How Many Wars Are We Fighting?

Ignoring the war which really never was--the Global War On Terrorism, the US has been engaged for years in two wars. There is the one in Iraq (also known as The War Which Never Should Have Been.) There is the war in Afghanistan (aka The War Which Really Has Never Been Fought.)

We are near the end of the tunnel in Iraq. A semi-victory has been declared, not by President Obama but by the previous president who, near the end of his days, allowed as how the outcome in Iraq, the degree of democracy in particular, may not and never be all that he hoped it would be.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (whom the Geek has professionally respected for more than thirty years) in testimony before Congress showed his typical strain of realism when he stated that the US must focus on securing the minimum necessary strategic goal of military success and abandon the hazy notions of nation-building that have cluttered the strategic landscape ever since the US and Northern Alliance forces sent Taliban packing. Gates' characteristic realism was also on display when he correctly characterised the effort in Afghanistan as the "greatest military challenge" confronting us.

To achieve a minimal success in Afghanistan it will be necessary to define "victory" in a way which matches what the US can reasonably hope to accomplish in a relatively short time frame at acceptable (read "low") cost in American lives. This means that we must abandon all thoughts of creating a secular democratic republic in the country. It implies forgetting the mission of eradicating opium production and heroin trafficking.

The best that the US can hope to achieve is the (probably temporary) destruction of Taliban and al-Qaeda's capacity to use Afghanistan as a base of operations for attacks against the US and its key allies. SecDef Gates said as much in his presentation to Congress.

Once again Bob Gates has it right.

There are many reasons behind that conclusion. Some are obvious and often commented upon. The terrain, the size, the demographics and the history of Afghanistan are among these. The cross border sanctuary areas of Pakistan's FATA are on the "obvious" list as well. So are the corruption and unpopularity of the Karzai government.

Other reasons are not as evident. These involve the other wars which the US is waging. These other wars are sub rosa and rarely mentioned. It is as if they are somehow not suitable for polite company and the family viewing hour.

They are, however, the T. Rex at the dinner table.

The first of these "unspeakable" conflicts is the proxy war with Iran. Iran has long been a troublemaker in Iraq. Recently it has become the troublemaker in the country. Iran also has the not-yet-fully-realized potential to do the same in Afghanistan. The protean Iranians have also stretched their proxy muscles into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The Iranian adventures in proxy war are both low risk and low cost. While only the effort in Iraq has any genuine likelihood of paying off in the short-term, all have the capacity to make much mischief for US policy interests in the region.

The Obama Administration has made the right noises in the direction of the mullahocracy with the appropriate caveats. Perhaps noticing the caveats (most importantly compliance with the UN Security Council Resolutions regarding their nuclear program) the Iranian Orator-in-Chief, Ahmedinejad firmly rebuffed the semi-hemi-demi extended olive branch.

Admittedly the insulting tones and terms of Ahmedinejad's speech may have been meant primarily for "the folks in Buncomb county." That is, for home consumption by Iranian firebreathers in the run-up to the national elections. Even keeping that strong possibility in mind, there is no reason to conclude that the mullahs are eager to see a rapprochement with the US and its allies.

To put it bluntly, there is no need for a rapprochement now or in the near-term. Iran's economy was in the toilet even before the global economic slump tanked oil prices. That means it is incumbent upon the Tehran regime to off-load popular discontent on an external enemy. The Great Satan and the Zionist Entity are at the top of the Iranian Enemy's A-List.

The Iranians will continue their spoiler role as long as it meets their needs and carries few, if any, consequences. In this context it must be recalled that the True Believers of the Iranian Revolution see no need nor reason to practice diplomacy and foreign relations in the customary fashion.

Ending the proxy effort of Iran is important. More important is assuring that the mullahs do not obtain the "Mahdi bomb." This year will see the Iranians achieve sufficient low enrichment uranium to start the process of making highly enriched stuff. They may have enough for a bomb before the mid-term elections.

The intractability of Iran and the Pakistani complications for our war in Afghanistan are rooted in the fourth war. This war has not been declared nor acknowledged by the US. It is, in a very real way, a unilateral war. A war waged against the US and others but not waged back by the targets.

The fourth war, the foundational war, is the state of permanent war demanded by Islam. Islam is unique among the religions and secular ideologies of the world, past and present in one salient way. Only Islam contains a worldview that is so darkly dualistic as to describe a state of forever war between Muslims and all other human beings.

In the hands and minds of Islamists and their even blacker twin, jihadists, the sacred literature of Islam is a manual for never ending war against infidels and purported apostates alike. In the Islamist interpretation of Islam there can be no peace, no meaningful intercourse with infidels and apostates. There can be only war. War without end. War interrupted only by "lulls" which may be required from time to time by the Warriors of the True Faith.

Absent compromise, absent negotiation and accommodation, absent the let's-make-a-deal norms of diplomacy, there can be no end to hostilities. There can be no genuine rapprochement. There can be no meaningful, let alone permanent peace. Heck, you can't even have a good, honest Cold War without employing the usual tools of the game of nations.

In short, the US can achieve some reasonable semblance of the minimal necessary strategic goal--not losing militarily--in Iraq. The US might, at some cost yet to be reckoned, do the same in Afghanistan.

But the US and other similarly minded countries will have no real chance of succeeding in altering either the Iranian behaviour or the slide to Islamism well underway in Pakistan. Not on their own.

Only Muslims can curb the Islamism and jihadism empowered by the Iranian Revolution, and the mis-interpreted "success" against the Soviets in Afghanistan as well as the bloodletting among the Muslim Arabs of Palestine. Only Muslims can decide that the Islamist/jihadist understanding of Islam is wrong. Only Muslims can take the actions necessary to reject the forever war aspects of Islam and focus on the Five Pillars and those aspects of Islam which are authentically merciful, compassionate and tolerant.

Winning the fourth war, the war of belief and believers is beyond the limits of American power. It is, however, well within the capacities of Muslims generally.

But, will the silent majority of Muslims act to take their faith back from the clerics of darkness and death? Will this silent majority shake off Islamist peddled feelings of guilt and fears of hell for not having sought "martyrdom?" Will this silent majority demand that their faith leave the fossilized past and seek a living future?

Considering that the record of history shows that humans are all too willing to refuse the truly tough tasks, probably not.