Our Guy Is Tough, Not Just Likable

The image makers and message spinners reportedly are viewing the Moscow meetings between President Obama and Russian President Medvedev yesterday and the Real Power Dude of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, as the big chance to show that the American president is not simply a Nice Young Man From Chicago with a great smile and the divinely bestowed title of Transformer Guy. No, while he is both these things, the meetings in Moscow also demonstrate beyond any doubt that the Transformer Guy is also tougher than a posse of velicoraptors on steroids.

Wow! You bet. You could just see Obama's canine teeth becoming ever more fang-like as he shook hands with one time judo champ, Putin. Gonna put that Rooshan in his place fer sure.

The fabricators of public perceptions must be hard up considering that the big news of the mini-summit was the announcement of plans to replace the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty set to expire this year with one which provides for further reductions in both nuclear munitions and delivery systems. This development is both welcome and overdue. It certainly is not a mark of "toughness," however that word might be defined.

On the margins of the main topic, the related one of the proposed missile defense system was discussed. The Obama administration is not enamored of the current plans set in place by the Bush-Cheney administration.

The President belabored the obvious by averring fearlessly (and presumably with a tough glint in his eyes) that there would be no need for an ABM system if Iran was somehow to forgo its ambitions. Adding to his tough stance, Mr Obama added that no defense system could possibly impair or impede the "mighty" Russian offensive capability.

That must have made Putin, to say nothing of Medvedev (who never shot a bear in Siberia or won a judo match or been seen in the public press sans shirt), just standing in awe of Mr Obama's toughness. Further afield there can be no doubt that after this display of hardnose, hard line, refractory verbiage, the mullahocracy in Iran, the Dear Leader in the Hermit Kingdom of the North, and the Men of the Forbidden City instantly decided not to try their luck against the hard boiled President from the streets Al Capone made famous.

Presumably, the prestidigators of spin as well as those who direct their services have been perceiving a need to portray Mr Obama as not falling in the less-backbone-than-a-banana category. Perchance there is a hint of fear in the corridors surrounding the Oval that Obama may be falling into Category W (as in wimp) in the foreign affairs department.

Oh! Say it ain't so!

What could possibly be leading to the interpretation of the Presidential Posture as being closer to over cooked pasta than Krupstahl?

Could it have something to do with asymmetrical pressuring in the Mideast? Pushing on Israel to make concessions (not that the notion of a few timely giveaways is a poor idea) while giving the Arab states a walk on reciprocity?

Or, perhaps, might it have something to do with the Obama rejection of real enforcement of real sanctions against Iran even though some of the usually highly reluctant to do anything beyond natter European Union states are ready to go that way as the last, best chance to avoid the blandly termed "military option?" Is it the patented Obama method of "engagement" with a regime which is not simply repressive but using an effective combination of deeply rooted Iranian nationalism with religious zeal with the goals of regional hegemony and global influence?

Or, to add a third factor, is it acting as the running buddy of "progressive" regimes such as those headed by Hugo Chavez, Ewo Morales, Daniel Ortega, and Rafael Correa to cozen or coerce the Honduran government into reversing itself and re-installing the "progressive" Zelaya, who was removed from office according to the lawful decisions of the country's Congress and Supreme Court?

Perhaps, there was a surfeit of "likable" and a paucity of "tough" in the craven rewriting and companion distorting of history in the Cairo Address so as to fit the needs of the self-esteem challenged Muslims of the world.

Then there is the small matter of President Obama, his White House flacks, and his State department bending over and spreading their collective cheeks to offer assurances that the US had not given a "green light" for an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear complex just because Joe (Flapping Lips) Biden had been factually correct by saying that Israel is a sovereign state with the sole right to determine how to respond to threats it perceived as "existential." A spectacle? Yes. Edifying? No.

The list could go on. But, the Geek bores of the exercise.

Being liked is nice. Most all politicians want to be liked, even loved. However, in a famous primer for rulers, a philosopher of rulership, an Italian fellow, one Machiavelli by name, stated a brutal truism: It is better to be feared than loved.

"Feared" may be too stark a word for our sensitive and enlightened age. The word "respected" may be profitably substituted. A country, a government, a president is respected when it (or he) takes a consistent, reality based view of the world. When it (or he) sets and executes policy in a candid, straight forward manner. When it (or he) takes the world as it is without any need to pander, to genuflect, to pitter-pat around the facts, the truth, the national and strategic interests.

When and if Mr Obama and his administration can show that he and it sees the world as it is, understands what American national and strategic interests might be, comprehends what states, entities, and personalities seek to limit, constrain, or defeat our attempts to implement policies in our national interest, then the president and his administration are on the road to respect. If in addition he and it can eschew post-modernist confections suitable for the English department but not government such as espousing, at least implicitly, cultural, political, and ethical relativism, then he and it will be moving well toward the goal of respect.

And, what does respect get a country?

It gets one a fair chance at achieving a better state of peace without the horrid necessity of having to go to war first. It means being liked less, but not having to produce "tough" acts to support the earlier "tough" words.

So, Mr Obama, some free advice from the History Geek. Don't worry about being liked. Don't fret over being tough enough. Just go for a little of that R*E*S*P*E*C*T.

Doing The Historian's Duty

The Geek has been severely (and correctly) chastised for having neglected to point out the grave and egregious historical errors in President Obama's Cairo Address. The purpose of this short post is to address in necessarily abbreviated form the substance of the Obama mis-conceptions of Islamic history. And, the blatant falsity of the president's contention that he was "a student of history."

With oodles and oodles of political correctness and an utter lack of historical understanding, President Obama credited Islam with having made major contributions to human knowledge in physics, math, navigation, medicine, astronomy, and chemistry. In so doing he gave credit to the followers of Mohammad which properly belonged to Europeans, Chinese, the Greeks of the Classical Period and the astrologers of the ancient societies of Mesopotamia.

The compass goes back to China. The use of zero as a place holder was developed by businessmen in India. The foundations of modern physics may be dated accurately to Galileo. Copernicus laid the base of modern astronomy. Predating both and providing the basis for the work of Galileo was the pioneering efforts of Archimedes of "Eureka!" fame. For Copernicus, the data compiled by Ptolemy were central.

Many, if not most, of the presumed advances in medicine laid improperly at the feet of Muslims were actually the product of Jewish physicians exemplified by Maimonides who practiced their calling under the Banner of the Prophet because they and their coreligionists had been expelled by the Catholic Christians of Spain. This, at least, proves that Islam is not alone in ignorant intolerance.

It is true that Arabic translations of many ancient Greek works preserved the knowledge from the censors and reactionaries of the One True Church so that they were available for re-translation into Latin as the Dark Ages of Europe faded. This reality introduced some problems such as the persistence of Arabic terms (eg algebra, alchemy) and Arabic names for celestial objects (eg Aldebaran and Betelgeuse.)

There is no doubt but the desert dwelling Muslims observed the sky. But, we know from the archaeological record that all that was seen by the late coming Muslims had been systematically compiled by the astrologers of the Land Between The Rivers two thousand and more years earlier.

Muslims dabbled in chemistry or, to err on the side of accuracy, alchemy, as did the Europeans. But, their contributions to what emerged in the Seventeenth Century as chemistry was of no more consequence than the searches for the philosopher's stone by the alchemists of Europe.

The Muslims cannot take any credit for serving as a transmission belt between Asia and Europe or between the Classic Age of Rome and Greece and the beginnings of the Renaissance. Both were accidents. An accident of geography and trade routes. An accident of time, particularly the time of Catholic intellectual repression.

In short, the Muslims were no more critical in the development of modern science and technology than the Geek's Apache ancestors. As far as physics, math, chemistry, astronomy and medicine are concerned, the Muslims might just as well have never existed.

And, it could have been no other way. Islam ascribes all causation to the will of Allah. The positing of supernatural causation assures that science as we have come to understand both the term and the method behind it cannot exist, cannot even begin.

Science in Europe had to battle against the "Will of God" stricture. Ultimately, science won. But the battle was not short, was not low cost and continues in an important way yet today. One need not look behind the absurd claims of the "creationists" to see that reality.

In truth the battle never really got underway in the societies dominated by Islam. This is not to say or imply that Muslims are not personally, individually, capable of mastering the methods of the several scientific disciplines. Rather, it is to conclude from the historical and contemporary record that the doctrine and dogma of Islam fights against the development of true, wide-ranging, joyously inquiring, icon shattering science.

Unless and until the Muslim collective mind can come to some sort of consensus on the limits of the "If-Allah-Wills" stricture, there will not be any more science in the Islamic societies of tomorrow than there was in the past.

That's a tough truth. Tossing aside the culturally implanted dogma of religion and the personal identity features which come with it is not easy. But, unless and until it is done by Muslims generally and not simply a few here and there, who run the risk of being slaughtered as "apostates," people of Islamic adherence will never be full partners in the scientific quest to better understand the universe in which we live.

President Obama and his speech writers deserve an "A" in political correctness. They merit a flat out "F" for history. And, an "F" for doing real service to the best aspirations and potentials of Muslims everywhere.

And Now, Back To The Real World

President Obama undoubtedly prefers life in the high peaks and sunny meadows of lofty rhetoric and high minded oratory. In the universe of talk, all life can be fine sentiments expressed in for sure applause lines. And, if the crowd sits silent or shows disapproval, it really doesn't matter--none of it is real.

But, after the applause fades, after the crowds go home, after the clouds of praise and waves of criticism recede, the world of real life awaits. The world of mullahs in Tehran, Dear Leader in Pyongyang, dissolving states in Central America, jihadists with suicide vests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. No speech makes these unpleasant features of the real world go away.

Denizens of the real world are not impressed by how often the POTUS can apologise for presumed wrongs committed by the nation he now leads. Denizens of the real world are not swayed by appeals to allegedly great religious traditions or favorably distorted views of history. The troublemakers and bottom feeders of the real world as well as the fearful, the cowed, the psychologically crippled and stunted who support them are not and never can be deterred or defeated by words, no matter how pretty in delivery.

President Obama deserves credit for telling a couple of tough truths during the long anticipated and somewhat anticlimactic Cairo Address. It was about time that the POTUS let the government of Israel and its lobby in Washington know that there were limits to American acceptance of Israeli policy choices. It was long overdue for the POTUS to blow the whistle on Israeli actions which were contrary to both American and regional better interests.

In an identical vein it was past due for the Chief Executive to lay it on the line with the de facto governments of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (eg Hamastan and Fatahland.) If either or both are going to be recognised as the de jure governments of the Arab portion of the proposed two state solution, it is necessary that each act to stop the aggressive actions taken against Israel.

Now, Mr Obama might have gone a bit further. He might, for example, have noted that the balderdash about legitimate resistance to military occupation that is repeatedly and loudly trumpeted by the members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference is not germane to the current realities. Neither Hamastan nor Fatahland is occupied by the IDF. The attacks have been launched, not against IDF occupation troops but civilians living within the borders of pre-1967 Israel. "So", Obama might have noted, "cut the crap and accept reality as it is on the ground."

Still and all, the Nice Young Man From Chicago took a stab at telling it like it is: There is more than enough blame to go around.

Not that the words, no matter how honeyed and soft or cold and hard mattered in the slightest. The Arabs have the perpetual out (which they are already using overtime) that actions are necessary to prove the sincerity of the words. And, the Israeli government has its utterly formidable lobby to carry the water in Washington.

Schmoozing the mullahs of Tehran with the "apology" for the decision back in the Eisenhower administration to oppose the leftest takeover in Iran and put the Shah back on the Peacock Throne was both unnecessary and unbecoming. The coup way back then has been well known and well explored by historians for two generations now. It is very well understood that the decision was in the typical American model of ad hoc reaction to a perceived threat--in this case the emergence of a putatively pro-Soviet regime in a strategically critical country.

The decision may have been both short-sighted and poorly predicated in the cold light of the morning after but it was taken in good faith and with the goal of assuring stability both in Iran and the region. There was nothing about it which deserves apology.

Heck, the mea culpa is not even justifiable by purely pragmatic considerations. The exercise in abasement might have brought a momentary tingle of pleasure to the mullahs and their political frontman but nothing more. Apology will not lead to a sudden meeting of the minds on matters nuclear.

In another, slightly nausiating act of national self-flagellation, the POTUS apologised for the US having somehow lost sight of its values and traditions in the days following 9/11. To this the Geek can only slap his forehead and mutter, "Get a grip!"

The recipients of this we-were-horrible-but-we're-better-now comment include regimes and non-state actors with a record of torture, imprisonment in the most vile sort of durance, and extra-judicial murder without equal outside the "Arab and Muslim World." In countries from North Africa to Asia where the Quran reigns supreme, waterboarding and similar enhanced interrogation techniques would be rejected as entirely too soft, too mild, too lacking in pain. In these same countries, the jails do not include laptop computers, order-in meals and a tender concern for physical and emotional well-being. Nor is the sword or bullet in the neck far from hand, unrestrained by layers of judicial review, unmitigated by a long tradition of separating the winds of the political moment from the requirements of the law.

The invasion of Iraq was (in the Geek's informed estimate) a blunder of major proportions. Yet at the time and for years after it was (quietly) supported throughout the "Arab and Muslim World" at least at the governmental level.

So, Mr Obama, what's to apologise for?

The Geek has walked the beaches of Normandy. He has stood on the cliffs. Marvelled at the courage and determination of the men who came ashore, fought their way up the cliffs, winkled defenders from bunkers and trenches. Now, you have stood there too. Behind you during your quarter hour of canned history and personal stories stood men who were silent witness to the reality of the world back then--and today.

Nations defend their interests, not with apologies nor with smooth and soothing words, but with determination, courage and, when necessary, lives. Nations advance their values--such as democracy and women's rights, both of which you espoused at Cairo--not with apologies nor with smooth and soothing words, but with determination, courage, and, if all else fails, with lives.

Ultimately all diplomacy rests on the credible capacity and political will to employ force. Tehran understands this. So does Dear Leader in his Hermit Kingdom of the North. Both are betting (so far quite successfully) that the US will not be able to build a consensus within the permanent members of the Security Council to use even limited force to gain the goal of no proliferation. They are also wagering on the belief that the days of American unilateralism are over.

The words in Cairo and later in Europe at Buchenwald and Normandy have done nothing to perturb the lads in Pyongyang and the mullahs in Tehran. It has been a case of the same ole, same ole as far their ears can distinguish.

The real world demands coherent policy which is carefully and distinctly enunciated. More, it demands that the policy be followed consistently, even remorselessly. Once a decision is made, it must be stuck to over time if the goal is to be achieved. Even if this means the risk or the reality of war.

It's tough to think about. Tough to accept. But, that is the lesson of history. History also shows that policy successes have never been achieved by apologies--particularly those which are baseless.

4 June 2009--The Time For A Change?

If the much anticipated address to the "Muslim and Arab World" (whatever that may mean) is to be anything other than one more Obama onslaught of apologetic soaring oratory and lofty rhetorical rehearsal of his life story, the Nice Young Man From Chicago will have to make a real, genuine and long-term change from the way in which American foreign policy has been conducted for generations. In short, he will have to renounce the business-as-usual manner in which American diplomacy has been formed and conducted.

Historically the policy of the US has been crafted (if that is the right word) from the need for ad hoc responses to perceived challenges or threats coupled with the transient winds of domestic politics and public opinion. While this evil coupling has provided the basis for American policy throughout the world for all the years since Theodore Roosevelt dragged us kicking and screaming onto the world's stage, no where has the ill effects been more pronounced than in the Mideast.

While it is quite likely that the President will genuflect before Islam and do some oratorical abasement to atone for the presumed wrongs committed to the mythical entity called the "Muslim World," that will be no substitute for taking a firm, action oriented stance on several critical issues.

The US will have to decide either to defecate or get off the pot with respect to such matters as the Israel-Arab conflict, the status of democracy and human rights in countries ruled by the banner of Islam, the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq (and Afghanistan) and the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran. All of these must be spoken to in terms which are concrete enough to be understandable by the several audiences attending Obama's speech and broad enough to serve as genuine guidelines for our policy over the next several years.

Anything less will not serve the interests of the US. Or the concerns of the countries in the region.

To effectively address the points mentioned, the American president must detach our future policy from the legacy of ad hoc-ness and domestic politics carried off in distant lands. To say this task is well onto impossible is to state the self-evident.

It is to be hoped that Mr Obama or his advisers and speechwriters have acquainted themselves with both the ad hoc and politically (ideologically) driven dynamics of the past as well as the way in which Arabs (and Israelis) have misused and distorted history to justify present and projected policies of their own. It is to be hoped that the President and his people have glanced at the sorry record of reactive ad hoc measures which, along with flourishes of idealism, created the dilemma in the Mideast.

The Belfour Declaration of 1917 was an ad hoc and poorly considered wartime measure. The later division of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire into protectorates under the control of the British and French were also ad hoc measures meant to exploit the ruins of the Turks for the benefit of Europeans and were complicated by invocation of the Wilsonian ideal of "self-determination of peoples."

The combination of revulsion and guilt which accompanied knowledge of the horrors of the Nazi "Final Solution" created Israel as a monument to atonement and an ad hoc reaction to the reality that the British no longer had either the will or the means to police its Palestinian "Mandate." A second stimulus to which the creation of Israel was an ad hoc response was Arab intransigence.

The Arabs have been quite willing to engage in self-imposed amnesia concerning their own culpability in the creation of Israel not by international accord but rather in the flames and blood of war. It was Arab negotiators who rejected the assorted partition plans which would have provided more land for the Arab Muslims than they were left with at the end of hostilities. It was Arab leaders who encouraged Palestinians to flee the nascent state of Israel. It was Arab Muslim figures who assured their fellow Arab Muslims that they would soon return behind the victorious Arab forces.

President Harry Truman made the fateful decision to grant recognition to Israel despite the advice of far sighted diplomats including George Marshall. His action as is made clear by his own words was based on ideals (although political benefit could not have been totally out of his mind.) It might be mentioned that the US was aware that the Soviet Union was likely to recognise Israel and if it did so ahead of the US this would prove injurious to short-term American interests in the rapidly blooming Cold War.

For just over a decade, American policy in the Mideast was largely divorced from short-term considerations and immune to domestic political winds. In its policy formulation and execution the US was primarily guided by the perceived needs of the containment policy as it applied to the region. This meant the need of precluding Soviet influence growing in the area with the view to assuring the availability of Mideast, that is Persian Gulf, oil for the European theater of operations in the event the Soviets moved West and nuclear usage was averted.

Domestic politics became increasingly entangled with foreign policy in the wake of the 1956 Suez War. The US moved quickly and effectively to force an end to the Israeli-Franco-British aggression even though Egypt's strongman, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had placed himself at the top of the Foster Dulles' list of Men I Want To See Gone.

The government of Israel responded by fostering the creation of an ever more effective lobby that made itself critical in Democratic Party calculations. This domestic consideration as well as assorted ad hoc factors caused a sea change in American policy ranging from ending the arms embargo on Israel by JFK to the furnishing of offensive weaponry under LBJ and the willfully blind eye turned to the country's nuclear development program under both LBJ and Richard Nixon.

The radical reposturing of the US from involved and concerned neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict to active supporter of Israel was given an enormous, completely emotional boost by the striking success of the IDF in the Six Day War of 1967. This support was solidified by the Arab response embodied in Fatah. The terror campaign waged by that group and so many others did nothing but assure that the US became increasingly linked with Israel.

Every outrage committed by the masked men of Fatah and the others made certain that the US would react with ever increasing and ever less questioning support of Israel. Once again domestic political and public opinion coupled with a reactive ad hoc approach to limit American freedom of action.

Even the Camp David Accords made possible not by American diplomacy so much as Egypt having reclaimed its testicles with the Yom Kippur War did not change the basic theme of American policy. The push of public opinion and the compulsion of reaction were further biased in favor of Israel by the Iranian Revolution, or, more to err on the side of accuracy, the takeover of the American embassy by Iranian "students" and resulting hostage affair.

Arab and Muslim terrorism, Arab and Muslim diplomatic intransigence, Arab and Muslim violation of the customary rules of international civility combined with the always alert, able and highly motivated Israel Lobby continued to press the US into an ever narrowing cone of options. From the Reagan administration onward (considering the actions of Arabs and Muslims, including Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and the later years of terror attacks without effective response) no administration has been able (or willing) to break loose from the paradigm of challenge and response, the model of taking domestic ideologies and partisan concerns overseas.

The cone of options available to the US today is precisely two. We can keep on with what we have been doing. Or, we can reject the pattern of the past in the hope of creating a policy which will provide for a future.

This means that some hard truths have to be faced. More importantly, they have to be convincingly explained to audiences which have little accurate understanding of the US, the constraints of its political system or the impact of Arab and Muslim actions and rhetoric on large segments of the American public.

President Obama has to come to terms with just what long term American interests in the Mideast really are. Other than as a source of oil and instability, what is at stake for our national and strategic interests in this critter "the Arab and Muslim World?"

As a thought experiment, imagine that the US has developed alternative means of meeting our energy requirements. Given that, what is in play for us in the "Arab and Muslim World?" It would fade from view back to the same far periphery as it occupied during most of the last century.

Just how much do we owe Israel? Have we (and the West generally) not atoned sufficiently for our lack of concern over the developing Holocaust during the 1930's? Has Israel by its resolute and effective pursuit of self-defined national interests not become a major negative in forging some sort of final rapprochement in the Mideast?

Is it not well past time that the "Arab and Muslim World" admit their responsibility for creating the current mess? Is it not well past time for the assorted strongmen and semi-feudal rulers of the "Arab and Muslim World" to face the reality that the people surviving under their sway might want to experience the joys and tribulations of trying to determine their own future?

In a related way the US has to decide just how comfortable it will be with the inevitable turbulence which would be caused by our support for pro-democracy forces in Arab and Muslim states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a dozen others. Can we live in a world in which the most extreme elements of the Islamist jihadist sort will inevitably gain power? Can we (or at least the high minded, post-nationalists among us) accept that the ancient Wilsonian precept of self-determination of peoples might well result in the energetic dis-assembly of currently existing states including Iraq and Afghanistan?

Can the strident Muslims of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference stop their constant complaints of religious persecution whenever and wherever someone writes or speaks anything which is less than laudatory regarding Islam and its adherents? Can these folks accept that the world is not big enough any more to accommodate both freedom of expression and those whose easily afflicted sensibilities demand full protection against any criticism or questioning?

Finally, can the current president convey the reality that there are no perfect solutions to any problem confronting the world? There seems to be some sort of magical thinking rampant in the "Arab and Muslim World" to the effect that the US can both develop and impose perfect solutions if only it has the will to do so. Somehow this pervasive meme has to be put to rest for once and all.

Taken together, this is too much of a burden for any one speech, any one president, any one administration, any one nation to carry. Reality demands that the already too high expectations held by all too many for the upcoming speech and the current president be lowered. Lowered drastically.

Still, it is not too much to hope that President Obama may take the first small, very small perhaps, step toward changing the foundations of American foreign policy in the Mideast at least. It is time for a change. A radical change.

It is time to create, not react. It is time to think in terms of our national interest and how meeting our interests can best meet the collective interests of the world. Well, all the Geek can say is, "Lots of luck."