Ready! Aim! Shoot Yourself In The Foot!

Sometimes the ability of the government of Israel (GOI) to blunder is nothing less than mind blowing. The deadly confrontation between "peace activists" and the commandos of the Israeli navy is one of those times. To put the matter short, sharp, and accurate, it was a needless, counterproductive blunder which a responsible government never would have contemplated, let alone authorized.

The drama unfolded almost as slowly and compelling in its foreboding as the long, slow, majestically threatening progress of the Royal Navy to the Falkland Islands almost thirty years ago. To a person of a classical bent, the coming of the clash between boatloads of pro-Palestinian propagandists, assorted I-hate-Israel-and-Jews types, and general malcontents and the naval forces of Israel unrolled with the inevitability of Nemesis confronting the hubris laden protagonist in an Athenian tragedy.

The Turkish sponsored maritime cavalcade of unneeded "relief" and "humanitarian" supplies accompanied by terrorists, terrorist apologists, and terror tourists was intended to put GOI on the spot. An uncomfortable, no-way-to-spell-winner sort of spot. The hugely publicized international flotilla departing from points as far removed as Ireland, Algeria, and Turkey was simply bait waved in a most attractive way before GOI. The hope and prayer of the organizers of this exercise in fraudulent humanitarianism was that GOI would take the bait--preferably in the most visible and bloody way possible.

Given the resources available to GOI, there can be no doubt but the information concerning the motives and goals of the flotilla folks was available. Given the vast experience GOI has collected regarding hostile provocations, there can be no doubt but GOI understood what was at stake if the navy was sent in to block the boats and their passengers from reaching Gaza.

There must have been both information and understanding within GOI and the IDF that among the passengers there would be individuals prepared for violence. Eager to go violent should the opportunity present itself.

GOI should have known that blood would flow if Israeli forces boarded any of the vessels, particularly either of the two largest, most passenger packed ones. If ordered in, the commandos would have been entering a red ant nest. At least some of the ants would bite.

The constant warnings issued multiple times per day the past week by GOI were seen by the oncoming "activists" not as a reason to be cowed, but as one of an emboldening nature. The warnings were correctly read as signifying the Israelis would enter one or more ships violently. Those who were primed to respond violently were fully prepared, stoked up, and good to go.

In the wake of the operation, GOI has protested that its troops were met with steel bars, knives, and, at least some firearms. The GOI and IDF spokesmen have stated that their threatened troops used "crowd dispersal methods, including live fire."

Duh!

How drearily predictable. Troops abseil from helicopters in hours of darkness. Troops are met with immediate low scale violence, clubs and knives rather than automatic weapons and RPGs. Troops respond in self-defense. "Activists" die. Outrage erupts from Tehran to Europe. Israel gets big, very black eye in global media and the hordes of politicians and opinion molders for whom Israel has become the blackest of black hats.

Hamas wins. Hezbollah wins. Even the hapless Palestinian Authority wins. On the margins, Iran wins; Syria wins: Islamists everywhere win.

Wow! GOI made one shrewd move here. Right on the heels of being branded by 188 countries as a sort of nuclear brigand, Israel now looks as if it has once more adopted the role of Goliath while the role of poor, little, ole David goes to the minions of Hamas and their external supporters.

Game, set, and match to the bad guys.

One has to wonder what sort of mental pathology infected the presumably mature, intelligent, and responsible members of GOI and the senior ranks of the IDF. Did they really, really believe that so much lethal hardware would be smuggled into Gaza among the air conditioners, aspirin, generators, and one-size-fits-all burkas as to present a threat to Israel?

Of course there were warlike stores on board the humanitarian fleet. Even if weapons were conspicuous in their absence, the cement and other building supplies would more likely go to the construction of bunkers for Hamas' security forces than for civilians displaced during Cast Lead.

Or, did the Deep Thinkers and Grand Strategists of GOI really, really convince themselves that Israel would suffer such a blow to its credibility should the "activists" make it to Gaza as to so embolden Hamas and other Islamist jihadist groups as to be the equivalent of a major defeat in the battle for public opinion throughout the world? Is the current situation somehow preferable? Is it more in keeping with the national and strategic interests of Israel that GOI and the IDF be portrayed as a collection of blood drenched thugs interchangeable in all respects with the Waffen SS?

An unfortunate ground truth is that public opinion in Europe and even the US has shifted slowly but with increasing speed away from Israel and to the Palestinians. The shift commenced during the First Intifada when TV cameras gave fine images of Palestinian kids confronting M-16 toting IDF personnel. The shots of the IDF shooting real bullets or Shin Bet operatives conducting beatings moved opinion to the side of the Palestinians.

There is an even more unfortunate ground truth acting in tandem with that of opinion shift. In recent decades the image and not the substance, the appearance rather than the reality is the critical factor in war and diplomacy as it is in domestic politics.

The realities of the First or Second Intifadas matter nothing as compared to the images conveyed, the perceptions manipulated by these images, and the actions forced on governments by the collective impact of the perceptions. GOI must be aware of this as its members must know perfectly well the imperatives contained in the twin ground truths mentioned.

Even if the collective memory of GOI is too short to recall the two Intifadas, it must comprehend the impact of Operation Cast Lead. The compelling justifications for this legitimate act of self-defense including the supine reaction of the UN to repeated GOI requests for action count as nothing against the images and perceptions captured, manipulated by forces quite hostile to Israel.

Regardless of its military or political successes, Operation Cast Lead was a disaster for Israel in the most critical venue, that of public perception and opinion. The same calculus applies to the IDF descent upon the "humanitarian flotilla."

The reality that those on board landed the first blow or fired the first shot does not matter in the slightest. Nor does it matter in the least that the commandos fired in self-defense or to rescue comrades captured by the "activists."

All that matters is the existence of ten, or fourteen, or sixteen corpses. The cadavers of those "activists" unfortunate enough to be in the impact zone are the symbols of victory. Victory for Hamas and its ideological ilk.

The sorrow and pity in this latest defeat for Israeli interests is found in its quite unnecessary nature. Unlike Operation Cast Lead, there is and can be no compelling justification (unless an atomic bomb, or, less impossible, a flask of anthrax is found on board one of the ships) for the assault and its predictable results.

As the sequelae of this defeat are played out in the weeks and months to come, GOI must keep in mind the reason for any and all negative effects. Any gangrene which sets in for the national and strategic interests of Israel will be the result of a self-inflicted wound.

The Feckless Dude In The Oval

It is not reasonable to expect the Nice Young Man From Chicago to don scuba gear and swim down a mile in the Gulf of Mexico and plug the gusher with a big wad of recycled campaign speeches held in his mouth. It is, however, reasonable to expect that a man who has expressed an unlimited faith not only in his own competence but in the sovereign ability of the federal government to do all things good and merciful to show a modicum of capability in an area which, unlike oil spills, falls in his sole jurisdiction--foreign affairs.

The barely submerged gusher of animus bellowing black in the waters of Israeli politics over the duplicity--or failure of will--which underlies the American position on the final paper produced by the UN's review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is one sign of the complete and ongoing fecklessness of President Obama and his "team." The US had promised Israel that it would not be specifically targeted, not named, in whatever final document might be generated. Further the President's people promised that if any call for a nuclear free Mideast was issued and Israel was named, the US would block its acceptance.

In the event, the call for a confab on a Mideast nuclear free zone did name Israel. The US did not block it, apparently in one more attempt to distance itself from the Bush/Cheney administration and truckle to Muslim, particularly Egyptian desires.

Making the Obama approach to foreign policy look even more self-contradictory, amateur, agenda driven, and generally opportunistic, the US followed this act of perfidy by denouncing the inclusion of Israel as a named villain. Both the president and his national security advisor were widely quoted as thundering against the mentioning of Israel in a way and a context which was self-evidently pejorative. Interestingly, the MSM did not deign to mention the backstory, the promises and treachery made and committed by the US, by the Obama administration, by the president himself.

(It will be interesting to see how Mr Obama justifies the actions at the UN when he meets with Israeli PM Netanyahu at the hastily called meeting next week.)

The ongoing impotence of the current president's notions of foreign policy is also pathetically evident in the still blooming Cheonan Affair. Being both young and untutored in American history beyond the popular tropes of American racial hostility and greedy Big Business and the glories of federal regulation/intervention, Mr Obama may not be aware that in less than a month the sixtieth anniversary of the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) invading its southern neighbor will take place.

This is not an unimportant date to remember, for on the Korean Peninsula the old French maxim, "the more things change, the more they stay the same" applies in full force. Other than the exiting of the Soviet Union from the scene, the dynamics on the peninsula as well as the relations between the two states located there and neighbors China and Japan have not altered in the slightest.

The North Koreans generally and the NKPA in particular recall 25 June 1950 very well. To them that was the day the US and its "puppet regime," South Korea invaded the peace loving territory of the North. Three generations of North Koreans have been led to believe that the Puppets of Seoul and the Puppetmaster of Washington were finally defeated by the NKPA with fraternal assistance from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of China. Over the years the Master and the Puppet have schemed and planned to restart the war and reverse the defeat.

That is the truth according to both the now godlike Great Leader and his vicar on Earth, the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. North Koreans know this truth to their very DNA.

The connections between the NKPA and the PLA have been strong ever since the years when the Chinese "volunteers" crossed the Yalu and administered a face destroying set of defeats to the American, South Korean, and other UN forces as they came very close to the Sino-Korean border. In the years of inconclusive war which followed, the bones of more than one hundred thousand PLA troops were left to molder in the mountains of North Korea. The PLA has not forgotten this--even if the civilian government in Beijing has tended, if not to forget, at least to overlook it.

One of the reasons, perhaps the chief one, for the dithering on the part of the Trolls of Beijing over just how to handle the aftermath of the Cheonan Incident is the split in approach favored by the government and that preferred by the senior command of the PLA. The Men of the Forbidden City justify their wait, watch, temporize, and hope-for-the-best attitude as being based on the fear of tumult in North Korea sending a tidal wave of destabilizing refugees across the border.

There is superficial justice in this explanation. However, it demands accepting the notion that the PLA is not up to the task of crowd control on the border. The PLA has the manpower, weaponry, command and control, and political will to stop any wave, to, in essence, drown the wave in the blood of its constituent parts. Yes, it would be messy. The humanitarians of the world would be outraged. China would get a diplomatic black eye.

So what? As the events of 1989 made clear, outrage is ephemeral. Black eyes are transient in the extreme. What was true twenty-one years ago is even more the case today given the transformation of China from a marginal player in world affairs both political and economic to one of a central, (dare one write, "starring?") role.

If tensions increase between the two Koreas (or if Dear Leader should die leaving a leadership vacuum in his wake) the US might undertake a special operation with a view of pulling North Korea's nuclear fangs. This would set the stage for a direct confrontation between the US and, if not China, at least the not unimportant PLA.

A more likely confrontation scenario would emerge from internal tumult sending the first waves across the Chinese border. In this event it is not unlikely that the PLA would enter North Korea in order to "restore order." The North Korean government would have no choice but to accept this act of "fraternal assistance."

Even if the Chinese intentions were not specifically expansionist, but rather aimed at continuing the status quo in the Korean Peninsula, it is probable that Seoul would be alarmed, to say the least. It is not impossible--or improbable--that a large segment of South Korean opinion would see the stability operation as the precursor to a Beijing dictated form of Korean unification. The outcome of this view would not be one which promotes optimism.

There has been no indication that the Obama administration has made any effort to gain a clear understanding of Chinese intentions or the options under active consideration in the Forbidden City. Certainly, there has been no plain statement from the Oval or Foggy Bottom as to what the limits of acceptable Chinese behavior might be.

The historically challenged Mr Obama would do well to reflect on the consequences of an inadvertent omission on the part of Dean Acheson in a speech. Mr Acheson failed to place South Korea on the US side of a line demarcating our sphere of interest from that of the Soviet Union. This oversight encouraged the cautious Soviet dictator, Joe Stalin, to agree to the plan of invasion cooked up by Kim il-Sung.

The rest, as they say, "is history."

To assure an absence of miscalculation as we approach the sixtieth anniversary of the North's invasion of the South, it is essential to plainly and publicly let Beijing and Pyongyang know where the limits are--and what the consequences of violating the limit will be. This is not a time to send semi-coded signals, to make veiled hints. To do other than speak plainly and bluntly is both to ignore the lessons of history and to run unnecessary risks.

Unfortunately, the record of the past eighteen months shows that the feckless Mr Obama is more likely to dither than decide, more likely engage in mixed messages, than to speak and act clearly and decisively.

You Did The Right Thing, Israel!

The lengthy drivel filled UN conference regarding updating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has labored and brought forth not a mouse but the fecal product of a mouse. At its conclusion the conference delivered the demand for a conflab intended to bring about a nuclear weapons free zone in the Mideast. The conclave is to occur two years hence.

Israel, the only current and presumptive holder of a nuclear arsenal immediately and flatly declared that it would be a major non-participant in the festivities. In explanation of its move, the government of Israel (GOI) pointed to the biased and prejudicial nature of the UN declaration.

The characterization given by the GOI is dead on. Israel and Israel alone is named in the document. The naming of Israel was, as no doubt intended, pejorative and defamatory. Neither India nor Pakistan, both of which are in possession of nuclear weapons and non-members of the NPT, were named, even though Pakistan can be seen as an honorary member of the Mideast Club.

Nor is any mention made of the non-compliant Iranian elephant in the room. Indeed, it is the status of Iran as a signer of the NPT which has brought it into its current semi-pariah status.

The failure of the conferees to make a definite reference to Iran is particularly reprehensible and underscores the accuracy of GOI's description and the correctness of its decision regarding the demanded conference. The glaring omission of Iran is the basis for the remarkably strong defense of Israel's position offered by National Security Advisor James Jones. Jones is quoted as saying the US "deplores" the wording of the UN document.

Israel's overall position on the question of a nuclear free Middle East has been long established and is well known--even by the Arab and Muslim states which required both the conference and the naming of names, or, at least, one name. GOI is of the view that any agreement to remove nuclear weapons from the region (which implies Israel signing the NPT) must come after two other agreements.

One of the necessary precursor undertakings would eliminate all categories of weapons of mass destruction from the region. The other, the vastly more important and infinitely harder to achieve agreement, would be one which establishes a verifiable and enforceable comprehensive Mideast peace.

Given the ongoing superiority in manpower and potential conventional armed force in the possession of the several Arab "frontline" states and the even greater reserves within other Arab and Muslim countries, Israel must retain its nuclear option. It is the great equalizer as well as the best peacekeeper in the area. By rejecting membership in the NPT and adopting the policy of nuclear ambiguity GOI has kept the region free of conventional, high intensity war since the ending of the Yom Kippur War thirty-seven years ago.

True, this has not meant peace broke out or that hostilities have been absent, but it has meant that the severity and duration of war has been constrained significantly. For this, the Arab states should be as happy as the Israelis. Except for the poorly planned and worse executed adventure into Lebanon a few years back, the killing has been on the retail level rather than the wholesale bloodletting which would have occurred had Israel not possessed its ambiguous deterrent.

The problem, the ultimate challenge to a comprehensive peace treaty which,in the estimate not only of GOI but any objective observer, must precede any agreement to denuclearize the Mideast is the matter of how a comprehensive peace treaty would be both verified and enforced. If the years 1933-1945 taught Jews anything, it is simply this: When push comes to shove there is no one we can count on for our defense other than ourselves.

This reality, a reality which cannot be erased by the reassurances of an American president or his minions, governs all Israeli calculations as it must. Can any sane, prudent Israeli trust some other country, some international institution, when the existence of the Jewish state is threatened?

Considering the historical record right on down to the present day, the answer is both blunt and obvious: No. A hundred times, a thousand times, no!

The Jews of Germany and German dominated Europe were left out in the international cold in the years prior to the outbreak of war. To put it simply, no country--including the US--wanted to take in the threatened Jews. Not even the children.

In more recent times, the UN has been singularly insensitive to the unique position of Israel as a country threatened repeatedly with both attack and potential oblivion. The Arab states, with the cooperation of some Great Powers, have repeatedly hijacked the UN to serve their purposes and place Israel under one disadvantage after another.

Even though no country has been a more consistent supporter of Israel than the US following the Eisenhower administration, all US policy is subject to the winds of political change. The change in the direction and force of the political winds in the US has been made quite apparent to GOI in the past year and a half. So there is no good basis for a realistic belief within Israel that come what may Uncle Sam is there to help and protect.

The long and the short of reality is there is no mechanism for enforcing a comprehensive Mideast peace treaty, and, without such a credible mechanism, any hypothetical treaty is just so much ink on paper bound between fancy covers. Without the accomplishment of both comprehensive treaty and credible enforcement guarantees, there is no reason to think any GOI would be so eager for risk, so willing to embrace potential national suicide as to either join the NPT or abandon its nuclear arsenal.

(One caveat: It would be possible in principle but unlikely in practice given the current state of global political play for Israel to sign the NPT under terms and conditions identical to those agreed to by the original declared nuclear powers: the US, the USSR, the UK, Britain, France, and China. This would leave Israel with its bombs and bomb fabricating capability but commit it to the eventual removal of these.)

Israel may need to join the NPT so that it can acquire electrical power producing nuclear reactors, perhaps in conjunction with Jordan or Egypt. The need for more electricity without using more expensive fossil fuels may provide an impetus to accede to the treaty but only under terms such as those extended to the initial Big Six.

As a result, the only conclusion which can be offered regarding this latest UN exercise in the appealingly absurd call for a Make-the-Mideast-Nukeless in 2012 is that it is a call for way too much, way too soon. The Arab countries showing their usual maladroit practice of diplomacy made the decision to make propaganda hay while laying salt in the fields of true progress toward a desirable goal.

Mr Netanyahu, you are doing OK this time around. Even better, it looks as if for once President Obama is as well.

Don't Worry--They're Just "Radical Extremists"

Or, maybe the suicide bombers and other brands of wannabe martyrs are "extremist radicals." Or, perhaps they are simply radically extreme or extremely radical. Whatever they might be, all those who desire to enter Paradise through the killing of "infidel" or "apostate" civilians are most definitely not "jihadists." Nor are they "Islamists."

And, they are not and never have been "terrorists."

So pontificated John Brennan, the senior guy in the White House in the field of "counterterrorism" and "homeland security" in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. One can only wonder why this example of vocabulary warped, twisted, and perverted by the requirements of presidentially imposed political correctness was not met by gales of derisive laughter.

It was one more demonstration of the current administrations pathological inability to look reality in the face for fear that someone, somewhere, somehow might take offense and decide to claim his Virginal Reward at the cost of a bunch of American lives. Or, some hyper-sensitive Muslim somewhere might take it into his challenged cerebellum that the US was "waging war on Islam" with consequences too dire to contemplate.

The one time CIA lower, upper level factotum was right in rejecting the notion that the US was fighting a war against "terrorism" per se. Everybody with enough intellectual horsepower to differentiate between the moon and the sun has long commented on the inapposite nature of the George W. Bush formulation. No one would dissent from the proposition that one does not wage war on a specific tactic of war but rather against the practitioners of the tactic.

Mr Brennan was less correct when he averred we were not fighting against "terror" as terror constitutes a state of mind and we Americans refuse to live in fear. That sounds great even if the aftermath of every terrorist episode--even those which failed--shows a residue of fear of greater or lesser extent and magnitude. So it does the American people no disservice to admit that we can have the flaming piss scared right out of us--at least every now and then and at least for a short while.

However the always-on-the-reservation Mr Brennan is totally out-to-lunch when he got around to declaring that the US was not engaged in a war with either "Islamists" or "jihadists." You see, in the view of this newly minted Scholar of Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence, the real deal is simply that "jihad" is a legitimate tenet of Islam denoting the inner struggle of the believer to purify his belief and that of his community.

Duh!

Leaving aside such inconsequential factors as the Koran, the Sunnah, and the long standing and readily available conclusions of all the major schools of Sunni and Shia Islam which underscore time and time again the affirmative duty laid upon the believer to use armed force in order to protect and advance the Islamic faith, there is no doubt but Mr Brennan's interpretation is accurate. Of course, ignoring this much of the heart and soul of Islam cheapens and demeans the religion. (It is interesting that in this effort to be ever-so-sensitive-and-tolerant, Mr Brennan and others have the effect of deprecating the nature and character of the faith as well as the dedication of many of the adherents of the faith.)

Once the sensitivity based deprecation of a faith and its power to move believers is commenced, the speaker is on a very steep, exceptionally slippery slope. This reality came in Mr Brennan's remarks when he thundered that the US would "disrupt, destroy, and defeat" al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. He named the names but could not bring himself to acknowledge that the leaders of al-Qaeda and, to an even greater extent, Taliban, relied upon the authority of their religion--Islam--as total justification for all they did and will do.

Continuing on his slippery slope to the destruction both of language and the necessary ability to know and understand the enemy so he might be successfully defeated, Mr Brennan invoked the usual suspects as to motivation. He trotted out the list of long discredited social, economic, and political factors such as poverty and marginalization which have been the favored icons of those of a "progressive" bent.

To replace the reality of religion with the fantasy of social and economic factors required that Mr Brennan put aside completely the well documented information regarding the background of many, even most, of those who lead the "martyrdom seekers" as well as those who personally seek the solace of the next life. As those boring facts show time after (literally) bloody time, the background of leaders and followers alike is disquietingly privileged. From KSM to the failed "Underwear Bomber to the guy in the Times Square SUV, education and money lurk in their personal pasts.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton's campaign slogan from 1992, "It's the religion, stupid!"

Finally there is Mr Brennan's confusing formulation describing just who we are fighting, "radical extremists." Is this Deep Thinker of the view that there exists a creature called the "moderate extremist? Or, perhaps, a "reactionary extremist?"

Maybe he even believes that out there somewhere in the mountains of the FATA and Afghanistan or in the deserts of Yemen or Somalia there lurks the dreaded, "uncommitted extremist."

Ah, yes, bucko, that must be it! That must be the reason for his and the administration's mushy wording and pudding thinking, a justification for abusing both language and logic, a need for the soft speaking of political correctness.

Should the US be so bold as to call an Islamist an Islamist, the uncommitted extremist just might turn radical.

Mexicans Out Whine Muslims

For years the Mexican political and media establishments have caviled mightily over the immigration policies of the US. There has not been a single "migrant" (to use the preferred and totally inaccurate Mexican formulation) law which has met the approval of the easily bruised hyper-nationalistic egos of the politicians and pundits of Mexico.

Since Arizona passed its now infamous law which did little more than make an already extant federal crime--being present in the US absent legal authorization--a state offense as well, Mexicans of all ranks have closed ranks in a wall of wailing and whining which surpasses even the waves of tears shed by Muslims over what they perceive as insults to their religion (including quotes from the Koran and other sacred writings.) To read the Mexican press, to listen to the words of Mexican politicians one would be forgiven the impression that the Fascist Racists of Arizona with the approval of many, many equally bigoted and dark-hearted Americans generally had launched a campaign of extermination against any and all people of swarthy complexion, accented English, or a last name other than Smith or Jones.

The vitriol poured in metric ton quantities by the President of Mexico during his state visit to the US, which included the signal honor of addressing a joint session of Congress, would have done the thundering denunciations of Hitler by Winston Churchill proud--if only they had been true and accurate. With the American president standing by complete with approving smile, Sr Calderon accused the citizens of Arizona (and by implication all other Americans who approved the new law) of being racist, xenophobic, and generally blotches on the face of humanity.

It is passingly strange that the Mexicans who are so free with their exaggerated or totally fabricated charges about the American hatred of Mexicans and other Latinos do so without once mentioning the portions of the Mexican Constitution which deal with "migrant" issues. A brief glance at these articles shows an attitude far more contemptuous of "migrants" than any contained in any American law, state or federal. Articles 11, 27, 32, and 33 limit the rights of "migrants" to a degree unthinkable anywhere in the US, including Arizona. And, mark this well, these are not mere laws but part and parcel of the Mexican Constitution.

Nor are other countries filled with critics of the Arizona law immune. Guatemala has constitutional restrictions which surpass any legal disabilities placed on legal "migrants" in the US. So does Costa Rica, generally considered a liberal beacon in Central America. Even El Salvador, in which place American treasure was expended in wholesale lots during its long counterinsurgency, does not take as kindly to "migrants" as does the US.

It is a hallmark of the basic human propensity for hypocrisy that politicians and pundits can heap abuse on the democratic process and its result in Arizona while being remarkably indifferent to what is going on in their own countries. Even this pinnacle is surpassed by the insufferably arrogant demands by Calderon and other Latino statesmen that the US effectively give up all semblance of control over its own borders and admit all comers while insisting on their own sovereign right to deny admittance to those coming from abroad.

Worse than any and all these self-serving words and efforts by Mexican elites and their ilk elsewhere south of the Rio Grande are the totally ridiculous postures adopted by American "progressives" including the President and Attorney General of the US. Several features are quite evident in the repeated diatribes by politicians and journalists of the American "progressive" shade.

Many have not even read the Arizona enactment as was finally admitted under questioning by, among others, Eric Holder. Then there are those who may have read the law but willfully sought to misinterpret it. Finally there are the legions who deplore the reality that the US is a federal republic with intentionally divided sovereignty so that states have a duty to act when threatened, if the federal government is unable or, more likely, unwilling to act.

The Arizonans saw a threat in their midst. They saw a lack of effective federal action. So they acted, quickly and directly. Far from being a group of Fascist vigilantes, the people and legislature of Arizona have acted in prudent self-interest.

We should be willing to see and admit this fundamental truth. Even a small handful of Mexican commentators have done so.

Unfortunately, as Muslims have shown, it is far easier and more emotionally satisfying to whine, moan, bitch, and carp. And, playing the victim game also absolves one from having to be truthful, honest, or courageous.

Reality Makes Us A Pitiful, Helpless Giant

Reading the new Obama version of the more-or-less annual National Security Strategy document does nothing to obviate the harsh judgement of reality on the US today. No matter how much military power we possess, regardless of our diplomatic influence (if any,) and despite the manifold appeal of our "soft power" appeal, the US has little going for it in dealing with either Iranian intransigence or North Korean aggression.

The Obama vision of American national security is long, very long on lofty sentiments and fine rhetoric so that one suspects the final draft was written by a presidential speech writer and not some person with more than a nodding acquaintance with the concepts of national interest or national security. If inspirational approaches to foreign relations worked in the gritty world of countries pursuing subjectively defined national interests, the Obama rendition would be a winner.

There is very little in the document which excites disagreement. That is due to the "mom and apple pie content" which constitutes the vast majority of the essay's fifty plus pages. Who but the most hardened skeptic can be against diplomacy, collective effort, the need to put our domestic economic house in order, or the strength and resilience of "our greatest asset," the American people? Who can gainsay the desirability, even the necessity, of the US having a "strong" military capacity? And, who could not second the idea that diplomacy and the military serve to complement each other?

The problem comes not in the assorted sweet smelling, fine sounding, good looking parts but rather in the absence of a viable, real world oriented way of meshing all the parts into a whole which is at least as substantial as would be a mere sum of the parts. There is no overarching strategic plan, no architecture for a building comprised of all the materials individually listed. There is not any compelling statement of American national and strategic interests beyond a roster of four "enduring" factors, some of which actually predate WW II.

Worse, there is no indication of do-not-pass lines. "Adversary" governments are noted in passing with an implicit invitation to change their ways and enter into "engagement" with the US, but no specific behaviors or acts are noted which would demand an American response. Given that one of the purposes of the National Security Strategy document is the provision of guidance for the heads of governments both friendly and hostile, this is a glaring lack.

Not only is there no hint of what may be unacceptable conduct, there is no whisper of just what the US might do if confronted with a hostile act by an "adversary" state. Mention is made of improving "sanctions" and "isolation" with the implication that some international bad actor might expect to be faced by both, but the lack of specificity does nothing to deter. Neither does the oft-repeated refrain of "collective" efforts, of "coordination," of the semi-mythic "international community" and its companion, 'international institutions." Such importuning does little to weaken the spine of an ambitious, bad acting government.

(If the old saw holding that a camel is the horse as designed by a committee, then the rabbit is a lion after action by the UN or similar "international institution.")

The contretemps currently faced by the US in the matter of the Mahdi Bomb is a fine example of just how ineffective a reliance upon current international fora is. The UN is not alone in carrying responsibility for the glacial pace at which actions are considered and taken or the way in which Great Power patrons can act to protect their clients. All international institutions which are not bound together by a tight and comprehensive weave of coinciding national interests, basic values, shared history, and cooperative economies are identical in ineffectiveness with the UN.

The challenge presented to the US and other civilized states by North Korea is an even more stark example of how the real world comes into sharp conflict with the honeyed words of the new Obama vision of US national security. North Korea is guilty under the UN Charter of an act of aggressive war. There is no realistic doubt of Pyongyang's culpability no matter how much the Trolls of Beijing may wish otherwise.

What will the UN do about this affront to its very reason for existence? Not much. Everyone who is at all oriented in time and place already knows that. Knows that the fine words of Secretary of State Clinton regarding the "duty" of the "international community" to do something by way of "punishing" the Hermit Kingdom of the North are so much vapor. Knows that as long as China pursues its national interest above all other concerns, the fanatical leadership of North Korea has a remit to cause no end of international harm.

There is nothing reprehensible in the Chinese posture. Nothing intrinsically "wrong" let alone malign in Beijing's priority upon maintaining stability in North Korea. To do otherwise would be to open its territory to unacceptable consequences.

More than any other government, the Chinese know that North Korea will not give up its nuclear capacity. It is the paranoid state's only sure deterrent against the rise of South Korean revanchism or a new 21st Century form of the irredentism which propelled the first ruler of the South, Syngman Rhee, from calling for a "March to the North" in the period before the North invaded South Korea in June 1950. Beyond that, possession of the bomb is Pyongyang's only trump card in the diplomatic game.

The Chinese came to realize perfectly during the course of the Six Power Talks that the North would not abandon the bomb without suitable compensation. And, the only suitable compensation would be reunification on terms favorable to the North. That is reunification under Northern domination. With this understanding firmly in place, the Trolls of Beijing were not and are not displeased that failure in their great diplomatic initiative, an initiative which was intended to show Beijing as the regional hegemon, was averted by the Cheonan Incident.

The challenge for Beijing is to avert another diplomatic failure, this time of even greater magnitude while preserving peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula without simultaneously alienating South Korea too much. Meeting this challenge is a real poser for the Trolls.

Time, however, is very much on their side. Also on their side is the unthinkability of war between the two Koreas. A war, even one which is of short duration and results in a clear victory for the South (and their American ally) would be too costly for Seoul to contemplate. Even though the Northern military is weak today compared to even a decade ago, it has the capacity to inflict totally unacceptable damage and loss of life on the South given that all of the Seoul-Inchon metroplex lies within range of Northern rockets and tube artillery.

There is no doubt that American air and naval firepower could quickly decapitate the North even considering the hardened facilities available to the Kim Crowd. Likewise, the feeble Northern electrical grid and food distribution system could be taken out quickly and completely with fatal results to the Northern capacity to wage war.

All of this and more is true. And irrelevant. The South cannot afford--Asia cannot afford, the rickety world economy cannot afford--the results of a short, sharp war. And, this includes China.

The greatest anxiety within Beijing must be that of the Pyongyang leadership engaging in a Great Adventure of the suicide-or-victory sort. The capacity of the North to pull the trigger of the gun aimed squarely at the head of both Koreas is their greatest possible trump. There is and has been a long standing belief in Pyongyang among the little men in oversized hats who surround Dear Leader that the decadent South would capitulate rather than see Seoul-Inchon turned into the "lake of fire" promised by the North Korean Peoples Army.

At the same time the Northern population has been and is imbued by a myth of their own hardihood, resilience, and capacity to both endure and overcome the greatest vicissitudes of life. They truly believe (with a very great deal of historical justification) that they could overcome future devastation as they did that of the Korean War or even the famines of recent years. The "Long, Hard March" is central to the defining mythology of North Koreans for the past three generations. Its power should not be underestimated.

The Chinese are not given to underestimating it. The close relationship between the Chinese and North Korean military forces has transmitted a full appreciation of the power and pervasiveness of the myth, which surpasses in extent and potency even its Chinese equivalent. Reinforcing this is the awareness in Beijing that North Korea recovered far faster than the South from the effects of the Korean War. At least until the final years of the Sixties, the GDP of the North exceeded that of the South and the per capita income of the people of the North outstripped that of the South almost until the Age of Disco was upon us.

In short, there are palpable reasons to both believe the North is convinced it can recover and flourish from a war and fear the consequences of this belief. As a result, the Trolls of Beijing have good reason to feel anxiety about the calculus of their client should too much pressure be exerted--even rhetorically--upon the North. With reason they fear that a Pyongyang Death Ride may be seen in Pyongyang as a Ride to Victory, and the northern leadership may be encouraged to be adventurous.

The world view as well as the vision of what constitutes American national security as well as the means by which that security can be achieved contained in the new Obama formulation shows no relevance to the requirements dictated by reality in the Korean Peninsula. It also shows no appreciation of what might happen to good intentions, the best of intentions, if a critical Great Power finds its self in opposition for reasons of self-defined national interest.

The US and the world have been down the road described in the Obama formulation before, twice before. The administrations of both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt made the same miscalculations regarding the permanence of alliances, the coinciding of national interests, and the identity of national interest definitions among Great Powers. At Versailles and nearly thirty years later with the notion of the "Four Policemen," these two Democratic presidents believed without foundation that all countries were equally rational, were equally given to defining national interests in the same way, and were equally given to viewing the world through the same set of glasses.

They were wrong. The international institutions which bore their imprint proved to be inadequate to the tasks when finally placed to the test. President Obama has not read the historical record, or, if he has, somehow has convinced himself that with him in charge, matters will turn out differently.

Right now, it appears that the mullahs of Tehran and the Dear Leader in the Hermit Kingdom of the North are in the process of teaching the Nice Young Man From Chicago just how wrong he is. The sorrow and the pity of this is that the rest of us have to sit in the lesson as well.

How To Shoot Oneself In The Mouth

Noted Statesman and Progressive Political leader of the most Faithful people of Iran must be letting the pressure get to him. In an outburst which far transcended even his own well known and oft demonstrated capacity to go over the rhetorical edge, the Iranian "president," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has not only done the usual--excoriate the US and President Obama--he has done the same to Russian president Dimitri Medvedev.

Ahmadinejad is a very practiced player of brinksmanship, but he may have pushed the Russian button too hard for the good of his cause--gaining Iran nuclear weapons. The Iranian's "stern warning" that the American president was in the process of blowing his last best chance to gain Tehran's compliance with the much modified proposal to put some low enriched uranium in Turkish custody pending the delivery of twenty percent enriched fuel rods for its American supplied research and medical isotope producing reactor is more of the same old, "yadda-yadda and dabba-dabba-do," but his insulting "advice" to President Medvedev that the Russian needs to think longer and harder before joining the Western jihad against a "great nation" is a zebra of a completely different stripe.

The Russian response to Ahmadinejad's friendly counsel was not long coming. Nor was it particularly warm. Actually, "hot" would be a better characterization--as in white-hot with anger.

The Russian government is well aware that it has much more at stake in its relations with Iran than does the US. Russia has a wide variety of long-standing interests in play with Tehran, all of which are placed at real risk if Russia joins with the US, the UK, France, and Germany in rejecting the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil last weekend.

If the Iranian government and Mr Ahmadinejad really were as slicky-boy as they believe themselves to be, they would have had some slight chance of retaining some of the valuable support long given by Moscow at the UN and elsewhere. However, the "deal" put together by the Good Friends of Tehran did not begin to address the most fundamental and most troubling threats presented by the Iranian nuclear effort.

Since October, when Tehran first seemed to accept and then reject the initial proposal crafted by the US and its associates, the centrifuges have continued to spin. As a direct consequence, the temporary removal of twelve hundred kilograms of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium would not leave the Iranians with too little of the stuff to process to higher degrees of purity. The Russians can count as well as anyone else.

Secondly, the Grand Bargain left the Iranians committed to continuing to enrich their fissionables to a level of twenty percent even with the fuel rods en route. The only reason for this twist in Iranian policy was the desire to have a breakout capacity for weapons grade uranium, as it is vastly simpler and faster to go from twenty percent to ninety plus than it is to go from zero to 3.5 or from 3.5 to twenty percent. Having made more than a tad of highly enriched uranium themselves, the Russians know how the game is played.

Finally the Great Deal did not address the new and improved--and greatly enlarged--enrichment facilities which Tehran has under construction or planned. The new capacities are far in excess of whatever legitimate need for low enriched reactor fuel might be needed in the near term, or the much longer term for that matter. This discrepancy did not pass by the Russian eyes unnoticed.

Taken together with the insulting "friendly words" from Ahmadinejad, the Russians could be expected to go fast boost exoatmospheric. And, they did. The "advice" was categorically rejected by the top foreign policy advisor at the Kremlin, Sergei Prikhodko, as "political demagoguery." He added,

Any unpredictability, any political extremism, lack of transparency or inconsistency in taking decisions that affect and concern the entire world community is unacceptable for us.

A better and more accurate description of Iranian behavior is hard to make.

A second Sergei, this time Sergei Karaganov, the head of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, which is quite influential and reflects the thinking and views of those in the Kremlin, observed that the Iranians "were digging their own grave."

Of course, actions count for much more than mere words in foreign relations--a fact of life which has not penetrated the thinking of President Obama yet. For the Russians, as for many seasoned players of the game of nations, words are the necessary precursor of action--and point in the direction the actions will most likely take.

Currently, the Russian built reactor is scheduled to go online in August. It is, of course, possible now that "technical" problems might retard the event. Or, another dispute between Tehran and Moscow over the financial end of the transaction may emerge. Or, some other unforeseen difficulty will manifest itself. You get the point--Russia has the initiative and can use it when and how doing such best serves Russian national interests.

Then there is the matter of the S-300 air defense system. The Obama administration went the extra set of miles to exempt this deal from any upcoming sanctions much to the delight of the Kremlin. Now it is quite possible that the Ahmadinejad "friendly words" will serve to cause the Russians to reconsider delivery. They have, after all, been paid for the hardware in major part. It would be a no risk, no lose means of retaliation for the insults and intended pressure.

As any number of past American presidents could have informed Ahmadinejad, nothing fails faster in desired results with the Russians than pressure openly and ineptly applied. The Kremlin will and has responded favorably to demonstrations of political will resolutely applied over time, but never to open threats--most importantly those delivered with an outrageous effrontery.

It is possible that the Ahmadinejad fusillade was intended not for the Kremlin but rather for the folks back home in Buncomb County. The spewing of threats couched as concerned warnings might have simply been meant to cover Ahmadinejad's hind end from any sniping on the part of the ultras in Tehran or Qom. Or, the Iranian semi-maximum leader might simply have been his own, old, usual out-to-lunch self.

In any event, Ahmadinejad has provided a very real service for all of those who want to see Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons. Thank Allah for such large mercies as Ahmadinejad and his ever ready mouth.

Israel, The Bomb, And South Africa

According to the Guardian, the South African government has declassified documents which purport to prove that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to the Whites Only regime of South Africa in 1975. The deal was linked to the South African request that Israel sell Jericho missiles to Pretoria. As the Jericho was capable of delivering conventional, chemical, and nuclear payloads, the Israeli defense minister of the day, Shimon Peres offered the nuclear option.

The lightly redacted documents were released as the result of a request by an American researcher, Sasha Polakow-Suransky. The "incriminating" papers were supposed to be kept in the strictest of confidence by both governments, but the ANC offspring which currently runs the country had no problem taking an action which might discredit both its White dominated predecessor and Israel. This does raise the interesting question of the degree to which successor governments are bound by the commitments of those gone before, a question which has implications far beyond those of political and diplomatic embarrassment.

Not surprisingly the office of Shimon Peres, who is now President of Israel was quick to deny the allegations. What else is to be expected? The Israelis are most unlikely to admit, "Gosh, guys, you caught us. So much for nuclear ambiguity."

There is no shock contained in the offer to sell "all three sizes." Way back in the mid-Seventies, at least in certain circles located in a suburb of Washington, D.C., the buzz regarding nuclear cooperation between the pariah states of Israel and South Africa (on occasion Taiwan was mentioned as well) focused not only on mutual development schemes but the possibility of a direct sale. The buzz was pervasive enough that it was (and is) not credible that the US government at the highest levels was not aware of the the potentials involved.

In the immediate aftermath of the American debacle in Vietnam there was very real anxiety in the US government regarding Soviet "adventurism" in Africa among other areas. The realities of the day favored the Kissinger invention of regional hegemons acting as American proxies-for-stability in threatened areas. To this end the US offered increased assistance to, among others, the Shah of Iran, and countenanced the "two track" strategy and its aftermath in Chile.

Internal political pressures prevented any form of wide open support for the apartheid government of South Africa. Lower visibility efforts were permissible. The range of options would have included an absence of commentary regarding a joint nuclear development effort between Israel and South Africa or even a suitably sub rosa transfer of a limited number of nuclear weapons.

Not to sharpen the point too much, the US under different administrations of both parties had a real affection for the Israeli policy of nuclear ambiguity. It was seen with justice as having a desired inhibitory effect upon surrounding states. (This affection survived even the successful effort in nuclear blackmail practiced by the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War.)

It could be posited more (think Reagan) or less (think Carter) openly that a South African gambit in nuclear ambiguity would serve the same ends of stability enhancement in the south of Africa that it had in the Mideast. Not even the (in)famous "double flash" reports in 1990 served to push the US to a more open opposition of any nascent South African nuclear weapons program.

The overarching dictates of the Cold War assured that the US would limit its pressure on the much disliked apartheid regime. We needed not only stability in the region but also the direct assistance of the regime in our efforts to keep the sealanes of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean unimpeded by any Soviet threat. Down until the collapse of the Soviet empires both outer and inner, the cooperation of South Africa was vital to the protection of our national and strategic interests.

The proximity in time between the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Whites Only government serves to underscore not only the importance of American "understanding" but also the vital nature of South Africa to the prosecution of the Cold War. The turning of a Nelsonian eye to the nuclear ambitions of South Africa by Uncle Sam, which would have included any direct Israel-to-South Africa sale of nukes, was both expectable and justifiable in the dynamics of the day.

The release of the documents by the Zuma government is of use and benefit only to those who currently wish Israel ill. Of course, that crowd is both numerous and diverse, ranging as it does from the politically articulate elites of Europe and the US to the many Islamic governments around the world.

The release does, however, harm the efforts by civilized states to deny nuclear weapons to the mullahs of Iran. The harm may prove in the next few weeks to be of a major sort. This reality and its potential implications are what give the release interest.

In the real world where Iran either will or will not acquire nuclear weapons and all that goes with that, the South African government by this action has joined with the uncivilized states. It has linked with those who are either too naive or too ideologically prejudiced to see just what can result from a failure to ban the bomb for Iran.

South Africa's government does not deserve congratulations for its commitment to honesty and transparency. Rather it deserves rigorous condemnation for hurting the cause of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

It is regrettable in the extreme that the Guardian among others so despises Israel that is is eager to celebrate a victory for Iran.

Way To Go, Dr Liam Fox!

The new British Defense Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, opened his mouth in Kabul the other day. Out came a whole heap of truth. In response the Afghan government and media have gone exoatmospheric. In the process of going ballistic they have proven Fox to have been spot on.

In a press conference at the British embassy in Kabul, the visiting Defense Secretary said bluntly that the purpose of the intervention in Afghanistan was to facilitate British national security. He went on to say what the American led operation was not about in his estimate. It is not, he opined, "for the sake of an education policy in a broken 13th Century country."

Well, at least someone involved in the multi-national effort to squash Islamist jihad oriented assemblages of thugs such as al-Qaeda and Taliban has the intellectual, moral, and one might add, political courage to tell it like it is. The US and its associates--the first among which was and is, the UK--put boots on the inhospitable ground of Afghanistan in order to expunge not only the architects of the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda, but the government which protected these international criminals pursuant to the requirements of "Islamic hospitality," the government of Mullah Omar's Taliban.

The intent of the operation at the outset, before it was distorted by the Bush/Cheney administration, was simply to make the world safer for civilized folk by nullifying for once and all the threat posed by Islamist jihadists. As such, the operation was both legally and ethically justified. Had it kept to the original intent, the US, the UK and all the rest would have been long gone from a geographic expression which can be characterized with accuracy and honesty as being both broken and 13th Century.

The initial response by President Karzai, according to at least one (conveniently) unnamed "senior government source" and the Afghan excuse for a newspaper of record, was vehement, even vitriolic. The assorted respondents agreed that Dr Fox "dissed" Afghanistan something fierce.

The unnamed "senior source" averred that despite the "sacrifice" of British lives and the expenditure of British money, it was evident that the Brits were "racist" and showed "a lack of trust." The source also belabored the obvious: That Dr Fox thinks Afghanistan has not changed since the 13th Century and was as a consequence both "tribal" and "medieval."

Yeah, dude, that is pretty much the size of it. So, where's the problem?

Afghanistan is highly tribal in its social and political complexion. That reality has been noted by everyone from President Karzai to General McChrystal and from Joe Biden to George W. Bush. It is probable that even President Obama agrees.

As for being "medieval," that is another self-evident feature of much of the Afghan cultural, social, political, and intellectual landscape.

The ascendancy of religion over secular matters was a hallmark of Europe's medieval period. And, so it is in Afghanistan today. Consider a few salient points.

The primacy of personal loyalties over the demands of institutional affinity is another prominent feature of the European medieval experience. So it is in Afghanistan today.

Women were generally subjugated in Europe in those days. Such is their status in contemporary Afghanistan.

A preeminent dynamic in Europe during the medieval period was the struggle to establish and maintain the authority of a central government over regional and tribal figures. Tell us, Mr Karzai, how is it different in Afghanistan today?

There is nothing that foreign intervenors can do to fix the "broken 13th Century country" which Afghanistan is. Mounds of money and torrents of "advice" will do nothing real to address the reality to which Dr Fox referred. Externally sponsored (imposed?) nation-building is a monstrous fraud perpetrated upon not only those who furnish the ways and means but upon those who are the recipients.

When the Bush/Cheney bunch--along with the New Labor government in the UK--shifted the goal in Afghanistan from one of permanently abating the nuisance of al-Qaeda and Taliban to one of creating a 21st Century Western style ideal in Afghanistan, they did nothing but assure a long, bloody, and ultimately failed effort. Only blunt and realistic honesty of the type shown by Dr Fox can serve to deflect the collective effort from its current course.

Far from whining, complaining, and carping about the presumed racism and disrespect shown by the British Defense Secretary, the Karzai government and its supporters should welcome the honesty. They should be gratified by the retreat from the well-intended effort to impose a view of society and politics quite foreign to the Afghan experience.

Rather than using the Fox remarks as one more cause to bitch and moan, the Karzai government should embrace them. How refreshing it would be to hear Karzai or even some unnamed "senior source" allow that Afghanistan is a broken 13th Century country. "But it is up to us and us alone to fix it and drag it into the 14th or even 21st Century if we and we alone want to."

Not only would it be refreshing, such a statement would be a real step along the road to a more stable Afghanistan, an Afghanistan which might have a future other than one dictated by the most violent proponents of political Islam.

Words And Reality

President Obama is very good with words. He sure does talk pretty. His rhetoric can be soaring. He invites one and all to share his lofty view of life and the world. He exemplifies all that is high minded and progressive.

If global politics depended only on honeyed words and fine sounding platitudes, on calls to a higher minded shared vision of the world and stroking the feelings of any and all people who feel themselves put upon and otherwise either insulted or ignored, Mr Obama would be the greatest foreign policy president in history.

Unfortunately for Mr Obama, the world cares not a whit about the mood music of his speeches. No speech, no capability for sounding good, not even a talent surpassing that of Winston Churchill buys a country the smallest particle of the most prized commodity in international politics.

The commodity?

Simple, bucko, influence. The capacity to substantially, materially, and directly occasion changes in the policies and actions of other governments in a way which serves the national interest.

In the acquisition and maintenance of influence, actions speak infinitely louder and infinitely more effectively than words. Words are useful only insofar as they provide either the context of action or amplify upon the intent of the action. More importantly, the words of a Great Power are useful in the influence game only when they are consistent with actions.

States, whether Great Powers or of a lesser status, demand the US speak clearly and consistently as to our policies, and, further, that our actions are congruent with the words. For generations now, foreign leaders and publics have expected the US to provide clear declaratory policy backed by actions including contractual understandings which are maintained consistently over time and between administrations of different parties.

It does not matter if the other country, again whether of Great Power status or not, agrees with American policy. What matters is that the US provides a fixed point of reference in global affairs. Other actors know in advance if a contemplated action will meet with American acceptance or rejection. They will know in advance of a contemplated policy or act if it infringes upon American national and strategic interests. And, if it does, to what extent will the US exact a cost.

The need for a clear conveyance of American policy limits can be well illustrated in the post-World War II diplomatic history of the world. In 1950, Dean Acheson neglected to put South Korea on the American side of the line delineating our sphere of concern. As a result, Joe Stalin concluded that the US would offer no objection to the proposed North Korean invasion of the South. Or, in 1990 the new American ambassador to Iraq was not given proper instructions from Foggy Bottom or the Oval with the result that she inaccurately gave Saddam Hussein the impression that an invasion of Kuwait would not meet with American disapprobation.

The congruence of words and actions is equally important with that of clear, consistent declarations of policy. This actuality eludes Mr Obama completely (as does, arguably, the first consideration.)

The long, drawn-out diplomatic dance with Iran has made the disconnect between words and deeds very apparent. In a similar way, the strong US denunciation of the North Korean sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan coupled with the improbability of any action beyond a Security Council condemnation and a chance that Pyongyang will be put back on the list of governments sponsoring terrorism shows a failure to appreciate that words and actions must be congruent.

Mr Obama chose the graduation at the US Military Academy to lay out his new strategy for global politics. He said that his view of life meant that our strategy would rely upon diplomacy, upon strengthening old alliances and forming "new partnerships," on developing new "international standards and institutions." Unfortunately, in this noble view of a future which might be such as to justify his Nobel Prize, Mr Obama gave no hint of how he proposed to strengthen the old alliances, or with whom he proposed to form new partnerships or--get ready for the big event--any idea of just what might constitute American national interest.

In justice to Mr Obama it may be the case that he sees American national and strategic interests as coinciding to the point of identity the interests of the always-undefined "international community." In his answer to George W. Bush's West Point speech eight years ago, Mr Obama made the same numerous allusions to international institutions which have peppered all of his speeches dealing with foreign affairs. This encourages the inference that Mr Obama sees no blue sky between the interests of the US as a sovereign nation-state and that of assorted international institutions, with the UN heading the list.

If that is the case then it is easy to see the motives for as well as the justifications of Obama's curious practice of diplomacy. His cavalier treatment of old allies such as Great Britain, Germany, even Canada. His pressurization campaign against Israel.

The Obama version of "we are all passengers on spaceship Earth" also would allow a motive for his interesting way of establishing "new partnerships" such as the one way street arrangement with Russia which has such delightful features as exempting Russian arms sales from any new round of Iran sanctions or conceding Russia a membership in the WTO despite the country's flagrant flouting of WTO practices and the shared philosophy which serves as the group's foundation.

It is the same bumper sticker phrase which seems to be the intellectual underpinning of the Obama outreach-to-the-Muslims effort which has so far been as one way as the exchange with the Russians and as much of a success as the effort to derail the mullahs' march to the bomb. We can all agree that the Muslim hyper-sensitivity is a drag, a bore, an exercise in tedium without equal, but it is not reason to abandon honesty in the defining and securing of US national and strategic interests.

Genuflecting before Muslim groups and their totems is an excellent way to assure that goals of American national interest will not be achieved. Muslim majority states more than most appreciate and react favorably to a posture of consistent strength and resolve. The historical record shows the US has enjoyed its greatest success in diplomacy with Muslim governments when it has been perceived as having the ability and will to kick one in the teeth--to act the part of the strong horse.

Only weak horses bow, scrape, evade, equivocate, and fail to follow an announced and well charted course. Mr Obama, by his love affair of international organizations no matter how biased or ineffectual, has convinced more than a few of the pragmatically inclined leaders of Muslim states that he rides a very weak horse. One more example of nice words equal very non-nice results.

Great Power diplomacy of the successful sort depends upon three features: clarity, resolve, and strength. The latter feature includes but most assuredly is not limited to military force. It includes all the instruments of national power including the evident resolve of the American president.

The Guy in the Oval is the Man in the Bully Pulpit. He is seen as being the man in charge by kings, dictators, and presidents of powers great and small. His speech is seen as the functional equivalent of action. When the Guy in the Oval appears to be, as Jimmy Carter was and Barack Obama is, weak, irresolute, and in possession of the faintest of faint hearts, the US is impaired in pursuing its national interests.

Great Powers fail on occasion due to the over-reach of their leaders. Imperial and Nazi Germany are recent examples of this. So too, at least in argument, is the Soviet Union.

The decline and fall of Great Powers comes far more often because leaders have lost faith in their country or themselves. The fitful, rocky slide to oblivion of the Roman Empires, both West and East, stand as prime in this field. The same dynamic can be seen as operating in the case of the UK and France. Now it is self-evident with President Obama, the man whose vision does not include a role for the US as a Great Power.

The question before We the People is not if Mr Obama can see the error of his ways and rectify the already present, pernicious consequences but, can the next American president see and repair the damage before it is truly fatal. As the sidling of Brazil and Turkey to the arms of Iran show, the diminishment of the perceived potency of the US is already being acted upon by second tier countries. Soon it will be acted upon by those of the first rank.

Mr Obama, listen up and listen tight. Regardless of the words imputed to one of your aides, that you were elected, "to preside over the graceful decline of the US," this is not what you were put in the Oval to do. But, it is a very real reason to demand your replacement.

A (Couple Of) Follow Ups To Yesterday's Posts

A line in an ancient Kingston Trio song goes, "they're rioting in Africa." Well, the Muslims are not yet rioting in South Africa but they are calling in death threats after an attempt by the Council of Muslim Theologians to have a South African court block publication of--what else?--a cartoon in the Mail and Guardian.

The cartoon features a bearded, turban-wearing man reclining on a couch supported by clouds. In the background a stereotyped psychiatrist sits, pen poised over his notepad. The patient, inferentially Mohammad, is saying, "Other prophets have followers with a sense of humor."

Doesn't seem like enough to get worked up over, does it? But, there are Muslims who can and have--even over a satire as mild and accurate as this one. At least so far Those Of Outraged Religious Sensitivities have limited their expressions to threatening phone calls, refusing, at least for the nonce, to enlist the aid of government or seek Justice Through Bombing.

For this South Africans can be thankful. They are already having enough problems with the Koran-thumping-suicide-bomber bunch given the credible threats directed by al-Qaeda and others at the upcoming World Cup match.

Elsewhere, the easily inflamed members of Islam continue to prove that the late humanitarian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, was right when he averred that in Islam there is no place for humor. As the anger-driven, rage-filled faces of the Pakistani mobs in the streets of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi show clearly, these people cannot take a joke.

On second thought, perhaps this is too harsh a judgement. It is possible that Muslims of the Islamist, jihadist persuasion have a sense of humor. A warped one from the outside view, but one none the less. Consider the latest wrinkle in the mode of execution applied by Pakistani Taliban to those "suspected" of being American spies.

The other day instead of the old, tried and true means of shooting or decapitation, the Fearless Warriors of True Islam paraded a couple of unfortunate men in blindfolds and handcuffs before a bunch of locals in North Waziristan. At the parade's end, the Men Of Allah's Righteous Fury strapped explosives to the bodies of their victims-to-be and pushed the clicker. The resulting explosion represented a good joke on the Legion of Traitorous Apostates.

On the It-Really-Isn't-Funny front, Secretary of State Clinton is in China. Part of her job there is gaining at least some modicum of support from the Trolls of Beijing for doing something about the North Korean sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan. The Secretary is of the view that acts of "provocation" must result in "consequences" for whomsoever does the provoking.

Well, yeah, fer sure, Madam Secretary. We're in tandem on that, no doubt.

There is one itty-bitty problem in sending "a message" to the Great Provocateurs of Pyongyang. There isn't any really, really credible and convincing "message" or "consequence" which the US or that Great Guardian of International Peace and Goodwill, the UN, can send with any effect other than the spewing of words, the spilling of ink, and the waste of electrons.

War or any sort of armed retaliation is out of the question, off the table, beyond the pale, totally unthinkable for a variety of reasons, most of which are good. And, the Hermit Kingdom of the North generally and Dear Leader in particular are very well aware of this ground truth.

North Korea is already under more and more stringent economic and related UN imposed sanctions than any other country on Earth. In theory more can be piled on top of those already in force. In practice this would be just one more piece of UN junk mail.

Given its national interest, China will allow nothing more. When one considers that the most Beijing has been willing to grant over the sinking of the Cheonan is that it was "unfortunate," it is unrealistic that China might concur in the application of meaningful, painful pressure on its neighbor.

The UN Security Council is unlikely to do more than issue a statement of condemnation. Wow! That will really make Dear Leader and the NKPA high command sit up and take notice!

That leaves the US. The Obama administration might be willing to return North Korea to its place on the old terrorism list. The Hermit Kingdom pretended it was shocked and outraged by its inclusion on that list and demanded removal in 2008 as a price for (temporarily) shutting down its plutonium producing nuclear reactor.

Beyond putting North Korea back on the State Department list of really horrible and ever-so-nasty states there isn't much that we can do. Or, want to do. The other day the administration made its unwillingness to do more than issue declarations of disgust when Secretary of Defense Gates and JCS Chairman Mullen refused to characterize the Cheonan sinking as "an act of war."

If the firing of a torpedo at a warship by a submarine of a state still officially at war with the owner of the target vessel is not an "act of war" it is hard to know what might be. In our own history back during the undeclared naval war with Germany in 1940-41, a German U-boat fired at the USS Reuben James with the result that the American destroyer went down along with the majority of its crew. We thought it was an "act of war" but refrained from acting because the correlation of forces was not yet favorable for doing so.

And so it is today. No more than South Korea can we afford (quite literally) to go to war over the Cheonan incident, but it does us no honor not to call the matter what it was--an act of war, of unprovoked aggression by a hostile state for reasons of state. Those reasons having been alluded to yesterday there is no need to rehearse them now.

The take away is simple. There is nothing that either the US or the UN can do other than issue purely symbolic "messages" with no practical effect upon their recipient. This is the only "consequence" which Pyongyang will suffer for its action. They know it. We know it. There is no need to pretend otherwise.

The only player in the game which matters is China. We can be sure that China will do nothing which has the slightest possibility of resulting in turbulence on its doorstep. This means that the "calm" which Beijing has urged will ensue of necessity--the necessity provided by the absence of viable alternatives.

This, in turn, implies that the South Koreans and the rest of us can look forward to more "provocations" from the North Korean regime. The best we can hope for is that those of the future will be no worse in death and destruction than that of the Cheonan.

Viva! El Presidente Calderon! But Not Some Others

President Felipe Calderon in addressing Congress once again demonstrated an unfortunate propensity for blaming the US for Mexican problems. Facing a deteriorating security situation back home with politicians increasingly occupying center stage in the cross hairs of rifle sights, the Mexican leader took his time in the congressional spotlight to urge or, perhaps more properly, demand that the legislative worthies reimpose limits on American rights of gun ownership.

Even though there is an absence of compelling let alone convincing evidence that many of the weapons captured from criminal gunslingers originated in the US, Sr Calderon averred that the US is as responsible for the guns in Mexican shootouts as it is for the drug demand which prompts them. There is no doubt about the latter. There is much doubt about the former.

Even if every firearm more modern than a Brown Bess were to be confiscated in the US, the Mexican pistoleros would be inconvenienced in no meaningful way. Given the number of captured weapons which originated in the Mideast, Northwest Asia, South America, and Asia, there seems to be no more difficulty obtaining heavy firepower in Mexico than in, say, Somalia or Yemen.

Presumably Sr Calderon was playing for the folks back in Buncomb County when he made his demand. If not, it shows that he is as badly served by his internal security chiefs as he was by his translator at yesterday's welcoming ceremony.

Sr Calderon may also be playing to the home folks with his whining reprise of we-gotta-get-migration-reform-now. The same may be true concerning his never ending invocations of Arizona as the fountainhead of all things anti-Hispanic.

Certainly Sr Calderon is aware that his country has laws defining citizenship, legal alien status, and the crime of being illegally present upon Mexican soil. He must know that Mexican police at all levels of jurisdiction regularly arrest and deport illegal aliens with the exception of those individuals who "regularize" their presence in Mexico by the payment of a "fee" to the arresting officer and/or his superiors. Sr Calderon may even be aware of the number of illegal aliens in Mexico who are robbed, beaten, raped, or killed by Mexicans. Even Mexican media report these incidents, if bloody enough.

Sr Calderon would be the first to defend Mexico's rights to define legal alien status, to control entry by foreigners into Mexico, and to secure Mexico's borders. It is unlikely in the extreme that Sr Calderon shares President Obama's post-modernist, we-are-all-passengers-on-spaceship-Earth mentality as represented by the American president's observation that "we are not defined by borders."

Sr Calderon is a firmly committed Mexican nationalist. This is precisely what he--or any other president--ought to be. He is in favor of "migratory reform" because it is in Mexico's national interest to use the US as a safety valve for its mobs of unemployed as well as a source of hard currency via remittances. He is in favor of restricting Americans access to certain categories of firearms because this is in his party's political interest even if flatly irrelevant to the stability of the country.

Indeed, his resolute offloading of ultimate responsibility for as many of Mexico's internal social, political, and economic problems onto the broad shoulders of Uncle Sam shows his wide, deep commitment to Mexican national interest--both real and mythic. To accept that responsibility for most of the many inequalities, injustices, which blemish Mexico would be to violate the strong central tenets of Mexico's defining mythology which holds that proximity to the US is at the root of all domestic evils.

Overall, one must congratulate Sr Calderon for acting as a good nationalist. Give him the credit he deserves for pursuing Mexican national interest as such is defined by the Mexican politically articulate elite. That is his job and he is doing it well.

Then there are some of Sr Calderon's fellow travelers. Particularly those who are card carrying members of the Open American Borders party.

The Open American Borders party is eclectic in its membership. In it are to be found assorted "migratory rights" folks and the non-governmental organizations which serve to amplify their voices, various and sundry "progressives," and last, but far from least important, numerous political and media personalities in Latin America.

A recurrent, unifying theme ties the diverse elements of the Open American Borders party. The theme has a major and a dependent component.

The major component is migratory freedom is a well-established human right enshrined in international conventions. The contingent component is that of equating the free movement of capital with a presumed freedom of worker movement.

The major premise is a carefully crafted misstatement. The several treaties and international agreements hazily mentioned all refer to prohibitions on a state's prevention of exit. These agreements are directed against Berlin Walls and similar efforts intended to hold a population captive. None are directed against a sovereign right to determine eligibility for admission or citizenship. In short, it is an international no-no to limit a person's right to leave but it is not a similar no-no to refuse a person admittance.

The minor premise is also a perversion of reality. States can and do limit the free movement of capital. Routinely states have limited how much cash a person can take out of a country, or bring into it. Laws which impinge on the movement of funds between countries dot the legal landscape. Indeed, such laws are at the heart of effective operations against transnational terrorism. They are part and parcel of the host of trading-with-the-enemy laws which have existed during every modern armed conflict as well as many of the unarmed sort.

Countries either inhibit or promote international capital flow on the basis of perceived national interest. If it is in a country's national interest to do so, capital flow will be encouraged by all available means. If the self-defined national interest requires inhibiting the movement of money, such will be the case.

Even the most capitalistic of countries, even the most vocal exponents of open, free trade will and have when national interest requires operate to restrict, even end the ability of money to cross the border. This sweeping statement applies to the US as much as to any other free trade oriented economy.

National interest should be the sole basis for a country's policies on immigration. If the self-defined national interest is best served by enhancing the in-migration of foreign workers of a given or even all categories of worker, then the borders should be opened accordingly. If the converse applies, the borders should--must--be closed.

National interest may include the admission of aliens for humanitarian reasons. Or because a person or group faces persecution at home. These non-economic considerations are a legitimate component of national interest as they reflect the values and ethical imperatives of the nation.

Importantly, there is no human right to enter any given country. The US is under no ethical or legal imperative to open its borders for any reason other than as a consequence of national interest. For this reason (as well as many others) no country has the right to demand that we admit their citizens. Likewise they have no standing to criticize efforts by the US or any of its several states to arrest and deport foreigners present without legal status.

The concept of criminal trespass exists not only as regards privately owned property but for nation-states as well. In a federal system of joint exercise of sovereignty the several states have as much right and duty as the central government to prevent or punish those who are criminal trespassers. This is what Arizona has done, effectively to place into a state context the already existing federal law.

Mexico and the several Mexican states already do the same. Sr Calderon knows this even if the majority of the Open American Borders party do not. It may be possible to forgive the Open American Borders party members for their ignorance and its consequences. It is not possible to do the same for Sr Calderon.

Sr Calderon needs to get a grip on the realities of life. He needs to go home and concentrate on forcing the Mexican elite to live up to their collective responsibility to act in a way calculated to so improve the lives of Mexicans generally that the need to enter the US without the benefit of law as well as the drive to join the criminals in their war for money are, if not obviated, at least lessened.

Once Again Fear Trumps Free Speech

Admittedly Pakistan is in a world of hurt currently. In this context it is important to recall that the country brought most of this unpleasant present upon itself. In large part the cause of its current place midway between the hammer of the contemporary world and the anvil of Islamism is the necessary consequence of decisions made by General Zia during the Eighties.

One of General Zia's splendid ideas was to force feed Islamist doctrine on the nation's youth through an ambitious program of building madrases. This seemed a good idea in several respects. The emphasis on religious indoctrination was believed to be a sure way to bring greater social and political cohesion. The construction costs in the main would be borne by Saudi Arabia and thus indirectly by the US, Europe, and Japan. Finally, the madrases would provide a simultaneous means of keeping young men off the job market while providing willing personnel for Zia's far less than covert war against India.

A second Zia-made contribution to Pakistan's current world of hurt was his taking over the war in Afghanistan, first against the Soviets and then to assure a pliant tool gaining power in Kabul. That tool, Taliban, was a direct product of the madrass construction program. The US contributed mightily to this aspect of the developing evil stew in Pakistan by willingly giving money without restriction to Zia's regime and then blithely ignoring just what was happening in the post-Soviet withdrawal internal war period.

Even though General Zia long ago left the scene, the Law of Unintended Consequences which his actions necessarily invoked now drives the dynamic in Pakistan in all of its bloody and repressive features. As the slow-on-the-uptake Pakistani government, Army, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence finally came to realize, the growth of Islamism (or political Islam, if you prefer) came to be an existential threat to the status quo.

The actions taken by the government, army, and ISI as a result of this belated awakening have been a mixture of repression and placation. The army has launched a series of operations against Pakistani Taliban with mixed success. At the same time the government has made efforts to placate Islamist opinion.

In the most recent of these obnoxious genuflections to the very vocal adherents of political Islam, the government has ordered the banning of Facebook and YouTube. The reason given for this draconian action was, as is drearily expectable, the charge of "blasphemy."

More specifically, the Pakistani government alleges that it is in a royal snit over the Facebook site inviting one and all to "draw Mohammad." The specifics regarding YouTube's exercise in blasphemy are not so clearly delineated. However the Pakistani Ministry In Charge Of Protecting Muslim Sensitivities assures the world that the site is awash with videos which somehow or another deprecate Islam, the Prophet (PBUH), and whatever just makes Muslims all over go weak in the knees from the insults.

The Pakistani ministry has shown the sort of open minded attitude which one can expect from an official governmental protector of all things Muslim. The responsible(?) official has invited representatives from both of the offensive sites to send representatives so as to "resolve the dispute in a way that ensures religious harmony and respect."

Duh?

Is it credible that this Pakistani equivalent of the pope commanding King Henry to stand barefoot in the snow of Canossa will be taken seriously or that such will result in repentance on the part of the purported malefactors? Does this official exemplar of Pakistani sweet reason really, really believe that the Internet will genuflect before the alleged sensitivities of Muslims?

The answer, unfortunately, is, "Yes."

Pakistan has a record of blocking "offensive" Internet sites. Along with other Muslim majority countries such as Iran, Morocco, Indonesia, and Turkey, Pakistan has played the embargo game before albeit for short periods. Taken together, the record of Muslim countries rivals that of China in blocking access to the Internet on the part of citizens.

Driven by naked fear, these governments have done their dead level best to isolate citizens from the contemporary world. These are all governments which live in fear of social turbulence, political unrest, and the potential of violence on the part of citizens who come to realize just how much the government has suppressed, prevaricated, and manipulated perceptions for the sole benefit of the governing elite.

In the case of Pakistan the fear is prompted by the existence of Islamist jihadists who by and large exist because the government made them. The Taliban of Pakistan and akin groups are creatures of Islamabad. Now, like the fictional monster created by Frankenstein, they have escaped the control of their maker and threaten the continued existence of the men who manufactured them.

Of course, the restrictive efforts of the Pakistani government are assisted powerfully by the widespread hypersensitivity present in all-too-many Muslims. Unlike adherents to other monotheistic faiths, Muslims are routinely indoctrinated with fear. Fear that they are marginal. Fear that they are victims of discrimination. Fear that they are under constant attack.

A pervasive climate exists within much of the Muslim opinion molding community not only in Pakistan but throughout the Islamic majority societies. That climate can best be described by the word, "insecurity." There are too many opinion molders and thus far too many Muslims who are insecure in the worth and validity of their belief system. This is self-evident given the constant drive for censorship sponsored by Islamic governments.

A person--or a group--which is secure in fundamental beliefs need not seek the false security afforded by limiting free expression. Christians, Jews, even Buddhists, are repeatedly subject to critical, even insulting, expressions from people who do not share their community of faith. Yet they do not demand "respect for religion," particularly one which is imposed by legislation or fiat.

The government of Pakistan has been at the forefront of efforts to impose a global convention under the auspices of the UN which has as its only intent the "protection" of Islam against any criticism, any questions, any raising of doubts on the part of its adherents. It is an effort to protect Muslims which can be rooted only in the belief that Islam and Muslims alike are too weak, too insecure, too fear ridden to accept dissenting or disapproving views.

Of all the Muslims alive today, the most insecure, the most fear driven are those who subscribe to political Islam, Islamism. These people and the groups they comprise are so unsure as to the worth and validity of the faith to which they subscribe that they are more than simply willing to employ any and all methods including the most violent and indiscriminate to achieve their ends. Ends which include absolute protection against questions or criticism by world domination.

The equation is simple: free speech makes free people. Freedom is the most fear producing of all possibilities to an Islamist. These people can exist only in a society of complete submission as the word, "Islam," makes abundantly clear.

Ironically, the government of Pakistan is willing to submit to the dictates of the Islamists who seek the destruction of the government which bows before them. The only losers are those Pakistanis who seek to live a simulacrum of a free life, think and express ideas without the specific permission of a religious authority, that is Pakistanis who are secure in their identity and their faith (if any.)