Alert President Obama

Our president expresses concerns over playing by the rules.

Let's see how one party played by the rules and one party worked around them (tip to Instapundit):

The citizens’ commission had pledged to create districts based on testimony from the communities themselves, not from parties or statewide political players. To get around that, Democrats surreptitiously enlisted local voters, elected officials, labor unions and community groups to testify in support of configurations that coincided with the party’s interests.

When they appeared before the commission, those groups identified themselves as ordinary Californians and did not disclose their ties to the party. One woman who purported to represent the Asian community of the San Gabriel Valley was actually a lobbyist who grew up in rural Idaho, and lives in Sacramento.

In one instance, party operatives invented a local group to advocate for the Democrats’ map.

A nonpartisan redistricting commission was to take politics out of the process. Instead, it allowed politics to masquerade as nonpartisan analysis.

That's the problem with rules--you can always find a way around them. Especially if you have money. And no scruples. The combination of both is powerful.

Better to make the (government) game smaller than to expand the rules to make the game "better." If the government controls less and our well being relies less on government decisions, there will be less incentive to game the government-run system. That's the only real way to clean up the system.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is exactly what President Obama had in mind.

I'm shocked this is a ProPublica piece. They've been reliably left wing. Or they were when I paid more attention. I find it hard to believe they've generally drifted to the center.

Recruiting and Retention

Assad has real problems now:

Desertion in the army has reached crises proportions, with several thousand fleeing each day. So far, about ten percent of the 300,000 army troops have deserted. New conscripts are not showing up, and defying the government to come get them. Most of the lower ranking troops are Sunni Arabs, who are over 75 percent of the population and generally hostile to the government. The minorities (Alawites, Druze, Christians) serve as NCOs and officers, but do not want to be on the wrong side of a civil war, and not every minority family prospered under the Assads. So not even the non-Sunnis are guaranteed to remain loyal, and one Syrian general is reported to have deserted and fled to Turkey.

Right now, the bulk of the army is not involved in suppressing the dissidents and insurgents. That ugly job is left to the loyal army units and secret police (and affiliated gangs and foreign thugs). The army's only job is to deter foreign invasion.

Well, the only job until now. Now it seems to be a recruiting pool for the armed opposition.

It might be wise to disarm the bulk of the army that is not involved in fighting dissidents. Give them riot control gear and sprinkle loyal Alawite armed units in them for both back up and to ensure loyalty. I think getting these units involved in restoring order without using deadly force or just standing guard might be useful. Keep them busy. Just sitting in their barracks brooding over the bigger picture clearly isn't helping their loyalty.

Otherwise, at some point, entire units with their equipment will start defecting. Really, if the Turks invade, I don't think a desertion riddled army will last very long anyway in combat with them.

It might be too late to keep the bulk of the Sunni Arab army from becoming a factor against the Assad regime, however.

Just What Is the Libya Model?

The idea that we might apply the Libya model to Syrian unrest is perhaps misplaced--or at least requires something so far lacking--a geographic base for the opposition that they can defend.

Consider our air power interventions since the Cold War was won: Bosnia 1995, Kosovo 1999, Iraq No-Fly Zone Enforcement 1991-2003, Afghanistan 2001, and Libya 2011.

In Bosnia, we bombed Bosnian Serbs to defend the Bosnian Moslems. A Croatian-led offensive (that a US private military company--MPRI--planned, by the way) with the Bosnian Moslems cooperating with the Croats was the decisive factor in allowing the Bosnian Moslems to hold their territory in the face of ethnic Serb armed efforts to defeat them.

In Kosovo, an extensive bombing campaign (with our special forces on the ground) in support of Kosovo Moslems trying to secede from Serbia only gained Serbian retreat when American ground forces prepared to invade.

In Iraq, American defensive air efforts over Iraq allowed the Kurds in their northern mountain redoubt to hold off the Iraqi army; but in the south, Iraqi forces slaughtered their way to victory over the Shia revolt. Even in the north, in the middle of the 90s the Iraqi army moved against the Kurds to push the Kurds back from border areas successfully despite our no-fly zone. This example is complicated by the fact that American-led offensive air and ground operations heavily damaged the Iraqi army in the 1991 campaign that preceded the no-fly zone operations.

In Afghanistan, our post-9/11 offensive used air power with special forces (and spies) to support the Northern Alliance that was bottled up in their northeastern enclave holding out against the stronger but still weak Taliban armed forces and their al Qaeda allies.

And in 2011, Libyan rebels in the east were the main portion of the initial revolt and they held substantial territory as Libya's military disintegrated in the east. At Misrata and to the west and south of Tripoli, resistance took a while to gain traction and start to defeat the loyalists. Western and Arab support was key there.

American air power was obviously important in all interventions, although in Iraq the air power was simply keeping Iraqi air power grounded.

Rebel geographic bases were present in all interventions, including the failed intervention in the Shia south of Iraq.

All of the successful interventions had serious ground forces in the equation on our side. Although in Kosovo the insurgents were only able to sustain their insurgency rather than hold their geographic base in the face of an effective Serb army. Only the looming American-led ground intervention changed the ground equation there.

TARGET	AIR INTERVENTION	REGIONAL BASE	WEAK ENEMY ARMY	US GROUND
Bosnia	Offensive	Yes	Yes	No
Kosovo	Offensive	Yes	Yes	Yes*
Iraq North	Defensive	Yes	No	No
Iraq South	Defensive	Yes	No	No
Afghanistan	Offensive	Yes	Yes	Yes
Libya	Offensive	Yes	Yes	No

*Our pending ground intervention was clearly telegraphed.

The faction we support needs to have a geographic base. The faction we support needs to have ground forces sufficiently powerful to hold their geographic base against the enemy's ground power. Our air power can be adjusted between passive air defense and active strikes to make sure the ground balance of forces is in our favor. If our air power can't lift our faction's ground power high enough to defeat the enemy's ground power, our ground forces are necessary.

Not to sound too obvious, but the rebel ground forces need to be stronger than the enemy state's ground power in order to win. Having a defensible regional base helps the rebels. Having an enemy army weakened from war or desertion helps. Having American air power helps. Having American ground forces helps. As long as enough of these helping factors lift the rebel army above the enemy government's army, the rebels can win.

Can Syria fit into this chart?

We could impose an offensive or defensive aerial intervention. Syrian air defenses would require more of an initial counter-air campaign than we did in Libya to suppress the Syrian air defenses, however. But we could check this box as needed. In a sense, the threat of Western intervention is keeping Syrian air power out of the battle.

Do the insurgents have a regional base? That's tough call since the insurgents are from the majority Sunni Arab part of the population. The Alawites have a regional base but they are within Sunni areas, too. So far the uprising is spread around Syria so I'd have to say that the Syrian opposition does not now have a regional base that they draw support from and can defend. As the report from which the above maps are taken, in the east the Syrian government is mostly leaving the insurgents alone out there, but it is too far from the core Syria to really be a base for the insurgents. The Kurds have a regional base, but probably don't have the strength to defend it now and certainly can't count on Turkish support. Plus, it is remote. And the Kurds aren't really rising up right now, anyway.

Is the enemy army weak? No. The Syrian security forces may not be strong enough to fight everywhere, but there are enough to go wherever they need to go and defeat insurgents trying to hold ground. A lot more defections would be needed to say "yes" to this, and it would have to eat into the core loyal army and security forces.

Is there a US ground force? No. And there won't be. But there could be a US proxy if Turkey intervenes with their capable army.

If we intervene with a defensive air intervention--a true no-fly zone--it won't be enough to let the insurgents win--unless the Syrian ground forces deteriorate enough so that they need air power to compensate.

If we intervene with an offensive air intervention, it would degrade the Syrian armed forces and make the insurgents more effective, but alone I don't think it would tip the balance. It took quite a while in Libya. It could take longer in Syria, depending on how much Iran can help.

If the Turks--who are vocal in wanting the "bloodbath" to end--intervene with enough force to establish humanitarian safe zones in the north, the insurgents gain a defensible regional base.

If the Syrian armed forces see greater defections, the insurgents gain strength while the enemy army weakens. But until government defections start to infect the Alawite core army and security forces, the enemy army won't become too weak relative to the insurgents any time soon.

If the US (or Turks) intervene to drive on Damascus, the ground balance will tip decisively against the Syrian government. But we're beyond the Libya Model at that point.

So there you go. The Libya model isn't a template for Syria. But the Libya experience and our other experiences do shed some light on what we might be able to do with air power.

Any bit of intervention could tip the scales toward the insurgents, but nothing is decisive alone except direct ground intervention by America or Turkey. I suspect no combination of intervention without direct intervention could rapidly overthrow the Assad regime. And unless the Assad regime cracks, the rebels must have a regional base to defend if they want a long-term strategy to win. If they can gain strength, over time they might carve a regional base along either the Turkish or Lebanese borders. Or limited Turkish intervention would create an instant regional base.

If we don't want to intervene with ground forces, the insurgents need a regional base. Even then, we might need some type of aerial intervention to win. We can say Assad must go. But we might want to think about ways to force him if saying Assad must go is the first step in repeating the so-called Libya Model.

Playing the Suicide Bomber Card

Well, I think we can safely say the Syria unrest has gone way beyond the initial demands for government reform:

A Syrian military official says the death toll from twin suicide car bombings in Damascus is now more than 40.

The military official says more than a hundred people were wounded in the explosions targeting security and intelligence headquarters in the Syrian capital.

This is just one more story about the recent escalation of casualties and the intensity of violence.

It is a bit odd, though.

Suicide bombings take time to prepare. The biggest problem is recruiting and training a proper suicide bomber. That takes time. How did the opposition find that time? How did the opposition find the time with the very active Syrian intelligence personnel all over Syria?

Did the Sunni Arab terrorists who Syria hosted to infiltrate into Iraq to cause mayhem do this? They'd have the experience for this sort of thing.

Then the question is did the Sunni Arab jihadi terrorists switch sides to fight against Assad after supporting him these last months? That would be a big deal.

Or did the Syrian government order their allied jihadis to carry out the suicide bombings to taint the opposition? Assad would know that it would be tougher for the international community to support a side that uses suicide bombers.

Note that the story says mostly civilians died, and the military and security personnel cited as being part of the casualties were probably the outer guards. It doesn't sound like the buildings themselves were really damaged other than broken glass. So the targets weren't actually harmed.

And with Arab League observers soon to be on the ground, Assad would love to give the impression that he is fighting the common jihadi enemy of all the Arab League members.

But I'm a suspicious type. I'll wait and see how this story develops.

UPDATE: I stand corrected on the building damage--television news says they were wrecked. Who was in them, I wonder? Regime opponents in custody for a good body count and a few patsies to die for the cause? Destroyed buildings add to the image of al Qaeda. I still wonder. The organized armed opposition denies responsibility. Maybe the jihadis did switch sides. I assume nothing at this point, although I lean to the Syrian government angle. But I'm a suspicious type, I guess.

UPDATE: NPR of all places wonders if Assad is behind the bombings. Also, the targets did have jails in them for dissidents. Again, who died in the bombings?

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise?

We will be surprised when Iran goes nuclear (tip to Instapundit):

Washington lacks the kind of visibility inside the Iranian regime required to know for sure whether Tehran has shifted its nuclear-arms program into high gear, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

And we will be surprised that Iran surprises us. Even though every other country's nuclear program's progress has been a surprise to us.

My only hope is that we have a final surprise for Iran when they triumphantly announce to the world that they are a nuclear power.

Scalable Ground Power

Australia is reorganizing their active and reserve ground forces, which currently rest on an active mechanized brigade, infantry brigade, and motorized brigade:

These will be converted into identical multirole brigades, with more support and supply capabilities. ... In addition, ten smaller (battalion size) battle groups will be formed. A small amphibious brigade will be organized, which will use new amphibious ships and be trained for disaster relief as well as combat. Reservists will be more thoroughly integrated into active duty units.

Interesting. This makes the Australian brigades more readily compatible with our Army, which uses self-contained brigades that can be plugged into any division headquarters. I assume these would be the heart of any Australian expeditionary force.

The brigades could also be the strategic reserve to reinforce the battle groups should the worst happen and an enemy force land on Australia. American brigade combat teams would also fit in better if sent to Australia to assist in defending them from invasion.

The battle groups would be better suited for homeland defense or to rotate replacements into deployed brigades.

The amphibious force helps with regional first response to a natural disaster or combat crisis.

I wonder how the reservists fit in with this? Are any of the brigades deployable without reservists? Or are the battle groups largely going to be the reservist force?

Overall, this seems like a good move to leverage American help to go along with Australia's plans for their air and naval forces.

UPDATE: Ah, more on the reorganization. The active brigades look to be fully deployable with two battalions (like ours) and an armored cavalry regiment (battalion) that would be heavier than our recon battalions that rely on calling in fires (I'd rather heavy up our recon units). They'll have an artillery and engineer battalion, too, plus support forces.

The reserves will be aligned with the active brigades (2 reserve brigades each, although it speaks of 10 battalion-sized battle groups, so one brigade has four brigades or maybe one is separate or maybe it will be trained for amphibious operations to back up the active amphibious trained battle group) and trained for stability operations, so it looks like this is designed to put up to a full division into the field for a long time with two more similar forces prepared to rotate into the field behind the first division-sized force.

If it is conventional fighting, the three active brigades could be sent off at once. Presumably, the reserves could either bolster these with their lighter stuff for rear area security or prepare for high intensity operations with more training and new equipment.

What's Up With This?

I assume we can track down who we originally sold these Patriot missiles to:

Finnish authorities on Wednesday impounded 160 tons of explosives and 69 surface-to-air missiles found on a British-flagged cargo ship ultimately destined for Shanghai, China, officials said.

I don't know how many you need to reverse engineer something or to figure out counter-measures, so going to China as the final destination seems odd. But I'm no engineer.

Where else was this ship going? Why would any of our usual customers for Patriots need to smuggle them?

When weapons smuggling comes up, I immediately suspect Iran. But could they really use Patriots without launchers? Do they think they can jury rig their older American-made equipment to fire them?

I look forward to reading what this is about.

Thank you, Finland.

UPDATE: Ah, bad paperwork for a legitimate sale by Germany to South Korea.

The Invasion That Wasn't

Not that the Pakistanis will believe this, but errors--largely Pakistani (and this doesn't even require us to look at the big picture error that is their world view)--led to the deaths of a couple dozen Pakistani troops when we bombed their bases in November:

The investigating officer found that U.S. forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self defense and with appropriate force after being fired upon. He also found that there was no intentional effort to target persons or places known to be part of the Pakistani military, or to deliberately provide inaccurate location information to Pakistani officials.

Nevertheless, inadequate coordination by U.S. and Pakistani military officers operating through the border coordination center -- including our reliance on incorrect mapping information shared with the Pakistani liaison officer -- resulted in a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units. This, coupled with other gaps in information about the activities and placement of units from both sides, contributed to the tragic result.

If the Pakistanis weren't so paranoid, they'd have cooperated more closely with us in the first place and prevented the tragedy. Friendly fire accidents happen in the best of times. Pakistan's idiocy in viewing America and not jihadis (and their own security services) as the primary source of death and misery in Pakistan will keep Pakistan in misery.

But I'm sure China will put up with this mess of a nation better if Pakistan carries out their threat of switching sides (well, switching sides even more) and becoming a Chinese ally. I'm sure China will send cash into that bottomless pit of need and ignore Pakistani support for radical Moslems that might effect China's far west.

But we still need Pakistan to fight in Afghanistan, even though their double dealing is highly annoying. And Pakistan has nukes. So it would be foolish to kick them to the side of the road fully. If Iran ever goes nuclear, we'd think it the height of smart diplomacy to have relations with Iran as good as with Pakistan.

UPDATE: Of course they don't believe it:

The Pakistani army on Friday rejected a U.S. investigation that concluded mistakes on both sides led to American airstrikes last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and severely damaged the already strained relationship between the two countries.

One of the problems was that we conducted the operation without letting the Pakistanis know--because there is a strange correlation between informing the Pakistanis and the Taliban finding out about operations.

The Pakistanis clearly need regular beatings with the clue bat to have reality penetrate their thick skulls. I just don't know if they are beyond saving, given their self-destructive actions and very thinking.

UPDATE: Here's a press conference on the investigation. It seems clear that in addition to errors, Pakistan's confusion over what side it is on is at least as much of the problem. Just why did the Pakistanis think American aircraft were letting flares off and buzzing them? Yet the Pakistanis kept shooting at our people.

An Omnibus for the Rest of Us

The One requires proselytizing to ensure Heaven on Earth.

Next week's presidential instruction for the holiday? Feats of strength!

Although we will surely have the rest of the family subjected to the Obamabot whining wreak their revenge with their airing of grievances over how that Obama-voting family member who supports the president's massive spending has disappointed them over the past year.

What a bunch of self-centered, jerks.

Science Changes

Huh. I thought Mercury was tidally locked with the sun. Apparently not:

Scientists had long assumed that Mercury was tidally locked with the sun — the planet's tiny size and proximity to the sun suggested the star's gravitational pull would quickly force Mercury into such a state. However, radar observations of Mercury surprisingly revealed that the planet led a far stranger life, rotating three times on its axis for every two orbits it completes around the sun.

An asteroid impact likely broke the lock at some point.

I'm glad that is finally settled.

The Korean Succession Crisis

Could Kim Il-Sung's death and attempted hand off of power to the Zygote Kim Jong-Un lead to armed clashes between America and China?

Could be.

I don't know if Kim Jong-Il could avoid collapse, let alone The Un. Shoot, Kim Il-Sung probably would have been helpless.

It all depends on what happens, obviously. If there is a complete collapse of the state like in East Germany or the Soviet Union, there would be a risk of a clash as South Korea, American, China, and Russia try to fill the vacuum is where the danger of a collapse would occur.

Much depends on whether China would accept a unified Korea under Seoul's control. I've read things going both ways, but assume they would not like that one bit. If China doesn't mind South Korea absorbing the north as long as they don't see American uniforms on the other side of the Yalu, the problem becomes a financial and social problem rather than a true crisis that could spiral into a war between China and America.

But the collapse might not be a state collapse. Remember, it could be a state collapse or it could be a regime collapse more like Romania or Poland after the Berlin Wall fell. If the Kim dynasty falls to be replaced by another faction--perhaps with ties to China and compelled to reform the economy as China has done--we'll all breathe a sigh of relief and hope that less brutal communists who at least manage not to starve their own people is good enough for government work, as the saying goes.

Or, sensing that collapse is coming, North Korea might decide to roll the dice and attempt an unlikely military victory over the absolute certainty of defeat by watching their state or regime collapse around them.

Then we'd see North Korea order their creaking military machine into action behind a barrage of chemical warheads in the hope that the South Korean army just collapses and allows the North Korean army to mostly conduct a road march through Seoul and down to Pusan.

If they fail to win, America sends 5 or 6 divisions and we and the South Koreans invade North Korea.

Or, if the North Koreans understand that they couldn't possibly win such an invasion, maybe they try a limited attack to blackmail the South Koreans into enough aid to prevent collapse. The limited attack would take the form of shelling Seoul with the promise of more intense and sustained shelling if the goodies don't flow north ASAP.

This, however, risks that the South Koreans will just march north of the DMZ to carve out a no-launch zone that pushes all North Korean artillery out of range of Seoul--but doesn't attempt to march on Pyongyang.

Whether North Korea could survive if South Korea occupies any of its territory is a big question.

Or, maybe the North Koreans use their nuclear capability. They've crushed their own economy to get them and could convince themselves that they need to use them.

I strongly doubt that North Korea has a deliverable nuclear missile warhead. But maybe they have a bomb that might be dropped from a plane. Or, if they simply have a nuclear device, maybe they put in inside a sub and surface off the west coast of South Korea and detonate it as close to shore as they can just to get a nice radiation fallout zone across Seoul. Or maybe they truck it to the DMZ just north of Seoul and do the same. Would it be close enough to do damage? Would wind patterns cooperate?

Or would we just respond with a nuke ourselves on some North Korean military target on the theory that deterrence requires responding in kind?

These are all bad things, but at least by themselves they are localized problems and don't necessarily lead to a US-China clash, which raises it to a whole new ugly level.

So in the end, the roads might all just lead back to regime or state collapse in North Korea.

If so, and if the state itself collapses, we don't want a war over that black hole of despair. It isn't worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. But we might get the bones regardless of what we want.

So maybe we need to consider the idea of partitioning North Korea. We did it to Korea already. Why not again to make sure everyone (China, South Korea, and Russia) gets something and nobody feels that they have to go to war to keep the other side from getting all the land?

Or, North Korea could survive under the reign of The Un--for a while longer. The signs of collapse are growing and they'll come down eventually.

UPDATE: Infighting to see who will control North Korea seems to be ruled out, as Kim Jong-Un will share power:

"It's very unlikely," the source said when asked about the possibility of a military coup. "The military has pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un."

North Korea's collective leadership will include Kim Jong-un, his uncle and the military, the source said.

If the military is supporting Kim Jong-Un, it is likely that the price is more money for the military, including their nuclear project. Which means less for everyone else. And no chance of a deal with us to end their nuclear program.

Unless this new leadership includes pro-Chinese people who plan to reform the economy to provide that money, North Korea will continue to plunge toward collapse. Perhaps at a faster rate.

Unless we rescue these new thugs with significant aid in the mistaken belief we have an opening. If there is an opening, let China pay for their pet psycho.

I'm still in favor of talking as much as the North Koreans want, as long as we let them die.

Does Iran Have Our Drone?

On Strategytalk (the December 18, 2011 show), the notion that Iran might not have our drone was raised. Mostly because the Strategypage people had no authoritative confirmation of what happened.

I admit that I initially wondered if Iran was displaying the real drone. Although I thought it might be because they feared we'd strike so kept the real one in the shadows.

Although I recall the infamous American prisoner the Iraqi insurgents claimed to have during the Iraq War who turned out to be a GI Joe action figure in close up, nobody in the press hinted it might not be real and I am in no position to positively ID if the photos are a drone or not.

If the real drone is still lost but not in Iranian hands, we wouldn't want Iran to know we know. And Iran, probably feverishly also trying to get the drone, would want us to believe they already have it.

What do the Iranians have on display? Is our drone down somewhere in western Afghanistan waiting for us to find it?

It is even possible that Iran wanted us to destroy a fake drone in the hopes of distracting us and taunting us for the mistake--and intimidating us into backing down from any future strike.

If the latter is true, I was perhaps off base in complaining that we did not attack the drone. Although I'd support even a mistaken raid as long as it didn't stop us from doing it again.

UPDATE: That was fast. More here and here. Yeah, the paint job did look odd. But it wasn't enough for me to say it was a fake. Now the theory is that the craft crashed, broke into pieces, and the Iranians put it back together, slapped some paint on it, and claimed their awesome defenses brought it down.

But at least we can rule out the speculation that our administration wisely avoided being sucked into attacking a fake drone that Iran didn't actually have.

In Case He's Just Vewy, Vewy Quiet

From our State Department, naturally, comes this assessment of Kim Jong-Il (tip to Weekly Standard):

Wendy Sherman, now the No. 3 official in the State Department, who served as counselor to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and accompanied her to North Korea, said in 2008: “He was smart, engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident, sort of the master-director of all he surveyed.”

It's like killing, starving, and brutalizing tens of millions of people doesn't count if he can mingle in a dinner party.

Note to State Department: Kim Jong-Il is dead. You can stop sucking up to him any time, now.

UPDATE: Of bloody course he did.

Lightning Strikes

Japan has chosen the F-35 over the F-18 and Eurofighter Typhoon:

Japan selected the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter on Tuesday to replace aging jets in its air force and bolster its defense capability amid regional uncertainty.

Japan's initial order is for 42 and these planes will replace their elderly F-4 Phantoms. With F-15s the high end of their 350+ fighter force, I assume the F-35 will eventually replace the rest of Japan's fleet of Eagles and locally made F-2s.

I assumed the F-35 would be Japan's choice since Japan needs the best it can get to make up for small numbers. And Japan needs to work closely with American planes. The F-35 checks both of those boxes. The F-18 checked one (in US Navy use). The Typhoon managed one (high quality, though not as good as the F-35).

I'll note, as I always try to do when I comment on something related to Lockheed Martin, that I have a tiny amount of Lockheed Martin stock. I wouldn't miss it if it disappeared tomorrow, but there you go. I will say that quarterly dividend checks earn me more in a year than my savings account ...

True, Interesting, and Irrelevant

So are the Palestinians an invented people?

Palestinians are enraged because an American politician recently pointed out that "Palestine" does not exist, never existed and was invented during the Cold War by the Soviet KGB as yet another ploy to expand Russian influence in the Middle East. The 1964 charter founding the Palestine Liberation Organization was created by the KGB and "approved" by 400 pro-communist Palestinians. This charter explicitly denied any Palestinian claims on the West Bank (then part of Jordan) and Gaza (then part of Egypt). After Israel conquered these two areas in the 1967 war, the PLO dropped that clause. But there was no real effort to push the concept of "Palestine" until the 1970s. The Arab world, humiliated from losing five wars with Israel, and seeing Israel outstrip its Arab neighbors in so many ways (economically, educationally, politically and so on), got behind the idea that the Jews and Israel were oppressing the newly invented "Palestinian people" and must be destroyed.

So yeah, they are invented. But we are a nation of self-made individuals, so we should hardly be the ones to deny the reality that right now the Palestinians think of themselves as a people and have to be dealt with on that basis.

Still, it is interesting to note the KGB origins. I didn't realize that angle. But it is not terribly relevant any more.

We're still dealing with the damage that the Soviet Union inflicted on the world.

Is Hashemi Guilty?

A crisis continues in Iraq:

Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Muslim Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi on Monday for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings, a decision likely to fuel sectarian tensions after the U.S. troop withdrawal.

So far, the reporting seems to assume that Maliki is doing this for partisan, sectarian purposes. But is it really far-fetched that a Sunni Arab is using his position to continue the fight against the Shia majority?

Iraq needs to make sure the accusations and process is done openly. If Hashemi is guilty, the Sunni Arabs need to let Hashemi go and face punishment. Conspiracy to murder should not be allowed just because it is inconvenient to arrest the guilty party.

It would help if the government went after Sadr and the other Iranian hand puppets acting in Iraq.

UPDATE: Hashemi denies everything:

Iraq's Sunni vice president denied Shiite accusations that he organized death squads, describing the charges Tuesday as a trumped-up case brought only after the departure of U.S. troops about assassinations allegedly committed five years ago.

The arrest warrant issued against the highest-ranking Sunni politician threatens to tear apart Iraq's coalition government and perhaps kick-start another Sunni insurgency. It raised suspicions that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, ordered the arrest of Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi as part of a campaign to consolidate his hold on power out of a fear that Sunnis in and out of Iraq are plotting against him.

Of course, he would deny the charges regardless, right?

Hashemi is being sheltered by the Kurds right now.

I have no idea if his denials are true or if the charges are true. I do know (or think I know, since I've warned of this for years) that the Shias fear that without our military presence, the political safety that allowed them to practice politics rather than warfare, the Shias fear the long-dominant Sunnis could engineer a coup and return to power.

The Sunnis, whether Hashemi is guilty or innocent, fear that this is just the first step to eradicating Sunni Arab power in Iraq. Sunni threats to restart the insurgency are fairly hollow. The Iraqis know where the Sunnis live. And the Iraqi security forces are much better now. And they wouldn't play by the rules that we insisted we follow in the counter-insurgency (Abu Ghraib, however shameful, was fraternity hazing level stuff and not torture as is often claimed). If the Sunni Arabs restart their insurgency, they will be killed or expelled to become another state-less group living in refugee camps in Syria and Jordan.

The Kurds have an interest in not being the only minority in Iraq. So despite the fact that the Sunni Arabs persecuted and gassed Kurds under Saddam, the Kurds would rather have the Sunnis around (but without sole power--just in case). At worst, the Shias would have someone to hate who are not Kurds. At best, the Kurds have more maneuvering room within the political system with another player.

The simplest explanation is that fear is driving the various actors to assume the worst and act on that fear just in case it is true.

I have some small hope that this is some theater by either the Sunni Arabs or the Shias to demonstrate why Iraq needs American troops for a while longer. Is it possible that we left to prove we would leave when asked but are angling with Iraqis to return? Of course, engineering a fake crisis could easily become a real crisis given that the fear really does exist.

My guess is that the simple explanation holds. But I'll be plenty relieved if this is true--or even if the real explanation leans closer to theater than crisis.

Once again, will our government please come to an agreement to return 25,000 troops (as long as I'm asking, ask for it all), including 3 combat advise and assist brigades and special forces, to Iraq?

UPDATE: Hashemi denies everything and Vice President Biden urged the Iraqis to work out their disagreements.

The problem is, some Sunni Arabs really are committing terrorist acts, as the wave of bombings in Baghdad that killed 60 shows:

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the bombings bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaida's Sunni insurgents. Most appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods, although some Sunni areas were also targeted. In all, 11 neighborhoods were hit by either car bombs, roadside blasts or sticky bombs attached to cars. There was at least one suicide bombing and the blasts went off over several hours.

If Hashemi (or people under him) are helping this terrorism, then calling for Maliki to work with Hashemi is insane.

If this really is a politically motivated move by Maliki, it is stupid. But it is stupidity facilitated by fear--fear that we aren't there to prevent a Sunni Arab coup that brings back minority Sunni Arab rule and oppression.

In addition to immediately opening talks on returning US forces to Iraq, perhaps we should agree to take custody of Hashemi and oversee the investigation and trial of Hashemi in a transparent fashion so that if he is guilty, nobody thinks Maliki is just oppressing Sunni Arabs. And if Hashemi is innocent, the Sunni Arabs get a little confidence that they don't have to resort to violence out of fear of what happens if they don't take control via a coup.

Mind you, I don't think the Sunni Arabs could pull off a coup. I think a return to open violence just leads to the destruction of the Sunni Arab community in Iraq. But fear does funny things to your brain.

Dollars and No Sense

I find this article amazing in its strategic and historical illiteracy. We won the Iraq War. If we defend what we won and exploit it, we can win even more.

Let's start, shall we?

There was a time not so long ago when the Vietnam War was widely viewed as the biggest misstep in American military history. Not only was the conflict poorly executed by America and its local allies, but domestic support for the war effort collapsed, leading to a stark defeat of American strategy.

So, we were succeeding in defeating the North Vietnamese-supported insurgency in South Vietnam until we engineered the overthrow of the Diem government. And after pouring in hundreds of thousands of troops, we managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and rebuild the decimated South Vietnamese armed forces, defeat the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, and then left with South Vietnam mostly pacified and needing only continued American support to endure as an independent state. It was a tough fight requiring us to both spread out forces to pacify the population and to concentrate forces to fight large organized enemy forces.

Domestic support may have collapsed, but not before we left with an independent South Vietnam still in place. South Vietnam fell to a conventional mechanized invasion. We cut off the support that would have allowed the South Vietnamese to hold their ground.

And what did we achieve? Our strategy bought time for a stretch of Asia from India to Indonesia to Japan to build up their domestic cohesion to resist communist inroads. By the time the 1960s began, communism seemed to be on the march. In the end, only South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell to the communists. Not too bad. And in Europe, we demonstrated to shaky Western European NATO allies with large domestic communist parties that we would resist the Soviet Union's efforts to spread communism. And we showed the Soviets that we'd suffer large casualties in an out-of-the-way Southeast Asia, leaving smaller doubts that we'd do what it took to defend our NATO allies. In the end, the war was part of a Cold War that we ultimately won. Was it expensive? Yes it was. We lost a lot of troops.

But a "stark defeat" of American strategy that was widely viewed as our biggest misstep in our military history? Rubbish. I won't say it isn't widely viewed as a misstep. But that is a problem of perception and not reality.

So having established his expertise in military matters and strategy, the author moves on to Iraq:

The outcome in Iraq is not so clear-cut, but characterizing it as a victory is the triumph of hope over hard-won lessons. In fact, the Iraq war and subsequent occupation may ultimately come to be regarded as a bigger mistake than Vietnam was.

Oh, enlighten me, please.

Well, Iraq shouldn't be a state at all since it is divided into three main ethnically based areas, the author says. That Iraq functioned as a state even before Saddam misruled it despite this problem and despite the fact that many countries have ethnic divisions that are geographically based is proof that Iraq must fail as a unified state. I see.

And this is a problem:

Vietnam may have been divided between North and South, but it encompassed an ancient culture with common language and traditions. Our reasons for defending it were grounded in a national strategy called containment that was embraced by both political parties as a necessary response to communist aggression. Iraq, in contrast, is a country of warring ethnic and sectarian communities, and our military involvement there resulted from an ad hoc response to faulty intelligence in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks.

Huh, so the strategy of Vietnam was good? I could have sworn--never mind. Iraq does have some unifying aspects. They are not Persians. Which is a unifier. 75% are Arab and 90% are Sunni. And there is that Arabic language thing they have in common. Hmm. Well anyone can have a bad day at the keyboard.

As for the ad hoc response to faulty intelligence. Our Congress enacted and President Clinton signed legislation making regime change in Iraq our official policy. I'll hold off on the faulty intelligence part for now.

Next!

The first lesson we learned after toppling Saddam Hussein was that our main reason for invading the country — Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program — didn’t exist. We soon determined that another big reason for going, the supposed presence of Al Qaeda elements, was largely imaginary.

No, the nuclear path was dormant. But Iraq had an obligation to prove that they had ended that and other WMD programs. Clearly, Saddam would have restarted all of them when he could. And al Qaeda related elements were inside Iraq along with many other terrorists.

They may not have been the slam dunks that war opponents insisted we have, but I have no doubt that we prevented Saddam from getting WMD and we prevented Saddam from hosting al Qaeda after we forced them to flee Afghanistan.

Also, we had many reasons to destroy the Saddam regime even though President Bush emphasized the WMD angle since our CIA assured him it was a slam dunk certainty they had such programs. Shoot, maybe we taught thugs not to lie to us. One can hope.

But the really big and enduring lesson was that the Iraqis were not by nature a peaceful people — they had longstanding scores to settle, not only with each other but also with us, and they proved remarkably persistent in pursuing that purpose. If anything, our presence helped spur recruiting by sectarian militias and local supporters of Al Qaeda.

Watch it. We're getting dangerously close to racist stereotyping here. And might not the bloody path have something to do with Iran and Syria essentially invading Iraq by funneling in money, expertise, and weapons to their own Shia and Sunni Arab factions? While the Kurdish region remained peaceful despite being Iraqis who are not--he says--peaceful people? Sure, al Qaeda was able to recruit there, but that is a natural part of war. I'm sure the Hitler Youth got a lot more recruits when Allied armies reached the Rhine River. And the "solution" to the problem would leave us in the strange position of abandoning Iraq just to deprive al Qaeda of the recruiting tool of our presence? Really? You don't think al Qaeda could recruit on the basis of our defeat? Or anything else we do or don't do?

And this is the funny part:

When the immediate rationales for invading Iraq were revealed as misguided, the Bush Administration then defaulted to the argument that a brutal dictator was being deposed to make way for the first real democracy in the Arab world. That certainly was a laudable objective, but it begged the question of how Saddam had managed to remain in power for decades.

Remember that Clinton era law I mentioned? Here's one part:

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

And I hate to bring up the obvious, but the invasion was called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

That's subtle, I know. So let's go to the New York Times of January 5, 2003:

President Bush's national security team is assembling final plans for administering and democratizing Iraq after the expected ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Huh.

Anyway. So how did Saddam survive for decades?

One, since when is simply dealing with a dictator immunize that dictator from ever having to face American power in anger? Is that really the implication? Because we didn't kill him on day one we forfeit the right to ever kill him? Seriously, dude?

But back to Saddam's endurance. At first Iraq was a formal ally of the Soviet Union. And when the mullahs of Iran waged war on Iraq (yes, I know Iraq invaded Iran), we naturally preferred the lesser of two evils from 1980 to 1988. In 1991, the sainted international community didn't want us to overthrow Saddam and we then spent the 1990s trying to get anybody inside Iraq to kill the man. In 2003 we sent him packing and pulled him out of a spider hole. So there were reasons we didn't nail him before 2003. Okay?

Then we get to the real heart of his view. He thinks we are handing Iraq to Iran:

The one local government run by Shiites that Maliki can turn to for help when the Americans are gone is that of Iran, which is essentially a Shiite theocracy. In other words, what looks like a fledgling democracy in Iraq to some U.S. policymakers looks to the governments in surrounding states more like a huge opportunity for radical leaders in Teheran to expand their influence. I won’t get into how resentful many Sunni Arabs are about the role America played in giving Shiites — a distinct minority in the Arab world — political power in Iraq, but that is likely to be a potent factor in future regional relations.

What rot. Iran is surely trying to use local allies to undermine Iraq. But Iraqis don't welcome Iranian control. The author bizarrely speaks of the majority Sunnis resenting our putting Shias in charge, but inside Iraq the majority is Shia. Why should it be an issue that the former privileged minority resents their dethroning? And why should we go by the fact that the world's Sunnis don't like the idea of the grubby Shias running their own country?

I'll wrap up with this:

In the process, though, much of the military’s agenda for modernizing Cold War weapons has been derailed, and U.S. forces have lost the mystique they once enjoyed for being invincible. Although they have fought bravely and in the end successfully, it will be a long time before overseas aggressors again view them with the awe exhibited after Operation Desert Storm and the Balkan air war.

Does he really think we'd have hundreds of Raptors and lots of other new ships and weapons without the war? The war led to some amazing new stuff and modernization. And our troops are combat veterans.

And I can hardly believe my eyes to read that our enemies aren't in awe of our ability to adapt our conventional army to fight a well-funded and extremely vicious insurgency and pound their sorry butts into the ground. Nor can I believe that the Balkan air war (of 1999 or 1995) is viewed by our jihadi enemies as anything other than proving that we are too afraid to tangle with our enemies man-to-man on the ground. Our enemies used to mock us as unwilling to do anything but fling cruise missiles at them. You don't hear that too much anymore.

What rubbish. I've gone on long enough and can't bear to even address the issue of paying for wounded veterans who apparently didn't have the decency to just die in percentages our troops have in the past and spare us the cost.

The author says he writes about national security, especially its business dimensions.

Because when you want to understand war and strategy, you naturally want the business dimension.

I can't believe I lost the chunk of my life reading and writing about that rubbish masquerading as national security analysis.

We won the Iraq War. Let's not throw it away by talking ourselves into the stupid notion that we didn't win anything at all.

UPDATE: Strategypage addresses Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-insurgency. In case you want the historical dimenstion of military and defense analysis.

No Change

I haven't paid much attention to the flap over detention authority in the most recent NDAA (national defense authorization act). It seems mostly the left is going ballistic.

So, as much for my future reference as yours in case I need it, here is an analysis of the issue (tip to Instapundit).

The authority existed already. So if you hated it before under Bush there is no reason to hate it now. Although I'd want to know why you hated so many other Bush terrorism policies that you said constituted "shredding" the Constitution but only bring up this detention provision. You have every right to be inconsistent, naturally.

And if you were fine with it before, there is no reason to hate it now. Even if Obama has the authority.

Indeed, according to the article, the NDAA at least codifies some of the authority, making it less likely to be interpreted in a way that civil libertarians would likely find objectionable.

I'm not giving it much thought. Not from the lack of importance mind you. Just based on what interests me--or not.

Symptom

I have to wonder if the Wukan unrest is just the most obvious symptom of economic problems that the Chinese rulers don't even know they have:

It is unlikely that anybody in China has any idea just how much of a mess they have on their hands. Local governments have every incentive to hide the full scope of their borrowing from central authorities — and local banks and businesses often have excellent reasons for helping the local authorities to hide their tracks and borrow and spend still more.

You don't have to believe China is doomed to believe that they are not immune to normal economic problems that other countries face. Past performance is no guarantee of future earnings, eh?

UPDATE: The village appears to have won:

A Chinese village protest that tested the ruling Communist Party for over a week ended on Wednesday after officials offered concessions over seized farmland and the death of a village leader, in a rare spectacle of the government backing down to mobilized citizens.

When the world's attention fades, the villagers will suffer once more for their crime of opposing the government. The problem isn't that the government made a bad decision. The problem is that decisions are made by a bad government.

Consolidate Federal Departments

Instapundit links a post that notes the expansive goals of two supposedly narrowly focused federal departments and asks:

Will EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fight it out to see which gets to be the Department of Fixing Everything?

I suggest we call it the Department of Perfecting Everything. One day, we can probably get the government down to just two major entities, the Department of Defense (DOD) and DOPE.

We can't hope to understand the totality of our problems yet alone pretend to have solutions that don't cause more problems than they solve. Yet that doesn't stop people from trying to spend money on grand solutions to everything. (Again, tip to Instapundit.)