Bad Analogies Equal Bad Results

There are a lot of people--including senior decision makers, even heads of state--who think by association.  You know it, the this-reminds-me-of-that approach to assessments and deciding.  It is this mental characteristic which results in the often used and frequently quite misleading reasoning by analogy.

Foreign policy, even matters of war and peace, are quite susceptible to reasoning by analogy.  A complex current situation is understood and explained by use of an overly simplified, normally highly inapposite analogy.

So it was during the Vietnam War when criticism of the war was typically rebuffed by use of the Munich analogy.  "Anything less than total commitment to stopping Ho Chi Minh is appeasement."  During the run up to the Gulf War twenty years ago, President George H.W. Bush constantly used Hitler as an analogy for Saddam Hussein--a comparison which was unfair to both men.

During the weeks preceding the more recent invasion of Iraq, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and many others assured each other and the American public that the invading troops would be greeted by cheering multitudes, bouquets of flowers, and general rejoicing in a manner identical with the reception given the American, British, and Canadian forces during the days following the landings in Normandy.  It was a heartwarming picture, easily reinforced by ancient black and white footage of joyously delirious French crowds waving American and other flags.  The idea like the grainy images were so appealing, so easy to believe, so seductive, so---

Wrong.  Utterly, absolutely, totally wrong.  The analogy used with such abandon by the planners and decision makers right up to the Decider Guy in the Oval equating the warmth purportedly extended to the Allied "liberators" in France with what would be expected in Iraq was tragically, disastrously wrong.  The tragedy and disaster alike came from the fact that planning for the day after was based upon an analogy which was not only indescribably wrong for the Iraqi context but was without basis in the reality of the days following 6 June 1944.

Wait one, Geek!  The old newsreels did show crowds of French and Belgian citizens kissing the GIs, the Tommies, tossing flowers, waving bottles of wine and champaign.  That was the truth.  All contemporary films, news reports, letters, even private diaries attest to that.

You bettcha, bucko.  The crowds, the cheers, the kisses were all genuine.  But, none came from the actual combat zone.  All happened after the breakout from the beachhead and the drive across France was in full sway with the Germans beating feet in all out retreat.

In the combat zones, in the areas surrounding the landing zones, the picture was completely different.  Different and not so encouraging.  Where the fighting occurred, there were no cheers, no kisses, no flowers, no joy.  The diaries, the letters, the censored and therefore never published dispatches, the intelligence reports all agree.  At best, the local folk, the French who cowered in fear as the bombs fell and the shells exploded, as their cities, towns, and villages were ground to dust by the white hot plow of war, were at best sullen, withdrawn, and anything but kindly predisposed to their "liberators."

The only reasons that armed resistance did not break out from the wells of local hostility were the lack of effective organization and, more importantly, the very high density of Allied personnel on the ground--some two million just before the breakout nearly two months after D-day.  Still, the anti-Allied sentiments were clear in attitudes and behavior alike across the ruins of Normandy.  The intelligence and civil affairs documents of the day make that obvious.

The joy of liberation sprang forth only in those areas of France and Belgium where there was no, or, at worst, minimal combat operations and concomitant damage and death.  Good feelings were directly proportionate to the lack of dead bodies and broken buildings.

Whether from pure ignorance or volitional misinterpretation, the Bush-Cheney neocon crew used a false analogy so neither the administration nor the military nor the American and world public were prepared for the instant outbreak of violence in the wake of the invasion.  There were no cheers.  No flowers tossed at the onrushing tanks.  No plethora of kissing.  There was a lot of looting.  A lot of shooting.  A lot of resistance both silently sullen and noisily hyperactive.

There was also a lot of local settling of old scores.  This aspect of the invasion and its aftermath could and should have been predicted on the basis of the World War II in France analogy.  The settling of assorted political scores, debts, vendettas poured swaths of blood the length and breadth of France.  This sanguinary effusion was well known at the time as it is by later generations of historians.  Only the Bush/Cheney crew seemed unaware of it with the result there were insufficient men and resources to deal quickly with the problems of "liberation."  The results of that are well known by all of us.

Bad analogy brought bad results.

But all the use of bad analogy does not exist on the American side of the hill.  It resides as well, for example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad commented during his recent Great American Tour that the US had never been involved in a "real war."  He opined that not even World War II, generally considered to be an excellent example of the breed, constituted a "real war."  The Ahmadinejad view of history and war has been echoed repeatedly by senior Iranian governmental and military officials over the past several years.  The constant refrain of Iranian military supremacy and an equivalent lack of American competence in the field can be amusing or infuriating in its unrealistic appraisals.  However, it is based on reasoning by analogy.

The prevalent Iranian understanding of war is predicated quite unsurprisingly on the Iraq-Iran War, which started thirty years ago.  To the Iranians, particularly those of Ahmadinejad's generation, this singularly bloody and inconclusive multi-year conflict is the paradigm of modern war.  The Iranians have produced a narrative of the war which celebrates their steadfastness, bravery, willingness to die, ability to accept fatalities unequalled since the brutal combat on the Eastern Front during World War II.  The narrative always concludes that the ability of Iranians to die in windrows and keep on fighting constitutes the strength of their nation and thus its ability to best the US or Israel or whoever.

The problem comes in that the analogy of the Iraq-Iran War is utterly, totally, and absolutely wrong.  The ground truth behind this evaluation is the simple fact that the war was not a modern war.  Rather it was a Medieval war fought with modern weapons.  This is a crucial distinction which renders the analogy fatally dangerous to the Iranian decision makers who rely upon it in making choices regarding the confrontation with the US and other Powers.

The Iraq-Iran War was Medieval in its essential nature.  There was no concept of strategy, operations, or tactics beyond that of hurling masses of poorly trained or completely untrained men in assaults on prepared positions.  In this respect the Iraq-Iran War was far below even the stereotyped and unsuccessful approaches to combat seen on the Western Front between November 1914 and early 1918.

Even the use of missiles during the so called "war of the cities" phase of the Iraq-Iran War did not differ from the use of trebuchets tossing corpses and incendiary payloads over the walls of fortified towns during Medieval campaigns.  There was no aspect of modern mobility, modern command, control, and communications, no correct coordination of movement and firepower.

In comparison, the battles of Crecy or Agincourt were modern.  At least these showed tactical and weapons employment features of a novel sort with the result the British won at low cost against a larger French force relying on outdated methods.

Ahmadinejad and company do not show any appreciation of the American way of war either in its classical sense as exhibited in World War II or even in Korea and Vietnam or in its more evolved form exhibited in both Iraq wars as well as in Afghanistan.  Ever since the mind altering experience of the War Between the States, the US has emphasized the expenditure of materiel over the sacrifice of American lives.

During World War II or Korea or even Vietnam, the US was willing and able to heave awesome amounts of lethal stuff down range if such would save American lives.  In these conflicts the US was relatively oblivious to collateral damage and civilian deaths--as the French in Normandy found out on and after 6 June 1944.  It was not that the US intentionally sought civilian collateral damage.  Rather, it was the technological limitations which precluded any true precision which might have spared lives and property.

The imperatives of changing international norms as well as realpolitik considerations in interventionary operations combined with a need to assure that every round fired had a maximum probability of scoring a first round kill to propel the development of ever more accurate weapons and munitions.  It is not that the US now wants to wage bloodless war, but the need to limit collateral damage while enhancing the potential of killing those in need of being killed have become preeminent.  The ideal weapon from the American perspective now is one which will kill the target first time, every time, without splattering any viscera on the "innocent" person standing at the target's shoulder.

The result is the capacity to inflict awesome devastation on a target.  Whatever must be hit will be hit.  And, if hit, will be obliterated (hopefully leaving enough DNA in the smear of protoplasm to allow identification).  Even hardened or mobile targets cannot escape engagement and obliteration.  A very great deal of money and brain power have been expended on assuring the ability to find, engage, and destroy even fleeting and intentionally elusive targets.  As much has been spent on developing means to penetrate hardened targets with non-nuclear munitions and pleasingly destructive effects.

Coupling this weapons and munitions approach with a highly evolved intelligence, command, control, and communication system gives the US a capacity to find, fix in place, and destroy targets which is hard to match and impossible to exceed.  This constellation along with the superb mobility and flexibility of US forces constitutes genuinely modern war.

While the Iranians may have progressed somewhat beyond the Tenth Century level of warfare, which constitutes their paradigmatic experience, there is no reason to assess their level of competence in modern war to be anywhere near that of the US or other civilized states.  As a result, any reasoning by analogy with the Iraq-Iran War will prove (literally) fatal to the Iranian regime.

Bad analogy brings bad results.  Or, should the Iranians insist on basing their calculus of defiance on their narrative, the results may as severe as the ending of Iran as a functioning state.

Oh, well, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.

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Iran And The Ghost Of Democracy

It has been a year since the government officials counting the vote in Iran reelected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second term as the country's president. This exercise in creative accounting not only proved famed political philosopher Joseph Stalin correct when he pontificated that the people casting ballots elected no one, that was done by the folks counting ballots, but also initiated a period of protest and repression which was longer than expected but not bloodier.

Amnesty International has released a comprehensive report on the repression portion of the protest-repression dyad. It makes for searing reading. It also constitutes a severe indictment of the Iranian regime and its bully boys. In addition, in the Amnesty International methodical documentation of the human consequences of the Iranian exercise in regime maintenance exists a charge of moral cowardice directed against the US and other Western governments.

The Obama administration generally and the president specifically have maintained a discrete distance from the dance of protest and suppression. This detached approach has been justified on a number of grounds. A firm stance in support of the pro-democracy factions would be counterproductive in that it would bolster the regime's claims that the opponents of Ahmadinejad and the mullahs were foreign puppets. Any measures taken against the Iranian regime would hurt the people we intended to assist. The US had to stay on message, had to focus on stopping the Iranian nuclear program regardless of any other consideration no matter how worthy.

All of these reasons (leaving aside any consideration of the lack of internal consistency) are superficially plausible. All make sense of a sort.

But the real deal exists on a more fundamental level. Any effective support of the pro-democracy elements of Iranian society (which, it must be noted includes members of the clerical ruling class) would automatically violate the imperatives of cultural relativism. This is not an inconsiderable fact given that Mr Obama and many of his "team" are strong adherents of the notion that no one cultural, social, political, or economic system is preferable to another. The president and others of his inner circle really believe that all political, social, economic, and cultural systems are ethically equivalent, and any value judgement which holds one to be "better" than another is the product of insensitivity, chauvinism, or xenophobia.

To take on the mullahs and their frontmen would demand that the US, as a matter of policy, declare that secular, pluralistic democracy is ethically superior to clerical rule, subverted elections, and the wholesale violation of human rights by the government of Iran. Any open, effective support for the dissidents in Iran would require that the US, as a matter of policy, hold that states and institutions produced by the European Enlightenment are inherently superior, hold a moral high ground in comparison to states and institutions produced by the Prophet and his successors.

That sort of thing has been, is, and will remain a definite no-no to people such as Mr Obama for whom cultural relativism is a species of revealed Truth. The only correct course of action open to a person who is a True Believer in the dictates of cultural relativism is expressing a sort of vague distaste for the violence associated with repression surrounded by a preternatural detachment which refuses all value judgments as unacceptable "privileging" of a specific outside political position.

So people die in Iran. So people scream in the torture cellars of Evan prison. So, even the graves of those murdered by the Thugs of the Koran are desecrated. Memories besmirched. Lives destroyed. Bodies mutilated.

Through it all the US, the current administration turns the other way, eyes carefully averted as if we were some thwacking great maiden aunt suddenly confronting a vulgar drunk on the steps of the church. Averting our collective vision not for any real world concern, any realpolitik goal, but simply due to the dictates of an intellectual fad of the moment.

A similar dynamic from the same root is at work in the refusal of Team Obama to name properly the enemy we confront daily not only in distant places but here at home. It is cultural relativism which denies us the right to name the threat which confronts us, the gangsters who menace us.

To call the enemy political Islam is to explicitly exalt other monotheistic religions over Islam. To call the people who try to kill us in Afghanistan or in Times Square, Muslims, is to contravene the requirements of cultural relativism as to do so holds Muslims as occupying an ethical niche inferior to those people who do not follow the strictures of Islam.

There is only one cause for the spineless American posture regarding the Iranian election. It is the same cause as underlies the gutless and brainless refusal to call the threat facing us and the rest of the West by its real name.

The cause is not, as is often alleged, "political correctness." That is simply one more convenient excuse for avoiding the truth.

The truth is simply that at the head of this nation there is a president afflicted by a very dangerous, even fatal mental virus. Other Americans of high rank or office have the same affliction. So do many in the elites of the media and academia. The president and all the others who think as he does have caught the same mind destroying disease.

The name of the disease is cultural relativism.

Unless and until the US government can get out from under the dead hand of cultural relativism the US will continue to fail to protect not only its own core interests but also the ambitions and goals of others who would be as we are--citizens of a republic who are still more free than not. In turn this means the US has surrendered its ancient and quite honorable calling to be the "city on a hill," a shining beacon of hope for all humankind.

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.

Eschatology And The Hidden Imam--And The US

The Geek is not a big fan of the Fox network's approach to news. Not that he has much brief with all the other television "news" sources either. However, this time kudos can go quite deservedly to the Mighty Murdoch Outlet.

Last Monday Fox news--and only Fox among American MSM--covered an important story from al Arabiya. In a characteristically rambling interview Iran's President and Orator-in-Chief, Ahmadinejad, stated he had "documentary evidence" proving the US was acting to prevent the return of the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi.

The importance of this small story lies not in its inherent absurdity but rather in the insight it provides regarding the world view of Ahmadinejad--and many others involved in the governing of Iran. Put quite simply the world view is eschatological in nature. That means it is focused not on the world and time as such currently exist but on the time after time, the world after the present world ends.

Eschatological world views are not the sole province of Shia believers. Nor is it the possession of Muslims alone. There exists a large number of Christians who share this "end times" view of life both present and future.

However, Christian Evangelicals do not possess nuclear weapons. Neither are they seeking to acquire this end-of-the-world capacity.

Yes, there is a strain of Jewish thought that might be characterized as end times oriented. There are Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox members of that faith who await the coming of the Messiah. Within this group there are a few who see the Messiah coming only as the world collapses in blood and destruction. It is, however, quite doubtful that this sort of mentality controls Israel's version of the Big Button, the mythical push-to-kill feature which would launch the Samson Option.

Things are quite different at the top levels of the Iranian semi-theocracy. Both Ahmadinejad and his mentor, Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi, (who is also a member of the very important Assembly of Experts), believe strongly in the coming of the Mahdi. More, they believe to the depths of their souls that human action can hasten the returning of the Hidden Imam.

Basically, the human actions which must be taken to hurry along the coming of the Mahdi fall in two categories. One of these is consolidating and expanding the theocratic hold on all Iranians. This implies the necessity of suppressing all internal dissent not simply because it is a threat to the political structure of the state but because it is inherently evil, the product of Satan.

The second task ordained by their "divine mission" comes under the rubric of "international." The Iranian president and his ilk use this precise term in ways which are not customary elsewhere in the world.

The "international tasks" imposed by the "divine mission" are oriented toward bringing about the Shia version of Apocalypse. The most common understanding of the return of the Hidden Imam focuses upon the necessity for widespread death and destruction. Death and destruction which centers on the Mideast.

To this end President Ahmadinejad and his fellow True Believers have provided assistance to terrorist groups in countries ranging from Lebanon to Yemen. They have fostered religiously based political violence in a host of states across the Arab and Muslim world. Lastly, but far from least important, they have pursued the acquisition of nuclear weapons with a singleness of purpose which would be laudable were it not so potentially dangerous.

Three years back the defense and intelligence communities warned the Bush/Cheney administration of the eschatological nature of the Iranian regime as well as the implications of this orientation for US policy. It is evident that these warning were not taken seriously by the Deep Thinkers and Great Strategists of the time.

It is equally evident that the current administration is equally unconcerned about the relationship between eschatological True Belief and our efforts to dissuade Tehran from seeking their own personal end-the-world-as-we-know-it capacity. A blunt ground truth is that mere diplomatic isolation, sanctions, and the rest of the panoply of coercion short of war will be quite counterproductive. The power of nations is nothing compared to the potency of a divine mission.

The more pressure is placed on Iran, the more intransigent the country's leadership will be. If Russia and China were to join the Western countries in a new round of sanctions, the results will be a further stiffening of Iranian resistance. In the eschatological world view, the opposition is not to be treated as a warning, a cautionary note, but rather as the plain indication that divine will is being tested.

Not even the threat of an Israeli attack will exercise a deterrent effect. If the coming of the Mahdi depends upon the Apocalypse, then an Israeli attack and its aftermath serves as well as one launched by the Great Satan. To the eschatologists of Iran the Apocalypse is not to be avoided but welcomed, not retarded but hastened.

To many in the US, the West generally, the power of True Belief, particularly a True Belief rooted in both the necessity and desirability of the world as we know it coming to a bloody end, is difficult to fathom. Almost impossible to accept. Our view of life, of international relations, of the way the world should operate, is predicated upon the supremacy of rationality.

That fervent faith in the power of reason is our legacy from the Reformation and the generations which followed it. Our faith in the power of reason seems to have been recurrently justified by the accomplishments of Western science, technology, even politics and economics. We are all that we are today--wealthy, free, advanced in our toys and necessities alike--because reason has triumphed.

Yet there are other forms of reason. The rationality of the eschatological True Believer is not one which is warped. Neither is it the product of delusion. The desire for the Mahdi, the "divine mission" of seeking the early return of the Hidden Imam, is not divorced from reason.

Rather, the foundation truth with which we must deal is that the rationality of Ahmadinejad and others like him come from predicates different from ours. They grow rationality from a set of axioms not found widely in the West these past several centuries, but that does not make them any less powerful, any less real, any less of a threat.

If anything the different axioms make for a result far more risky for the world.

Go Ahead, Kick Iran While It's Down

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY in Geneva. Tomorrow the P5+1 meet with the representatives of Iran. So far the Obama administration--and the President himself--seem all too willing to schmooze rather than confront the mullahs and their frontmen.

All too many times over the past several months--even after the debacle of the June elections and their aftermath--the President and his people seem convinced that Iran is a monolith, a giant which must be approached with great care and only after the performance of required rituals designed to placate the menace.

The truth is that Iran--or at least the Dreadful Duo of Ayatollah Khemenei and the wooden dummy on his lap, Ahmedinejad--are clinging to power only by the threat of force. Senior clerics have faced down the "Supreme Guide" even on such matters as the end date of Ramadan. The opposition continues to flourish even under the guns and clubs of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basiji.

The fault planes which have shown their existence before have shifted with much greater force and duration. The shift is to the disadvantage of the regime.

The Iranians have stated they desire a broad ranging discussion of numerous issues. The goal, according to Ahmedinejad, is to test the political good will of the US. Fine. Take them at their word--but make the agenda one of our own creation.

Start off with an examination of Iran's human rights record in recent weeks, months, and years. Go over it chapter and verse--and go public with all the details. The Iranians have not been overly successful in hiding their capacity for internal brutality, so the sordid facts are available even without a Burn-Before-Reading level security clearance.

Then, go on with a detailed examination of Iran's contribution to world or regional peace. It is worth taking a close and lingering look at Iran's peacemaking role with such noble humanitarian organizations as Hezbollah and Hamas. Or, as an additional feature, the efforts made by Tehran to establish peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, including their foreign aid efforts such as the provision of explosives, weapons, explosively formed penetrators, and other goodies to assorted gunslinging jihadists in both countries.

Of course, even the stooges from Tehran must admit that the whole arena of nuclear weapons proliferation is part of the big picture they say they must discuss in order to test American good faith and will. While it might be necessary for the Great Satan to take a backseat to the more robust French and Germans, the name of the game remains: Iran is an outlaw state.

Sure, the Russians and, even more, the Chinese will protest such a harsh characterization. Still, it remains the accurate and honest characterization of the mullahocracy. And, it will remain such as long as the Dreadful Duo remain in charge.

It might not be out of the question to hint at the potential of regime change. Sure, the Iranians will howl like a collection of stuck pigs and China may well join in the chorus. So what? The opposition Green Movement has made it clear that it shares the concerns of the civilized world regarding the Iranian "Mahdi Bomb." The Green Movement does have a shot at replacing the deeply discredited current regime--and deserves Western assistance in so doing.

The test for the Dreadful Duo is whether they will do anything to stay in power. So far, as long as the "anything" that needs be done is restricted to coercion, suppression, violence, and show trials, they have done just that. The nitty-gritty is whether or not they are willing finally to capitulate to Western demands on the nuclear matter in order to avoid Western support for regime change.

The risk is not that great. If the regime in Tehran decides that even veiled hints of regime change, of Western assistance to the Green Movement, are no more than bluff and calls it, the result is no more fraught with peril than is allowing the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons.

Real sanctions might work. Who knows, they have yet to be tried. Real sanctions will hurt both the regime and the Iranian people. The net effect, though, given the events of the post-stolen election period, will be a strengthening of the opposition and a further erosion of the regime's perceived legitimacy. The sanctions alone might put the regime so far on the ropes that only an eleventh hour agreement to the terms dictated by the West will save their slipping hold on power.

The US and the far more realistic and tough-minded French and--who would have thought--Germans have two goals in the Geneva talks. The overriding one is the ending of the emerging nuclear threat. The other, and far more important in the longer run, is regime change.

Rather than acting as if we are afraid of the Big, Bad Mullahs, we should go ahead and kick the regime right where it hurts. The Dreadful Duo is down--but not quite out. The task is that of finishing them for once and all as the blot on humanity--and Islam--which they are.

Sometimes It All Kind Of Gets You Down

The "all" in this case is the sheer mass of hypocrisy, mendacity, naivety, and ideological blindness proliferating in the global politics arena. Admittedly, all of these less than desirable features of the human condition are and always have been rife in the human condition--including the relations between states and pretenders to statehood--but the quantity has reached totally astonishing proportions.

Leading the mendacity list today is the sermon on radio marking the end of Ramadan given by Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. In his view the US knows perfectly well that it is lying when it alleges the mullahocracy is pursuing nuclear weapons. As is customary in such matters, the ayatollah hid behind the scrim of Islamic religious tenets, averring that possession of nukes would contravene the word of the Prophet. Of course, Khamenei conveniently ignored the Approved By Islam doctrine of lying to protect believers and the belief from infidel inflicted harm.

The ayatollah did hint at some possible slackening in the persecution of anti-Ahmedinejad demonstrators, but his support for the Master Of Mendacity did not relax in the slightest. The "re-elected" Orator-in-Chief holds a tie for Blatant Lie of the Week with his well-rehearsed denial of the Holocaust as a "myth" and a fiction created by the West in order to foist the "Zionist Entity" on the Arab Mideast. The Ahmedinejad version of history was so blatantly false that even the European Union--not noted for its unquestioning support of Israel--joined the US, the UK, and even the original home of the pogrom, Russia, in denouncing it. The Swedish president of the EU did the job even though his native country has had problems over anti-Semitic publications based on falsehoods recently.

Muslims--Islamist jihadists, to err on the side of accuracy--also head the list in the hypocrisy department albeit indirectly. The venue is the geographic expression dubbed "Somalia," but the hypocrites are not the al-Shabaab gun slingers and suicide bombers. Not this time. This time the Hypocrite of the Week Award goes to the UN and the African Union.

The reason for the award is simply the title given the personnel sent to Somalia under the rubric of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM.) These unfortunate souls are termed "peacekeepers." Given that there is no peace to keep in the bloody sands of Somalia, the term is singularly inapposite. Calling the troops from Uganda and Burundi "targets" or "bomb catchers" would be accurate, but the name "peacekeeper" is as wrong as calling a T-bone steak a watermelon.

Of course it is equally hypocritical to call the the UN created Transitional Federal Government in Somalia a "government." A body appointed by foreigners which controls only a small section of the "capital" and a slice of two of nearby desert is scarcely a government. It may be a convenient fiction of the "international community" or even a government-in-waiting, but it is certainly not a functioning entity exercising sovereign control of a territory and a people.

The recent al-Shabaab suicide bombing of an AMISOM base using purloined UN vehicles should give the word to both the UN and the AU. The US and other parties which have played a role in Somalia had best heed the word as well.

The word is simple. Accept that al-Shabaab exercises de facto control and stop the fiction of the Transitional Federal Government or go for the alternative. The alternative is one that no state, let alone supra-national bodies, wish to consider. The alternative is to go into Somalia in force and destroy al-Shabaab. Go into Somalia in force and impose peace. Only then can the peace be kept.

The third option, the option currently being pursued by the outsiders is to hope that the TFG can be kept in some twilight existence long enough that foreign trainers and foreign supplies might pump life into a new Somalian national force capable of suppressing al-Shabaab and other Islamist jihadist groups. So far the third option has shown little probability of ultimate success, but at least it limits non-Somali casualties.

Naivety blooms in the Obama administration's proposed Security Council resolution on nuclear non-proliferation. It demonstrates a touching faith in the efficacy of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), related conventions, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to prevent states from joining the ever-expanding Nuclear Club. More, the draft resolution, which will be on the table when President Obama chairs the Security Council meeting during his star turn at the Tower of Babel By The Hudson, exhibits an overly great faith in the willingness of states to renounce their own economic and political interests by enforcing provisions of the new expansion of the NPT.

For example, should Iran either be found in violation of any of the provisions of the NPT, or should it withdraw from the NPT, Russia would be required to remove the nuclear reactor and other equipment sold to Iran prior to the declaration of violation or the country's withdrawal from the treaty. The same would be required of other countries whose businesses sold single or dual use equipment employed by Iran in any of its nuclear activities--even those arguably permitted by the NPT.

That will happen on the same day the Geek looks out and sees a whale majestically flying with the hawks over the canyon outside his windows. Can we say, "Naive?"

In principle the draft resolution is fine. It looks good on paper. It reads better than most UNSC gibberish. But...

It is as Bismarck famously quipped, "a piece of paper." A treaty to be observed as long as necessary and ignored whenever convenient--provided ignoring can be done without undue penalty.

Iran has shown a fine ability to ignore assorted Security Council and other pieces of paper without inordinate consequences. It will be able to do so as long as enforcement of agreements relies upon the collective action of nations each of which follows the dictates of its own self-defined national and strategic interests.

If Iran is run by a government which is rational no matter how radical its rhetoric and some of its actions might be, there is no great additional danger presented to either the region or the world by its joining the Nuclear Club. Pakistan has done so without any great perturbation of either regional or global political order.

Sure, the existence of weapons grade fissile materials in Pakistan gives rise to legitimate anxiety regarding its security from the grasping fingers of Islamist jihadist groups. The same would be true in the case of Iran. However, that threat is far more manageable than would be the aftermath of attacks on the Iranian nuclear complex and related targets.

In any event the draft resolution which President Obama will present is no particular threat--as long as no one actually believes it will have any real world impact. The problem comes in that diplomats tend to think that what they do in the shuffling, presenting, and voting on pieces of paper has a real world effect. They are so invested in the process of diplomacy, of achieving some sort of result on paper, that they overlook the actual outcome of the process and its effects on the behavior of states in the real world of power politics.

The otherworldliness of diplomats has its place. As long as your life does not depend on it.

Comes now the subject of ideological blindness. The cause of ideological astigmatism this time is the Obama administration's cancelling of the land-based ABM system in Central Europe. There has been an outpouring of opposition to this. Most of it is misplaced in its basis.

While the cancellation may be questioned as to its diplomatic import on US relations with the countries on Russia's western frontier, it is not, in and of itself, a capitulation to Russian demands. Nor have have the Russians seen it this way as is illustrated by their modest response to it--the decision not to deploy Iskander missiles on the Polish border.

The original decision by the Bush/Cheney administration to deploy the land-based system was itself faulty on several levels. The first was the length of time necessary to reach initial operational capability (IOC). The second was simply that the system was inherently inflexible. The third was the effect it had on Russian paranoia.

The proposed replacement is technologically superior, takes less time to reach IOC, and has built in flexibility. Being sea-based it takes advantage of American superiority in maritime technology and the inherent flexibility that using the sea confers. Tactically, the use of sea-based systems provides a capacity for defending the defense which is absent in fixed base systems. Politically, the use of the sea avoids the unpleasant necessity to rely upon and periodically stroke the governments of host countries.

Far from weakening the American capacity to credibly defend Europe, the Mideast, and, eventually, the CONUS itself, the dropping of the Central European option in favor of a maritime one strengthens it. At the same time, going back to sea eliminates the factor of political winds from disturbing defense systems--a not inconsiderable factor given the potential for radical political change which is resident in many of the Central European states.

Paradoxically, considering the charges of abject surrender to the Russians, the beefing up of naval ABM capacities has the extra effect of providing additional defensive capabilities against a Russian short- or mid-range missile attack on either Europe or the Mideast. As the maritime systems evolve in the next few years, it may even provide an additional complication for any Russian planner contemplating an attack on the US.

Reflexive accusations of "surrender," of "weakening" the US come easy to those who automatically oppose any initiative offered by the Obama administration. Considering all of the really, really bad ideas which have issued from the current administration in the foreign policy realm, it is easy to see how attractive automatic opposition may be. In this case it is not--except as regards the impact on the diplomatic center of gravity as seen from Central Europe.

There have been many other examples of hypocrisy, mendacity, naivety, and ideological blindness this past week or so. The above have been only the cream of the slime on the top of the pond.

More than that the Geek could not take. He is a sensitive soul.

Disengaged "Engagement" With Iran

The Obama administration has been and remains dedicated to a policy of "engagement" with the mullahs of Iran. Yet, given its stance not only on the stolen election of 12 June but its lengthy aftermath of protests, arrests, torture, murder, and, now, a three part series of show trials, one must wonder just what the word "engagement" means around the White House and Foggy Bottom.

As horrifying tales of torture, rape, and murder leak out around the edges of the Koran Curtain surrounding the Islamic Republic of Iran, the silence thunders on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the not-too-distant quarters of Hillary Clinton and the State Department. Even Joe Biden who is normally quick with the lip has been singularly quiet.

Some kind of "engagement," ain't it, bucko?

Oh, there were a few soothing, ambiguous words out of SecState Clinton during her eleven day safari through Africa. But, these amounted to nothing more than boiler plate tropes. There was no bite. No indignation. No condemnation. No "engagement."

Even Ronald Reagan during his period of "constructive engagement" with South Africa was willing to say negative things about some of the more outrageous actions of the white minority regime. Way back when, long before the Nice Young Man From Chicago was born (or that matter the much older Secretary of State either), Franklin Roosevelt, the paragon of the Democratic Party actually, really, honest-to-gosh, for sure, criticised Soviet dictator Joe Stalin for the purges, death camps, and show trials which decorated his reign. Can you believe it? Engagement--and negative at that.

Dwight Eisenhower went more than a tad negative over the show trials and executions which marked the beginnings of the Castro period in Cuba. JFK did the same. Golly, the historical record is replete with examples of American presidents and secretaries of state staking out firm ethical positions regarding the perceived wrongs committed by governments with which the US stood in opposition.

US presidents and secretaries of state have criticised, even strongly condemned, the actions of governments even as we sought to establish or maintain a diplomatic gavotte with them. No matter how much the US might have needed to do a deal with a country, no president, no secretary of state, no administration before that headed by President Obama has failed to take and maintain a strongly enunciated stance when a government has violated norms and values espoused by the United States.

Admittedly, President Obama has opened a new chapter in American diplomacy with his emphasis upon cringing apologies for presumed wrongs committed in the past. Sometimes, as in his reference to Operation AJAX in the course of his Cairo Address, the cringing is so extreme as to violate historical reality. But, he is evidently not one to allow mere historical (or any other form of) truth to get in the way of servile supplication for forgiveness for wrongs never inflicted in the (vain) hope of gaining cooperation from the unwilling in return.

FDR did not let Krystalnacht go by unmentioned, uncondemned. Nor did Harry Truman allow the Soviet excesses of repression slip by without a word. JFK was not given to ignoring the violations of human rights and democracy pass him by without being acknowledged with pejorative (and occasionally salty) comment. Ike even took allies to task for actions contrary to the norms of civilized behavior as in the Sinai War of 1956.

The list goes on through every president, every secretary of state. Until now. Until the Obama Ascendancy.

Mealy mouthed responses to the actions of the reactionary mullahs and their accomplices in wholesale violations of human rights, democratic processes, and judicial procedures are not only out of keeping with the American tradition. The weak-kneed stance of the Obama administration is not pragmatically sanctioned. If the president and his foreign policy team expects that their disengaged, more-than-merely-arm's-length reaction to the mullahocracy will result in some movement toward a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear weapons contretemps, the whole crew has its collective head in an anatomically improbable location.

Considering that the actions of the reactionary clerics in Tehran have proven so reprehensible as to result in evident seismic splits in the clerical ranks generally, the expectation that a tolerant US position on the election and its aftermaths will result in "let's make a deal" is completely unsupportable by the realities. The totalistic reactionaries from Ayatollah Khamenei to "President" Ahmedinejad do not understand tolerance, acceptance, understanding as anything other than weakness--the weakness of surrender.

There is a time and place for the tough line. There is a time and a place for the firm, consistent stance in support of fundamental principles.

Now is the time. Iran is the place.

While the Bush/Cheney administration might have been terribly ill-advised with the invasion of Iraq, it did scare the dickens out of the mullahs. The so-called "grand bargain" might have been a myth and Iran might plausibly have already solved the problems of the physics package for their nascent nuclear weapons program, but the reality is that the mullahs were frightened enough to make exploitable offers of cooperation to the US.

Fear has a powerful capacity to focus the mind. For a few months following the invasion of Iraq the mullahs were afflicted with sufficient fear to provide an opportunity for American diplomacy. It is to be regretted that the Bush administration did not use the brief window of opportunity. The fine military historian Edward Luttwak pointed out recently in the WSJ that the opportunity was forsaken needlessly and would not come again absent an equal application of fear in Tehran.

To be "engaged" requires an ear willing and able to listen. Right now that ear is absent. It will not return unless and until the Iranian regime is given a good reason to do so.

That means the time is now, right now, to crank up the fear machine. If the Obama administration is serious, if the president is honest about policy, the Iranians must not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons. Given that they are not far from that goal (how far is a matter of debate between people of equally good will) the mullahs must be made to focus their minds. They must be scared again.

This means drop the cringing. Stop the disengaged stance on the vile actions of the mullahs and their ilk. It means stop bemoaning our military weakness, our inability and unwillingness to send more men, more weapons, more ships, more planes, to the far corners of the world in support of policy. It means taking a very strong, very well articulated and quite consistent stance against the current Iranian regime and its actions. It means openly (and covertly) supporting the opposition. It means drawing a firm line in the sand and letting the Iranians know the precise consequences which will result should they cross the line.

It means taking risks. Very real, very large risks. It even means, (say it ain't so) putting the Great Agenda For Transformation at risk.

It means both talking the talk and walking the walk.

It is either that or abject surrender of our core values, principles and, potentially, national and strategic interests to a collection of reactionary True Believers.

That's the choice. It isn't pretty. It isn't nice. It isn't pleasant to contemplate. But, the way in which the choice is made will have massive and continued impact on the future of the US and the world. It is President Obama's call.

The question is simple: Is the Nice Young Man From Chicago both tough enough and smart enough to make it?

One can be forgiven for shuddering over the probable answer.

Congratulations, President Ahmadinejad!

It couldn't happen to a more deserving sort of guy. Kisses, bright blooms in yellow, big smiles--and empty seats in the audience. What a start for the second term as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Wow!

Making Ahmadinejad's inauguration even sweeter must have been the White House's official media flack, Robert Gibbs, calling the Orator-in-Chief, "the elected leader." This is more than previous administrations have done when perversions of election have been employed to sanitize the assumption of public office. This is definitely an honor for Mr Ahmadinejad.

And, to really start off the Ahmadinejad second term in fine style, Iran has three, count them, three honest-to-Allah American hostages. This out performs North Korea, which only managed to snatch two of the highly desirable bargaining commodity.

Perhaps the re-elected(?) president hopes to emulate Kim Jong-il. Mayhaps he entertains happy visions of "private citizen" Bill Clinton jetting in to have a few hours happy talk and then depart with the "pardoned" US spies.

What a way to start off the old second term: Fantasies of secret high-level, back channel talks with senior US diplomats leading to an agreement. You send us one former American president and we give you three captives.

Great photo op. Great chance to create speculation that this shake-grin-and-pardon dynamic will lead to further diplomatic exchanges. Great way to buy more time as the centrifuges spin merrily along.

Even if the dream does not become reality, President Ahmadinejad has one thing going for him. Iran is probably close enough to having break out capacity that there is no need to worry about the very remote possibility of the US orchestrating the ever-rumored "crippling" sanctions.

The highest probability is that Iran will possess a rudimentary but diplomatically effective nuclear arsenal by this time next year. The Hillary Clinton "defense umbrella" statement is virtual confirmation that the US National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 was based on a false predicate.

The correct predicate as has been hinted at by recent European estimates is that the Iranian technicians developed and tested (without fissionable materials) the "physics package" for an implosion type uranium bomb by the time the US invaded Iraq. That, more than fear of the US doing the same to Iran, caused the suspension of the active R&D effort pending the availability of sufficient weapons grade uranium.

Since there is no indication the Obama administration is willing to run the risks which attend automatically upon the employment of the "military option," there is no reason to believe that Iran is going to remain a nuclear-free zone much longer. With sanctions irrelevant and the use of force unrealistic, the only remaining option is the acceptance of Iran as a very junior member of the Global Nuke Club. Kind of gives the shivers, doesn't it?

Of course, Mr Ahmadinejad has ambitions beyond presiding over the creation of the "Mahdi" bomb. He is possessed of global ambition. On Ahmadinejad's first watch Iran made strenuous efforts to penetrate the Horn of Africa from Djibouti to Tanzania. Not content with outflanking the Gulf States, Statesman Ahmadinejad has pursued a love match with Hugo Chavez too well known to deserve comment. This (perhaps) folie a deux has been complemented with flirtation directed at Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

One must never overlook the blushing successes of Ahmadinejad's version of diplomacy in the heart of the Mideast. The relation with Syria. The proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. The prongs of subversion in the Gulf. And on, and on. It has been a sort of mirror image of the "pactomania" which typified the days of John Foster Dulles fifty years and more ago.

Then there has been the big event, backroom relations with China and, to a slightly lesser extent, Russia. These, in turn, have protected Iran's connection with fellow rogue state, North Korea, which has so often served so well as a stalking horse for Tehran.

All in all, Mr Ahmadinejad has crafted a lofty inverted pyramid of diplomatic and economic relations balanced on the thin point of revolutionary Islamist ideology buttressed by terror, subversion, oil revenues, and case hardened intransigence. A magnificent edifice of threat and bluster with little to support it beyond a will and ability to go nuclear, risk civilian lives, employ terror without end, and sheer effrontery.

So much for the upside of the Years of Ahmadinejad and his patron, protector, and soulmate, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. Now for the termite riddled foundation.

Ahmadinejad may not last his second term. The population of Iran in large part is both restive and sullen, freighted with distrust and disillusion. The opposition has been inefficiently and incompletely suppressed. Fear, not affection nor widely perceived legitimacy sustains the reactionary mullahs and their secular kinsmen in power.

The mullahs themselves are more openly and deeply split between pro- and anti-Khamenei factions than has been the case previously. Not even the Revolutionary Guard is immune to the effects of both the split and the dynamics of personalism which color so much of Shia Iranian institutions. Certainly the Iranian regular army and police have already shown the effects of the divisions within; the Revolutionary Guard is not far behind.

The economy is in the tank. Inflation and unemployment are in a neck-to-neck race to see which can reach lunar orbit heights first. Un- and underemployment have hit the educated urban youth the hardest. No future and a lot of time to think about it on the part of people young enough not to be risk averse has been the ruination of previous centralised regimes. Iran is not immune to this.

Much of Ahmadinejad's base of support is bought and paid for. His version of Islamist populism does not come free--or even cheap. If the promised goodies do not keep flowing, the ranks of the discontented, disaffiliated, and potentially violent will grow.

Further growth of unrest will necessitate further repression. Repression must finally be bloody. Given the martyrdom oriented values which permeate Shia generally and recent Iran in specific, the dynamic is martyrdom breeds more martyrdom. In short, the regime may find itself killing its way not to victory but to defeat.

Ahmadinejad may be able to crow about Iran's "Mahdi" bomb within the next twelve months, but the Iranian people will discover an unpleasant truth or two. They will find out that money spent on bombs and delivery systems is money not spent on economic development. They will discover that atomic bombs do not provide nourishment, jobs, longer lives, better lives, international respect, or even absence of fear.

Most of all, the Iranians, the whole long-suffering lot of them, will be hit in the face with the hard fact that the ambitions of True Believers--of Khamenei, of Ahmadinejad, of those who circle around the center of power--are based upon the misery, fear, and blood of the people in general. They will find out the leaders--from the Grand Ayatollah on down--do not give a dessicated camel turd for the commonweal of the common Iranian.

When that happens, no matter how many the Basji and Revolutionary Guard might kill, the edifice Ahmadinejad and Khamenei built will fall. And fall fast. And fall hard.

It will be like what happened in the Democratic Republic of Germany when the hoi polloi discovered how the leaders lived, how they exploited faith and folk. Here, seemingly secure in power now and forever. A day later, gone, dead, buried in the rubble of the Wall.

Hope Versus Reality In Iran (and the US)

Following the events on the streets of Tehran and other cities in Iran is exciting, frustrating and, ultimately, tinged with sadness. It is apparent that many of those involved in confronting the mullahocracy want more, much more than a replay of the election.

The beautifully ambiguous chant, "down with the dictator," shows the ambitions of many extend far beyond simply replacing the mouthpiece-of-the-regime, Ahmedinejad, with a kinder, gentler, nicer sort of chap who would still toe the foreign policy line established by the Grand Ayatollah Khemenei. People are more willing to face clubs and bullets when their goal is large than when it is limited, small.

Opposition icon Moussavi has reportedly said he is willing to accept "martyrdom." This is the necessary prerequisite for political success in Iran--if the goal is more than simply to prevail in a disputed election. It is conceivable that Moussavi is playing a cynical game--his call for a general strike is redolent of self-preservation--but it is within the realm of possibility that the hard line prime minister of years gone by has been transformed by recent events into something more than a politico genuflecting to the GA and his coterie.

Perhaps Moussavi has found himself to be the sort of "transformational" figure for Iran that President Obama's flacks trumpet him to be. One might hope that Moussavi has found within himself greater depths and strengths than he had ever thought before.

From the dynamic apparent in the videos and tweets out of Iran, it is clear that more than a few of Iran's younger, more affluent, better educated, and, withal, alienated citizens see this transformational potential in Moussavi. For them, Moussavi is no longer a politician, he is a symbol, an icon of the change they so desperately hope may come.

The brutal, historically documented truth is that reality trumps hope. In Iran the reality is that the regime has the guns and, potentially, the will to use them. Today the minions of the mullahs, the cops, the vigilantes of the Basji used clubs, water cannons, tear gas and genuine, fer sure, lethal bullets to break up the demonstrations in Tehran.

The Basji, which is comprised of the same sort of mentalities as was the Nazi SA, is a reliable crew of sadistic thugs drawn from the margins of Iranian society. Formed back during the existential war with Iraq, the Basji has proved its reliability and importance to regime maintenance over the intervening twenty years. Today, it is the least politically risky force for the GA and his fellow turban-topped, Koran-thumpers to use against the Iranians in opposition.

Should the Basji prove insufficient, the mullahs can order up the Revolutionary Guard. This organ of state is a very good approximation of the Nazi SS at its height. Utterly loyal to the regime, completely dedicated to the preservation of the status quo, and very well armed, trained, equipped, and indoctrinated, the Revolutionary Guard can be depended upon to gun down their fellow citizens in wholesale lots without a qualm should they be directed to do so.

Like the SS or the KGB of the final decades of the Soviet Union, the Revolutionary Guard is virtually a state within the state. The continuation of the RG (to say nothing of the lives and power of the individual officers and men) stands upon maintaining the current regime in full, unquestioned dominance. The mullahocracy (and the rest of the world) can and does bet its collective bippy on the Revolutionary Guard doing its (killing) job.

Martyrdom is the way of Shia. Martyrdom was the key to the Islamic Revolution thirty years ago. It was central to Iran's strategy during the Iraq-Iran War. A little martyrdom, too little martyrdom inflicted upon the opposition will create more opposition. Sufficient martyrdom, the sort that would be inflicted by the Revolutionary Guard and perhaps even the amateurs of the Basji, will drown the opposition in its own blood.

No one should underrate the will of the mullahocracy to keep itself in power. It is clear the GA and his fellows are feeling nervous. It is equally evident that they fear that the opposition in the streets entertains ambitions transcending the removal of their chosen public image, Ahmedinejad. They see the long range target as their theocratic rule and not the political and international figurehead.

The desperate, rapidly shifting diversionary efforts of Khemenei are evidence of this. First he and his cronies blamed the outrage in the streets on "American meddling." The next day the GA announced that "Britain is enemy number one," as he reached far back in Iranian history to grab the magic of evil Albion and its agent the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Most recently, Khemenei went to the Islamist default position and placed responsibility for the demonstrations on the "Zionist controlled media."

(One might be forgiven for wishing that Allah could give His Representative in Qom the right story the first time.)

As history has shown repeatedly, desperate, fearful regimes engage in desperate actions. Like the possibility of mass slaughter such as to put Tienanmen Square deep in the shadows. The Chinese government killed in the hundreds. If massacre comes to Tehran it will be in the thousands.

The bloodletting at Tienanmen was carried out in the hours of darkness as shameful acts should be. The media were not there. Could not be there. The mullahs will not be so fortunate if they order the cancel button be pushed on the opposition. Twenty years has wrought such a transformation that the images and words of those about to butchered will flash around the world nearly instantaneously. The mullahs cannot hope to prevent that--unless they shut down the Internet and cell phone service completely.

Such a blackout would signal their intentions with certainty. The world will know what is contemplated before it happens.

So far, the Obama administration has played the game cautiously and well. It has properly and prudently left public expressions of condemnation up to the Congress and individual Americans. The President is correct when he avers that any posturing by the administration would harm the efforts of the opposition by allowing the mullahs to portray it as an American tool.

This will change with the speed of light if the mullahs in their fear and desperation order the Basji or, worse, the Revolutionary Guard into bloody action.

At that moment the whole world will be watching. It will not be watching Tehran so much as it will turn to Washington, D.C. expecting the American president to do what American presidents have been expected to do for the past sixty some years. Lead.

That's right. Lead. Tell us, show us, what you and by example the rest of us should do now.

Iranians Are SO Boring

Here they come again! The bravos of bluster out of Tehran. Frothing threats and flailing with words, the talking heads of the mullahocracy are out to scare us--again.

(For the whole deal you can take a look at, http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-24/0806254400112829.htm or the Fars News Agency (assuming you want to keep with the Iranian perspective at http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8704050745 or from the folks at CNN there is, http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/25/iran.nuclear/)

The most recent blather is fired by Majlis Speaker (and former nuclear negotiator) Ali Larijani. His salvo of dire predictions included an echo of International Atomic Energy Authority chief Mohammed AlBaredi's warning that a military strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities would ignite a "ball of fire."

The hardline opponent of the current Orator-in-Chief went on with a dire warning. "There is little chance for interaction. You have reached the final minutes of your defeated game."

Oh, really?

There are problems galore in the US, in the West, but they ain't nothing compared to what you and your fellows in Tehran are facing. (In case these have eluded your keen eye, Speaker Larijani, they include hyper-inflation, negative growth, capital flight and an ever escalating unemployment rate.)

None of these difficulties will be solved by the new round of enhanced sanctions imposed by the European Union. Perhaps you know that Mr Larijani. Or, perhaps, like your political foe, Ahmendinejad, you think the Hidden Imam or the upcoming Mahdi will pull your collective nuts out of the fire of your making.

Consider this fine piece of thinking--

Larijani also criticized big powers for sending a package of proposals to Iran on one hand and imposing new financial restrictions against the country, on the other.
"If you are willing to hold talks with Iran over the proposed package then why you have adopted a confrontational approach before the package was studied."

Well, duh, maybe because the Iranian response to the P5+1 proposals reeked of taqiyya to say nothing of the fine old game of stall, stall, stall. Keep 'em talking while we keep our centrifuges spinning.

Speaker, it is simple. Even an ideologue such as yourself ought to be able to get a grip on this reality: If you don't grab at the carrot, you're going to get a bash from the stick.

The Speaker offered the Iranian version of carrot-and-stick. After nearly breaking his arm patting his back for the Iranian proposal to have wide ranging (that is to say completely unfocused) discussions on a lengthy list of issues, Larijani grabbed the stick. Waved it,

"Do not add to the cost you should pay with making wrong assessments." Or so IRNA quoted the Speaker. A few moments later, Larijani clarified his meaning. "You know that your wrong strategies in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan have borne not fruit, but hatred. The little chance for interaction with Iran requires rational and constructive signs."

Let's examine that statement for a second. The mullahocracy, as Larijani damn well knows, supported the US led take-down of Taliban. The mullahocracy, again as Larijana must personally remember, reacted to the US invasion of Iraq with an outreached hand proposing talks, cooperation and other goodies. He also must know from personal experience that the mullahs ordered a (temporary perhaps) stand-down of the nuclear weapons program as noted by the National Intelligence Estimate released late last year.

That leaves Lebanon. Considering that the primary mixers and troublemakers in that long unsettled country are Iran's good buddy, Syria, and client, Hezbollah, the question of success or failure, love or hatred can't be answered in the US or the EU but only in Tehran.

The US and Western view of Iran's nuclear ambitions has been "rational and constructive." The combinations of sanctions and offered inducements have been "rational and constructive."

The problem does not rest with the West, with the US, with the EU, or even with Israel. The problem comes with Iran. With Iran's actions. With Iran's rhetoric. With Iran's policies.

None of these are both "rational and constructive." All are, in the words of an early giant of the Cold War, George Kennan, "primitive and unconstructive."

Iran, The Bomb and The Candidates

George W. Bush brought the matter of Iranian nuclear ambitions back out of the closet during his speech last week to the Israeli parliament. Apparently he continues to think that the Iranians are up to something icky-poo in that area and believes something should be done about it.

That's nice.

The question of what might or should be done was not addressed by the Decider Guy.

Neither has it been addressed meaningfully by any of the senatorial trio seeking electoral preferment.

We the People know the following. One candidate, Senator Obama, would go the route of negotiations backed by incentives--including a summit meeting without preconditions. The second, Senator Clinton, would go with negotiations and incentives albeit at the sub-cabinet level until fundamental agreement had been achieved. Finally, Senator McCain eschews negotiations beyond those necessary to lower Iranian involvement in the Iraqi War and would employ sanctions to achieve an end to unacceptable Iranian nuclear programs.

Those platitudinous adumbrations fail to impress the Geek. They should fail to impress anyone well oriented as to time and place as well.

The Iranians and their nuclear ambitions are not going to just evaporate no matter how hard any of us might wish they would. The mullahocracy is not going to have a sudden change of heart and mind.

They are going to need an effective kick in their collective rear end to mend their troublemaking ways. Perhaps a hard kick.

Now, don't go thinking that the Geek has joined up with the neocon ninnies and their hallucination of improving the world through force imposed regime change. He hasn't.

The Iranians have already preempted the next offer of inducements by the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, PRC and Germany) by their letter to EU negotiator Solana and UN SecGen Ban Ki-moon. In it the Tehran regime allows that it might join an international consortium provided that its domestic enrichment program goes on as scheduled. With an arrogance that is breathtaking, the letter goes on to demand that any discussions also consider a remarkable range of irrelevant matters including the Balkans, the Mideast, Africa and Latin America!

The Geek is of the opinion that had the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on gay marriages a few days earlier, the Iranian letter would have placed that on the agenda as well.

The EU in its attempts to show Washington how real diplomats do the job has offered Tehran train loads of carrots with the results best illustrated by Iranian progress in deploying more improved centrifuges in their enrichment cascade. With this reality establishing the context, it is easy to see why the Tehran regime exhibited such intransigence and arrogance in their letter.

Senators Obama and Clinton, particularly the former, should think long and hard over the experience of the European Union before embracing inducement based negotiations.

In addition that Nice Young Man From Chicago, B.H. Obama, might take a cold hard look at the personality of the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Leaving aside Ahmadinejad's jeremiads against Israel, attention might be given to the Iranian Chief Executive's statements regarding the direct involvement of the Twelfth Imam in the daily actions of the government (a position rejected by many clerics in the mullahocracy) or his comment that his country's economic problems might be solved if more Iranians followed a "culture of martyrdom." Whatever that might mean.

Check out one Western account of the call for martyrdom from the French press agency, a good source, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jelVVHDZfukEAiK80qF88B6Q1Tpg.

On balance, Ahmadinejad gives the impression of being off balance.

To date the various rounds of sanctions imposed by the UN and followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by countries and companies around the world have hurt Iran.

But hurt isn't enough. The hurt hasn't worked. The centrifuges keep on spinning.

This doesn't mean that sanctions will not work if more are applied with greater precision in targeting and greater compliance by corporate and government agencies.

Get a grip on these unpleasant (for the Iranians) realities. PRESS TV admits the inflation rate in Iran ran twenty-four percent for the year ending last April. The outlet quotes the Central Bank in its coverage. (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54275&sectionid=351020102) Ahmadinejad responded by firing some financial wallahs and claiming that the inflation rate was lower, only about nineteen percent and claiming Iran's "enemies" were responsible anyway.

Then there is the unemployment problem. About one out of every four young Iranians doesn't have a job. http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=080512115831.nd5ex4ol.php. In urban areas the figure is over twenty-eight percent. That's a right large passel of unemployed, frustrated teens and twenty somethings. Worrisome for any government.

But wait! There's more.

As if massive unemployment, exo-atmospheric inflation, chronic shortages and periodic "wage holidays" weren't enough, the Iranian government is proceeding with its "privatization" program. Over the past three years privatization has been an ad hoc affair, but as of 15 May, it went official, organised with the release of five or so percent of Republic Shipbuilding to the public.

The well-off, well-connected (or the sons thereof) will do even better than they did under the previous fit-and-start approach.

The idea apparently is to sop up some of the excess liquidity which has driven so much of the inflation to date. But, like previous attempts sponsored by Ahmadinejad, including housing construction and an order that banks lower interest rates to say nothing of directed increases in government salaries and pensions, this stab at privatization will prove counterproductive.

The economic difficulties confronting Iran suggest that strengthened sanctions calculated to hit the Iranian commercial class and sagging infrastructure may yet prove effective. This will take a greater effort on the part of the P5+1--particularly the PRC.

To accomplish the goal of more effective sanctions more effectively implemented will require more patience on the part of the current, lame duck US administration. Even that won't be enough.

For the sanction approach to work it is necessary that Tehran be allowed no comfort in the thought that barely more than six months from now a new administration, presumably with new policies and approaches, will take office.

Only John McCain to date has refused to give Tehran that comfort.

"What about oil prices?" You ask.

"What about the new Iran-Venezuela axis?" You object.

The Geek buys gas and LPG. He knows the pain in the skinny wallet all too well.

But, he also knows history. The US has been through periods of (at the time) astronomical oil and gasoline prices. During the previous oil shocks in 1973 and 1979-80 and the late '90s, the US was hurt badly by rising prices. But, we muddled our way through. The market forces eventually worked.

They will again. Provided the wallahs in Congress can hold their emotions (and driving need to be re-elected) under control. While not an unreconstructed free marketeer by any stretch of the imagination, the Geek cannot help by notice that the market has worked better than government actions in limiting and eventually reversing the damage of shocks to the economy.

Taking a quick look at Iran's attempt to horizontally escalate its confrontation with the US by linking with Venezuela (a subject for a later post), the Geek gives it a thumbs up.

What!

Yes, the Geek thinks it couldn't happen to a better bunch of guys. Hugo Chavez is clearly as deep an economic thinker as Ahmadinejad and the mullahs as his latest nationalization scheme shows. Venezuela is expected to have an inflation rate of twenty-six percent. http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=70644, http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/07/en_eco_art_inflation-at-1.7-per_07A1561241.shtml. Food prices have jumped over forty percent--and it isn't because of the oil price boom. http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/14/en_eco_art_venezuela-records-th_14A1576685.shtml.

With a meeting of such potent economic minds as those running Iran and Venezuela, the outcome can only be beneficial to those who live in other countries.

The next administration will have a full foreign policy plate whether they want to eat it or not. The incompetent neocon ninnie cooks in the current regime have made sure of that. We the People had best demand full, candid explanations of goals and means of acquiring those goals from the candidates.

We must not let any of the wannabe residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue glide on by with a handful of poorly thought out but nice sounding campaign platitudes.

Unless we want to see us and the rest of the world slide further down the slope so well greased by the Bush-Cheney regime.

Golly! The Iranians Don't Think We're Hospitable

Not surprisingly the Iranian noise machine has cranked up into full volume regarding Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's introductory remarks and questions to Orator-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appearance on campus yesterday. The International Herald Tribune's account http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/25/africa/tehran.php offers the explanation that ideas of hospitality were insulted by Bollinger.

The newspaper also speculates that the university president's "sardonic" tone was meant to deflect some of the criticism he has received for allowing the Orator-in-Chief to appear at Columbia. The IHT further dilates on the possibility that the Bollinger comments and questions might "backfire" by engendering sympathy for Ahmadinejad even from people who would not normally be inclined toward sympathy.

The Geek should be forgiven for doubting this. Of course, he acknowledges, the Iranians are noted for their hospitality. He is certain that any of the American diplomatic personnel who enjoyed over four hundred days of "hospitality" from the Iranian "students" would attest to the attentiveness and concern to say nothing of affability of their "hosts." That view would, the Geek is sure, be echoed by the dual citizenship holders who have recently been housed in Tehran's Evin prison.

(In the past the usual journalistic modifiers preceding Evin prison have been "infamous" or "notorious.")

In an open letter ten university chancellors in Iran have posed ten questions to Bollinger. The IHT only printed two of them. If the rest are similar, they wouldn't be a tough test for any semi-literate individual who is reasonably up to speed with recent history.

One of the questions is, "Why did the U.S. support the bloodthirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran?"

That's a real tough one. The US "tilted" to Iraq for a couple of simple reasons. The more obvious was the Iranian hostage taking at the US embassy and the Revolutionary Government's complete unwillingness to bring it to a swift conclusion. That lack of action made the new Iranian government both unpredictable and untrustworthy in its international dealings.

The second reason is not quite so self-evident. In keeping with past US policy which was only briefly and partially abrogated by the Kissinger Doctrine during the Ford Administration, the US was not willing to allow any single country to emerge as the regional hegemon in the Persian Gulf area.

It was anticipated in Washington that the two countries would fight each other to a peace of exhaustion. That was seen as desirable. Iraq was the weaker of the two powers despite Saddam Hussein's delusions of adequacy. As a result we tilted toward Iraq.

The tilt was not complete. Nor was it inflexible. This reality is adequately documented in the strange dealings known popularly as the "Iran-Contra Scandal."

In the end, both Iraq and Iran were weakened by the massive bloodletting of the war. However, neither was as weakened as some of the planners and decision makers in the Reagan Administration had hoped. (Wished?)

The second question reprinted in the IHT from the Iranian university chiefs was, "Why has the U.S. military failed to find Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden even with all its advanced equipment?"

The short, but accurate, answer to that is: The advanced equipment, the high-tech gizmos themselves. If the US had relied more upon boots on the ground and less on eyes in the skies as our forces entered Tora Bora, there would have been a much greater chance of nabbing or killing Osama bin Laden and others of the al-Qaeda leadership cadre.

We, or, more properly, Rumsfield and crew, opted for gadgets over boots. It was the wrong call both strategically and tactically. We have been on the wrong side of the power curve ever since.

The situation has not been helped by geography, by topography. If the learned men of the Iranian universities would merely take a look at Google Earth, they would quickly see that the tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border make the backside of the moon seem like mellow, easy terrain in comparison.

This does not mean that the US (and its allies) could not bring the cadre at the core of al-Qaeda to bay. It means the job requires more men than have been allotted to the task. It also means that the cooperation of the Pakistani military and government would be required. That has not yet been forthcoming in a meaningful enough manner.

(What will happen after the scheduled elections is hazy in the Geek's cracked crystal ball.)

Beyond that, gentlemen of the Iranian academy, the capture or killing of bin Laden can correctly be viewed as non-essential. It can even be seen as counterproductive.

A symbol, and that is what bin Laden is, cannot be killed. It can only be martyred, which is to say, made more potent.

The idea of capturing Osama bin Laden and bringing him to trial would be risible if the inevitable consequences were not so thoroughly unpleasant to contemplate. A martyr in chains is simply a call for redoubled jihad. Arguably, that is not in American interests, much as it might be desired by the mullahocracy.

If the other eight questions are similar in nature, the Geek, being a hospitable sort of chap, invites the Iranians to send the rest of the questions to him. He promises a quick, courteous response.

The Geek is all for hospitality provided it doesn't involve Evan prison or dining with a guy wearing a bomb in his belt.

Is Ahmadinejad a "Petty And Cruel" Dictator?

Columbia University President Bollinger challenged Iranian Orator-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as possessing the hallmarks of a "petty and cruel dictator" prior to the Orator's speech today. The Geek questions the accuracy of president Bollinger's description.

"Hold on there, Geek! You about to defend that Iranian creep?" You ask as you roll up your sleeves.

"Ease off, partner." The Geek replies. "No way am I going to switch sides on this one."

And there isn't anyway that a defense of Ahmadinejad can be offered without insult to reality, the reality of history and the reality of today. Neither can the Orator be characterised as a dictator, cruel or otherwise, without offense to the reality of Iran today.

In simple fact Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no power that is not purely derivative from the Chief Cleric and Protector of the Revolution, Ayatollah Kahmenei. As long as the ayatollah supports Ahmadinejad, the fifty year old president has some semblance of power. The instant the (prayer) rug is pulled out from under Mahmoud, his seeming power is one with that of the late Shah.

A couple of years ago when Mahmoud was stumping for the Iranian presidency he posed as a reformer, a man of the future. Heck, as the Geek recalls it, the Ahmadinejad of the campaign days promised such reforms as allowing women to attend soccer matches. That would have been a major shakeup for the mullahocracy.

Too much of a shakeup, it appears.

Once Ahmadinejad had been elected, the reforms became, like most American campaign rhetoric, something to be forgotten--as quickly as possible. It may be that Mahmoud was honest in his reformist guise. That's not for the Geek to decide on the information currently available.

Even if the man had been honest as he sought election, he would have discovered very, very quickly that his office came empty. Empty of power that is. Empty of any power except that which was granted by two sources. The first, most important source is the Protector of the Revolution (to use one of the most important job titles) Ayatollah Khamenei. The other fountain of power can be charitably described as "public opinion" but is more accurately understood as "the opinion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps."

Although Ahmadinejad's grasp of some minor matters such as the reality of history, particularly that of the Nazi committed Holocaust, is nonexistent and his grip on some matters of present reality, such as the right of Israel to exist or the nature of the United States, is no better, his understanding of the actual nature of power in Iran is quite good.

At least it is good enough that Ahmadinejad realises that his outrageous statements (his shows of bellicosity alternating with fox-guarding-the-chicken coop protestations of loving peace) are guaranteed to do two things: Twist Uncle Sam's beard and be crowd pleasers back home.

The Geek has no difficulty visualizing the Protector of the Revolution and the capo de tutti capos of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stomping their feet with pure delight every time some high US official hyperventilates over the latest Ahmadinejad verbal assault. Even some Iranian "politicians" who voted for Ahmadinejad-the-Fearless-Reformer state they regret having done so nonetheless give him thumbs-up for his performance as National Orator.

The combination of Ahmadinejad's oratory and the reactions by the US and other governments which give the words a reality they would otherwise lack have combined to invoke the law of unintended consequences.

The what?

The law of unintended consequences, an often overlooked component of life which rivals the law of gravity in importance.

You see, by pretending that Ahmadinejad is an independent locus of power in Iran, he is given a status that he doesn't deserve. He is not a center of power in the sense that the president of the United States or prime minister of the UK is.

Ahmadinejad's power is bestowed. We give it to him. We make him useful to the Ayatollah Khamenei and the mullahocracy. Our reactions make the Orator-in-Chief useful as a crowd pleaser, a diversion for the Iranian people from the very real problems that confront them today.

Far from presiding over a period of reform as he promised (and perhaps hoped), Ahmadinejad is overseeing an economy that is in near meltdown, to say nothing of a society in which the heavy hand of the moral purity wing of the mullahocracy weighs heavier by the passing week. The only force that keeps Ahmadinejad in "power" is his value as a diversion.

The Iranian "president" is no dictator, no tyrant. He is as far from Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin as possible to imagine. The real power, the actual dictator, the genuine tyrant, is the Protector of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Get a grip on this. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an orator, which is to say an amusing or infuriating puppet. In so far as we, Americans and others, huff, puff, and bloviate about Mahmoud, The Threat to Peace or The Insidious Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Evil Genius, we make him a useful tool for the dictator(s) pulling his strings.

Ahmadinejad is a celebrity of sorts. Like all celebs without real talent, he needs constant publicity to continue in celebrity status. If he were ever to be ignored for a month or two, he would go away.

That would make the Protector of the Revolution and the mullahocracy more visible--at least until they found another stooge.