really have assumed that in 1947 when the Iron Curtain came down even as Europe lay in ruins? Or 1957 during the atom bomb scares and the apparent monolith of China and Russia making the East Red? Or 1967 when Euro-communism was rampant and our fight in Vietnam was raging? Or 1977 when Soviet clients ran rampant in Africa and the Third World, and many assumed we were doomed to lose the Cold War? Or even 1987 on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse when the Western Europeans seemed to be losing their nerve to resist the Soviets and many Americans thought we were fools to try to outspend Moscow in an arms race? At what stage could our leaders have said, we are safe now, we can afford to discard potential allies to fight the Soviets and focus on the Moslem world's problems?

Sadly, containing the Soviet Union did not lead to their collapse in a decade as was once hoped. And in the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, we forgot about the growing threat of the Moslem world that stood still wallowing in its poverty and backwardness while the West and Asia advanced by leaps and bounds.

We may not have had a choice but to promote the stability of dictatorships as the realistic choice at the time, but have no doubt that it had a terrible impact on the Moslem world.

So now, after 9/11 showed the failure of the realism school 's forced stability from the top down, we are trying to foster strength and stability through democracy and rule of law. We do this not so much out of altruism, although that streak is there (certainly our troops feel they are doing good), but so these will provide economic progress and liberty to reverse the economic and political conditions that have given us our current threat from the Moslem world. Now we must try to provide stability from the bottom up resting on a prosperous, educated, and free Moslem population.

Without that bottom-up stability, we will have Moslems who are still unpredictable, backward, determined to reach Paradise, and possessing atomic weapons. It is a combination too explosive to accept.

We may fail after letting the potential problem foreseen sixty years ago fester for so long, but do we really have a choice but to try?

Round in the Chamber

Our embassy in Damascus was attacked by jihadis but the Syrian government's forces stopped the attackers:

Armed Islamic militants attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy in a brazen attack Tuesday, the government said. Four people were killed, including three of the assailants. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but an al-Qaida offshoot group was suspected, Syria's ambassador to the United States said.

No Americans were hurt in the attack, in which the militants used automatic rifles, hand grenades and at least one van rigged with explosives.

The al-Qaida offshoot group, called Jund al-Sham, has been blamed for several attacks in Syria in recent years, the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in comments to CNN.

Let's not get carried away thanking the Syrian government and remember why jihadis are in Syria.

Syria plays with fire by letting jihadis roll through Syrian territory to kill our troops in Iraq. Perhaps some got bored waiting to cross. Perhaps some think it is too dangerous to tangle with Marines and soldiers in Iraq. Perhaps some see a secular Baathist regime in Damascus as a bigger threat and want to harm Assad by embarassing him. Maybe some jihadis are upset with Syria for failing to support Hizbollah enough in Lebanon in the recent fight with Israel. Perhaps our enemies will just attack us wherever we are.

The Syrians think they control the jihadis they keep firing at us in Iraq. They do not. There is no reason for jihadis to love Assad's Baathist gang of thieves even as the jihadis take whatever help they can get from Assad. Really, have you noticed that despite the grand talk of destroying America, the jihadis usually settle for killing local Moslems who aren't quite up to the depraved standards of the jihadis?

The shots may have been fired at our embassy, but in the end the most damage will be done to Assad's regime.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit, was it a Syrian job to gain some credit with us? I tend to think that the simpler explanation is that when you let jihadis hang around and move freely, the jihadis tend to do, well, jihadi things. And he price of getting caught (remember the Lebanon caper and how that led to the Syrian army withdrawing?) would be high--though with all the attackers dead that might be a low chance.

ANOTHER UPDATE: An article on Time.com also thinks that Syria is the ultimate target:

Another way to look at it is that the Syrian regime may be reaping what it sows. Among Arab leaders, Assad is alone in his outspoken support for Islamic militant groups like Hizballah in Lebanon, and the Palestinan factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. U.S. officials believe that the Assad regime has secretly aided the three-year-old Sunni insurgency in Iraq, providing passage for jihad volunteers and funds, and safe haven for insurgency leaders. At the start of the war in 2003, Arab jihadists who poured into Damascus en route to Baghdad were allowed to openly line up outside the Iraqi embassy just down the road from the American embassy.

Playing the jihadi "street" card may have bought a little time for Assad in the short run, but in the long run, jihadis are far more of a threat to Assad's regime than America is.

The jihadis may well decide to hit less well protected targets inside Syria--you know, Syrian targets. Damascus is unlikely to take such attacks with much calm. It will be interesting to see if Syria can escape their Iranian hand puppet role to crack down on terrorists that Iran would just as soon see running free and killing.

Calm Down and Add it Up

UPDATE AT THE TOP: Welcome Daily Koz readers. Man, that's not anything I thought I'd ever write. This post has been mis-represented. I am not arguing for genocide. I am noting that the traditional military way of defeating insurgents is to kill lots of the enemy population. Like Saddam did in southern Iraq in 1991, just as an example. We don't do that. We will try to pacify Anbar and that is not a military solution. So we must wait for Iraqi forces and governmental entities to move into Anbar. Our military holds the line until then.

And if the Sunnis foolishly still won't end their terror campaign when we are no longer there, I am just noting that the Iraqi government might choose something closer to the traditional method. So do read the entire post and don't rely on the excerpts.

Oh, and if it is too tough to read the whole post as a single piece, try this post from several months ago where I explicitly argue against brutal tactics to subdue Anbar for both reasons of honor and practicality.


ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Recent reports that Anbar province is not being pacified by our troops out there are probably accurate. I've noted the problems we've had in subduing the region. The Post article says:

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

Anbar was largely ignored except for air strikes until the months leading up to the 2005 constitution referendum. We've been trying to move in with our forces over the last year to knock down the Sunni gunmen and allow Iraqi forces to set up and police the region. Thus far, we haven't had enough success in getting effective Iraqi forces out west.

But this does not mean the battle is lost. The enemy is resisting. They do that. That's why they aren't friends. And it is true that this is not a military problem but a political one. Short of killing every third military age man out there we won't be able to subdue the enemy in Anbar. All we can do is hold the line and buy time while the Iraqi government builds the capability to move into Anbar in force to subdue the enemy. The Iraqis will have more street smarts in identifying bad guys without guns in their hands. And the Iraqis will be able to make deals with the local tribal leaders (as some tribes have done already). More ominously, if the Sunnis won't deal, the Iraqi government will be able to kill every third man of military age in the province if that is what it takes to end the terrorism.

We may not be winning with our troops, but it is no surprise we aren't. Our Left used to say that the military is no solution to any problem but now seem to think only a military solution is credible in Anbar? What gives with that?

Strategypage writes of Anbar:

The Baath Party (pro-Saddam) Sunni Arab nationalists still have thousands of fighters in play, backed by cash and fear of prosecution for terrorist acts (going back to Saddam's days). Add to that hundreds of al Qaeda, and thousands of diehard Sunni Arab tribesmen in Anbar, plus a population that will not accept foreigners (including Kurds and Shia Arab Iraqis) with guns among them, and you have the wild, wild west. May not stay that way for long, though. Despite the losses, the government is willing to keep sending troops and special police battalions to Anbar. Month by month, there are more Iraqi security forces able to handle Anbar. Meanwhile, the tribes are not getting any stronger. Do the math. And remember that there's a growing attitude among the majority of Iraqis (Kurds and Shia), that the country would be better off with no Sunni Arabs at all. This is never even brought up by the government, but it commonly heard on the street, where the police and soldiers are recruited from.

We aren't losing in Anbar. But we aren't winning militarily, either. That should be no shock given the task and our limitations. Other factors are working in our favor, however, even as there is military stalemate in Anbar.

Think of a front where three brigades are holding on line and you control the center brigade. The enemy is on the offensive and in your center brigade sector, you are holding the enemy off. You haven't driven the enemy off but you are holding here. But your sector is not the whole front. On your left flank, your sister brigade is being hammered and pushed back. On your right, the enemy has punched a hole in the front and armor is streaming through. Your success is local and will become irrelevant as the flanks collapse.

So the enemy in Anbar is holding the line in Anbar. This alone is progress from our point of view compared to the first two years of the post-major combat operations phase of the war when we didn't contest the region on the ground. But today, as the Iraqi government and its security forces grow in size and experience, the enemy's right flank is being broken as more Iraqi forces push toward the main front. And on the left, the Shias and Kurds are growing weary of playing footsy with the Sunnis in the hope the Sunnis will make a deal. That barrier could collapse at any time and then the Sunnis will be in a world of hurt if that happens.

Counter-insurgency has a military component but it is primarily a political problem absent an extermination campaign (and that only settles the problem for a generation). Our military can buy time for the political track and that is what we are doing. That, and atomizing the enemy so the Iraqi military can handle the threat. It isn't a matter of more troops in Anbar. It is a matter of Iraqi troops and a government presence being planted in the province to push the neutrals to side with the government and push the enemy to slide into neutrality or even pro-government attitudes.

The Marines state they have enough for their mission of training Iraqis to do the job:

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer told reporters in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Fallujah, he has enough troops to do the training mission. In the long run it will require greater progress toward political reconciliation among rival Sunni and Shiite sects before the insurgency is undermined, he said.

"I've got the force levels I need right now," Zilmer said. "My mission out here, along with the rest of the force, is to develop the ISF (Iraqi security forces), and I think we have the appropriate force levels to do that. Now, if that mission statement changes — if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight — then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here."

Thirty thousand Marines and soldiers are fighting in a province of 1.3 million people. Or 2.3%. I imagine that to really grind down the enemy there we'd need 4%, or 52,000. I doubt that Iraqi forces amount to more than 20% of our forces so add no more than 6,000 Iraqis to ours for a total of 36,000. But with the Iraqi security forces growing and other areas outside of Baghdad calming down, I have no doubt that the Iraqi government will be able to send 50-60,000 security forces to the region in time. This represents only about 10% of the nearly 500,000 Iraqi security personnel (army, national and local police, and facility protection forces). We will get the trained Iraqis out west in time even as we hold the line against the enemy.

Then the last stubborn holdouts will be killed, arrested, or driven from Iraq. Have patience, people, and let the Iraqis win.

Calm down and put away the white flags. We face problems in Iraq--not defeat.

The Depths of Hatred

On the heels of proclaiming that I never hated President Clinton (though I had little respect for him as our president), it is depressing to see (tip to Real Clear Politics) the depth of hatred that some in the West have toward President Bush.

These people could simply never hate the head choppers, women oppressors, or gay killers in the jihadi movement the way they despise our President.

Our President needs to protect us from the threats to our people. To Hell with those who hate him for doing that.

September 10th Yet Again

September 10th is almost over. But for large segments of our population, September 10th will continue when midnight passes.

For all the controversy over the ABC docu-drama about the pre-9/11 decade, I never blamed President Clinton for our failure to destroy bin Laden in those days. I don't think in the over four years I've written this blog that you can point to a single post that blames President Clinton for our problems. Oh, I've attacked the Clinton record--but only in response to the bizarre claims of his defenders that his 8 years were a focused effort to kill bin Laden in contrast to the failure of President Bush's 8 months. It is sheer partisan politics to slam President Bush while asserting President Clinton was focused like a laser beam on terrorism.

I wasn't focused on terror. I was aware of bin Laden and even wrote an article I've yet been able to get published that quoted bin Laden, but I did not see him as anything other than one more threat to our nation. I did not see 9/11 or anything like it coming. I was merely worried that we would let our defenses slide in the post-Cold War world in the false belief that we had no defense worries left after Moscow imploded.

And despite Secretary Cohen's famous television address using the five-pound bag of flour to represent the amount of bio agents needed to kill millions, our country was not ready to confront an enemy. We had won the Cold War and our nation had no stomach for war. Even if President Clinton had tried to rally the nation to fight al Qaeda, I don't think our nation would have followed him. We desperately wanted the peace of the victory we'd won over the Soviet Union.

And the idea that President Clinton would have tried to lead us is nonsensical. I never respected President Clinton much. I never hated him, however, I am proud to say. I never bought the conspiracies and I didn't fume over his electoral victories or damn the voters for electing him. He won. I didn't like that fact. But he won. I basically don't think that President Clinton was prepared to be the president. Oh, he liked being the president. He loved being the president. But he never really became a president. He simply presided over the bubble economy in the period between the falls of the Berlin Wall and the Twin Towers that defined this vacation from history. President Clinton was a place holder while we debated whether history had ended. President Clinton sure hoped it had ended. That made the job of president pure fun and games without the pressure of decisions and leading the nation.

So while I cannot blame our leaders of either party for failing to lead us in our September 10th world against the jihadi threat, I cannot fathom how anybody can fail to see the threats that September 11th showed to all of us so horrifyingly clearly that morning five years ago.

It is only a half hour to September 11th. How many Americans will still fail to turn their calendar to September 11th for the fifth straight year?

How can it be a terrorist Groundhog Day yet again?

Hope Springs EUternal

The EU has reported encouraging results of their talks with Iran over the nuclear issue.

We demanded that Iran halt Uranium enrichment and Iran has missed the deadline. So we in the international community should be discussing exactly what sanctions to impose on Iran, when to start them, how to enforce them, and the conditions we have for ending them.

So why would anybody consider this progress?

One diplomat said Larijani floated the possibility of stopping enrichment activities "voluntarily, for one or two months if presented ... in such a way that it does it without pressure."

Such a concession would be a major departure by Iran, which is under threat of possible U.N. Security Council for ignoring an Aug. 31 deadline to halt all enrichment activities.

Earlier, both Larijani and Solana spoke of progress in their discussions and agreed to meet again later this week.

Iran is ready to consider merely suspending enrichment. If the Iranians are considering a short-term suspension, you can be sure that the Iranians have reached a point where they don't need to enrich for a short period and so are willing to get credit for temporarily halting non-critical work. Once Iran needs to enrich again, their suspension will halt.

This is not progress--unless you think the Europeans believe that it is "progress" if they can surrender while making it sound like it is victory.

One can't rule that out, now can one?

Rearming

Our ally Japan is getting serious about defending themselves.

Apparently, North Korea and China don't seem so benign from Tokyo's perspective.

And the long supply lines to Middle East energy supplies run past China.

If Japan is worried about China's threats to Japan's oil supplies, Japan's rearmament is just beginning. Even a gretly strengthened Navy and Air Force that are limited to a thousand miles from Japan will do Japan no good if China wants to cut Japan's oil supplies from the source. Japan will need a navy with air power capable of projecting power all the way to the Arabian Sea.

In a generation or less, we will probably see Japanese aircraft carriers operating in the Indian Ocean again. And to support such far flung deployments, we will see Japanese bases from India to the South China Sea to perhaps Taiwan, too, I bet.

I would never change places with China. Every step China takes to increase their power projection capability runs into a country--no matter which way your go--that isn't happy about that and reacts by increasing their own power (Even Russia can act like a Chinese poodle for only so long until it recovers some power lost when the Soviet Union went belly up.). It is quite possible that net Chinese security is actually running backwards for every increase in absolute Chinese power.

Japan's decision to rearm will make our position in the western Pacific far more secure.

Are They Stoned?

The Senate Committee on Intelligence has found no evidence of connections between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda?


Where they looking in the refrigerators of House members, or what? Do they consider it only a "relationship" if al Qaeda was sharing office space and a receptionist in downtown Baghdad? Do they forget that President Clinton struck the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998 precisely because of the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in relation to poison gas?

I find it amazing that our Senate sees nothing. I understand why the loyal opposition wants to ignore connections, but why the majority party? Having trouble at cocktail parties, are they?

Read this instead and ignore the silly report by a committee of the world's greatest debilitated body. The judgment here:

But beyond the obvious political gamesmanship, there is little merit to this posturing because there is little serious analysis in the Senate report: Far from providing the definitive word on Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, the report is almost worthless.

Read it all, as the saying goes. What a Senate we have.

Cause for War

So we know that the UN will not impose meaningful sanctions on Iran. China and Russia will see to that and the EU won't back us to pressure China and Russia.

I'm extremely confident that Iran won't accept any inducements to halt their nuclear program.

I've been sure all along that Israel will attack if we don't do something to halt Iran; and I'm pretty confdent that Israel can't do a thorough job without using nukes. Moslems will get mad at us and Iran won't be harmed significantly if Israel tries to push the problem down the road with conventional attacks, or Iran will have glass craters and the Moslem world will be furious with us. Oh, and Islamic bombs will proliferate like mad as a result of Israel using them against even the hated Shia Persians just as nukes will proliferate in the region if Iran gets atomic weapons.

I have been persistently hopeful that we have been preparing for a regime change in Iran as the ultimate solution to Iran's WMD ambitions. But what if I am wrong? What if our CIA has been too focused on regime change at home to do something useful covertly in Iran? What if the President doesn't have the heart to push regime change in the face of international and domestic opposition or even a conventional attack on Iran's nuclear facilities?

What do we do if all these things are true? What if Iran will go nuclear, we can't take action, and Israel will strike if we don't and fail to do a good job of it or use their own nuclear weapons?

This leaves us with the need to do something less spectacular than attacking and sponsoring a coup/revolution that can either succeed on its own or create circumstances where we will be justified in taking offensive action.

This article, via the Weekly Standard blog, says that Iran is more vulnerable to economic sanctions than $70 per barrel oil would lead us to believe:

As Iran hurtles toward a confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program, the nation's economy remains a dysfunctional wreck. Neither wholly free nor entirely socialist, the Iranian market is a ramshackle hybrid buttressed by lofty oil prices. One year after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president on a vow to share Iran's oil wealth with the poor, Tehran's army of jobless men is a reminder of the squandered potential that characterizes revolutionary Iran.

But weak sanctions won't harm Iran much more than our long years of unilateral sanctions. And even if we get stronger international sanctions, they will present Iran with only a short-term problem as sanctions leak and weaken (remember France and Russia in regard to Iraq?) as nations look to make a buck and as Iranians exploit their skills at avoiding sanctions to get around the rules.

So if Iran is indeed vulnerable to economic pressure, we have to enhance the pressure. We can't blockade since that is an act of war (Or could we? Invading our territory as the embassy seizure in Tehran nearly thirty years ago was has never been resolved.), but we could start intecepting ships with our Navy and slowing things down immensely for the Iranians--especially refined oil products. Could this sink Iran's economy and prompt a revolt?

Alternately, the pressure imposed by us might prompt the Iranians to retaliate. Either by attacking our fleet or interrupting oil exports in the Gulf. Halting their own oil exports would simply further harm Iran's economy. And if Iran responds overtly with military action, we would have an excuse to go after Iran's military assets. And as long as we go after conventional military assets, we could take down nuclear facilities. Even if we wanted just to go after Iran's WMD facilities we'd need to strike Iran's military assets to prevent retaliation so the actual campaign would be pretty similar.

Of course, if Iran endures the sanctions and harassment campaign without panicking and retaliating while keeping their population under control, we have the problem of what to do next.

But we already have quite a problem of what to do next.

I still hope that America and Britain are serious about destroying the mullah regime sooner rather than later and that we are not relying on hope to solve the problem.

Why Yes It Can!

Taiwan has gotten its dwindling cadre of formal friends to point out that China is a threat to the peace in the Taiwan Strait region and yet the UN seems not to notice. China insists that no amount of force that China directs at Taiwan is of any concern to the UN since it is an internal matter:

Tuvalu's U.N. Ambassador Enele Somoaga noted the council's swift action on North Korea's recent ballistic missile tests, and its nuclear program, and urged council members to deal similarly with "the threat of the use of military force in the Taiwan Strait."

"The irony of the situation is the fact that there is no effective political mechanism to resolving this particular dispute, as we all know the 23 million people of Taiwan are not represented in this body, despite their contributions to international cooperation," he said.

"Surely the U.N. cannot fail its collective responsibily to work peace by ignoring this threat," Somoaga said.

Chinese diplomat Liu Pei expressed regret that a small number of countries raised the Taiwan issue.

"I wonder if it did this at the instigation of others or out of other designs," he said.

"The Chinese delegation wishes to reiterate that there is but one China in the world and that Taiwan is an inseparable part of the People's Republic of China," Liu said. "I wish to emphasize that the Taiwan question is entirely an internal affair of China and bears no relation whatsoever to the prevention of armed conflict."

So the UN takes no interest in internal matters? So what about Darfur? And Congo? And Bosnia? And the status of Hizbollah in Lebanon?

Since when does the UN only get interested in formal inter-state issues?

But China does give the game away when they insist that China's actions against Taiwan won't amount to "armed conflict" under the rules of the vaunted international community. I really wouldn't be shocked if China uses poison gas when they attack Taiwan to gum up rear areas and airfields. After all, just "testing" such weapons on your own territory is just an internal matter, right?

To answer the Tuvalu ambassador's question of whether the U.N. can fail its collective responsibily to work for peace by ignoring the threat to Taiwan that China poses, why yes it can! This is the UN, remember?

Their Goodwill and Two Bits

Zogby writes (tip to Real Clear Politics) that the Iraq War has resulted in a decrease in Moslem opinion about America:

The vast majority of the Muslim world was fond of us prior to the war in Iraq. But since then, goodwill has eroded precipitously. Through its policy decisions, the American government is turning off people who should be on our side.

Ah, yes, those pre-Iraq War halcyon days back when the Moslem world loved us!

I get all weepy when I recall the love expressed with the 9/11 attack in 2001.

Truly I am sad to see the love of the 2000 Cole attack gone.

What can one say about the deep respect that the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings showed?

I get downright giddy when I remember the Khobar Tower bombing in 1996.

Who can ignore the goodwill that led to the first World Trade Center attack in 1993?

Can you forget the close buddies we had in the Moslem world who were responsible for the Beirut Marine barracks bombing or the bombing of our embassy in Lebanon in 1983?

And of course, that fond student exchange that went awry in Iran when Iranian students seized our embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held our staff hostage for a year and a half surely brings a lump to your throat when you contemplate their love of America, right?

Oh wait, don't forget the attempts that didn't work in the Golden Age of happy days such as the failed Millenium Bombing attack in 2000 or the busted plan to blow up our airliners over the Pacific in the mid-1990s?

Yep. Good times. Good times. Pity we had to go and ruin our image by overthrowing a genocidal war-mongering dictator by liberating Iraq in 2003.

Really, if overthrowing the likes of Saddam reduces our image among Moslems overseas, do we really care? Should we? And let's not even discuss the good will that did not stick in the Moslem world when we rescued Moslem Kuwaitis in 1991, or Moslem Somalis in 1992, or Moslem Bosnians in 1995, or Moslem Kosovars in 1999. And should we dare mention the opportunities and freedoms we've provided to Moslem immigrants fleeing the poverty and oppression of their homelands?

Don't get me wrong, I think we must distinguish the Islamist jihadi enemies from the majority of Moslems who would not go all jihadi on us. But I do get sick of all the crap about what we've supposedly done to make some in the Moslem world hate us and others to have less goodwill toward us. They will find excuses to hate us regardless of what we do:

Islamic terrorists are attacking people on nearly every continent -- many who have little or nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy. Multicultural, huggy-bear, we're-not-in-Iraq Canada has uncovered a plot by 17 Muslims to invade its Parliament and chop off the prime minister's head.

Perhaps terrorists see countries that make sensitive analyses of their complaints as easy marks. If so, then the eagerness to prettify mass murder with "root causes" could itself be a root cause.

And at least we can say that since the invasion of Iraq no jihadis have attacked us at home.

We need to continue to defend ourselves and worry about the polling data of the Moslem world after that. Reversing the equation hasn't worked so well for us.

Honestly, the fondness of the Moslem world and two bits will get us a cup of coffee, as the saying goes.

I'm not sure what we really lost by losing their goodwill.

Trends in Iraq

Strategypage has an interesting post on Iraq developments.

The increased Iraqi civilian death toll is the result of the decline of Sunni resistance. With more areas seeing the Sunni forces declining, Shias can form militias for local defense and these tend to seek out Sunnis for revenge.

The Islamic terrorists, including the foreign jihadis, have not been affected by the militias. But intersetingly enough, the terrorists don't rely on suicide bombings like they used to. Instead they rent rooms and pack them with explosives. The failure to keep recruiting the faithful or to trick the dumb and sick into strapping bombs on is significant.

Iraqi and American commanders think the trends point to a defeat of the jihadis within a year.

The government is focusing on Shia militias in the south because in the center the militias may kill Sunnis but they do provide some defense against terrorists. The southern militias are purely a threat to the government.

The people are phoning in tips to identify terrorists at a higheer rate now, resulting in more damage to the terrorists--both Baathists and jihadis.

And finally, that number two man in al Qaeda the Iraqis picked up in June, al-Saeedi, was a commander in Iraq's secret police. Funny how that works.

I've believed since the summer of 2004 that the Iraqi Baathist resistance screwed up by throwing their lot in with the jihadis. They lost their chance to spark a national revolt against so-called occupation and have been losing ever since (though they recently tried to revive the idea of a national resistance). Being well armed, experienced, and well financed, the enemy has been able to kill lots of civilians--the easiest targets--even as they lose. It has been difficult for most Americans to see the trends behind the headlines that claim disaster.

But as our people see vidos of explosions in Baghdad, the Shias and Kurds who have been shut out of governing Iraq for centuries have been learning the ropes of governing and leading troops in combat during a war. On the job training is messy and halting but the Iraqis are making good progress in standing up an economy, a government, army, police forces, and security insititutions. The enemy forces--jihadis, Baathists, and Sunni "nationalists"--have not been able to stop this progress behind the shield of American and Coalition forces the past three years. They cannot win.

The question remains how long it will take for the Sunnis to finally admit defeat and whether the Shias will overlook the cruel and wanton bloodshed inflicted by some of the Sunnis and accept the Sunni surrender.

Oh, and whether the Iranians go for broke and try to stage an al Tet to spark a revolt led by their hand puppet Sadr.

And then just the ordinary and boring--but vital--work of fighting the culture of corruption and actually building a workable democracy. Will we retain faith in our founding principles long enough to help Iraqis achieve what we have? That is another challenge of course. Our war in Iraq can be counted a victory just for turning a hostile Iraq into an allied Iraq even if we don't get some form of democracy. But I think we will get that democracy and provide an example for the Arab world that will pay dividends in future decades.

But first we have to defeat the Iraqi Sunni resistance by guns, bribery, or whatever it takes. But that will happen. Have patience.

Nervous

The Taiwanese are nervous that the Chinese continue to build up their forces with an eye to capturing Taiwan.

And they are nervous that America won't sell Taiwan new fighters to gain favor with China and in annoyance that Taiwan hasn't acted on a 2001 offer of submarines, air defense missiles, and ASW aircraft.

Instead of being nervous and just publicly worrying, the Taiwanese should focus on defending themselves. They can afford it. Indeed, how can they afford not to?

As for the F-16s the Taiwanese want, I can understand why we may be balking. Without sufficient ammunition, hardened shelters, runway repair capability, and anti-missile defenses, those new planes could be put out of action by those hundreds of Chinese missiles (700+ and counting) pointed at Taiwan. Take out the runways and air defenses with GPS-guided missiles and then strafe the planes on the ground. Obsolete Chinese planes have the advantage over advanced Taiwanese planes if the Chinese planes are flying and the Taiwanese planes can't fly.

We may simply not want Taiwan to waste limited defense money on weapons that are lower down on the priority list to improve Taiwanese defenses. I suppose we could be really opposed to the sale for practical reasons yet are trying to get some points with China to use against North Korea by just saying we are doing it for China's sake. Hard to say. But I find it hard to believe we'd undermine Taiwanese defensive capabilities, so payback for not buying the 2001 package is far fetched.

But whatever is going on, I would be nervous if I was Taiwanese.

Angering the Street

The conventional wisdom among Europeans and Europeans at heart is that Iraq has enraged otherwise peaceful Moslems to kill us with whatever implements are handy.

Noting that our enemies have been killing us for decades prior to capturing Baghdad seems not to have any effect on believing this strange notion.

By the simple logic that Germany isn't fighting in Iraq, we can rule out that Iraq is a factor in the recent bombing attempt in Germany.

But what did set up the excitable little darlings?

Well:

The prime suspects in the failed attempt to blow up two German trains were partly motivated by anger over the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons, a leading investigator said in an interview released Saturday.

Germany Out of Toontown!

And my apologies to linking to the NYT despite my policy. But it is just an AP piece so cut me some slack on my embargo. This is the first time I've linked to anything with their domain name since then.

Could We Trade Professors?

Iran's Ahmadinejad thinks his country's university professors are too liberal:

Speaking to a group of students Tuesday, Ahmadinejad called on them to pressure his administration to keep driving out moderate instructors, a process that began earlier this year.

Dozens of liberal university professors and teachers were sent into retirement this year after Ahmadinejad's administration, sparking strong protests from students, named the first cleric to head Tehran University.

The country's oldest institution of higher education remains home to dozens more professors and instructors who outspokenly oppose policies that restrict freedom of expression.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with students.

For once, I have some sympathy for Ahmadinejad. It is frustrating to have univeristy instructors who despise our government. I feel your pain, oh nutball-in-chief.

But hey, perhaps this could be the basis for that dialogue that so many want with Iran.

We could offer to trade university professors! Given that we each have univeristy professors who think they live in an oppressed country, if we traded we'd each get rid of people who hate our governments and each would gain professors who are more supportive of our respective governments!

Sadly, this is only barely into joke territory.

Let The Iraqis Win

Americans on both sides of the spectrum are getting tired of fighting in Iraq.

Our friends in Iraq, who want the democracy and rule of law that some here would abandon as a goal all to easily, are worried about whether we will stick with them. The Iraqi vice president wants assurances we will stick with them. He received them from the President but our media's fixation on "imminent" civil war and cutting our losses, giving the Sunni terrorists concessions to end shootings and bombings, and getting out worries Iraqis who want what we want:

For the most part, our queries were politely and somewhat laconically dismissed. Iraq is not in a civil war, Mahdi said, and doesn't need more U.S. troops. It has a constitution and elected government, and thus there is no need for an international conference. As for constitutional reform, the Shiite and Kurd parties that wrote the charter last year are waiting for proposals from Sunni dissidents. Mahdi added: "So far we have heard nothing."

So what is the solution? "Time -- that is it," Mahdi replied. "A nation like Iraq needs time. The elections for a permanent government happened eight months ago. We have been in office a few weeks. The people who we have in office have never governed. These people come from oppression and a bad political system. We can't import ministers to Iraq. There will be many mistakes. The Americans made many mistakes, and Iraqis had to support that."

"Our options as Iraqis are that we don't have an exit strategy or any withdrawal timetable," Mahdi said, somewhat bitterly. "We simply go on. . . . It is a process, and brick by brick we are working on it."

I've harped on this for three years--the Iraqis have no place to go. They have no exit strategy. If we stick with the 80% of the Iraqis who reject Saddam's rule, they will build a better Iraq. They will defeat our common enemies and remain an asset rather than a liability in the Long War.

And if our friends who have frequent contact with our government are worried we will leave, can anyone say that our enemies who only read the papers aren't encouraged by our media's constant defeatism?

Have the confidence to win this--or rather, have the confidence to let our Iraqi friends win.

And stop inflating problems into hopeless crises. History is just a series of problems that were overcome by our ancestors. Focus on solving ours and not looking for innovative ways to surrender without calling it by that name.

It is shameful that so many here on the left and right would abandon Iraqi friends who fight for liberty and freedom from Islamic fascism.

Talk is Cheap

Can we make a deal with Syria to end their meddling in Iraq and Lebanon? Is it a mistake not to talk to boy Assad? Is it a mistake not to grant favors to get something from Syria? Advocates often resort to arguing "you negotiate peace with your enemies--not your friends."

I've always hated that so-called argument. Listen up. You have peace with your friends. With enemies, you don't have peace. That's why you and they are enemies. Got it? Now, and this is a difficult concept for some to grasp, with enemies, you kill them until you win or they stop being enemies. With friends, you don't have to kill them. They're your friend. You get along with them and they with you. Comprende?

So the question is, will Syria do enough to stop being considered our enemy. I think the Syrians know that we don't like them helping kill our troops in Iraq, enabling Hizbollah to attack Israel, oppressing the Syrian people, being an ally of Iran, encouraging our hemisphere's leading annoyance, and--well, you get the point. Why do we need to talk? Which of these things are negotiable? Are we to talk about how agreeing to how many Americans Syria helps kill? And if Syria thinks of us as their enemy enough to do all these things, why would talking get them to stop?

But this doesn't mean we must invade Syria.

In the Long War, we have a lot of problems to address. The Moslem world is not really ready for polite company, I'm sad to say. Moslems aren't the problem, I hope, based on their success in our country where they are not dragged down by the anchor of Islamic tradition. But just because the Moslem world is backwards doesn't mean we invade every Moslem country to fix them. And even if victory means doing that, it wouldn't mean invading every one of them tomorrow.

So when we brought Libya in from the cold, I was all for it. I'd advocated exactly that long before the announcement that Libya was turning over its WMD programs to us and coming clean.

I thought this was a good thing because of the signal it would send to other regimes that oppose us but aren't Islamo-nutcases. If they think they must win or die, they'll try to win--even if it means siding with Islamo-fascists. If they think they can switch to our side without going before a firing squad, they'll do that, too.

By getting some countries to defect, we isolate the hard cases for more harsh action.

With luck or time, winning against the defecting countries can be a two- or three-step process. Internal opposition can be strengthened with the example of other Moslem democracies around them, and eventually we may get the final victory against despotism without having to fire a shot. Or by firing shots in support of democratic revolutions. Both are better options than invading if we can do it.

I also figured Syria could be a prime target for this effort. Syria is an old fashioned despotism and not a jihadi state. Despite the fact that Syria is helping kill Americans, if it helps win the Long War, I'm all for letting them off the hook for now to mop up in Iraq and focus on Iran.

That's the theory, anyway.

Michael Ledeen strongly disagrees with the idea that we can come to an agreement with Syria that actually benefits us. I must say that in the practical sense, I strongly sympathize with this view. My opinion on engineering a defection by Syria is an abstract theoretical position. If we can turn Syria to a neutral or nominal friend, I'd have no problem with letting them off the hook for now.

But we sent the signal with Libya about what a rogue state needs to do to avoid our wrath. It is possible to survive having once been our enemy. But to move from the enemy column to the tolerated column, you have to come clean completely about WMD and end terror sponsorship. That's the deal. Period.

We established the Libya template for "talking." We have no need for a lesser Syria template. Settling for anything less than the Libya model in regard to Syria destroys the template we established with Libya about what a rogue state needs to do to come in from the cold. Heck, Libya might want to renegotiate if we let Syria in for less. So Syria's turn will come, I figure, even if we cut a deal based on the Libya template. We have bigger problems than toppling one thug if that thug will mind his own business.

We don't have to win everything all at once--nor can we in practice--so let's put off the non-Islamist threats when we can for later while we defeat the Islamist threats. Of course, that doesn't mean any deal with Syria is good. I'd want to see Syria do some very concrete things to cut off support for terrorists first that benefit us in Iraq and Lebanon. And come clean on WMD. Do that and we can talk about other things. Otherwise, no deal with Syria.

And no need to talk about it. What's the point? Syria knows what they need to stop doing. That's the reality of the situation.

Deep Thinking

Many deadlines have passed and still the Iranians make it clear they will gladly talk as long as nobody even thinks talking will lead to Iran halting nuclear work. So this news is interesting:

The European Union's foreign policy chief and Iran's senior nuclear negotiator tentatively agreed to meet Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to bridge differences over Tehran's atomic program, U.N. and European officials said.

The EU will try to get Iran to stop nuclear work. We haven't convinced them. Germany, France, and Britain haven't succeeded. But where these countries have failed, the higher beings at the EU will give it the old Euro try.

So, you philosophy majors out there, when the object that cannot move anything meets an immovable object, what happens?

No, don't bother. I'll give you the answer. In the end, the result will be that Iran has nuclear missiles and the EU will have a twelve-volume report on the meetings nicely bound in leather with official wax seals and nice ribbons affixed prominently.

UPDATE: The immovable object won't meet the object that cannot move anything--at least for now:

Talks meant to give Tehran a last chance to avoid U.N. sanctions over its nuclear defiance were postponed Wednesday, with a senior Iranian envoy saying "a procedural matter" had caused a delay of several days.

So until the "procedural matter" can be cleared up, you have additional time to contemplate the philosophical implications of the proposed meeting. Or debate the proper font for the EU document.

I'm sure the "procedural matter" involves the diplomats of Iran trying to figure out just how to say "no" yet again with a new word that can still give hope to EU surrenderniki.

Neutrality is Not Objectivity

Although I generally fault the administration for failing to repeatedly advocate the reasons we have to fight the Long War on all the fronts; and consider our press as just a given factor to go around, it is frustrating to have a press corps that doesn't think it has a stake in America and the West winning this war. We shouldn't have to consider our press a hindrance to winning rather than an asset, but that is the way it is.

Secretary Rumsfeld put it well:

That's an interesting question. I don't sense that it has. One would think that at a certain level it could reduce one's effectiveness because of questions that get raised in people's minds. I think that from my standpoint it doesn't. I don't feel it myself because I've read so much history and am aware that in every conflict we've ever been in there have been heated criticisms of those individuals who were involved. George Washington came close to being fired during the Revolutionary War, and goodness knows the leadership during the Civil War was wrongly criticized. And in World War II you think of the loss after loss after loss of the Pacific and the -- I don't know -- 70,000 Americans killed in North Africa in less than a year -- or casualties, killed or wounded. And there have always been criticisms in every conflict and I expect that, I understand that.


But at least thus far -- you know, on the one hand, you have a free country, and that means people are free to say what they what they want, think what they want and they do. And so that's a great system. People also have the privilege of listening to what people say and judging them for what they say, and that's also a good fact. The thing that bothers me most is not that. The thing that bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is. They are actively manipulating the media in this country. They plan their attacks to get maximum notoriety and publicity. They hide among civilians, and when they're attacked by people and killed, and some civilians may be killed, they then claim that there were innocent civilians being killed by us when we're not doing it.


They can lie with impunity. They seem to be held -- we're held to the laws of war, as we should be, and we are held to a standard of perfection, near perfection, and people who go outside that line are punished. There's no accountability for the enemies we face, and they seem to be able to say what they wish and get away with it -- with lies with impunity. And that's what worries -- that does worry me, particularly in an era of this new media era of the 21st century where you've got 24-hour news and bloggers and Internet and digital cameras and Sony-cams. I mean, just last month we had instances where doctored pictures were being put out and carried on all the legitimate media -- not all of them, but some of those legitimate media in our country. And the world all saw these doctored pictures, and it wasn't until sometime later that people discovered they were doctored, and thank goodness they did. But it is -- that problem, it seems to me, is that the enemy is so much better at communicating and is held to no account for what they say.


You know, in a town where you grow up, some guy tells lies every day, pretty soon everyone looks around the corner and says, "Here comes Joe, the liar." And everyone gets to know he's a liar, so no one believes him.


But these folks, they have media committees. They plan how they're going to lie. They arrange themselves to do it, how they're going to manipulate the media, how they're going to get -- how they're going to weaken our will. And it is that the thing that keeps me up at night and worries me and makes me wish we were better able to counter that, because the constant drum beat of the things they say -- often which are not true -- is harmful over time; it's cumulative, and it does weaken people's will and lessen their determination and raise questions in their minds as to whether the cost is worth it. And that's worrisome.

Yes, it is worrisome. I truly worry more about the loyalty of Journalistic Americans than I do about Moslem Americans. I mean, we can and will win this war without the support of our press corps, but it is amazing to me that we have to do so.

It isn't as if the press couldn't be adversarial while supporting the war effort. Just talking about "us" and "we" when reporting on American battles and actions would help. Focusing on the infinitely more numerous enemy crimes rather than on ours would help. Criticizing war efforts with an eye toward improving our abilities to win would help. Focusing on the good our troops do and their bravery in combat would help. It would help if the press didn't expose our secrets and worked on exposing the enemy's secrets. And the press could still investigate over-charges by Halliburton if they want. There is plenty to report on that isn't cheerleading. I don't want companies to cheat; failed tactics or strategies; or troops that commit crimes. Those help, too.

I just don't feel that most of our press really feels we really deserve to win the war against the Islamist fascists. Or if they do, they assume that we will win without the press so they are free to pursue a Pulitzer at the expense of our security.

Really, even the French once said "we are all Americans, now." Can't our press work up similar sentiments?