Firing A General Won't Make The World Better

The MSM as well as some of the new media have been looking for the bright side in the firing of General McChrystal. Reading these assorted attempts at top spinning a major disaster of the self-inflicted sort leads one to alternate tears with laughter.

There simply is no bright side to Mr Obama's exhibition of toughness, his resolute protection of civilian supremacy against the nonexistent threat of General McChrystal's negative assessments of the collection of time servers, people suffering under a delusion of adequacy, and lofty thinking lamebrains.

Tossing McChrystal off the troika to the wolves just as the time sensitive Afghanistan war is reaching the critical moment makes as much sense as inviting Osama bin Laden to help himself to the contents of the large nuclear warehouse not far from downtown Albuquerque. Not even the dual hatting of the politically acceptable and Iraq experienced General Petraeus alters the facts on the ground.

The removal of McChrystal will not boost morale and confidence among the US, allied, or Afghan National Forces. The removal will, however, give a boost to the morale and confidence in victory within the forces of the enemy.

Beyond the AfPak area of operations, the Obama decision will have consequences which equal or exceed those within the theater. Mr Obama's move will, for example, engender good cheer in Tehran.

So far, Mr Obama's dealings with Iran have been a record of continued complete failure. It is perfectly OK, considering this, to ask just how canning McChrystal makes matters worse. To do this, we have to get down to the basics.

The most basic fact of late is this. The Iranians have announced that their efforts at enriching uranium to twenty percent have resulted in producing seventeen kilograms of the stuff. This implies that their current rate of production is at least five kilos per month. A quick extrapolation shows that Tehran will have enough twenty percent feedstock to produce sufficient weapons grade uranium for two Hiroshima sized devices by the time of the midterm elections.

Another, equally basic fact is this. The sanctions including the fourth round of UN Security Council impositions as well as the additional measures taken by the European Union and those wending their way through Congress (against the opposition of the Man In The Oval) will not, can not, have a desired, positive effect on the quest for the "Mahdi Bomb."

The failure of both diplomatic engagement and sanctions implies that the US now has only two options regarding Iran. The first is the oft mentioned (in hushed tones) military option. The second might be called the Dr Strangelove approach. Remember the film's sub-title? That's right, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."

This translates to some version of containment. Now containment worked when directed at the Soviet Union. It worked because both the US and the USSR shared a common value: There is no profit in committing national suicide.

To assume the Iranians have the same calculus of rationality is dubious at best. The Shia form of Islam as practiced in Iran is notably eschatological in orientation. The leading clerics as well as the country's president share an end-of-time world view which celebrates the necessity of a final war for the coming of the Mahdi. Given this consideration, it is not at all prudent to base policy on the efficacy of containment even a containment backed by relatively effective ABM systems and the threat of American nuclear retaliation.

The Iranians have been justifiably worried about the US employment of the "military option." The removal of General McChrystal from command on the eve of an operation which even Iranian observers believe would be successful shows Tehran that the US is most likely to blink first when standing eyeball to eyeball on the precipice of war.

The Iranians came to know General McChrystal quite well during the general's duty in Iraq, during the time when his special forces units cut great swaths through the ranks of the Iranian trained, Iranian supplied, sometimes Iranian commanded Shia insurgents. The mullahs and their Revolutionary Guard Corps bully boys also took McChrystal's measure during his abbreviated tenure in Afghanistan.

Frankly, General McChrystal assumed the same role in the mind's of Tehran's military leaders that George Patton did in the estimate of the German high command--the bogyman from hell. The removal of McChrystal proves to the mullahs and their men that Barack Obama has not been and never will be serious about any use of the "military option." Tehran has concluded with a certainty never felt by Mao that the US is "a paper tiger."

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, no president who is serious about the possibility of waging war in support of policy would remove a genuine, successful fighter of wars. Not even the replacement of McChrystal by Petraeus changes the algorithm as General Petraeus, no matter how beribboned, is not the warfighter that McChrystal is.

Beyond Iran lurks a legion of Islamist or Islamist leaning governments. The evident withdrawal of American support for Israel has encouraged the Islamist states to become more so. It has also forced other governments to lean ever closer to the more extreme stance of political Islam.

The muscle flexing of the adherents of political Islam has become more evident with every day which has passed since the IDF stopping of the "humanitarian flotilla." The fifty-seven member OIC has taken the point in both the UN Human Rights Council, and, most recently, in the Security Council. Our "allies," Turkey and Pakistan, have been carrying the OIC freight. Now these two stalwarts of political Islam have been joined by Malaysia in calling for an emergency UN session on the question of the IDF boarding of the flotilla.

The intent of Malaysia and its fellow members of the OIC is the launching of yet one more diplomatic assault on Israel. President Obama's previous efforts at "outreach" to the Muslim countries coupled with his transparent appeasement of the "frontline" Arab states provided the basis for this move. However, his firing of McChrystal has served to turbo-up the political courage of the OIC bloc.

Once again, the firing of a competent warfighter shows the hostiles of political Islam that the US has no "big stick" to support its softly spoken diplomatic words. The ground truth which has eluded Mr Obama and his "team" is simply that all diplomacy, hard or soft, spoken or acted, must finally rest upon the credible capacity and will to use force. Putting a successful warfighter out to pasture on the verge of a critical campaign because of a few poorly chosen (if accurate) words incautiously spoken near the ears of a "progressive" journalist shows the US is not currently willing to countenance the use of war as an instrument of international politics.

Mr Obama has shown he can be decisive. He has shown a willingness to seek revenge for attacks on members of his "team." It is to the misfortune of the US, to that of the civilized countries of the world, that he chose to demonstrate how tough and decisive he can be in a way which gives direct and real aid and comfort to the enemy.