Sure We Can Blow Up Iran--Then What?

A couple of days ago a pair of British deep thinkers with much academic knowledge of war as a theoretical consideration but no practical experience with the realities of breaking things and killing people issued a think tank report considering how the US could destroy not only Iran's nuclear facilities but the country's infrastructure and government as well. The paper can be read at http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf.

Like all too many "defense intellectuals." the authors have a skewed view of the nature of war. The combination of tunnel vision and inexperience with either the real or historical character of war--the feel of fear, the taste of blood, the stench of death, and the dust of destruction--turns the dropping of bombs and the firing of missiles into a dry exercise of limited imagination.

The Geek rather believes that the tone of this article must resemble the briefing papers given to Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush prior to the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Why does the Geek think that?

Because the paper which was released to the mainstream and alternative media on 28 August 07 focuses on what the US military services can do with the ordnance and delivery systems now in the region. It considers weapons' effects, numbers of sorties required, and similar technical data. To the Geek, that approach resembles what the main focus of the briefings to the Commander Guy and his Commanderettes must have been.

What we can do to blow things up. There is absolutely no doubt about the American capacity to deliver highly effective, non-nuclear munitions in great amounts. There is equally little doubt that the American systems have a high order of accuracy along with their high order lethality and destructiveness.

So what? The Geek asks.

Delivering ordnance is the easy part. It was the easy part of the Iraq invasion. The hard part always comes later. The real tough part of war comes just after the last echoes of the last smart-bomb blast or cruise missile impact fades.

The authors of the study resemble the architects of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in another important way as well. As the record of the past five years years in Afghanistan and four plus years in Iraq show, Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush never considered the day after. They and those who advised and supported them never considered what would happen after we defeated the conventional opposing forces in the field. Never thought about the day after we declared victory.

The authors of the study apparently share the view of the current administration that as the dust clouds settle and flies cover the corpses, the shocked and awed survivors of the smashing attack will rise up as one and overthrow the mullahocracy so as to embrace freedom, democracy, religious pluralism, and free enterprise.

That's sure the way it went in Iraq, wasn't it? And Afghanistan, right?

The study substantially ignores not only the day after the dust clears. It casually waves off the spectrum of retaliatory options available to the Iranian government and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps foreign duty component, the al-Quds Force. Considering the sizable number of Islamists in Europe (see http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/08/2eb4b9a1-4e04-420e-bfb3-2aad70344baa.html for a current appraisal) the possibility--no--the probability of Iranian controlled or affiliated sleeper terrorist cells is high, very high.

Nor is it all that much lower in the United States. Despite the best efforts of American intelligence and law enforcement efforts, only a person not well rooted in reality could pretend that there are no undetected black hats among us.

A further wrinkle not considered by the deep thinking dudes in England is the probable effect upon opinion throughout Islamic countries of an American attack upon Iran. Even the most carefully planned and executed attack would kill large numbers of Iranians, most of them civilians. Far lesser body counts inflicted upon Muslims by US or other Western forces have inflamed zeal, fear, and hatred among Islamic peoples. When the impact of satellite, almost-real-time imagery is considered on top of the current wide-spread anxiety and animus felt toward the US as the chief "crusader" country, the likelihood of terrorist attacks becomes a bang on certainty.

Another failure of the report which was probably shared by the optimistic folks in the Pentagon and White House is its assumption that the US attack would be one hundred percent successful. The assumption apparently is that we would know where every target was to the millimeter, and we would hit everything we aimed at.

Get a grip!

As the experience in the invasion of Iraq demonstrates (as does that of Afghanistan), we did not know where every important target was located. Also, we didn't hit what we aimed at all the time. Regardless of technology, it is still possible to miss what you're aiming at. Similarly, it is possible not to know where ever single important target might be.

What's the upshot?

The study's authors are out to lunch. Anyone who follows the same line of thinking is equally out to lunch.

Here's what we can do. We can break much, even most, of Iran's economic infrastructure, military installations, nuclear facilities, and government centers.

Here's what we cannot do. We cannot invade and occupy Iran on the ground. We don't have the forces to do that. (The JCS is of the view that maintaining our current level of 160,000 in Iraq is too much of a strain.) We cannot adequately predict, not effectively counter the range of potential responses by Iranian sponsored and other terrorists. We cannot predict nor control the global diplomatic damage that might result from the US attack even if some major actors such as the UK and France support our action. We cannot be sure that our attack will neutralize all the targets, even the most urgent ones.

Then, there is one more little matter of what we cannot do. We cannot surround the attack with a warm, fuzzy blanket of public opinion molding, so that the Iranians who live in the country wide impact area will love us as the debris falls around their heads.

The laddybucks behind the study (again, the Geek supposes, not unlike the Rumsfield-Cheney-Bush boys) are ignorant of history. As World War II shows beyond any shadow of a doubt, when people are bombed, they support their own government more, not less. Morale does not collapse. Political will does not evaporate. In England, in Germany, in Japan, the will to resist along with hatred of the bomber grew as the bombs fell.

The strategic masterminds of the current administration (including those who were in office back in 2002) and the academic warriors of the study are evidently ignorant of the greatest single principle of war. Pressure consolidates political will long before it shatters it.

Get a grip on the history of war even if you don't experience the real deal up close and personal. If you do that you are less likely, far less likely, to make the sort of blunders illustrated in this Iran study or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Omar, The Law? and Forgotten History

Years ago the Geek was offered an all expenses paid trip to law school. It took him less than a deuce of microseconds to decline. The reason? The Geek has often been of the view that the law is an ass, sometimes a perfect ass.

The current appeal by the US military of a ruling by military judges at the Gitmo KZ-lager regarding the unlawfulness of declaring an enemy combatant to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant justifies to the Geek's total satisfaction that the law can be the perfect ass. Walk through the morass with him and perhaps you will come to share the Geek's stance.

The specific case involves one Omar Khadr, a Canadian national whose family is purported to be major league supporters of the Islamist world view generally and Osama bin Ladin in particular. Omar, who was fifteen at the time, was in Afghanistan at the time of the US led invasion.

Presumably Omar was not in Afghanistan at an al-Qaeda facility because of his deep desire to study Afghan culture and language. Whatever his reason for being at that place at that time, when the facility was attacked, Omar pitched a hand grenade at the intruders, allegedly killing an American sergeant.

Captured at the end of the engagement, Omar was taken to Gitmo where he has resided ever since. Given recent descriptions of the twenty year old young man, Omar does not seem to have suffered physically or mentally from his detention. At the status review hearing conducted pursuant to a law passed by the Wallahs in Congress during the great patriotic frenzy following 9/11 and our invasion of Afghanistan, the military judge found that inconsistencies in the laws precluded finding Omar an "illegal enemy combatant."

The Pentagon, presumably with the knowledge and consent of the current administration and Commander Guy, has appealed the ruling. The position of the Pentagon's lawyers as far as the Geek can decode it is simply that the law is perhaps imperfect but it is evolving toward perfection, so give us another bite at the apple named Omar.

The Geek's argument against the Pentagon's position is, as some lawyers are wont to say, two pronged. One prong is history. The other is the nature and character of war, past and present.

(OK, the Geek admits that you've got him. Both prongs are historical. Geeko just can't dissemble well enough. That's why it's a good thing that he never went to law school.)

First, a stipulation is in order. The Geek stipulates without reservation that Omar Khadr is and was five years ago an enemy of the United States. The Geek further stipulates that Omar was on the date of his capture a combatant. (He did throw a grenade at the least, and the Geek doubts that Omar confused that missile with something less lethal, like. say, a bunch of rose petals.)

The customs and usages of war had long defined the rights, duties, and qualifications of combatants. These were summarised in the Hague Convention on land warfare, specifically the Annex to the Convention signed on 18 October 1907. To be a lawful combatant an individual must meet the following qualifications:
1. Must be within a chain of command
2. Must have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance
3. Must carry arms openly
4. Must conduct operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

These qualifications contained within Article I of the 1907 Annex to the IV Hague Convention, which was ratified by the US, have been at the heart of all American laws, regulations, and usages for discriminating between combatants and civilians in every war we have waged to date. The same is true with the vast majority of States (including Afghanistan.)

The Hague qualifications have some profound ambiguities. The nature of a chain of command, or as originally stated, "a commander responsible for his subordinates." is not well defined. Chains of command, control, and communication vary widely between different belligerents of differing military philosophies and technological capabilities.

Next, just what is "a fixed emblem recognizable at a distance?" Recognizable when and under what conditions? Daytime only? Nighttime? Rain, haze, smoke, fog? By whom? With what level of visual acuity? Normally, common sense prevails and the term "emblem" is interpreted as a uniform. (Not the same uniform as worn by the enemy of course. That gets you shot as a spy.)

All reports seem to agree that Omar was in an al-Qaeda camp which implies some sort of command and control mechanism. Certainly he was carrying arms openly since it is darn hard to toss a grenade otherwise. As he was responding to an armed attack and used a common military weapon, it is safe to infer that he was following the laws and customs of land warfare.

The big unknown was whether or not Omar was wearing an "emblem recognizable at a distance." This brings up an interesting question. What is a uniform and how would you know it if you saw it?

The basic idea is that the "emblem" or uniform allows a soldier in combat to make a quick, accurate distinction between an enemy combatant (legitimate bullet catcher) and a civilian wandering through the battle zone (a bullet catching no-no.)

At one time in military history this was an easy matter to accomplish. Soldiers wore bright, heroic type costumes. The Redcoats wore red and the the French, for example, wore white.

But, over time as weapons improved and tactics changed, the armies of the world came to the conclusion that being seen made it easier to be made dead. So much for bright, easily distinguished clothing as an emblem.

The purpose of the camouflage battle dress now worn by every soldier everywhere is that of not being seen. Similarly, the basic military maneuver known as "duck and get behind cover," is to reach the end of not being seen. That's two strikes against the "emblem" clause.

Now the third strike. Get a grip on it.

Insurgents, particularly those who fight irregular, or as it is vulgarly referred to, "guerrilla" war, do not want to be easily distinguished from the surrounding civilian population. This reality, which was a recurrent feature of the many insurgencies world wide during the 1940s and following decades, was recognised by the United Nations.

Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (1125 UN Treaty Series 3) adopted at Geneva on 8 June 1977 specifically recognises the needs of the insurgent and requires that the guerrilla insurgent be accorded legal combatant status if he:
1. Carrys arms openly during a military engagement
2. Carrys arms openly during such time he is visible to the adversary during a pre-engagement deployment. That is during the period immediately prior to launching an attack. The Protocol in Article 44 makes no reference to either "emblems" or carrying arms openly when defending against an attack.

The United States, in common with other satiated powers, was and is not a party to this Protocol despite its realistic view that not all wars are between States with organized, regular armies.

If the question of Omar's "lawful" combatant status hinges on the "emblem" or uniform question, the Pentagon lawyers would be well advised to check back into recent US history. During the Reagan administration the US sponsored, supported, trained, and equipped offensive insurgents known as the "Contras" whose goal was the overthrow of the communist regime of Nicaragua.

The films and photographs of the day show that the Contras generally wore a "uniform" consisting of either jeans or US Army utility pants, a tee shirt generally bearing the icon of a NFL or Major League Baseball team, and a "gimme" cap. Right. That's a uniform?

Or, the lawyers might look at US practice in World War II. OSS personnel parachuted into occupied Europe on clandestine missions wore either an Army issue jump suit over their civilian clothing or simply some single article of military issue apparel. The lawyers of that time apparently believed such was sufficient to extend the prisoner of war status to a person who might otherwise be summarily executed as a spy or franc tireur.

In short, the "emblem" test is a crock.

So, what about the fact that Omar was not an Afghan?

That's irrelevant. The customs, usages, and laws of war have long recognised that third country nationals might serve in combatant positions. The only prohibition is another UN treaty to which the US is not a party banning mercenaries from lawful combatant status. No allegation to the effect that Omar was a teenage merc has ever been made.

Now a bit of history, the history of war. It's worth getting a grip on.

If the minions of law enforcement kick in your door, subject you to various indignities and depredations, you have no legal right to resist. Indeed, if you do, you are liable to prosecution on that fact alone even if the cops have kicked in the wrong door, roughed up the wrong people and hauled a perfectly innocent person (you) off in handcuffs, shackles, manacles, and disgrace to the local slammer. The theory is that you will have the right to litigate for compensation afterwards.

It has long been recognised albeit reluctantly, that in the case of invasion the citizens have the right to take up arms in defense of the homeland. When Prussia invaded France in 1870, Frenchmen did resist the invader even after one or more French armies had surrendered. The French government acknowledged and regularized this fact on 21 September 1870. Less than a month later the French government went further, establishing a chain of command for these francs tireurs so that by all relevant customs and usages they were combatants.

The Germans refused to recognise the status. Von Moltke, the Prussian Chief of Staff, ordered that villages be burned, hostages taken, and individuals taken in arms be summarily shot. At the time and later, Europeans with a sense of history (and irony) reflected that when Napoleon invaded the German States, a number of jaegers and similar forestry types had a jolly good time plugging the odd invading Frenchman and generally raising the same merry hell on outposts, patrols, and supply dumps as did the francs tireurs.

Now, if that analogy is a bit arcane for the Pentagon, perhaps they could use one a little closer to the American heart.

A uniformed military force belonging to a foreign power launched a search and destroy mission against a pair of peaceful villages. The invading force successfully conducted their operation, destroying foodstuffs and killing a small number of local defense force volunteers who wore uniforms, carried arms openly, and were under the command of a responsible official.

While the military column was withdrawing to their garrison, the word of the incursion spread throughout the region. Unordered and unbidden, civilians left their homes, guns in hand and took cover in the woods on each side of the road along which the enemy was withdrawing.

From ambush positions these un-uniformed, un-commanded volunteers engaged the enemy with galling fire. Many casualties were inflicted as the long, hot afternoon wore into evening. The unlawful colonial combatants continued their ambush every inch of the way until the last of the British troops had entered Boston.

Then, these American "free shooters" sat down to besiege the British. The War of Independence had begun.

Omar is not, in the Geek's view, the moral equivalent of the Minutemen. He is, however, every bit as much of a lawful combatant.

The Pentagon and the current administration, and the lawyers that represent them need to get a grip. They need to get a grip on the realities of war and the realities of history.

The Mullahs' Dilemma: Power or Paradise?

A couple of posts back, the Geek suggested that there is no need to have panic attacks over the potential of Iran to achieve a rudimentary nuclear capability by the middle of the next decade. He gave one important reason for this conclusion--the bomb is so anti-existential in nature that deterrence generally has worked well. He added that because the mullahocracy in Tehran is one of the most, if not the most, unpopular regimes in the world, it had better pray for peace.

He argued that there would be a rush to push the button first on the part of several nations should a mushroom cloud of unknown origin appear anywhere in the globe. Iran would become the mushroom patch from hell within a very short time.

A reader suggested that the mullahs might not be deterred as the benefits of paradise would outweigh the costs of extermination. Given the Islamist propensity for martyrdom, this objection has merit.

The historical record, including that of the Muslim societies, shows that leaders are perfectly willing to send followers on suicidal missions, but are completely unwilling to send themselves.

A prototypical example of this is "The Old Man of the Mountain," the leader of the late medieval group, the Assassins. As the Old Man showed to visitors, he could select a couple of his assassins at random and order them to jump off the parapet of the fortress to their deaths. Secure in the belief that they would go immediately to the same paradise they had experienced in their hashish driven dreams, the underlings readily jumped.

Wait one, Geek! What about the great Muslim warrior kings like Salah al-Din?

True, Salah al-Din, in common with all warlords and kings from the Heroic Age of warfare, which extended, with breaks, from the time of Ulysses and Alexander the Great down to the battles of Crecy and Agincourt, rode in the front rank, engaged in single combat with the enemy, and took all the risks of war personally. That's true, but irrelevant.

Osama bin Ladin didn't drive the truck bomb to the embassy in Nairobi. Neither did he pilot the speedboat next to the USS Cole. He certainly didn't make the death ride into one of the twin towers or the Pentagon. Neither did any of his immediate leadership cadre.

Going back a few years, the Ayatollah Khomeini did not personally lead the bare handed attacks of Iranian teenagers into the minefields, electrified swamps, and poison gas shells of the Iraqi attackers. Neither did any of the current mullahocracy or the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Himmler never went into combat on the Eastern Front leading his Waffen SS in battle despite all his fantasies about recreating a Germany of the Middle Ages. Hitler committed suicide after all his bravado laden speeches about how he would "die at his post" defending Berlin.

From the Geek's perspective on history, the record is clear. People in power like power. They want to stay in power. If it is necessary that people, even lots of people die so that power can be maintained, so be it. It's better, of course, if the people who die are not part of your own population. It's no fun to have power over a corpse-covered, green-glass wasteland.

That implies that unless the leader is not oriented in time and place, that leader is not going to bet the reality of power on the hypothesis of paradise.

And, what if the mullah in question is a few bricks shy?

The Geek is a historian. He deals with the facts of the historical record, not the hypotheses of psychology. Suffice it to say that the book of history holds the names of many men in command of nations and armies who were of questionable mental balance. Nonetheless, the inclination to suicide of self or nation is very, very rare.

Apparently men can be nuts, true believers, zealots and still want to hold on to power at all costs.

And--get a grip on this--power is only power, if there are people to command.

The Limits (and Power) of US Economic Warfare

This post is motivated by a thoughtful comment entered on a previous post by Watcher in the Center. Watcher's comment is linked to Geek Demands a New Historical Analogy.

Economic sanctions up to and including total trade embargoes have a long standing historical appeal to US policy makers and We the People. While having a strong appeal, the success record of economic sanctions is not so sterling.

The closest to a complete success in pursuit of a major policy goal ever achieved by a trade embargo was the repeal of the highly obnoxious Stamp Act by the British Parliament in the 1760s. Since then the win/loss ratio has not been impressive.

In the years before the War of 1812, the US government tried to influence both British and French policy. The goal was limited. The US wanted its "rights" as a neutral to be respected by both belligerents. Not only did the embargo acts fail in their purpose, they served to nearly impoverish New England with its heavy dependence upon overseas commerce. (Oh, the embargo act and its successor, Macon's Bill Number Two, almost got the US embroiled in a war with both Great Britain and Napoleon's France.)

Jumping forward a century and a quarter, the administration of Franklin Roosevelt employed a campaign of escalating sanctions against Imperial Japan. The sanction program was gradual, well considered, and ultimately--when the US froze Japanese funds thus preventing the sale of petroleum, aviation gasoline, and scrap steel--left Tokyo with two choices: A humiliating capitulation to US policy requirements regarding China or war.

We know which they chose.

Not quite forty years later, US trade sanctions did not induce the Soviets to leave Afghanistan. Nor, a few years later did a virtual embargo on Panama (which used the dollar as its circulating medium) induce the country to disgorge Manuel Noriega. We had to send the US military as the world's largest SWAT team to arrest the man. (Sometimes regime change is harder than initially expected.)

With all that as background, let's push on to get a grip on Cuba and Iran once again.

During the years 1959-1961, the US diplomatic and economic embargo on Cuba had a disastrous effect upon the country's economy, which had been very heavily dependent upon selling its sugar and tobacco crops to the US. Cuba had also received significant national income from US tourism.

All of that came to a screeching stop with the embargo.

After Fidel declared Cuba to be a "socialist" nation, he was able to arrange increasing assistance from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact regimes. Even with the flow of money from Moscow and its satellites, the Cuban economy remained enfeebled.

The enfeeblement worsened as a result of badly bungled efforts by the Fidelistas to create a model economy. The ineptitude of some Cuban economic development schemes was sufficiently impressive to make the Geek wonder whether or not there had ever been any real need for the US economic sanctions in the first place.

Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, Cuba has been forced to compete on the international commodities export market. For some time, Havana benefited from a special relationship between itself and an ideological soulmate, Hanoi. But, that tie has weakened in recent years. The Fidelistas have opened tourism facilities to appeal to the Northern European market with some success. Balancing this is the Cuban government's uncanny ability to annoy trading partners at critical moments (with the exception, of course, of the Neo-Castroite regime in Venezuela.)

Still, the bottom line reads that Cuba soldiers on despite or because of the original and continuing US economic sanctions....

"Wait one, Geek." you shout. "What do you mean, 'because of'?"

That's the critical point. Every time the Castroistas had to announce another painful tug inwards on the collective Cuban belt, the blame could be foisted off on the Norteamericanos. The distress felt by a person and the anger that distress produced would be directed, not at Havana, but at Washington.

Take a good grip on a reality the Geek has mentioned many times before. Pressure consolidates long before it fractures.

Whether the pressure is economic, political, psychological, or military, pressure from an outside regime on the government and people of a nation will consolidate political will and support of the government. Eventually the pressure may cause political fractures. However, that eventually can be a bloody long time in coming.

The economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on Cuba by the US gave the inept Fidelistas a perfect out every time one or another of their pet economic schemes came a cropper. Point a finger (the Geek won't say which one) to the north. Scream loudly, "Parado, Uncle Sam!"

Beautiful, isn't it?

The same mechanism can be seen during the long decade of economic sanctions directed at Saddam Hussein's Iraq following the success of Operation Play in the Sandbox in 1991. The Iraqi people (but not the Iraqi government or military) were hurt, even desperately hurt by the sanctions. The middle class was financially wiped out. The well connected, the grifters, and the grafters made out like bandits.

All the while, the boys at the top in Baghdad could point, not at themselves, but at the faraway evil gnomes of Washington. Don't look at us! Look at Uncle Sam.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Now for Iran. Time to test the analogy again. Look for guide posts from previous experiences such as Cuba.

The mullahocracy has shown itself to be almost as pathetic in economic matters as the Castroistas. However, Iran started at a higher level than Cuba, and oil is more remunerative to a country than sugar cane. Additionally, Iran is not an island. That brings some automatic advantages. (Hint: mesh petroleum and natural gas with long, wide steel tubes.)

Iran also has some disadvantages compared to Cuba. It's population is larger and younger--much, much younger--than that of Cuba. The mullahs have not been as successful as the Castroites in transmitting revolutionary ideological zeal to the second (or third) generation. Today's technology assures that a significant percentage of Iran's youthful population will have its residual sense of revolutionary purpose challenged by a sense of rising expectations constantly thwarted by the old men with beards and a copy of the Quran.

Early signs of fault lines, generational and otherwise, have been appearing in Iran over recent years. Drawing on the general precept proven so often by history that outsider applied pressure consolidates long before it fractures, the most important guide post is this. Any economic sanctions must not, repeat, not, be seen as coming directly or indirectly from the United States.

Considering Iran's current economic condition, the dependence upon both neighboring countries and private enterprises located at great distance for so much of Iran's ambitions and giving appropriate weight to the signs of nascent disaffiliation within the Iranian population, economic sanctions have a fair chance of bringing about a positive outcome. That is, economic pressures might, just might, have a quieting effect upon the mullahs if one overriding caveat is followed.

The caveat?

The US follow a very difficult policy. The US must work quickly to normalize diplomatic relations with Tehran. Washington must not go public on sanctions of either a diplomatic or economic nature. Simultaneously, the weight of the US must come to bear on critical nodes of Iranian technological, economic, and diplomatic support, whether private companies or governments.

There are several important ramifications of this course of action. For it to work, the US must stop acting like it is what it is--the world's only Great Power. We must take Russia seriously as another Great Power. We must do the same with the Peoples' Republic of China. Diplomatic and public relations fences with Turkey, Syria and Pakistan must be mended with rapidity.

The Geek acknowledges the historical truth of the proposition that kicking one diplomatic rock may start an avalanche of change. To have any prospect of controlling the direction and velocity of the changes, the current--or, far more likely, the next--administration must develop a firm view of the world we would prefer to live in and a consistent road map on how to get there from here.

Even then the results will not be certain.

You can legitimately ask, "To what avail would all this be? Particularly since there is no guarantee of success."

The optimal case would be the increase of political disaffiliation within Iran. In that case the mullahs and their rock of support, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, would become increasingly preoccupied with the requirements for domestic pacification. Energy, money and personnel which go into the task of quieting or assuaging political unrest are not available to expend on foreign adventures or technological quests. The Geek is neither calling for nor expecting a revolution in Iran. He would like to see an inward turn by the regime and their knock off of the SS.

Worst realistic case? Al-Quds Force ramps up its foreign actions. The mullahs are able to rally support from the mass of young men without a good, secure future. The rhetoric and behavior of the Tehran regime becomes increasingly frenzied and dangerous. Iran gets the bomb.

There is time enough for war, when and if the worst case comes to pass. Until then, let us try to do a better job than we have done with either Cuba or Iraq. The result will not be certain nor predictable with precision...

But--get a real tight grip on this--war is always uncertain and certainly unpredictable in its results.

Geek Demands a New Historical Analogy

A few years ago a couple of Harvard type academics did something unusual. They wrote a useful book about how to think. Their subject was reasoning by historical analogy. Their conclusion was that Washington decision makers do a very poor job of it.

The Geek (who admits a certain propensity to point out historical parallels, lessons and, with some trepidation, vague analogies) is in agreement with these two scholars. My agreement has grown since the Commander Guy fired his shotgun load of analogies (most incomplete, misleading, irrelevant or flatly wrong) at the VFW convention. Since then the slash and burn of competing bad analogies about Vietnam and Iraq has been impressive--and impressively teleologically didactic.

Of course, the Geek notes, the poor use of analogies runs in the Bush blood. Back in the run-up to the Gulf War back in 1990, H.W Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Adolph Hitler, a comparison that doesn't do either dictator justice.

The time has come for a new analogy. Perhaps an analogy which suits a country other than Iraq. How about Iran?

That's a good choice. Iran has been receiving a great deal of diplomatic, political, and media play recently. The Iranian government is well in the running for the title of Most Unpleasant Regime in the World Today. The US is annoyed at the mullahocracy--with good reason.

So, country one in the new analogy will be Iran!

How about country number two?

Here the Geek chooses a state with whom the US has had bad to very, very bad relations over a long time. A country where pathetic to absolutely stupid US policy choices were made on the basis of pique, annoyance, emotionalism, and similar well-rooted rational bases.

In short, country number two's relations with the US were (and are) driven by American policy choices of such an asinine and counterproductive nature that the Geek sometimes thinks they had to have been the product of that sublime statesman, Dick Cheney. Then I remember Cheney looks older than he is. He couldn't have been the big brain behind the plans.

Country number two is Cuba.

The new analogy: Iran and Cuba.

Let's get a grip on Cuba first.

While waging offensive insurgency against the rotten, corrupt Cuban government headed by Juan Battista, the 26th of July Movement headed by the young lawyer (and once-upon-a-time wannabe major league baseball player), Fidel Castro, was seen in heroic terms by many in the US. Even the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, which was scarcely known to be accommodating of communism, saw the guerrillas as an improvement on the Battista dictatorship. Ike and company cut off aid to the incumbent regime and the guerrillas took over.

The next chapter was not so pleasant. The Castroites expropriated US owned businesses and lands (including casinos owned by the American mob) without "proper compensation" OOH! The horror of it all still sends shivers up the Geekmo's spine.

But, the story got worse from the emotional perspective of the American media and, as a consequence, We the People. In an expectable fit of revolutionary boisterousness, the Fidelistas proceeded with a series of show trials held in a soccer arena before the most blood thirsty crowd since the Terror of the French Revolution. The victims were by and large minions, flunkies, and myrmidons of the ancien regime and were lead to the firing squads as the crowd shouted, "Parado!"

From the reaction of We the People you might think that the bearded barbarians of the 26th of July Movement were collectively squashing Lassie or some other iconic American puppy.

The Eisenhower response?

Diplomatic isolation, economic embargo, and the cranking up of a pseudo-revolutionary guerrilla force which would land in Cuba and throw the rascals out. Our own form of shouting, "Parado!"

Ike's response to Castro's provocation was so wrong as to make a soup sandwich look like the ideal Blue Plate Special.

Why?

That's obvious to anyone oriented in time and place. The problem of expropriation and compensation is one that is handled best through normal diplomatic engagement. Sure, some US companies (and the mob) wouldn't have been thrilled with either the inevitable delay or the probable final dollar figure. So what? All business (as the mobsters could attest) involves risk.

The revolutionary excesses of the soccer arena mob? It would have run its course as it did regardless of any frissons of horrified disgust felt by We the People. Anyway, the record shows clearly that most of those adobe walled deserved what they received.

The pseudo-insurgent invasion (manned by Cuban exiles, expats, and refugees) launched from "secret" CIA bases in Central America and controlled by the Miami located CIA station, JM/WAVE (which was so "secret" that taxi drivers picking up fares at Maimi International asked, "You want to go to the CIA place?") became the debacle known to history as The Bay of Pigs. Was that brilliant, or what?

The result of all our efforts including the April 1961 Kennedy approved and Kennedy weakened Bay of Pigs was the May 1st declaration by Castro that Cuba was now a "socialist state."

Great!

The brilliant American response to the bite of the flea had given Communism an entrepot in the Western Hemisphere. Now, things would really, really get serious. Deadly serious.

The combination of domestic political anxiety and personal anger within the Kennedy White House drove policy. The new policy was to overthrow the Cuban regime preferably with the assassination of Fidel, his brother, Raul, and others such as Che Guevara. The documented records released a week or so back by CIA show the seamy underside of this policy.

The raids, the attempted hits, the continued hostility diplomatically and economically demonstrated by Washington led over time to the Cuban Missile Crises in October 1962, which saw the world come closer to the pushing of launch buttons in Moscow and Washington than any other time before or since. It may even have brought about the killing of JFK in Dallas thirteen months later, aborting the well developed operational planning for a genuine US invasion of Cuba scheduled to take place before the 1964 presidential election.

Great policy, wouldn't you agree?

Over forty years have passed since Dallas. The US still is pretending that Cuba is the ultimate leper. Senator Obama was chastised for suggesting that it was past time for the US to take the first small step toward normalizing economic relations with Cuba.

Old, bad policies die hard--particularly when Cuban expats and their descendants are a significant bloc of votes in states such as Florida and New Jersey. Oy veh!

Now, let's get a grip on Iran.

Except for threats, and the occasional diplomatic meeting in a third country or in the delegates' lounge at the UN, the US has pretended Iran doesn't exist as a state with a legitimate government. Washington has used all the diplomatic and economic leverage at its disposal for nearly thirty years to isolate the mullahocracy in Tehran, damage the Iranian economy, and seek the overthrow of the Iranian government.

The reason?

Self-evident. The mullahocracy was behind the kidnapping and holding hostage of US diplomatic personnel, a more than four hundred day siege on the emotions of We the People. Since then the mullahs have shown a repeated, excessive desire to kill people, both in Iran, and, more importantly, elsewhere in the Mideast. Tehran was behind the truck bombings of US barracks in Lebanon a quarter century ago. It is the shadowy presence behind the rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel.

Thoroughly obnoxious bunch, there is no doubt about that.

Making the mullahocracy all the more irritating is its pursuit of nuclear capacities, including at least, as a real possibility, the atomic bomb. Then, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps or its al-Quds foreign operations component has been involved in the destabilizing of Iraq and the killing of US personnel in that country.

Even the Fidelistas weren't quite that over the edge.

The question is simple. What are we going to do about it?

So far, our Cuban type policy of diplomatic non-recognition, economic sanctions, and world opinion pressure have not brought any positive results. Adding on Congressional notions about working "secretly" to destabilize the mullahocracy has not improved the prospects for success.

That leaves war.

A fair amount of quacking and bloviating about the presumed necessity for war has been circulating among the Wallahs in Congress and the chattering classes generally within the past few weeks. War with Iran is equally easy to be for or against.

It depends on which analogy is used, and how it is employed.

The pro-war faction argues correctly that Iran is a clear danger to US interests. It argues that the US possesses the military capacities to destroy the Iranian nuclear plants, the logistics bases of al-Quds Force, and any number of other infrastructure targets. There can be little, if any doubt, but that the US Air Force and Navy have the stand-off munitions capabilities to bounce a lot of rubble quite high.. It could even be done without a very large number of collateral civilian casualties.

The anti-war group correctly maintains that any air attack would further alienate global opinion and consolidate Iranians behind their embattled government. The problem of what comes after the air attack also bothers the anti-war group for good reason. We do not have the ground forces necessary to occupy and pacify Iran. It's a damn big chunk of real estate.

The Cuban analogy shows a few guide posts. The first is that isolation of an obnoxious regime is counterproductive. Certainly, the record of the past twenty-five years indicates that is correct. The second guidepost is a little more complex as it involves the basis of intelligence used by Commander Guys and those in the decision making circle.

One major (the Geek would argue it was the major) mistake behind the policy blunders of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations was an undue reliance upon the information provided by exiles, expats, and refugees from the former elites. Such people, whether Cuban, Iraqi, or Iranian, have a vested interest in both removing the new regime and portraying just how rotten and miserable things are back home and how unhappy and ready to revolt the people are.

The Cubans misled Ike and JFK. Iraqi exiles and expats misled the current administration back in 2002 and 2003. Deposed members of the old Iranian elite have been doing the same in recent months.

The lesson of Cuba (and Iraq for those with short memories) is clear. Do not trust former elites. They have too much at stake and too much personal involvement to provide reliable information and assessments.

A third guide post from the Cuban analogy is also apparent. Invasions must be up front and for real. There must be no attempt to hide behind pseudo-insurgents. There is and never has been any such thing as "plausible deniability" in an invasion.

A final guide post from the Cuban analogy is perhaps the most important. Questions of foreign policy can be entirely too important to the nation to allow decisions to be made from emotion, anger, personal or political considerations, or the ephemeral twists of public opinion.

The Cuban lessons distill to this: Is the regime so obnoxious, so intransigent that the only realistic recourse, the least-worst recourse, is war?

Politics Screws Foreign Policy Every Time

Way back when, in the Pleistocene, well, actually during the Cold War, there was a disgustingly hypocritical cliche in common use. "Politics stop at the water's edge."

This crock was always accompanied by pious blathering from the politicos of both parties about something they liked to call "bi-partisan foreign policy." Other times the sanctimonious Wallahs in Congress bloviated about "not making war into a political issue."

When he was young and listened to this tripe, the Geek would roll his eyes. Now he engages in projectile vomit.

Get a grip on this. Foreign policy has rarely, very rarely been bi-partisan. War has always been a political issue.

Even World War II, the so-called "Good War," the war which started for us when the American Eagle's perch in Pearl Harbor was broken and the eagle found himself beak down in the dreck on the bottom of the cage, was a political football. Senator Truman rode to prominence running investigations of defense contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. Governor Dewey was all fired up to use the very secret information about how the US had broken the enemy's codes and ciphers when the perfectly apolitical, country-first Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall prevailed upon the governor not to.

Less popular wars, and supposed foreign policy failures, became the centrality of political life after World War II. The Republicans barked and snapped successfully at the Democrats by alleging that FDR had "sold out" Poland and other Eastern European countries occupied by the Red Army because Democrats were "soft on communism."

The Republicans yowled all the louder when Mao's forces won in China. With an utter irresponsibility and a completely cavalier disregard for historical facts, one Republican red meat eater after another accused the Democrats generally and Harry Truman and FDR in particular of having "lost China."

Nor did the Korean War stop the high powered hype. After the dramatic turnaround of military fortune following the Inchon landings in September 1950, the demands that the US go all the way to total victory escalated on the political right. The US commander in the theater, Gen Douglas MacArthur, stoked the political fires of the right and his own presidential ambitions by totally off-the-wall statements to the press and supporters including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars about invading China, turning the forces of Chaing lose from their Formosan cage, and alleging that there was "no substitute for victory."

In his campaign, Dwight Eisenhower invoked not only his military hero status but stated, "if elected, I will go to Korea," as if this meant he had a plan for ending the war. He went to Korea before his inauguration, but the war didn't end until Joe Stalin had the good grace to die and Ike made some carefully calculated comments regarding our supposed willingness to "use whatever weapons might be required."

Flash forward to the end of the Eisenhower years and the beginnings of the Camelot ascendancy of John Kennedy. The President and his brother, Attorney General Robert, not only went ahead with the tactical and strategic loonie tune plan to oust the communists from Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, but, after the invasion was readily defeated by Castro's forces, both plotted revenge against the successful bearded dictator.

In addition to pure personal spite, the Kennedy brothers had sound political reasons for seeking the death or overthrow of the Cuban communist regime. The Democrats had been burned, badly burned, by the "who lost China" blathering of the Republicans a decade earlier. Now, not only had the commies established a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere only ninety miles from Key West, the Reds had built the Berlin Wall, and, we thought, started pro-communist insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, and, most scarily, Southeast Asia. Looking ahead to the 1964 presidential cycle, both could hear, "Who lost Cuba? Who lost the Congo? Who lost South Vietnam? Laos? Who let the Berlin Wall be built?"

Domestic politics combined with personal anger to power bad policy regarding Cuba. With respect to South Vietnam the same political considerations applied.

The War in Vietnam was political from the giddy-up. LBJ was pleased to brand his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as a warmonger, too unstable to be trusted near the nuclear button. LBJ piously promised not to have "American boys die for Asian boys in an Asian war," while already planning the sustained bombing campaign dubbed ROLLING THUNDER and contemplating a major uptick in the number of US ground combat forces in country.

The 1968 presidential campaign was all about the War in Vietnam. LBJ tried to maneuver the North Vietnamese and the boys in Saigon to the peace table in Paris in time to help the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey. At the same time, the Republican, Richard Nixon, was sending "secret" emissaries to the South Vietnamese government, urging them to stall on the talks because Saigon would get a better deal from the Republicans.

Nixon's underhanded (and probably illegal) ploy payed off better than LBJ's underhanded but legal gambit. Nixon won the White House and the war wound on, and on, and on.

In the endgame of the Vietnam War, both parties played the war as pure politics. Nixon went for the gold with air bombardments which worked. The North was willing to go along with the appearance of "peace with honor."

The Democrats in Congress played their game as well, seeming to bow to the desires of public opinion. From their perspective it appeared that We the People were so tired of the war that peace was all that mattered. To hell with the honor portion of it.

Congress passed its "date-certain" resolutions. Congress cut off funding. The troops came home. The POWs were released. Finally push came to shove in South Vietnam. In a final irony of an already irony laden war, the South Vietnamese Army fought well. They were fighting the type of supply heavy, munitions heavy, air power heavy war which we had taught them and showed them.

As Northern forces attacked, the South relied on the promises made years earlier that Uncle Sam would provide the supplies, the ammunition, the air power which would allow the South Vietnamese Army to resist. Hiding behind the will of We the People, the Wallahs in Congress refused the supplies, refused the munitions, refused the air power.

When the South fell, the same Wallahs had the unmitigated audacity to say, "See, we knew they wouldn't/couldn't fight. We did the right thing."

Now both parties are hard at it, using the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for political gain. The Democrats (and some Republicans) hope they are reading the tea leaves of public sourness on the war correctly. They apparently believe that by establishing "dates certain," time tables for withdrawal, or cutting funding, they will both end the war and gain votes.

Once again, in an uncanny analogy with the Vietnam War, Wallahs in Congress and Presidential Wannabes seek to truckle effectively, gain votes, write off our dead as a bad investment and sacrifice the notion that wars are fought to gain a better state of peace.

In the Vietnam War there were no long term losses to the US from the shortsighted political games playing. The Vietnam War, as the Geek has noted so often before, was the war that we could afford to lose.

In the current wars as in the long ago Korean War, the US is fighting a war it cannot, in its own better long term interests. afford to lose.

To truckle to the whims of opinion this time around is to trifle with our collective future. In this war, a determination not to lose may not be a crowd pleaser. Too bad.

A question for politicians: does it make sense to win an election while losing a future?

Does the Bomb Make the World Safe for War?

The Geek has spent his entire life under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. So have most Americans, including the Commander Guy. Even the man behind the Oval Office, Vice President Cheney, has spent the majority of his life under that same shadow.

We've lived with our "good" bomb from 1945 to 1949. We've lived with the "bad" Soviet (oops,) Russian bomb since '49. Subsequently, we've lived with the British bomb, the Chinese bomb, the French bomb, the Israeli bomb, the Indian bomb and the Pakistani bomb. For a short period, we lived with the now dead South African bomb.

Along the way, our "good" bomb and the Soviet "bad" one almost passed one another flying over the North Pole. That was during the Cuban Missile Crisis when both Washington and Moscow played a totally unnecessary and remarkably irrational game of brinkmanship.

Most of the time, We the People have been able to get along with our lives without a thought about the thousands of nuclear weapons sitting, polished and ready for delivery in silos, on submarines, slung in the bellies of alert status bombers, or ranked in the neat rows of Special Weapons bunkers. The weapons slept, disturbed only for maintenance and periodic refurbishing in the US, in the Soviet Union, and later its successor states, as well as the other nuclear powers.

Meanwhile, in the world of rivalries and conflicts, the world of coups, insurgencies and interventions, war went on undisturbed by the nuclear arms lying under the ground and beneath the ocean. In a very real sense, the nuclear umbrella protected the world. Made the world safe for war.

The Geek can hear the sharp intake of disbelieving breath between clenched teeth. Made the world safe for war! The Geek has gotta be off his meds.

No. The Geek hasn't lost it. Not yet anyway.

Get a grip on this. Since the Russians detonated their first bomb, craftily codenamed by the gents in Washington as JOE-1, the world has seen a splendid number and variety of wars. There was the Korean War. There was the French Indochina War, in which Paris wanted us to use our bomb on their behalf, but Ike declined. Of course that one was followed by the US intervention in the Vietnamese War.

In the Mideast, the 1956 Suez War was followed by the Six Day War, which begot the Yom Kippur War, which gave rise to the Lebanon Incursion, the Intifada (I), the Intifada (II). Who can forget the Iran-Iraq War? Or the First Persian Gulf War aka the War of Kuwaiti Liberation?.

Africa became one large arena of wars. Wars of national liberation. Other insurgencies. Proxy conflicts. Wars small and smaller, bloody and bloodier. Wars with genocidal overtones. Genocide with the fragrance of war.

To a lesser extent, South America and even staid old Europe have seen the same phenomena. Defensive insurgencies in the ruins of Yugoslavia. Ditto in portions of Russia and other of the old Soviet states. In South America, groups such as FARC in Columbia or Shining Path in Peru have piled up bodies in surprising numbers over the years. Coups and counter-coups have abounded, including some with the fingerprints of Uncle Sam all over the body of the former government.

While we're at it, the wars between India and Pakistan should not be forgotten. Neither should the brief invasion of India by China over forty years ago be ignored.

War upon war after war, all under the beneficent umbrella of the mushroom cloud. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?

There's a lesson in all of this. A very clear lesson. Get a grip on it.

It is both possible and necessary to decouple war from a potential nuclear dimension. In short, wars must be kept limited in scope and scale to preclude the potential for either vertical or horizontal escalation across the nuclear threshold.

Since governments by and large hold one value in common--survival--the lesson of keeping war decoupled from nuclear escalation has been learned by all.

(There has been one possible exception. During the Yom Kippur War, the Government of Israel (GOI) reputedly considered using their newly acquired, small nuclear arsenal in the so called Samson Option. Whether GOI was serious or not is open to question. There is little doubt that the existence of the option and its potential global effects factored into the decision by the US to airlift critical materials to Israel and provide the intelligence which allowed the Israelis to redeploy their assets at the last possible moment to blunt the successful Syrian attack through the Golan Heights.)

With that exception, the nuclear powers have cheerfully engaged in rivalry, proxy conflict, and insurgent warfare. Nuclear weapons are too anti-existential to be allowed free entrance into something so inherently risky as war.

Considering the relevance and universality of that lesson, what is the big hoo-hoo about Iran gaining a nuclear capability in the next five to ten years? Is it worth the US taking on another invasion before it has even begun to clean up the mess it made of the last two?

Should the Iranians gain some sort of nuclear capacity, two realities obtain. The first is that the Iranian nuclear arsenal will be quite small and difficult to deliver. It takes time to manufacture enough fissionable materials for a bomb, either the gun type or the more efficient implosion variety. Beyond that, it takes time, even years, to fully and effectively weaponize the device. (Recall that the first US bombs weighed over five tons and required a specially modified B-29 heavy bomber to deliver.) In the meantime Iran would have to rely upon--to quote Charles Degaulle--"the post office to deliver it."

The second reality is that Tehran would be governed by the same rule as all other nuclear club members. To use the bomb is to risk having it used against you. The bomb is just as anti-existential for Iran as for the US or Russia, or China, or any other country.

The best diplomatic advice any nuclear weapon possessing country could give to the mullahocracy is simple: Pray for peace. Tehran is not the best loved or most ally rich capitol in the world. The mullahocracy and its odious mechanisms, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, is in a rather bad odor almost everywhere.

Imagine this word being passed to the mullahs by any and every representative of a nuclear country. "If a bomb goes off anywhere, you are suspect number one. A lot of fingers will be twitching over a bunch of buttons. It will be a race to see who gets to obliterate you first. The late comers will have to be satisfied with making the rubble glow a little greener."

The Geek realizes that the hypothetical message is cold. It implies a horrendous number of dead human beings. It implies a much larger number of hurt humans as a consequence of even a limited nuclear employment against Iran.

He makes no apologies. The rule of membership in the nuclear club as shown by history is cold and clear. To use the bomb is to run a high risk of obliteration. Subtlety may be lost on the mullahs. There is no need to be subtle. Use the lesson of sixty plus years under the mushroom cloud. Tell them the way reality is. It may take some of the fun out of daring the world.

It sure as hell is a lot safer and less risky than waging a pre-emptive war.

NIEs and Presidential Blind Spots

The Geek has been reading NIEs and SNIE's (pronounced "knees" and "sneeze") for beaucoup years. Most have been classified "Burn Before Reading"

OK. That's not true. The documents have only been at the "Top Secret" or "Secret" level, but for all the good most did they might as well have been burned before anyone read them.

National Intelligence Estimates and Special National Intelligence Estimates are supposed to present the best consensual analysis of the US intelligence community. Very often this has meant that the final document is a collection of conflicting points of view sometimes homogenized into a blandly Delphic form that balances every "on this hand" with an equal and opposing "but on the other."

As guidance for decision makers, many of the knees and sneeze I have read are as useful as holding a pool cue while wearing boxing gloves. This is background for the Geek's less than enthusiastic opening of the latest NIE on Iraq.

The reading rapidly dispelled the anxiety. In comparison to the majority I have waded through with much eye-rolling and head-shaking, this NIE is clear, concise, and cogently presented. The number of "yes-but's" is low. (The cynic always resident in the Geek's brain has to wonder if the number of contradictions and demurrers is artificially low since the document was going to go public now and not twenty some years from now after some poor historian has waded through all the Freedom of Information Act morass.)

The main thrusts of the knee are quite unsurprising. Even so lowly a figure as the Geek has posted on them in past weeks.

On the one hand, the surge has had some real, albeit slight, payoffs in improving the security situation in Iraq. In parallel is the completely unshocking conclusion that a premature, or overly large draw down in US forces will undo the gains to date.

Good so far. Now for the big Yes-But.

On the other hand, the Iraqi government is incompetent, inept, and internally fissioned to a dangerous degree. There has been no significant progress in the improvement of the government's capacity to govern and none can be expected in the near-term.

The second major analytical thrust will give fuel to those who feel (the Geek used the emotional term intentionally as most critics seem to feel rather than think, reason, conclude or assess) that the US effort in Iraq has either already failed or is doomed to fail. Be that as it may, there is no surprise in the conclusion. Anyone who is reasonably well oriented as to time and place has been aware for months that the current Iraqi government is a government in name only. It lacks both existential and functional legitimacy and shows no immediate prospects of gaining either.

That's bad. Very bad. Worse, there is little the US can do about the situation. The Iraqi politicians have proven themselves impervious to appeals, immune to threats, and indifferent to persuasion. The Iraqi people are too busy trying to stay alive while caught in the crossfire or too preoccupied with the details of daily life in a place without ready access to many of the necessities of life to seek a change.

There's the dilemma for We the People. Part of our effort to clean up the mess we made in the spring of 2003 is working, not well, but nonetheless working. The other part, the portion that is more important over the years to come, is not.

In the past fifty years or so, ever since knees and sneeze became an integral part of the information flow to senior decision makers, presidents (and others) have seized upon those pronouncements which they wanted to read and ignored those which ran counter to desires. Since this knee is open all of us, Wallahs in Congress, Experts in Academia, Ideologues in the Media, even We the People, can read those parts of the document we want to see and ignore the rest.

The Geek hopes that at least some of We the People will not be as tunnel visioned as, say, Lyndon Johnson, who ignored the sneeze that said bombing North Vietnam wasn't working. The Geek hopes that at least some of the Wallahs in Congress will be more historically minded and able to accept that political effectiveness, political cohesion between cultural rivals with decades of bad feelings to set aside, can not occur in a few months or even a few years.

The political problems in Iraq are not susceptible to an easy solution. Further, the solution can not be imposed from outside. Whether the ultimate solution is one of further integration or complete separatism under some sort of loose federation is not for the Geek or anyone outside of Iraq to say. Neither can the Geek nor anyone dictate how much time the Iraqis must spend on the task.

All that the Geek can say, on the basis of history, is that governments don't spring into full, effective existence during the chaos of internal war.

The US can and has been doing something about the war. Our efforts along with those of the improving but far from good-for-go Iraqi forces have been lowering the noise level across the country. The first real steps have been taken up the long, steep mountain of success, or not-losing the war.

You want a fearless prediction?

OK. The Geek will edge out on the limb. Given the current indicators (efforts of Sunni tribals against al-Qaeda, number of dimes dropped on insurgents by citizens, patterns of refugee flows, number of counterproductive insurgent killings of civilians), the Geek predicts that twelve months hence the stability level will be such that most US combat troops can be withdrawn. Twelve months from now, the situation will be such that the Iraqis can demand and get the government of their choice.

We've spent four and a half years trying to clean up after ourselves. Is one more year too much to spend?

No.

And, that's the big message of this week's knee

The Commander Guy Screws Up History

George W. Bush's speech to the VFW in which he compared the current great adventure in Iraq with World War II in the Pacific, the Korean War, and the War in Vietnam had as much relevance to the actual history of these major events as his service with The Texas Air National Guard had with combat over North Vietnam.

Actually, it was the kind of historical misrepresentation that the Geek expects from a man who has probably read fewer books on the Vietnam imbroglio than the Geek has written. If the Commander Guy had written his speech in response to one of the Geek's old midterm exams in Freshman US history, it would have gotten the big Fox.

Get a grip on some true parallels between Iraq and Vietnam.

There was no need for either our intervention in the Vietnamese war or our invasion of Iraq. In 1964, President Johnson cast about for a justification to increase our already significant, and significantly counterproductive, presence in South Vietnam. He dusted off an old concept that had been lying around since the mid-years of the Eisenhower Administration.

It was called the domino theory. In the original Age of Ike version drafted in 1953-54, the line of falling dominoes ran from Indochina through India to the Persian Gulf states. The collapsing line was seen to threaten the flow of oil from the Gulf states to Europe, which would cripple NATO's ability to defend against the on rushing "Crimson Tide" as it crashed across the West German boarder.

In the new, improved version, the domino theory was recast to show a line of collapse from Laos and South Vietnam across the Pacific. No mention of the Persian Gulf. No talk of oil. No NATO versus the Red Army.

LBJ demanded that CIA prove the domino theory. The response to his demand came in the form of a short memo from Dr Sherman Kent, Director of the Board of National Estimates. Kent, a vastly experienced and able intelligence officer, was, in essence, the senior analyst in the Agency. In a few pages, (Kent knew that LBJ didn't like to read. A characteristic apparently shared by the Commander Guy.) the Kent Memorandum blew the domino theory out of the water several different ways. In short, Kent concluded that there were no national interests of the US in play in Indochina, and it wouldn't matter at all if "South Vietnam went communist."

That wasn't what LBJ wanted to hear. He read, initialled, and disregarded the memo. We went to war to prevent the domino theory from coming to reality.

History shows who was right on that one.

The fact that there was no need to invade Iraq is also clear from both declassified materials and the mass of information that has been available through open sources since long before Spring 2003. The US had no national interest in play in Iraq at that time. No need to bust down the door. No need to topple Saddam no matter how personally unpleasant he may have been.

History will show who was right on that one too.

There was another parallel that the Commander Guy neglected to reference in his speech. In both Vietnam and Iraq, the initial military doctrine as well as the overall American theory of victory were totally, absolutely and completely wrong. In Vietnam, it was our military doctrine, our theory of victory which insured our defeat.

Until very recently the same was happening in Iraq. Fortunately , there are some signs that the military has finally wakened to the smell of coffee, and we are waging counterinsurgency more effectively.

A third parallel was spun misleadingly by the president. As the Geek has written many times here and elsewhere, counterinsurgency is a war of political will between two opposing nations. Military operations, killing and breaking things, are merely means of stimulating and affecting political will. The Hanoi politburo understood this. US political will was eroded fast enough to protect the North Vietnamese from impending defeat.

So far the Iraqi insurgents and their cross-border advisers have not been as smart and insightful as the Hanoi leadership. But, they must be learning. They have access to the Internet, to satellite television, to US political news. Time may be on their side.

False history forced the Commander Guy to make false analogies. Saddam Hussein did not by any wild hallucination stand in relation to the 9/11 bombings as Japanese Prime Minister Tojo did to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Korean War was, like those in Vietnam and Iraq, highly unpopular with the American public after the first few months. Nonetheless, it was a war we could not afford to lose.

Harry Truman knew that. So did Dwight Eisenhower. As a result the war was not lost. Neither was it won.

Vietnam was a war the US could afford to lose. We could walk away from the mess which we had in such large measure created. We could write off the deaths of 60,000 of our men. We could even be so cavalier in our dismissal of the war that our congress could and did cut off the flow of supplies so necessary for an army trained by us and promised support by us at the most critical time.

Congress could do the same in Iraq. We the People could do for Iraq what we did to Vietnam, write off our dead as a bad investment, walk away from a mess which we made after, of course, a few Pontius Pilate type washings of hands.

Get a grip on the analogy that the Commander Guy could have made, but didn't. Get a grip on an analogy which is rooted in history.

The war in Iraq is like the Korean War. We may not be able to win it. We must not lose it.

The US and Turkey--Go For the White Meat, Not the Dark

Right now, the US is almost, barely, kind of winning on the military front in Iraq. At the present, our "ally" in the global war on terror, Pakistan, is suspended on a string over the Islamist maw. As I write, the current Administration and many in the mainstream media are casting narrowed eyes and making not-so-veiled threats at the mullahocracy in Iran (with the favor returned on steroids.) Our other "ally," in the region, Saudi Arabia, goes on exporting wannabe jihadists and suicide bombers as it becomes China's number one oil supplier.

Just another fun filled day in the whacky world of US foreign policy.

None of these business-as-usual manifestations bother the Geek. What's annoying him is the situation in Turkey. Well, to err on the side of accuracy, not what is happening in Turkey so much as the possibility that the US will create another completely avoidable mess for itself.

Turkey's majority party is called the AKP. After recent elections, the ruling AKP was returned to power with forty-seven percent of the vote giving it 341 of the 550 seats in the parliament. That was a significant (12 percent) improvement over the preceding election. The Prime Minister, a gentleman named Recep Erdogan, for the second time has proposed his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to be the next president of Turkey.

That's the situation. Simple. It's made a little more complex by the requirement that the successful candidate for president receive a two thirds majority in parliament. Last time around, before the most recent elections, Gul didn't get the super-majority. Neither did he get the magic number last week when the parliament had its first round vote.

Still, that is not the problem. Gul will be elected. No doubt about that. Under the Turkish constitution, all he needs is a simple majority when parliament votes a third time.

Here is the problem. The AKP has its roots in an old Islamist party. Turkey is a secular state. Many Turks fear that somehow Gul, Erdogan, and the AKP will roll back the secular reforms which date back to Kemal Ataturk more than seventy-five years ago.

Not only do many (but not most) Turks fear this worst-case outcome, so also do some in the west, particularly bloggers who post on sites such as Maverick News Networks and the Gathering Storm. Looking at the history of Turkey as well as its pivotal geographic and ideological position between the Islamic crescent and the West, the Geek does not share these dark shudders.

No. What the Geek finds worrisome is the probable reaction of the US and the European Union membership (particularly France) to the emergence of a slightly less robustly secular Turkey.

While other, earlier Islamist leaning parties in Turkey have either self-destructed, been totally rejected by the Turkish voters, or been banned by judicial decree, the AKP restructured itself as a secular, European oriented, economic progress seeking party. In this new variety, it received impressive endorsement by the less than monolithic Turkish electorate.

It is true that Gul's wife is a devout Muslim who wears a headscarf. That's a headscarf, not a burka she wears. It is true that AKP has made some mild criticism of some aspects of the Ataturk legacy.

That scarcely makes the AKP or Erdogan or Gull a screaming supporter of Tehran. It does not begin to make them enemies of the West.

The Geek has long held that geography and history have served to make Turkey one of the key if not the key ally of the United States in the region. He has made this judgement on the basis of what is in the relationship for the US. The benefits for us have been the same whether back in the Cold War or during the more recent days of Islamist threat.

Turkey is both a bridge and an outpost. It is a bridge between Europe and Northwest Asia, between the West and the Islamic regions stretching across central Asia and down to the Persian Gulf. It is likewise an outpost, allowing easier collection of vital information, providing a base for soft-power (and perhaps hard-power) projection. In short, it is for the current regional dynamics the equivalent of West Germany during the Cold War.

Erdogan and the AKP well understand that the economic future of Turkey depends upon its role as a bridge. Turkey needs effective regional trade with Iran, Iraq, the Central Asian Republics. Turkey needs better relations with Europe including membership in the European Union.

The AKP has a historic chance (and the Geek does not use that term lightly) to alter the basic nature of Turkish politics. Given its broad mandate, it is possible that AKP will replace the Army as the ultimate guarantor of democratic processes in the country. Given the same mandate, it is possible that AKP will spark a badly needed process of reformation in Islam by showing that a state can be fundamentally secular without destroying the beneficial impact of religion, specifically Islam, on matters of social and economic justice.

If AKP is to have the chance to prove itself, some outside help is needed. The US must, absolutely must, help the Turks in countering the PKK (Kurdish insurgents) operating from the Kurdish region of Iraq. We must do this in our own interests. Currently, only nine percent of the Turkish public sees the US favorably. (A much higher percentage sees Osama bin Ladin favorably.) More shocking, nearly three-quarters of the inhabitants of this fellow NATO nation, whose troops fought and died alongside ours in Korea, think it is likely that the US will invade Turkey.

Beyond giving effective aid in countering the PKK terror attacks, Washington must accept Ankara's attempts to reach commercial and diplomatic understandings with both Iran and Syria, much as the current Administration detests both regimes. Turkey has coinciding national interests with both Iran and Syria many of which are spelled k-u-r-d-s. Others involve oil and water, two critical fluids both in the region and around the world.

The European Union would be very well advised to act quickly and favorably on Turkey's pending membership application. It would go a long way to settle long standing frictions regarding Turkish national employed and living in European countries. Mr Sarkozy, who maintains he is more pro-American than his predecessors as French President. should pay attention to both European and American better interests and support the Turkish application.

Many critics of Islam including some Muslims have argued that Islam needs a reformation similar to that which hit Christianity five hundred years ago. Turkey, because of geography and history, has the best chance of bringing a reformation into existence.

Give the Turks a chance. Give the AKP a chance.

It's in the world's best interests.

War Has Always Been Nasty

A well meaning woman who was personally scarred by the aftermath of the War in Vietnam by the suicide of her veteran husband, Penny Coleman, has written a screed in today's Alternet. She alleges that "new" methods of "operant conditioning" used during the "past fifty years" have turned normal American men into disinhibited killers. As a result, she claims, atrocities litter the landscape of American wars in an unprecedented fashion.

To read the article, here's the link. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/60297/

Ms Coleman needs to get a grip. So, the Geek infers, do the editors (and perhaps many readers) of Alternet.

The Geek takes this position because he is a military historian. For much of his life, the Geekmeister has waded through the long, dismal history of war as a human experience. There's nothing like a trip through five thousand years of killing, most of it ultimately senseless and without beneficial result, to do two things--induce cynicism and give an understanding as to the processes by which men change from civilians to soldiers, from homebodies to warriors.

Another reality has been brought forcibly to the Geek's attention. Civilians, people who have had the good fortune never to experience war up close and personal--a situation that obtains with the vast majority of Americans all the time--fear the returning warrior and the presumed effects of disinhibition brought about by the experience of combat.

As guys of Ms Coleman's (and my) generation were returning from Southeast Asia and trying to become civilians again, various individuals and groups warned that the dudes from the bush of Vietnam had become so psychologically warped that they could not be trusted in society again. Think back, those of you old enough, to the TV shows of the Seventies. No cop drama was complete without the crazed Vietnam vet going a bit funny and gunning down hundreds. (OK, I exaggerate).

A few years later, when Reagan was in the White House, the popular magazine, Psychology Today, using the operant conditioning argument along with the well known human capacity to hate the "Other" as if that Other were of another species, opined that Vietnam vets, particularly those who had served in special or black operations forces, would never be normal again.

All of this was nothing new. At the end of World War II, sober and respectable journals, magazines, and academic papers predicted a breakdown of law and order as the guys, particularly those from the South Pacific islands, came home. It was alleged by otherwise well moored "experts" that the experience of war, particularly the atrocity riddled war with the Japanese, would be so habituate the grunts to violence and killing that many should be segregated from society permanently for the safety of the public.

Even that wasn't the first excrudescence of fear and loathing directed at returning combat vets. After the War Between the States, religious publications in particular, but secular ones as well, took the view that the boys would march home, take off their uniforms, and start committing heedless, violent crime. Civilians were warned not to take chances--particularly with their wives and daughters.

Get a grip on this. The threats so darkly warned against after these and other American wars never happened.

Get a grip on this. Men can switch roles from civilian to soldier and back without elaborate conditioning by batteries of psychiatrically astute personnel.

Get a grip on this. Research by legions of academics and practitioners of war alike from World War II though the Vietnam War shows time after tedious time that the majority of men in combat do not fire their weapons with effect. This is true regardless of training methods.

Ms Coleman starts her pitch with a recapitulation of the worst atrocity of the Vietnam War, the massacre of hundreds of civilians by US troops at Mai Lai. She avers (correctly) that there were many other atrocities committed by Americans during that war. She also alleges that Americans have committed atrocities in Iraq. The Geek does not disagree.

The Geek disagrees completely with her notion of cause and effect. Ms Coleman imputes the result, atrocities, to the cause, the particular training systems developed and used by the US military during the past fifty years.

She is as wrong as a soup sandwich in her argument.

The blunt, damning fact is that atrocities have been committed by all belligerents in all wars at all times. Atrocious behavior is inherent to the nature of war. If I had the time and inclination, I could list literally thousands of atrocities large and small, unofficial and official, committed by the armed forces of every nation over the past hundred or so years.

What Ms Coleman ignores in her indictment is simply that the vast majority of documentable atrocities committed by US personnel have been the result of failures of command and control at the tactical level. The Geek is reasonably proud of the fact that US forces during the past several wars have been aware of the propensity for men in very high stress situations (which combat is by definition) to forget such niceties as the law of land warfare or the basic requirements of humanity. Training and leadership both have made more than simply reasonable efforts to be proactive, to prevent counterproductive, immoral, illegal conduct.

After the fact, the US military has been zealous in investigating allegations of troop misconduct and, if the facts can be developed, prosecuting offenders. From the Great War through the current actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US had made extraordinary efforts to prevent atrocities or, failing that, to punish those who commit them.

Reasonable people can disagree as to the effectiveness of our prevention efforts or the justice of the after the fact punishments. It is even possible to present a rational argument that some US military doctrines such as those which emphasize the use of indirect fire or air delivered fire constitute atrocious conduct as it is these approaches that deny any chance to discriminate between combatants and civilians.

What is not possible to do with accuracy or fairness is to make the argument that Ms Colemant does. US military personnel are not the subjects of training designed to make them disinhibited, wanton killers without the ability to parse the difference between legitimate targets and anyone who seems to be of the same "pseudo-species" as the enemy.

Give our troops a little more credit than you have, Ms Coleman; we make the transition to and from the horrors and joys of combat without needing operant conditioning at either end of the process. We fight our country's war without any overwhelming blood lust. We tend to be reluctant killers and hope only to get the job done. Come home in one piece.

And have a life.

The Test For An Ally--What's In It For US?

Israel is our friend. Is Israel an American ally?

We get a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia. We're selling 20 gigabucks of weapons to the Saudis. Is Saudi Arabia an American ally?

We have a lot of disagreements with France and Germany. Are either France of Germany our allies?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about that simple word, "ally." To some, the word is used synonymously with "friend" or "friendly." To many, the simple fact that American companies do business in or with those of another country means that the US and that country are "allies." Sometimes it seems a word that once, a long time ago, had a simple and precise meaning has become so distorted that it now can denote anything to anybody.

A simple, precise definition is in order. An ally is a country with whose government the US has a formal political or political-military relationship, an alliance.

This definition implies that each country, the United States and Country X, sees that the alliance is in each State's better interests. The key word is "interest." That's a polite way to say, "Looking out for Number One."

Get a grip on this. Whether any of us like the idea or not, nation-states are like sociopaths in one key way. Nation-states look out for themselves first and foremost. Selflessness is a characteristic of individual humans, not the nation-state.

Here's another key consideration to grab hold of. Nation-states do not have friends. Individual people may have friends. Nation-states never do. Generations ago, a British statesman put it this way, "England has neither lasting friends nor lasting enemies, only lasting interests."

He was close. Nation-states may have enemies, but they never have friends. They only have allies. Allies, like enemies, are never forever. Allies, like enemies, change as the self-defined interests of a nation-state change.

Comes a voice from the back, "Huh?"

Geeko nods, goes for clarification (just like a State Department spokesman). "Example. In January 1945 the Soviet Union and China were US allies. Germany and Japan were US enemies. Right?"

Voice from the back, "Sure. Everybody knows that."

"Flash forward precisely five years," urges the Geek. "Now, the Soviet Union and Red China were enemies of the US. West Germany and Japan were allies in the making. Why?"

VFTB, "Things changed, I suppose."

The Voice is right. Things had changed. While the American interests at stake stayed the same, survival, economic considerations, an awareness that the peace and prosperity of the US was interdependent with the peace and prosperity of other regions of the world, the nature of the perceived threat had changed. Nazism was dead. Imperial Japan was one with the Roman Empire. The US saw the new threat as coming from something called "global" or "monolithic" communism with Moscow as the brain.

New alliances were formed. The US and the other countries involved all saw the new structures as filling needs and serving the better interests of each.

Alliances, the making of allies, is a process of self-interest identification and definition resulting in the determination that the formation of a formal relation serves subjectively defined national interests.

Alliances are not friendships. They're not even marriages. They are more like business agreements.

This means that the status of an ally is always open to scrutiny. The US must keep an eye on the meshing of its changing interests, the changing nature of threats to those interests, and the relevance of any particular ally to countering threats and securing interests.

Sympathy and other emotions have no place in the process. Neither does the other country's capacity to lobby Congress or woo the media and other apologists.

One question and one question only must be asked and coldly, analytically answered. "What is in this alliance for us, the United States?"

The respected journal, Foreign Affairs, recently polled a number of experienced foreign policy professionals and academics regarding whether or not continued alliances with several named countries would be in the better interests of the United States. Fourteen percent responded that a continued alliance with Israel would not be in America's best interests.

That is a minority to be sure, but not many years ago, none of the more than one hundred experts would have suggested that the days of an alliance with Israel serving US better interests were behind us. None would have suggested that the nature of interests and threats had altered such that the perceived "special relationship" between the US and Israel might be detrimental to our interests.

The Geek is not bashing Israel. While he may think (and be able to demonstrate from the historical record) that the Israeli tail has too often wagged the American dog in large measure because of lobbying efforts that might make the Gucci Gulch denizens in the hire of the Health Care Industry drool with envy, he is not singling out Israel for opprobrium.

Rather the Geek is using Israel as an example of a process. The process of carefully examining all current alliances for their continued utility to our needs, interests and perceived threats to these. Perhaps the time has come to cool relations with many countries. Possibly money we spend on troops or weapons sales to the Mideast would be better spent on developing means of genuine energy independence from the oil resources of the region.

Is the time ripe, perhaps over ripe to redefine our relation with Russia from one of rivalry to one of alliance? Do the Russians and us face a common enemy in the Peoples' Republic of China? Or in the Islamists? Do we and the Russians face increasing opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation as we have shown in the International Space Station?

What is the current relevance of our strategic alliance with Japan? South Korea? How can these alliances be made more effective in meeting changing interests, threats, and opportunities?

There are many other areas and long standing alliances of various sorts which must be reexamined. Many are relics of the former Cold War and may not meet our needs and interests now. Alliances must not, if they are going to work in our better interests, be allowed to age gracefully, to become warm little reminders of times and needs long gone.

Alliances are not warm, fuzzy security blankets to be held on to against the forces of change. Alliances and allies are mutual protection of identified interests, insurance against the perils of the world. Alliances and allies are not the products of domestic politics or lobbying. They are cold, realistic appraisals of our needs, our interests, even our aspirations in the world.

We must never ask a nation-state, "Will you be my friend?" We must always ask, "What's in it for us?"

Not the nicest, sweetest way to live, admits the Geek. It is however the way of the world, according to the Book of History.

Obama Is a Nice Young Man, But...

The Geek has a hard time keeping the "debates" between presidential candidates straight. They all look and sound the same.

In one the other day, Senator Obama again showed that he is a well meaning, terribly sincere fellow who doesn't have a clue about how diplomacy works or what the nature of foreign policy might be. He may know the politics of Chicago, but the realities of the world and how the US can craft and implement policy both elude him completely.

The senator delivers wholesome sounding generalities such as "new approaches" as he glibly alleges that the "old" ones have failed. Gosh! What's not to like about "new approaches?" We are Americans; we live in the land of "New and Improved!" The old has gotta be bad. Right?

Wrong! Says the Geek.

When not animadverting to spacious and undefined new approaches, the Senator gets back to his old notion of unprepared, without conditions summit talks with the leaders of countries such as Iran who wish us anything but good.

As the Geek has written before, this idea is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

There are some realities that Mr Obama needs to get a grip on.

Historically, "new approaches" to the old topic of diplomacy do not work. Examples litter the landscape of our past like beer cans on a back road. So we'll just look at a couple from the past century.

President Woodrow Wilson, a political scientist by education, promised "open covenants, openly arrived at" in his famed Fourteen Points upon which the Germans sought an armistice in November 1918. It sounds good. Feels good. All kinds of warm and fuzzy. The opposite of those icky-poo secret agreements reached by frock coated gents in plush conference rooms.

We Americans loved it. Just as much as we love the word "transparency" today and use it as a fetish to judge the legitimacy of elections, treaties, government actions generally.

The problem came with the simple fact that the cynical (that is to say, experienced and realistic) Europeans knew that agreements require tough trading, hard bargaining, and hard-to-swallow compromises that might unduly upset the voters or other power elites back home. The open covenants openly arrived at promise of the Fourteen Points was quickly shoved to the side. Wilson was realist enough to go along with the process and retired to the back room with the rest of the boys.

The resulting treaty was a disaster. It made World War II in Europe almost a dead on certainty. It was, however, the best that could be done. And, it could only have been achieved behind closed doors.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the best, if not the best, practitioner of politics in recent US history. He was a master manipulator of public perceptions. An illusionist of the first rank when it came to assuring that the government appeared to be doing something effective regardless of reality.

The Geek admires FDR's professional skill in domestic politics.

At the same time, the Geek as historian must give FDR a severe downcheck for his "new" approach in diplomacy. FDR inaugurated the concept of the Summit Meeting during World War II. His first meeting was with Winston Churchill. To put it bluntly, the old boy from England played the American president like a piano. That didn't hurt. We were on the same side.

Later meetings, and in particular those involving Josef Stalin, were a disaster. FDR honestly believed that he could deal with "The Great Leader and Beloved Teacher" as though he was simply another machine politician. To consider, as FDR sincerely did, that Stalin was an American big city boss with a Russian accent is the same as thinking that the atomic bomb is just another firecracker.

(Note to the Obama campaign: File the FDR summit concept under both "new approaches" and "meetings with foreign leaders who wish the US something other than the very, very best.)

Then there was Jimmy Carter. In foreign policy, the gentleman from Georgia is best remembered for his new approach of making human rights the key component of our policy and diplomacy. Keep in mind that other presidents from both parties had acknowledged human rights had a place in US diplomacy, but these saw it correctly--a tool, not an end in itself.

Before anyone gets all prickly from the belief that the Geek doesn't like human rights, be assured that he does. What he does not believe in was Carter's new approach of making the concept the gold standard of foreign policy. To cite only one result of the Carter approach, it is only necessary to look at Iran and ask, "Have the Iranians enjoyed more human rights since 1979 under the mullahocracy than they did under the Shah?"

(Attention all of you who are youth-advantaged, Carter's human righs litmus test ruled the Shah to be too nasty to merit our support. Carter pulled the plug on the Shah so that the arrival of the mulllahs and ayatollas was inevitable.)

In diplomacy and foreign policy new ideas, fresh ways of viewing the world, its opportunities, and challenges are important, very important. All too often ideas fossilize into dogma so that eyes are blinded to changing realities in the globe. Quite often the pervasive idea of precedent ties the hands of policy makers and diplomats alike.

It is one thing to argue for new ideas, fresh views, even radical reinterpretations of American interests and relations. The Geek strongly supports from his platform of history each and every one of these concepts.

It is something quite different to promise "new approaches." If the words of Senator Obama are taken at face value, they indicate that he would change the way in which the US conducts its foreign policy and relations.

(If the words don't mean what they seem to, then the Geek wants to know just what in hell is the senator talking about? Cosmetic changes? Putting old wine in old bottles and slapping on new labels? Nothing in particular?)

Get a grip on this. Other countries do not want and do not welcome any significant change in the ways by which a Great Power conducts foreign policy and diplomacy. A key prerequisite to effective policy implementation is consistency and a fair degree of predictability. Other countries want to be able to assess in advance the probable range of reactions by the Great Power to any policy option or response they are considering.

A Great Power can seem unpredictable either at some risk to its own interests or as a carefully calculated gambit as the Reagan Administration demonstrated with its brief flirtation with the Crazy American Hypothesis. At all other times, the Great Power must be like a person with high serotonin--predictable, reliable, consistent.

An adrenaline rush of "new and improved" is likely to promote hyperventilating and thumping chests world wide. An administration is well advised to avoid pronounced, rapid change.

Senator Obama should also consider that the US foreign policy community, including the Foreign Service and the Central Intelligence Agency, have a good record of professionalism. Both provide excellent sources of information to the decision makers topside. Both will carry out the orders they receive from the All Highest in the White House with skill.

Along with the military forces, these organizations provide the line troops of foreign policy and diplomacy. A president (or presidential wannabe) who knows this and who knows that while new ideas and views are critical, new approaches are far more likely to fail than to succeed will have a good to excellent chance of performing well on the global stage.

Mr Obama might make a good president if he grows up, gets a good education in how the world works, and gets a grip on history.