What's Really Interesting In The Mideast

In the great swath of territory extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalayans, the areas of North Africa, the Mideast, and Northwest Asia, the big noise has centered on the "Arab Spring,"  The main focus of interest over the past few weeks has been the shooting war in Libya.  It isn't the only place where bullets, bombs, and IEDs are flying, falling, and exploding, but it is the most recent.  So, the media, the politicians, the international organizations, and We the People are not yet suffering from attention overload disorder.

Subsidiary points of fascination are found with the incarceration of the two Mubarak boys and the impending arrest of their aged and ailing dad, the ongoing face off in Yemen and the repressions in Bahrain and Syria.  The hardy perennial of the Israeli-Palestinian Question has wilted of late save only when a refreshing burst of outrageous violence is perpetrated by one or another of the Zany Congeries of Gaza.

While Libya and the other specific "hot spots" of the Mideast get the spotlight, they are actually quite boring, lacking fundamental and long term interest.  The future is not impossible to predict in broad outline.  A form of semi-democracy will come to pass in Tunisia and Egypt--primarily to the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood in the second case.  Libya will enter the stasis of stalemate unless and until Gaddafi catches a bullet or two--or until he has a sudden desire to decamp with his tent and his billions to some country which is not a signatory to the Statute of Rome.  Then Libya will simply be in stasis, a set of more or less rival tribes in search of a common center--and not finding it.

In Yemen it really will not matter if or when Saleh departs.  The place is either (1) a failed state or (2) a hollow one with operational dominance residing elsewhere.  (Of this more in a moment or two.)

Bashir al-Assad will stay in power.  A judicious mix of reforms more apparent than real plus repression will assure the Baathist regime stays where it has been for the past half century and more.  However, the processes of reform and repression loop directly into the really interesting dynamics of the Mideast.

The same is true with respect to Bahrain.  There is little to no chance of a sea change in the structure of authority in the kingdom.  However, the details of how the game plays out, including the degree to which Bahrain becomes one more hollow state, relate directly to the really interesting dynamic at work in the Mideast.

The only matter of fundamental interest, fundamental importance, and potential long term significance currently extant in the Mideast is not the usual suspect--the Israeli-Palestinian Question--but rather the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  This cold war, which has intensified continually for the past twenty years and with a high delta V in recent weeks, impacts directly and substantially the state of play in Yemen, the future of Bahrain, the direction of the Assad government--and the answer to the Israeli-Palestinian Question.  It also exercises profound effect upon the internal affairs of Lebanon, the direction of Egyptian Islamist politics, and a host of other inter- and intra-state affairs.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have never been known for their close and amiable relationship.  Part of the reason may be found in religion--Shiite Iran versus Wahhabist Sunni Saudi Arabia.  Part of the reason has been purely geopolitical--which country will be the front porch dog in the Gulf region and exercise a large measure of operational dominance over the Mideast generally.

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the rivalry has grown in a major way.  The mullahs and ayatollahs are True Believers for whom the demands of Shia beliefs powerfully enhance the interests of state.

Iraq at one time played a very important role as a buffer between Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as being a force of its own acting to prevent regional hegemony by either Iran or the Kingdom.  Those days ended with the American invasion.

The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak took another restraining player off the board.  As the most populous Arab state with a long record of exercising leadership in the often fractured Arab world, Egypt served to both moderate Saudi ambitions for regional hegemony and buttress Saudi opposition to Iranian efforts in the direction of dominance.

The removal of both Iraq and Egypt has served to clear the decks for a more direct and higher stakes confrontation between Tehran and Riyadh.  From the perspective of the ancient rulers of the Kingdom, the policies of the US have become a marker of despair.  The reaction of King Abdullah and his closest relatives has not been anger so much as terminal frustration.

For years (decades would be more accurate) the Saudis have tried repeatedly to convince the US that Iran is the major threat to the region--and not Israel.  Insofar as peace between the Israelis and Palestinians was an issue, it was such simply because the continued conflict served to advance Iranian interests.  As far back as 2002 when the Saudis proposed peace and normalization of relations between all of the Arab League states and Israel in return for a peace agreement predicated upon Israel observing the pre-Six Day War borders, the justification offered to their American interlocutors was that of pulling Iran's fangs.

To the present day the position of the Kingdom on the Israeli-Palestinian Question is dictated by the Iranian strategic threat.  This implies strongly that the Kingdom would accept significant modifications of the 2002 proposal.  King Abdullah and company would, for example, be quite willing to see territorial modification by agreed upon land swaps, drop any Palestinian "right of return," and even accept a limited Israeli security presence along the Jordan valley.  The comparative inflexibility of the Obama administration's stance on the "settlements" issue both surprised and disappointed the Saudis who were actually somewhat optimistic when the direct bi-lateral talks commenced all those months ago.

It is probable that the Saudis have been equally frustrated by the American position on Syria during the W. Bush administration and its Obama successor.  From the viewpoint of Riyadh, the US pushed Syria into the Iranian embrace.  It is self-evident that the fit between secularist Syria and Shiite Iran is both poor and unnatural.  It is a marriage forced by the American pressure for isolation.

The sub-text of the unrest in Syria and the Assad government's responses to that unrest hints at a backroom battle between the Iranians and the Saudis.  There is no doubt but the Iranians have provided assistance in the repression.  The bouts of reformist rhetoric from Bashir including his most recent promise to end the forty-eight year long "state of emergency" sometime next week point to Saudi influence and (in highest probability) blandishments.

Much of Iran's status as an ally of Syria has been bought and paid for.  Syria has a desperate need for infusions of cash on a scale that economically strapped Iran can no longer meet.  The infinitely deep pockets of the Kingdom would have no such difficulty.  Bashir is a very pragmatic and practical man who comes with instincts which push him in the direction of reform.  He is also very much afraid of religious extremism.  If (and this is a big if) the Saudis can restrain their predilection to export Wahhabism along with their cash, it would be far safer for Bashir to cozy up with the Kingdom than to continue his current flirtation with the ayatollahs.

The Baathists of Syria are very well aware that Wahhabism brings extremism as desert rains bring fast blooming flowers.  As a result the Syrians will be very, very cautious about what may come along with any Saudi assistance.  It is probable given the slight moves to reform at home made by King Abdullah that the Saudis are far more willing to disconnect Wahhabism from policy based aid now than in past years.

The Saudi monarchy has been watching American policy regarding Bahrain with the closest of scrutiny.  After the US moved to help ease Hosni Mubarak from power, alarm bells went off throughout the Kingdom.  If the US appears to be doing the same in Bahrain, there is no doubt but the Kingdom will simply take the place over.  Bahrain is too strategically important to the Kingdom to allow otherwise.  Riyadh is convinced (rightly) that Iran is neck deep in the unrest among the Shiite majority in Bahrain and will not sit back thumbs twiddling while Iran moves in.  This is as unlikely as Riyadh kicking back and chilling out as Iranian agents move around freely in the Shiite (and oil) heavy Eastern Province.

The movers and shakers of the Kingdom are also dismayed by the seeming indifference of the US to Iranian efforts in subversion in countries as far removed as Afghanistan and Indonesia, Yemen and the Philippines.  It boggles the Saudis collective mind that the US has not moved to counter even the Iranian's demonstrated efforts in Afghanistan to assist the Taliban.  If we can view that with equanimity, we must be totally out to lunch regarding the hostile nature of Iran everywhere in the world.

The greatest anxiety and distrust of the US revolves around the bootless American campaign to prevent the Iranian development of an atomic bomb.  If Iran acquires a nuclear capability or even a credible breakout capacity, it is over for Saudi Arabia--game, set, and match.  The most rudimentary nuclear arsenal either in hand or on the close horizon gives Iran regional hegemonic status.  It would also make Iran immune to pressure generally as has been the case with nuclear capable Pakistan.

US policy under President Obama has been irresolute beyond the level of rhetoric.  As far as the Kingdom is concerned, the purchasing of weapons is a prudent move but not one which will secure Saudi Arabia against the Iranian threat or achieve the hegemonic status desired by King Abdullah and the rest of the family.  Even selling our most advanced ballistic missile defense system would be no more than one more prudential move.  The ultimate interests and goals of the Kingdom demand a neutralization of the Iranian nuclear program.  This is not likely to occur with the current administration, or so the Saudis have concluded.

The Saudis have acted on this conclusion recently.  The House of Saud has made outreach moves toward the Trolls of Beijing as well as the Guys in the Kremlin.  Such a demarche would have been unthinkable even a short year ago.  The weakness of the current administration has given the Saudis no choice but to look for a strong horse wherever such might be found.

While the Saudis have sought either alternative strong horses or to man up the Obama administration, the Iranians have become more certain in their own success.  This is not simply reflected in the typically overblown oratory of Ahmedinejad and others but in the increasing activity of Iranian agents of influence in Iraq, in Yemen, in Indonesia, and in the Central Asian Republics.  It has been reflected as well in the enhanced flow of equipment to Taliban.  And in the tighter connections with Turkey.  And Venezuela.  And elsewhere.

The correlation of forces (to use that fine old Soviet term) currently favors Iran in the cold war with Saudi Arabia.  The House of Saud knows this.  It knows the reason as well.  The reason is simple.  It can be expressed in one word: Obama.

Those Were The Good Old Days, Comrade

The more things change, the more people long for the "good old days." The truth of the good old days does not seem to matter--at least to the Russians and a sizable swath of folks in the former Warsaw Pact states or the Soviet "Inner Empire."

The tireless trackers of the public pulse at the Pew Research Center have issued a report on public opinion twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet dominated East Bloc. The results in no way perturb the reader's equanimity--provided the reader has a grip on the realities of human perception and belief.

A close parsing of the Pew work shows that, as usual, people are far from consistent in their views. Double--or even triplethink exists to a degree which would surprise even George Orwell. It is, for example, possible to perceive or believe that life was better under Communism and, at the same time, that life is better with a multi-party democratic system.

While that set of opinions may reflect a finely nuanced view which distinguishes between Communism as an economic system and democracy as a political one, giving that much credit to the interviewees is not completely justified. It is undercut by the simultaneous perception or belief that life is satisfactory and that life was better under Communism.

The Geek is not necessarily given to taking polls at face value even when conducted by a highly experienced and quite reputable bunch such as exists at Pew. Journalistic treatments of contemporary public attitudes are usually not even as reliable indicators as the use-with-extreme-caution polling data.

An excellent example of journalistic superficiality is found in today's LA Times. To the credit of the reporter, at least a couple of the person-in-the-street quotes point at the dynamic working in Russia. Twenty and more years ago Russia was the centrality of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a very powerful player in the world. Thus Russia and Russians had something of which to be proud, something that made up (at least in part) for the lackings of life under the commissars.

Another factor which is clearly at work in the views and perceptions of Eastern Europeans, former Soviets, and the Russians is that the centralized authoritarian systems gave a palpable sense of stability and order to life. This is not an inconsiderable feature of the ancien regime.

In the same poll the Pew folks compared (or more accurately, contrasted) the stance of Americans, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and Russians on the matter of the degree to which personal ability and effort as against outside and uncontrollable forces provided for success in life. While sixty-eight percent of Americans gave priority to the personal over the outside forces, only in one other country was a majority (fifty-five percent) prepared to do the same. The country was, of course, the UK.

In all the other countries, both East and West, the minority held the view exalting the personal over the whims of external forces. The minority ranged from the significant, forty-seven percent in France to the definitely minor league, East Germany at thirty percent. The take away is that socialism qua socialism rather than the nature of the government--autocratic versus democratic--conditions opinion to either accept or reject the role played in success by individual effort, ability, and initiative.

In the good old days before the Wall fell the nature of society and polity alike assured that the individual mattered very little if at all. Subsequently, the continuation of socialism throughout the old WarPact and Western Europe has done nothing to raise the sense of personal possibility over that of passive acceptance of what the government had or has to give.

To zero in on the single most critical feature both of the Pew poll and the real world of the Russians is that over half of the population considers it a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists. This tracks well with a question asked during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then about half the Russians believed it was "natural" that they have an empire.

It is this great well of nationalist sentiment which Vladimir Putin has tapped and continues to use so well to both gain and maintain power. He understands perfectly the underlying, historically driven Russian insecurity. He also understands well the deep and again historically driven Russian need for a stable economic, social, and political system.

It is not that the Russians want to be told what they must and must not do, but rather that Russians are long experienced with stable systems which provide both the context and impetus to do what the individual Russian has always done so well--evade the dicta, the laws, the requirements, to the advantage and benefit of the individual.

Russians have a strong sense of individualism. It is not perceived nor expressed in ways akin to those of the Americans. Still, it is real. It thrives best in a strongly centralized system where fiats are the order of the day and skills of escaping, evading, and exploiting the always extant potentials can be used to the fullest.

In a very real sense it was under Stalin, even during the great tsunami of fear created by the Purges and the Gulag, that the Russian form of individualism flourished. The same can be said accurately of the neo-Stalinist days during the Seventies and early Eighties.

Those were the days, comrade! Plenty of room to live on the black. Lots of boodle just waiting to be taken. And, best of all, we were citizens (sort of) of a highly respected, even justly feared country. Opportunity and pride--what a deal!

The Geek must confess that he, like the Russians, misses the Cold War. Not for the same reasons, of course.

Life in the foreign policy and national security world was a lot easier back then. You knew who the Bad Guys were. They and us stood in a state of dynamic tension. The international system was dangerous. But the very danger implied by the nuclear standoff made for stability.

The men in the Kremlin were rational actors. Stalin and his successors were Nineteenth Century style imperialists as well as insecure nationalists. This assured that their calculations were generally conservative, cautious, careful.

Under the nuclear umbrella held by two hands, one from the Kremlin and the other from inside the Beltway, the world was safe for war. Proxy contests and interventionary operations were conducted in a way which decoupled their existence from the potential of vertical escalation. The building of the Berlin Wall was the symbolic ending of the struggle for Europe and after that there was little real cause for anxiety that the Big Button would be pushed.

The only time the American finger hovered over the Big Button was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the conservative and ever so nationalistic Kremlin which ended the crisis and gave the overly muscular and underly rational Kennedy administration a way out with the cloak of victory.

Throughout it all the Soviets and the Yankees had a set of coinciding national interests with that of keeping the nuclear option as far to the background as possible. Rhetoric might fly--but not the missiles. Blood might be spilled, but not in the homelands. Threats might exist, but they were known and could be countered effectively and at low risk.

Had Islamist jihadism arisen during the Cold War to a level which might compromise the stability of the international system, the coinciding national and strategic interests would have been such that the two "antagonists" could and would have developed a means to end the terror and its accompanying potential for instability. The Kremlin and the White House both understood and obeyed the same laws of conduct so that instability and its attendant risks of inadvertent resort to vertical escalation might be avoided.

The dunderheaded anti-Communist crusaders who morphed into neo-conservatives at the end of the Cold War did their best to kick Russia and the Russians in the years of turbulent change which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. By doing such the Bush/Cheney crew destroyed the working relationship which had developed during the Cold War. Worse, the net effect of the policies, words, and actions of both the Clinton and Bush/Cheney administrations boosted anti-US sentiment in Russia so that reconstituting the old relationship became more and more difficult as time flowed by.

The Obama administration's often vaunted attempts to push the "reset" button through placation and appeasement have been both fruitless and probably counterproductive. Being human the Russian leaders have not been and will not be impressed by anything other than the combination of strength, well delineated policy, and firm resolve in the application of policy.

This does not imply the necessity of rattling one's saber or engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric. It does mean treating Russia as we treated the Soviet Union. With the appearance and reality of an anxiety tinged respect.

Should Russia continue to develop its increasingly warm relation with China, the result would be most injuring to the US. One of the usually underrated features of the Cold War was the long running sore of the Sino-Soviet split. The last thing the White House should want today is for the two old rivals, even bitter enemies, to link diplomatic, military, and economic arms in a tight embrace.

Neither is it in the better interests of the US for the former Warsaw Pact members to be pulled any deeper into the Kremlin's gravity well than they have been to date. The same may be said regarding many of the Western European nations. The diplomatic center of gravity has been moved ever eastward. Whether by design or sheer absentmindedness as seems more likely, the Obama administration has done nothing to reverse the slow tectonic shift from Washington to Moscow.

This implies the need for Uncle Sam to puff out his chest. Maybe even pound it a bit. It is time to re-invoke the ethos and dynamic of the Cold War. Nothing major, but enough to convince the Russians at all levels of government and society that once again the Russian nation is respected, even feared a bit.

If the Nice Young Man From Chicago were to crank up a new, improved, and diminished Cold War he might be so pleased with the result that he would join Ivan and the Geek as they raise yet one more glass of vodka. As they toast the Cold War---

"To the good old days, tovarisch, when enemies could be friends."

On Safari With Secretary Clinton--Part II

Secretary of State Clinton took her roadshow to Angola and, most recently, the Democratic Republic of Congo. All was superficially love, kisses, and flower-power in Angola. The scene was much less pleasant in the DRC.

The Congo is a mess. It has been a mess since independence arrived ahead of schedule and in a welter of violence just under fifty years ago. Except for the years of repression under Mobutu, the Congo, under its varied names, has been the central bloodbath of Africa. The place laid claim to the title of The Great Sanguinary Swamp as the Belgians pulled out and the locals started shooting, raping, and committing wholesale robbery of anything and everything that was not nailed down. And, if it was spiked in, they just got a longer crowbar.

The US and USSR used the Congo as a Cold War playground. Play, except the stakes were real for those who killed and were killed.

(Paee, the NYT, which in its summary of Ms Clinton's visit incorrectly pinned the tail of blame on the ass of the CIA for the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the pro-Soviet prime minister. Actually, while Dr Death at the Agency had prepared a subtle poison for use on Patrice, it was members of Mobutu's militia who mutilated Lumumba with predictably fatal results. What the hey! Truth, who needs it when you can kick the Agency.)

In the event, the US, working from Cold War imperatives, which confused short-term order with long-term stability, backed Mobutu. This man was a stone psycho who killed, looted, and exhibited megalomania in the first degree. His orgy of looting, killing, governmental inefficiency, and corruption assured that when he was finally removed, the Congo would lack the basics necessary for a functioning state. American policy under presidents from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan is palpably guilty of grave crimes against the people and future of the Congo.

The Cold War imperatives were also at work in the US involvement in the twenty-seven years of internal war which devastated Angola following its gaining independence from Portugal in the mid-Seventies. We played a dangerous and ultimately futile game in the three-way war for dominance in the oil and mineral rich country. When the shooting finally stopped in 2002, our man in Angola, Jonas Savimbi, was dead and the Soviet/Cuban backed Jose Dos Santos was president.

Fortunately George W. Bush was too involved with adventures in regime change elsewhere to attempt to reverse matters in Angola. However, the quarter of a century of war had left Angola a complete ruin. In the past seven years it has made great strides to recovering the long lost infrastructure, including agriculture. More importantly, the Dos Santos government held legislative elections last year which were, particularly by African standards, free, honest, and transparent.

The scheduled presidential election has slipped to 2010 for reasons which may or may not be valid. Ms Clinton strenuously urged Dos Santos to hold the elections as soon as practical. The Angolan government gave no indication of disagreeing with this.

Ms Clinton presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Chevron Oil and both the US and Angolan government providing for the use of some oil revenues for urgent requirements in agricultural and small business development. This MOU is important since Angola is rapidly overtaking Nigeria as the number one oil exporter in Africa. Despite the flow of money from the oil sector, the majority of the Angolan population is very, very poor, existing on two bucks a day or less. Only a more equitable and rapid spreading of the oil wealth in ways which benefit both agriculture and business will remedy this and, in the process, help assure that another round of instability does not wrack the country.

Of course, the American effort to spread the oil wealth around may assist the US government in countering the increased influence of China in Angola. The Beijing regime has gained more than a little traction with the Angolan government due to its practice of providing development money without any of those American style strings regarding human rights, democracy, and honesty in government. Without getting into the endless debate regarding pragmatism versus idealism in the practice of diplomacy, suffice it to say that the Chinese approach, not unlike the American customs of the Cold War period, provide major short-term benefits, but, arguably, the US linkage of development efforts with the critical ineffables will prove the winner in the longer term.

A stable Angola with increased oil exports is in our national interest. Currently, approximately seven percent of our oil comes from Angola including the Cabinda Enclave. The percentage can go higher, particularly if the MEND insurgency in Nigeria continues to shrink that country's production. To put it crassly, better the oil comes here than it goes to China.

The Angolan government, particularly its foreign minister, were fulsome in praise of Ms Clinton, her remarks, and the MOU. President Dos Santos called his talk with her on environmental issues, military cooperation, and democratic reform, "superb." Considering the past record of the US in Angola, specifically our long running effort to keep Dos Santos from power, that comment, if true, is powerful reason to think the bilateral relations may go from "correct" to "near ally."

Matters did not go so well in Congo. That is no surprise. The US is in large measure responsible for the current situation in the country. This was never the intent of any of the administrations which supported Mobutu regardless of his more than slightly evident deficiencies.

Rather, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. The Congo has never been able to develop any of the necessary structures of government. Nor has it been able to foster orderly development of its vast mineral resources. It has not been able to provide for basic, let alone advanced, education for the overwhelming majority of its citizens. The country has never been able, allowed, would be the more accurate term, to foster the idea of a national citizenship in the congeries of tribes which constitute its population.

Absent a national identity, lacking national institutions, without a national infrastructure, but possessed of great and easily exploited resources, it has been almost inevitable that the DRC has become a tottering, war-wracked simulacrum of a nation-state. The Belgians ran a vast enterprise of exploitation. Independence brought Cold War politics with a vengeance. The aftermath of these as well as the legacy of Mobutu's lootocracy is what is seen today.

Eastern Congo is a venue of internal war with outsider influences. It is the rape capital of Africa. The major reason SecState Clinton flew into the regional metropolis, Goma, was to underscore the reality of mass rape as a chronic feature of warfare, Congo style.

The body count in the Congo at least equals the 1.5 million of Angola, and the internally displaced person count may well surpass Angola's 4 plus million. The consequences of this hectatomb include a loss of perceived legitimacy for the central government and a pervasive sense of hopelessness on the part of the area's youth. Considering the median age of the Congolese is 16.6 years, this means a lot of despair on the part of a lot of people.

While the UN peace keeping force in the Congo may be almost equal to the task of suppressing the dozens of armed groups fighting each other and the central government, the blue helmets cannot build hope, let alone a functioning nation-state. Nor can Ms Clinton's hectoring and imploring.

When a country, in this case the US, makes major foreign policy blunders, regardless of the reasons, intentions, or motives, that country must, repeat, must make amends. The amends must be real, practical, and quick to take some evident effect. Rather than to pass off as Ms Clinton reportedly did, the mistakes of the past as something she cannot "excuse," the US should come forward with a plan of action taken in conjunction with the Congolese government and, where relevant, the UN, with a view to rectifying the results.

This implies the commitment of resources which we can ill afford. Perhaps of manpower, which we certainly cannot afford. It means working with a government which is more one in name only than in substance. It means working to gain the trust of a people who have very, very little reason to trust us and our intentions. It means an exercise in time, frustration, and perhaps too few results coming too late.

Still, it is an effort we must make. We must make it if the current administration is to have credibility in Africa. We must make it if we are to justly see ourselves as the "last, best hope of mankind" or the "shining city on the hill."

As we had the responsibility to do our best to clean up the mess we made in Iraq, we have the ethical and practical responsibility to do our best to clean up the mess our past policies have created in the Congo, in Angola, and all the other dirty little proxy battlefields on the margins of the Cold War.

With victory come the responsibilities of having won.

And, that's a fact, Jack.

The Unshrinkable Elephant

The elephant in the room which will neither go away nor shrink is Iran. As the clock keeps ticking and the centrifuges keep spinning, Iran is coming closer to its objective: nuclear weapons capability. The current administration is out of both ideas and time. The next administration seems to headed by one (or two, if you presume Biden has any role in formulating foreign policy) who lacks a grip on the nature of the beast.

Right now it is prudent to plan on the failure of diplomatic palaver and economic sanctions. Iran may be an economic basket case whose basket is getting ever more frail with the decline in demand for its only significant foreign exchange making product--oil. But, the mullahs-in-charge show no sign of repenting having invested both political and financial capital in the nuclear program.

Lying to protect the faith and the faithful from the evil designs of the infidel is permitted in Islam and laudatory in the persecuted minority sect of Shia. Thus, the actions of the Iranian government are far more indicative of true goals than are the words of Iranian officials and high ranking clerics. Pressing on with the pursuit of nuclear materials independence is not necessary if the Tehran regime merely wants peaceful nuclear production of electricity.

The P5+1 group has made it clear that the legitimate needs of Iranian civil energy production will be met with full safeguards. The mullahocracy has rejected this. Not once. Repeatedly.

From this the only safe conclusion is that Iran wants the Big Bomb. They have good motivations for wanting this capacity. Both date back to the early days of the Iranian Revolution. One is to have a deterrent capacity against other countries in the region using weapons of mass destruction such as Iraq did during the long, body count heavy war with Iran. The second is to realise Iran's dreams of being the regional hegemonic power.

(Arguably that ambition dates not to the Revolution but to the days of the Shah, whose moves in that direction were encouraged by the Nixon and Ford Administrations in keeping with the Kissinger scheme of having regional proxies for the US in the post-Vietnam War environment.)

A third reason for seeking the bomb is to be found, paradoxically, in the words of assorted Iranian leaders, both civil and clerical. Bluntly, it is the extinction of Israel.

With a nuclear weapons capacity, the Iranian regime would be not only the elephant in the room but the eight hundred pound gorilla. Given both the eschatological orientation of the Mahdi-ridden leaders of the regime as well as its implacable hostility over the course of almost thirty years to the West generally and the US in particular, Iran with nukes is a very unpleasant possibility to contemplate.

So is war. War, whether called pre-emptive or preventative would be a hugely difficult task with global consequences of a nearly catastrophic sort, particularly in the context of the current global recession. A war, even one of the semi-mythical "surgical" airstrike sort, would not be short, glorious and successful. It would be long and, most likely, inconclusive.

That is why military operations have been quietly removed from the table by the current administration. They are not likely to be put back on the table by the forthcoming administration. At least not quickly.

Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently believes that Iran can be contained and deterred even if it gets a rudimentary nuclear capability. Many people who, like the Admiral, came of age during the years of the Cold War, have a similar faith in the twin towers of deterrence and containment. They did work reasonably well during the near half century of confrontation between the US and the USSR.

(Reasonably well may be somewhat of an overstatement given how close the two scorpions almost lashed their fusion powered tails at each other as during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were other times as well, but the Missile Crisis is the best known and best documented from both sides.)

Neither the US nor the USSR were "suicidal" powers. Yet each and both miscalculated during the era of mutually assured destruction. When considering deterrence, the first question which must be answered unequivocally is whether or not the other side is a rational actor disinclined to suicidal gambles. That question cannot be answered with certainty in the case of Iran.

The vast majority of Iranian people may love life, even a life as hardscrabble as it is currently for most in that country. The majority of Iranians may even like and admire the US as has been alleged. None of that matters.

Decision making is centered with the mullahs, the members of the Expediency Council and, above all others, the Successor to Khomenei. These men are True Believers. Their belief is in the Twelver version of Shia. They look to the near-term return of the Mahdi. Their belief is eschatological, that is, it focuses on the sacred time to come, not the profane time which is.

The Mahdi will return during a time of apocalypse. What better way to assure both the necessary apocalypse and the coming of the Mahdi than provoking a nuclear exchange?

The second question which must be asked and forthrightly answered if deterrence is to be effective is this: Is the United States population and government willing to see hundreds of thousands of Iranians die as well as region wide if not global environmental destruction occur through executing a retaliatory strike after an Iranian attack on, say, Israel?

Recall that the French went after their own nuclear deterrent for the simple and plausible reason that the government found it unlikely that the US would put its homeland cities at risk if the Soviets took out Paris. The French were not alone in their doubts. They were shared by other Europeans--and Americans. Including Americans occupying decision making billets in several administrations.

It is also worth recalling that when Senator Clinton threatened "obliteration" to Iran in the event it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, Senators Obama and Biden both characterised her stance as too close to that of George W. Bush. The Iranians are aware of that comment and probably believe that neither Obama nor Biden have changed much just because the election is past.

Deterrence may well not be nearly as strong a reed as the current administration and Admiral Mullen seem to believe.

That leaves containment. It sounds good. But, there are some very real problems. Insolvable problems.

Containment to be credible requires bases, beaucoup bases, bases almost beyond counting. There must be bases for aircraft. Bases holding prepositioned equipment. Bases for training. Bases for repairing. You get the point.

The bases must be convenient to the country being contained. For example, bases in Iraq.

Basing containment oriented forces or resources in Iraq is a non-starter. The Iraqis won't allow it. Whether the Government of Iraq has taken the Yankee-go-home position out of a tender concern for their sovereignty or out of a healthy and not unreasonable fear of Iran is of no moment. What counts is that the Iraqis won't let us stay there.

An alternative is Turkey. But, the Turks have their own foreign policy in play. It includes improved relations with Iran as part of positioning Turkey as a regional power in the Central Asian region as well as a bridge between the Islamic oil states of Central Asia (including Iran) and Europe.

Well, then there are the various "stans" of Central Asia. There are many difficulties with that option. They range from hostility to the US for various reasons to being a prime example of what Ike was getting at when he told the go-on-land-the-troops-and-roll-them-back SecState John Foster Dulles during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Ike said, "Show me the seacoast, Foster. Show me the seacoast."

Containment, even today with heavy lift aircraft, requires maritime support for long term effectiveness. That, in and of itself, rules out the "stans."

How about Afghanistan? Don't make the Geek throw-up.

Then there are the sheikdoms, emirates and so on of the Gulf Cooperation Council. True, but they are too weak both militarily and in the political will department to be effective base locations let alone allies in containment. The figures speak for themselves. Beyond that, there is more than a little fear of the Big, Bad Mullahs throughout the Gulf. In short, from a containment point of view, the Gulf States are oil rich, geographically vulnerable, lacking political will and too open to subversive attack.

There is another problem with containment. Containment draws a line in the sand. The state being contained seeks ways to leap the line. The Soviets were quite good at this. They leaped the line many times in very effective ways. From Latin America to Asia to Africa, the Kremlin used the tools of proxy war and subversion both open and covert with great skill and persistence.

The Iranians have already shown a talent in this area of activity. The Revolutionary Guard Corps has demonstrated a capacity for creative troublemaking in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere. The Iranians will be ready, willing and more than simply able to leap any line the US might try to draw in the sand.

Get a grip on it. Containment is every bit as much of a frail reed on which to base long-term policy as deterrence. If Admiral Mullen and others in senior positions really believe that the old reliables of the Cold War are good to go now with Iraq, they are hallucinating.

Where does that leave the US, the options for the new administration of change? There aren't too many options. And none of them are good.

And, that chillin' is the Tale of The Elephant That Wouldn't Shrink.

The Past Is The Future--In Russia

Since August seventh when Russia went on a rampage in Georgia (proving a good, really big guy can beat a small, not-so-good one), the hawks in the current US administration headed by Dick (let's-kick-the Russkies-again) Cheney have been in the ascendant. With the same single-minded, to-hell-with-reality! determination which was previously exhibited with regard to our Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq, the bring-on-the-apocalypse-now! crowd has been successfully restoring the Cold War, at least in miniature.

The handful of realpolitikers such as SecDef Robert (PhD in Russian studies) Gates have been on the defensive as they seek to retain necessary channels of communication open. Caught in the middle is SecState Condy (PhD in Soviet studies) Rice.

Time to go to the videotape of history. This is important--no, central--to understanding the source of contemporary Russian behavior and the challenges for American policy makers.

Why? You ask.

Because history may be a simple case of the dead past for Americans but it is a living hand at the back of every educated Russian (and even those who are not so educated.)

In Russia as in so many other countries the past is never really past, never actually dead, buried and of interest only to narrow specialists in history. Events of nearly a thousand years ago (think Mongol conquest and occupation) as well as of the past century (think German invasion in 1941 or the international respect accorded Russia during the Cold War) are alive and well in the minds of Russians.

In simple but not oversimplified terms, the collective mind of Russia is colored by both a sense of inferiority compared to the West and paranoia regarding Russian susceptibility to invasion from both West and East. This combination is assured to make Russian leaders feel both threatened and insecure, as getting no respect from the political elites of other major powers.

One result of this insecurity over the centuries has been a Russian fixation on gaining a protective territorial belt surrounding and buffering the Russian heartland against the ambitions of foreign powers be they European, Asian or in recent decades, American. Originally this protective belt, this buffer area on which future battles would be waged, consisted of those territories coterminous with Russia. The territories of the "Near Abroad" in Russian terminology such as the Ukraine, Georgia, the Central Asian Republics, the Baltic states.

As the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt) met at Yalta in the closing days of World War II in Europe, the Russian jefe made it clear that the Kremlin's definition of a necessary protective belt had expanded. Churchill, being a fine example of the 19th Century British statesman, understood the concept "sphere of influence" and accepted that wherever Red Army tanks sat at war's end would be the Russian sphere of influence.

While Roosevelt may not have accepted the concept of a Russian sphere of influence with equanimity, he both understood the idea and recognised the limits of American military power in April 1945 with half a war yet to be won. He bowed to the power of realism and accepted the facts on the ground (much to the dismay and future political advantage of numerous Republicans.)

A sphere of influence in which Russian interests receive the utmost of regard is one which warms the innermost chambers of the insecure Russian heart. The sphere assures that security is enhanced. The sphere provides a basis for international respect.

For the long decades of the Cold War the sphere formally known as the Warsaw Pact together with the Near Abroad gave the Kremlin material and psychic comfort. The Soviet semi-empire provided a balm for both inferiority feelings and barely suppressed fears of imminent attack.

The empire also made for caution. The Russians had something to lose. The primary goal of all Russian diplomatic and military effort during the Soviet period generally and the Cold War years in particular was conservative. The conduct of the denizens of the Kremlin was as cautious as their rhetoric was bellicose and radical.

The Kremlin kept the tightest of holds on the national Communist parties throughout the world lest they forget their purpose in life--protecting Russia. The assorted Communist parties did not have the purpose of spreading worldwide workers' revolutions. They did not have the goal of establishing global communism. Both of those ideas died along with Trotsky.

The purpose, the goal of Communism throughout the world, was profoundly conservative--protect and guard Russia. Period.

On the rare occasion when the Kremlin was incautious, adventurist as in seeking to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, it backed down quickly in the face of a resolute response. Even after the debacle in Vietnam caused the crisis of American confidence, the Kremlin moved with the utmost of caution as in Africa. The Russians tested the waters. When there was no American response they went ahead. But, even so they remained circumspect, using proxy forces from Cuba and other clients rather than their own.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the concomitant loss of both the WarPact and Near Abroad buffer, the Russian insecurity reemerged. For a decade or so the insecurity and conviction of inferiority were submerged in public perception by the extreme economic and social turbulence brought about by the Communist collapse.

The US provided, as correctly noted by Secretary Rice in her speech last week at the German Marshall Society, both material and political aid during the years of privation and upheaval. But, it must be noted that this assistance was provided with a hefty dose of condescension, paternalism and well-intended hectoring.

Members of the Russian political elite remember all too well the attitudes which accompanied the aid more than the aid itself. The feelings of inferiority and insecurity were stoked.

As the Russian economic and social house came more and more to order and a measure of prosperity under the regime of Vladimir Putin, the need to address the feelings of inferiority and insecurity grew. It was up to the US to both take cognizance of these feelings and effectively meet the underlying needs.

We didn't.

We repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the Russians saw Russia as a Great Power. We brushed aside their concerns in Kosovo. We blew off their ill-founded objections regarding the deployment of a small ABM capability in the Czech Republic and Poland. We bashed the Kremlin for opposing our Iraq adventure. In short, we treated the Russians in a way which communicated to the Kremlin that we saw Russia as a lesser power regardless of how we talked.

Objectively our role in the run-up to the Georgian border war was unconstructive. We gave too much public support to the current Georgian government as though it constituted the greatest monument to democracy since the Federalist Papers. We pushed too hard for Georgian (and Ukrainian) membership in NATO, ignoring that the one time Cold War alliance would thereby gain a presence in the Near Abroad.

From the Kremlin's perspective, colored by Russian history as it must be, our actions were both disrespectful and hostile. Far from mitigating Russian inferiority and insecurity, we enhanced them. There can be no surprise that the Russians pulled the several-months-in-preparation plan for war in South Ossetia out of the drawer and implemented it.

That action is every bit as unsurprising as the earlier Russian dusting off of long obsolete bombers and sending them on patrol over US naval forces and near US territory just like in the old days of the Cold War.

We have to get a grip on a simple fact. We need the Russians. We need their cooperation on a wide range of international interests. We need their cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. We need their cooperation in counter terrorism.

This means we have to take the Russians on their own, historically determined terms. We have to treat them like the Great Power they believe themselves to be. We have to honestly consult with the Kremlin, not have meetings where we talk past each other. We need, horrors on the right, to bow to their interests from time to time.

Or we can go the Dick Cheney way. We can ignore them. Refuse to have high level meetings. Restore some of the more obnoxious features of the Cold War.

None of that will alter Russian behavior. They can take isolation. It makes for inventiveness of diplomacy and political operations.

Let's see, muses the Geek thinking himself in the Kremlin, we are a major oil exporting country. What is the name of that bunch, you know the one our new best friend in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela belongs to? Oh, yeah, Organization of Patroleum Exporting Countries. Maybe I should give those boys a ring.

The Worst Enemy Of Islamists? Islamists!

To survive, let alone succeed, Islamists and Jihadists need the support of the Islamic communities in which they are attempting to operate. Wannabe governments, guerrillas, even terrorists, need shelter, support, and assistance.

They need people!

This is particularly true in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan where the Islamist/Jihadist entities are waging war. It's just here, in the war zones, that the Islamists are blowing it the worst.

In North Waziristan the "foreigners," primarily from Uzbekistan, have been hanging around since the US led invasion. At first they were well received by the locals since they were both well armed and well disciplined. More recently as pressure has increased, the Uzbek guerrillas have been making exactions and imposing severe interpretations of Islamic law on the Tribal residents. Now, the foreigners have been given unmistakable notice that they have outworn their welcome. The locals have started shooting them.

Tough luck, boys. Guess you'll have to be moving on. Go north, young Uzbek. NATO and the Americans, to say nothing of the Afghans, are waiting.

In Helmand province, the local Taliban types have backed off from sternly enforcing their dictates on fashion and musical tastes. They still state what they believe is required of good Muslims in these areas of personal life. But, they no longer slit throats or heave stones. This change in behavior may be because they hope to take part in potential peace talks with the central government. It is equally, if not more, likely that the locals were chafing under the restrictive Taliban worldview and were tilting toward more active support of the Kabul government and its outside supporters.

Live long and perhaps prosper, Talibanista.

In Iraq, the popularity of al-Qaeda in Iraq and akin groups has been hitting the tank in recent months. This has been exhibited in the increasing factionation within the al-Qaeda leaning amphyctony. It has been underscored by the recent audio tape issued by Icon-In-Hiding Osama bin Laden bemoaning the fissioning process.

More to the point, the alienation of the population by the zealots of Islamism through such measures as cutting the fingers off people caught smoking and similar condign punishments for equally important violations of Islamic law as interpreted by theological deep thinkers has assured a mighty uptick in the effectiveness of US efforts to recruit local Concerned Citizens ready and willing to dime out the blackhats. This in turn has brought a decrease in enemy initiated actions.

Increased effectiveness by pro-government forces coupled with decreased enemy initiated actions means fewer people are being killed. This means the governmental simulacrum in Baghdad has a (short in all probability) chance to demonstrate that it is a government in fact, not simply in title.

Back during the long, long confrontation between the US and the West on the one side and the Soviet Union on the other, the greatest support for the American cause came from people of the political left. People who had come very close to the flame of communism and had been badly burned for their effort. These individuals, whether in Western Europe or the US, were the best informed and most resolute opponents of Communism.

We have to take a firm grip on that lesson of recent history.

Muslims, particularly those who have come close to the fire of Islamism and have lived to tell of it, are the most important ally in the current struggle against the Islamists and Jihadists. They know and understand from up close and personal experience just what the real life, real world impact of the Islamist worldview is. We must use this powerful aid.

Often during the First Cold War of 1945-1991 Americans made the mistake of ignoring the experiences of ex-communists, of people from the far Left who backed away toward the center. We acted as if they were forever polluted by their experiences. Contaminated. Political lepers.

Or, as was often the case with Europeans of the Left who did not agree with the totality of American policy, we cast them into the category, "Commie!" We didn't simply ignore them or quarantine them. No. We condemned them.

All too often the world for Americans was artificially divided. Them or US. America! Love it or Hate it!

We cannot make that mistake again. The Muslims, particularly those who have lived with or under Islamist domination, are critical assets. We must welcome them as partners in struggle.

We have to let al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the other Islamists commit the blunder of alienating the people without whose support they have no hope of even surviving.

The Geek Makes A Confession--And A Demand

Once upon a time the Geek flirted with being an ant-anti-communist. That was the inevitable result of having come of age in the Sixties after years of anti-communist indoctrination in the public school system.

(Perhaps you remember those days too. Duck and cover. My Weekly Reader with primitive political cartoons showing a red octopus holding the globe in his tentacles. Maybe you even collected the bubble gum cards featuring commie atrocities.)

If you are chronologically disadvantaged, you may have read or heard of the dismal days of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade, better known as the Era of Great Fear or the Age of McCarthyism. Those were the days of blacklists. The days of loyalty oaths. The time of shrill demands to know, "Are you now or have you ever been...?"

By the time the Vietnam Debacle ended and Nixon left the White House covered in Watergate disgrace, the cause of anti-communism seemed dead. American communists and the wide assortment of fellow-travellers were seen as the victims of the worst sort of political assassination. Anti-communists were lumped together with J. Edgar Hoover and the wacky loonie-tunes Billy James Hargis sort as violators of the First Amendment at best and out and out Hitler clones at worst.

Even the most respectable anti-communists such as Paul Nitze, Norman Podhoeritz, and Alexander Solozhenitsyn were branded as mentally disturbed, neo-conservative warmongers, or throwbacks to the Stone Age of the Cold War.

Anti-anti-communism was one feature of a generation's defining mythology. The spirit of anti-anti-communism merged with other streams to form the current American focus on sensitivity, diversity, and the belief that there are no fixed, absolute ethical standards which apply to all people, all cultures, at all times and places.

This combination of over-sensitivity and fear of seeming to be reactionary has become a barrier to success in the new Cold War forced upon us by the Islamists.

Without standards of conduct, it is impossible for us to know what we are for--as well as what we must oppose in others.

Without real and absolute benchmarks, it is all to easy to fall prey to Islamists or their sympathisers accusing us of false crimes, for example, religious persecution. The cry of "Islamophobia" is hurled at anyone who takes a jaundiced look at the goals and methods of the Islamists and their armed component, Jihadism.

As a current example of this abuse see, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200710/CUL20071031b.html.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been eager to heave the Islamophobia grenade at any person, organisation, or group in the West which finds some Islamist gambit such as issuing a fatwa of death on the Danish cartoonist who put Mohammad's head on a dog's body objectionable. The OIC has been working the halls and lobbies of the UN long and hard in an attempt to enlist support in its effort to outlaw free speech in the West.

Free speech is a good candidate for an absolute standard. Authoritarian movements and regimes ranging from Nazism to Communism to Islamism are defined in large measure by their need to prohibit free speech. Liberal, democratic nations and peoples are in large part defined by free and open speech (even by their bitter, internal fights over what speech should or should not be protected.)

One of the most objectionable and self-defeating features of the Great American Anti-Communist Crusade was the willingness to curtail free speech in the interests of "protecting" Americans (particularly young ones) against the blandishments of Communism. It is a cliche to assert that the answer to "bad" speech is more speech.

Cliche? Yes. But, like all cliches this one contains a large grain of truth.

There is no Gresham's Law in speech. Bad speech need not automatically drive out good.

It is no wonder that Islamists all the way back to Qtub loath free speech, particularly as practiced in the United States. Freedom of speech leads to any number of other social and political features which are anathema to Islamists as they have been to other authoritarians.

You want some examples? The Geek is happy to oblige. You can add to the list.

The dignity of the individual is one.

Equality is another. (Feel free to add all the ways in which equality can manifest itself.)

Then there are advancement, evolution, and change. (Again the ways in which these can take form are legion.)

This gives some basis for the Geek's contention that freedom of speech is an absolute standard by which we can measure ourselves--and know our enemies.

There are other standards which may be advanced as well. During the Cold War between the US and USSR many were suggested. Political pluralism was one. Another was the freedom of the individual to practice a religion without the permission or hindrance of the state. Still another was the right of private property ownership. Yet another was access to economic opportunity without state interference or the necessity of party authorization. Then there was the right to travel, to move freely within a state, or to emigrate.

Arguably, these are all standards by which a country's or a movement's commitment to the dignity, opportunity, and integrity of the individual might be measured. Some can be defined as absolutes. Others are inherently conditional.

Be that as it may, we Americans--and all of us threatened by Islamism's global goals--must develop and at least tacitly agree on a set of standards. Only by doing this can we advance our cause by knowing what we are for.

Only by doing this, by developing and firmly enunciating a set of absolutes, can we assure that the opposition does not engage in the same successful tactic as did the anti-anti-communists of thirty and more years ago. To succeed against a challenge at least as severe as that posed by the Soviet Union, we must not allow the moral high ground to pulled from under our feet by shrieks of "insensitivity!" or "religious persecution!" or, worst of all, "Islamophobia!"

Only by knowing and declaring what we are for, will we ever know what and who wer're against.

Romney Is Right--About Something

Mitt Romney is not the Geek's favorite presidential wannabe. Intellectual honesty requires the Geek to give credit when the man from Massachusetts gets something right.

The other day Romney released a new ad in which he characterises jihadism along with its political counterpart Islamism as the major threat confronting the US and by implication, the West, if not the entire world. For the temerity of being correct, Romney has been excoriated by the mainstream media, the blogosphere and the chattering classes generally.

Two days earlier (10 Oct for those of you who like precise dating), the Department of Heimatsicherheit (Homeland Security for those of you who can stomach this abominable term) released yet another National Strategy for Homeland Security. Once more the deep thinkers at the Heimatsicherheitamt didn't even stoop to use the word "jihad" or bother to adumbrate a strategy for confronting Islamism.

That piece of intellectual vapidity is akin to fighting World War II without mentioning just who the enemy might be. Or, waging the Cold War with the Soviet Union without mentioning the nature of Marxism-Leninism, its appeals or how to counter them.

We have to get a firm grip on some fundamental realities about the world today--and into the future.

Jihadism is nothing new. It is not the creation of Osama bin Laden. It is not the result of the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is not the result of the emergence of the state of Israel.

The concept of jihad defined as armed aggression against either non-Muslims or apostates from Islam dates back to the origins of the religion itself. Arabic, unlike a vocabulary-rich language such as English, lacks a plethora of denotative words allowing for the conveyance of precise nuance of meaning. (This is not a blast against Arabic, there are numerous other languages which share the same limitation.) Arabic words admit of numerous translations into English. Thus, it is quite possible for a straight-faced propagandist to aver that jihad means something such as "personal struggle" (as with evil within) or "peaceful struggle" as in discourse meant to convince.

As recent events have made clear, "jihad" means only one thing to those who practice, support, or direct it--violence. Maiming, killing and dying.

Jihadism is a force with powerful appeal for those who practice it. Much of its power springs from the larger political ideology of which it is the armed expression.

That ideology is Islamism. The goal of Islamism is global. Literally. A global caliphate under which the human race would live according to the strictest interpretation of Islamic law gives Islamism its teleology.

As the Geek has noted in earlier posts, much of Islamism is akin to European fascism of the Twenties, Thirties, and beyond. Like fascism, it purports to address both existential anxieties and the great historical question: Why were we once so great and now so small, inconsequential, ground down?

Islamism and Jihadism have declared war on the US, on the West, on the shared centuries of values and customs that have distinguished the West from other areas of the world and which provide the cultural appeal as well as the economic potency of the West. From the perspective of the Islamist and the Jihadist, it is and must be a war to the death.

That is a bitter reality to accept. The Geek doesn't like it. He didn't like it more than a decade ago when he warned military and policy audiences to both keep our powder dry and our political will high. We were already in a war which could be more prolonged and more difficult to win than was the First Cold War.

Coming hard on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the First Cold War, the Geek's warning was as welcome as E coli at a meatpacking plant. (Thus his commiseration with Romney. It ain't easy to be right about unpleasant things.)

Considering the newest version of National Strategy for Homeland Security, it is obvious that the current administration is in a state of denial. Given the incredible blunder of invading Iraq, this is scarcely surprising.

The wallahs in congress are in the same state. The action of Nancy Pelosi, Sten Hoyer, and their ilk in seeking the passage of a meaningless feel-good resolution on Armenian "genocide" regardless of negative effects on our efforts to finally clean up the rubble of the Iraqi disaster show that. It might even be fair to say that these individuals are so focused on ending the war in Iraq prematurely that they are seeking to so complicate the Iraq war that failure is virtually guaranteed.

Nothing would please or embolden the Islamists more than an American failure in Iraq. Nothing could give the Jihadists more reason for joyous firing of AKs in the street (or get them more recruits eager to die while blowing Americans to small fragments of bloody protoplasm) than a US cut-and-run in Iraq.

Those (like some totally gripless members of the current British government) who urge negotiation with "moderate" members of Taliban in Afghanistan are also in denial. The fundamental premise of Islamism is as the New Left used to put it in the Sixties: Non-negotiable.

Since he has been shot at more than enough times for one life, the Geek greatly prefers talking to shooting. He's all in favor of negotiations.

But, wait one! There are problems with negotiations. Both sides must want it. Both sides must see something substantial to be gained by the effort. This means the two sides must share some overarching interest that makes negotiation worthwhile.

The Islamists might see only one reason to negotiate--to buy time. Time is a great commodity. With time one might rest, refit, recruit, train, equip, plan, move forces into favorable positions, avoid loss.

In short, negotiation with an adversary that is totalist in its goals, motivated by endless faith, and possessed of individuals quite willing to die in the process of killing, is, at best, a ploy. In the eyes of an Islamist, as made abundantly clear by recent statements by Sheik Omar, the Taliban Leader-in-Hiding, concerning the offer by the Afghan National Government to negotiate, an offer is a sign of collapsing will to continue fighting.

All those who counsel negotiation with Islamists would be well advised to remember the Korean War. While the talking droned on seemingly without any end in sight, the hardest, bloodiest, most pointless combat did as well. The nature of the enemy and his belief in talking shows loss of political will to fight required lives be lost capturing and holding militarily meaningless moon-barren hills with names like Porkchop.

Negotiating with an Islamist across the table will, if you want even the slightest possibility of a less-than-totally unfavorable outcome, will require that more lives be expended in a demonstration of political will.

The same must be said about the Second Cold War. It won't be like the First. Yes, there will be a Battle of Ideas, a Conflict of Values, a War of World Views, as in the First Cold War. This time there will be more hot wars, nasty little operations without fronts, without heroes, without glory, without phase lines, without victory parades or banners draped across the flight decks of aircraft carriers.

The Second Cold War which has been forced upon us will be tougher, more demanding of political will and resilience, more difficult to understand, and much less susceptible to compromise and agreement on minor issues than the First. It promises to be a war in which quarter is not likely to be offered or received--at least by the Islamist/Jihadist side.

Before we can fight it, we and those in our government must realise that we are at war. We have been at war for nearly two decades now. Isn't it time that more of us realise it?

Mitt Romney may never get the Geek's vote. But, for having spoken an unpleasant truth, he has the Geek's respect.

It's Easy, Too Easy To Be Against A War

Bill Richardson is to be credited with one plus in his run for the White House. He is completely, absolutely opposed to keeping any troops in Iraq beyond the normal Embassy security force of US Marines. No waffling. No yes-but's. No equivocation.

This sets him apart from his first tier rivals. Senators Clinton and Obama are not committed to a zero tolerance policy. Neither is ex-Senator Edwards.

Apparently a firm, unmistakable position is attractive to bloggers. Three front porch dogs of the blogosphere have signed on to the Richardson Zero Troops In Iraq policy. While they did not endorse Richardson, the thumbs up to his central message is tantamount to endorsement. See http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/bloggers-endorse-leadership-in-richardson-ad/.

The Geek is not one of the front porch dogs of blogging. Heck, he isn't really allowed onto the back porch. Even so, he is willing to risk his infinitesimal reputation on the assertion that the Geek, unlike the Big Three Bloggers and Governor Richardson, is willing to reject the easy course of decrying the ongoing war in Iraq.

History shows that realism in foreign policy is never easy. It involves making difficult choices from the base of an accurate understanding of both national interest and the threats or opportunities confronting national interest. Realism in foreign policy requires the utmost of intellectual and moral courage. It demands that an individual see the world as it is, not as he either wishes it to be or fears it might be. Additionally, realism in foreign affairs challenges the individual to act upon his understanding regardless of any negative effects upon his personal fortunes or career.

The current administration demonstrated its lack of realism in foreign affairs six and a half years ago with the invasion of Iraq. The pack of neocon ninnies in the bowels of the Pentagon and White House showed that they collectively could not face the world as it actually was and made decisions based upon a witch's brew of fear, neocon ideology, and hallucination.

The gripless crew threw away American credibility and the world's trust and sympathy, which had accrued over preceding years and in the aftermath of the Islamist attacks of 9/11. The deep thinkers of the Right forced a war upon us which was neither necessary nor relevant to the actual conflict with Islamism and its practictioners of terror tactics.

The time to have had a zero troops in Iraq policy was the day before the first missiles struck Iraqi targets. Before the first Made in the USA boot hit the sands of Iraq. Six and a half years ago the time came and quickly passed for opposition to the war and a demand that the troops, all the troops, come home.

Once the US invaded, once the conventional forces of Iraq were defeated, once the multi-party insurgency commenced, it was too late to back out. To leave now, to leave prematurely will assure that the only non-losers in the Iraq cockpit will be the Islamists, including those of the mullahocracy.

Wait one! The Geek knows he has beaten that horse before. He will refrain from hitting that target again. At least in this post.

The Geek is not in favor of war. He most assuredly is against the one in Iraq. At the same time, a realistic view of the world today, including the emergence and continued growth of Islamism as a potent and hostile ideology, does not permit the feel-good luxury of telling Iraq, "Get thee behind me." It does not allow the politically appealing and emotionally satisfying "Zero Troops in Iraq" notion advocated by Governor Richardson and his Big Time Bloggers supporters.

There are two very bad ideas bruited about currently. One is the Bring the Boys and Girls Home scheme. The other is the Blast Iran Back to the Stone Age weirdness.

Wars, history shows, should never be entered into lightly. If you don't believe that, check out the blithe way European statesmen let loose the cannons of August 1914 or the eagerness with which members of the House and Senate pushed for a war in Vietnam back in 1965.

Once war is commenced, it should never be abandoned easily. By the criteria of evident success, cost-benefit ratio, or unpopularity with We the People, the American War of Independence would have been abandoned shortly after the British took New York City. By those criteria the North would have given the South its independence in 1863. Even the Korean War, arguably the most important hot zone of the Cold War, would have been cast off within the first ninety days of US involvement or, failing that, during the long period of trench stalemate in 1952 and 1953.

Wars are fought to bring about a better state of peace. Indeed, it is antipodal understandings of what constitutes a better state of peace that calls war into existence. From the American perspective, considering only American interests, both short and longer-term, a better state of peace consists of credibly drawing a line over which the forces of Islamism cannot cross.

That was the real function of the Korean War. The better state of peace which came in the wake of the Korean Armistice was not peace undefiled. It was not such a good state of peace that the troops, all the troops could come home for once and for all.

The Korean Armistice ushered in an era of good-enough-peace. It assured another two generations of Cold War. It allowed for a misguided war in Vietnam. It also provided the basis for the effective containment of Soviet ambitions. It laid the foundation for the dying of the Marxist-Leninist faith.

In short, the Korean War, unpopular as it was with We the People and seemingly inconclusive as its end might have been, brought about a better state of peace, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Governor Richardson and his supporters, blogger and otherwise, are to be commended for taking a firm stance on Iraq. Unfortunately, their stance is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

Leaving Iraq too soon would be like having left Korea before the Armistice. It is to abandon the necessity of drawing a line. It is to forsake the goal of successfully countering Islamism. It is to lose faith in us and our future.

What's New About Racism and Religion?

There are times when the Geek wants to quote Mr Natural (note for the chronologically challenged, Mr Natural was an iconic figure from the comix of the late Sixties and early Seventies.) This is one of those times.

The quote?

"Son, I'm a slow man to anger, but, frankly, this rankles my ass!"

Next question, what is rankling the Geek this time around?

Not politics. Not politicians. Not even John Edwards.

This time the Geek is torqued off by the perception, the allegation actually, that has been floating around the mainstream media, portions of the blogosphere, and the United Nations which holds that we in the US are "racist" if we do not accept without question every piece of spittle from Muslim lips as a precious pearl of wisdom.

Right at the giddy-up the Geek wants to make it clear that he has nothing against Islam--nor for it. He avers the same about all other religions as religions.

Until a religious derived ideology has an impact upon international politics, matters of diplomacy, war and peace.

Had the Geek been alive back in the Twenties and Thirties as the Japanese militarists came to power, he would have had no problem with either Shintoism or the code of Bushido. That is until the Japanese used both as the basis for a ethno-religiously derived ideology of regional and even global expansion.

Both Shintoism and the code of Bushido had and have many good points, but like any religious or semi-religious belief system, are ambiguous and easily distorted through situationally driven reinterpretation. That is what happened during the years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

In the hands of the expansionist oriented ideologues of Tokyo, reinterpretation of old beliefs led to the exultation of the Japanese at the expense of their "little brothers" in the rest of Asia. Beyond that, it led to a warped view of the Western nations, particularly the US and Great Britain.

Get a grip on this.

The ideologues reinterpreted ancient and honorable beliefs to excuse, justify, and rationalise both aggressive, unprovoked war and the gross mistreatment of civilians and military personnel so unfortunate as to fall into their hands.

Not different from the Islamists, is it?

In such official works as Read This Book and The War Is Won, The Way of the Subject, and, issued by War Minister Tojo in 1941, Field Service Code, the Japanese soldier, sailor, and civilian were all assured that a war of expansion through and beyond Asia, a war to "gather the eight corners of the world into the Emperor's house," was a "holy cause."

The soldier was told to live in a spirit of self-sacrifice, austerity, simplicity, honor, and commitment to the Living God. He was told, as was the civilian in the Home Islands, that death would mean eternal life.

Not unlike the Islamists, is it?

In the same official publications as well as those issued by the Ministry of Education and a slew of unofficial or semi-official books and articles, the Americans were portrayed as weak-willed, materialistic, lewd, decadent, exploitative, and, all-in-all, icky-poo, despicable and easy to defeat.

We were excoriated for our treatment of Blacks, Indians, and others. We were held up as the ultimate example of all that is bad, sinful, evil. Our lack of "moral fiber" was commented on repeatedly.

Even Admiral Yamamoto, a man who was fluent in English, had served for years in Washington as the Naval Attache, and had even driven from coast to coast meeting Americans and seeing the industrial strength of the US wrote that since, "...the Americans are merchants. They will not fight a protracted, unprofitable war."

Guess he got that one wrong.

The admiral also wrote that he "hoped with the massive attack on Pearl Harbor to cast the Americans into such despair that they would be unwilling to fight."

Guess he got that one wrong too.

Get a grip on this.

The Japanese were every bit as much racist as are the Islamists today.

Now, get a grip on this.

The Japanese were blinded to the real American temperment by their religiously derived racist ideology as are the Islamists today.

It is an interesting and important exercise to place the writings of the Japanese from seventy-five years ago alongside those of Islamists ranging from Qtub to bin Laden. The Islamists could have lifted the Japanese justifications for a holy war as well as their critique of the Americans nearly word for word.

(Hint to intelligence analysts: This comparison is relevant to understanding both strengths and weaknesses of today's Islamist adversaries. It is also relevant to appreciating the appeal of faith derived political ideologies.)

It is important to recognise that not all Japanese were willing, let alone eager, to die for the Emperor's crusade. It is important to acknowledge that the heavy emphasis placed by the militarists of Tokyo upon sacrifice and solidarity in the holy war was propaganda intended to enhance the coherence of the Japanese public in support of the war.

Similarly, it is critical to separate Islam from the Islamist ideology. Not only must we in the US and the West generally do this, so also must Muslims. Muslims must realise that most, if not all, the Islamist tracts are intended as propaganda intended to unify Islam behind the Islamist ideology and its practitioners. A believer in Islam who is not an adherent of the Islamist ideology must stand up and say so.

At the least, the Muslim who is not an Islamist must cease proclaming how offended he is by defining Western practices and values such as freedom of expression. Every single time that a Muslim objects to basic freedoms in the West, every single time he screams, "Racism" because someone somehow somewhere does something he finds offensive, he has joined the Islamist movement.

The Geek would suggest to Doudou Diene, the UN special rapporteur on racism and others of similar mind that the West with its freedoms of expression, belief, and dissent are not the racists. No. It is the Islamists like the Japanese expansionists of seventy-five years ago who deserve that designation.

Racism whether of the assertive sort as shown by the Japanese and Islamist ideologues or the passive version of paternalistic hyper-sensitivity exhibited by Mr Diene, is counterproductive. Assertive racism results in its own destruction as shown by World War II.

Passive racism, to the contrary, results in surrender. The active racists of Islamism have forced us into a new Cold War. Surrender is not an option.

Get a tight grip on this! Calling an Islamist with the gleam of conquest in his eye and a bomb under his shirt a racist is not Islamophobia--it's just the truth.

Rosh Hashana And Ramadan

Two warrior religions commence High Holidays at sunset next Friday. Two warrior religions whose adherents stand with rockets drawn, glaring across borders and security fences, locked in the symmetry of the lunar calendar.

Both religions are monotheistic. Both proclaim peace as a high--even the highest--value. Both formed in the desert, a place of soul emptying space and awe inspiring solitude. Both came into existence in the historical context of nomadic pastoralists who saw shining cities in all their artificial splendor only rarely and then always from a distance.

Both corporate faiths had moments of imperial greatness. Both fell from the highest peaks to low valleys. One fell to a place more desolate and forsaken than the other.

Judaism and Islam, warriors' faiths, tidally locked by history from the time of the younger's birth to the present. Locked in a relation of mutual exclusion. Locked in struggle, struggle for dominance.

Dominance and submission. Under the periodic calls for "tolerance" or "mutual respect" or some other term from the soft, fuzzy language of fantasy is the cold, hard bedrock of reality.

Get a grip on this: Judaism and Islam are exclusionist religions. They define themselves by excluding all who are not adherents to the faith and its creed.

Judaism is honest about this. Circumcision was a clear and unmistakable, quite irremediable physical confession of adherence. It is still that today despite the mid-Twentieth Century use of the practice on a wide scale for "hygienic" reasons. Further demonstration of the existential honesty of Jewish exclusionary practice is seen in the simple facts that converts are not sought and the process of conversion is both lengthy and difficult.

Islam is bluntly honest about its exclusionary nature--to a point. Islam divides humanity into two "houses." The Islamic community is the "House of Peace." Everyone else lives in the "House of War." Fogging the matter is the simplicity of the conversion process. And, the willingness of Muslims to seek converts.

Without getting into the murky waters of the Higher Criticism within Christian historical and theological circles, the message of Jesus, the Wandering Sage and Healer of Nazareth, was inherently inclusive. It made no distinction between Jew and gentile.

That came later. Later Christianity, the religion founded after the death of Jesus, became exclusionary. Only later were creeds developed. Only later were membership requirements established. Only later did Christianity become a warrior religion. Only much later did blood flow in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

War is the ultimate form of exclusion. By its very nature and requirements, war defines the enemy as the Other, the fiend in human guise. Wars based on either religion or an ideology defined as arising from the faith are particularly nasty.

Killing the enemy of one's faith is tantamount to killing Evil. Killing the enemy of one's faith is reaffirming the truth of one's creed, one's own beliefs, even one's own validity as a person.

Jewish warriors facing the Romans twenty centuries ago fought with the preternatural courage that only individuals possessed by true belief exhibit. Sixty years ago the fighters of Israel showed the same bloom and blood of faith. Two thousand years ago or six decades past, people fought not simply for personal existence but for the truth of the belief that defined them as a community.

Belief is powerful. It is a force multiplier of almost incalculable strength.

The same power of belief can be seen in the swath of conquest cut by Muslim swords across the Mideast, through Spain and into France in the first century after Mohammad's troops took Mecca. It can be seen as the Turkish tide swept to the walls of Vienna.

Judaism is exclusionist but not expansionist. The power of belief is enlisted for defense not for conquest.

Can the same be said about Islam?

The short answer is: Yes and no.

By a careful selection of Quranic text focusing on the verses of the Medina period, a strong case can be made to support the contention that Islam is a religion, even the religion of peace. While the intellectual excercise of textual selection is possible, it is historically dishonest. Taken as a totality, the Quran and the Sayings of the Prophet reflect the imperatives of a warrior, exclusionist religion.

Taken as a whole, the Quran, the Sayings, and most of the later commentaries, demand that the House of Peace, that is, Islam, dominate the House of War, the rest of the world. Inherently Islam is both exclusionist and expansionist.

Sit back, bucko. Think about that. Get a grip on it.

Islam is both exclusionist and expansionist. It demands not only defensive war against the threat of the Satanic Other. It demands the Satanic Other be conquered. Made to submit.

Islam is a warrior religion. That's its history.

The Geek hastens to point out that not all Muslims are fired up, eager volunteers for the new wars. Many--even most--Muslims are like the Good Soldier Schwienk, willing to pay lip service, willing to go through a few pro forma motions of noncommittal seeming support, but not at all willing to strap on a bomb, grab a box cutter, or take an AK in hand to further the cause. It's a feel good exercise to chant a few "Death to America" phrases and wave a fist for the camera or cheer another martyr. That's as far as most Muslims are ready to go.

We shouldn't go out of way to infuriate this vast mass. But, neither should we get a panic attack if we find that the guy next to us, the one with a beard, speaks Arabic or reads the Quran.

Islamism--the ideology represented by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and others including the mullahocracy in Tehran--is another matter. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy today. By careful selection from the Quran, the Sayings of the Prophet, and the later commentaries, the Islamists from Qtub through to bin Ladin and assorted Saudi "clerics" have constructed an ideology justifying, no, demanding holy war against Israel, the West generally, and the US in particular.

Islamism and Islamists are the enemy of the unreluctant warriors of Israel. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy of We the People--the reluctant warriors of the United States. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy in the new Cold War in which the West generally has been forced.

Get a grip on it.

Regardless of our personal religious beliefs (or absence of such) we are in a Cold War which has turned hot. The Islamists with their ideology have given us no choice except surrender. Submission to the will of Allah as they interpret it is the only alternative.

Not much of a selection, is it?

Withdrawing from the messes our poorly thought out policies have created in Afghanistan and Iraq will not improve our condition. It will only make matters worse.

Whether we like the idea or not (and, personally, the Geek does not) we are in it for the long haul. Just as we could not afford to lose the First Cold War, we cannot lose the Second.

The warriors of Islamism are waiting. Bomb in hand.

Will Al-Qaeda Hit US Again?

The big question underlying Osama bin Laden's recent video offering as well as his audio introduction to the latest installment of Last Wills of the 9/11 Killers is this: Will al-Qaeda hit us here at home again?

With all due respect to the efforts of US and allied countries' security force, the answer is: almost certainly.

Al-Qaeda and its imitators have the continued will and desire to do so as indicated by the recent German success in aborting a plot involving US installations in that country. If further evidence is needed, the successes of Danish and Turkish security agencies in stopping attacks provides it.

The Islamist ideology has tremendous appeal. Get a grip on that unfortunate truth.

Americans might not understand it, but the appeal for individuals, even those of a privileged background, those with advanced degrees as in the case of the attempted vehicle bombers in London and Glasgow, is real, powerful, and growing. Get a grip on that unfortunate truth.

Islamists and their ideology have widespread and effective governmental support. Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two so-called allies, are involved directly, albeit semi-secretly, in supporting the agenda of global domination espoused by the Islamist ideology. So also is Iran. Get a grip on that reality.

Islamists have sanctuaries. The wild terrain on the Afghan-Pakistan border is one. Pakistan itself is another. Iran is yet one more. Several of the Central Asian Republics such as Uzbekistan are excellent candidates for sanctuary status. So are some African states such as Sudan and, perhaps, Eritrea. That's another unpleasant reality.

Still other countries might find it in their interests to look the other way if al-Qaeda or similar groups take up residence. Deals can always be struck, particularly if immunity from attacks or subversion are part of the package.

The United States is an easy country to enter surreptitiously. The drug flow or the traffic in illegal aliens is proof of that. Anything less than a Berlin Wall style fortification surrounding the land frontiers of the US backed by troops standing nearly shoulder to shoulder would not preclude the entrance of hostile personnel and their equipment.

Command, control, communication, and intelligence on soft targets in the US pose few difficulties considering the technical means available to hostile groups and their members. Neither is the importation or acquisition of necessary munitions and means of delivering them.

Put all these factors together and the conclusion is unavoidable. Some group is going to hit us again. Hard. Perhaps, as bin Laden indicated in an earlier video, even harder than the attack six years ago.

More of us are going to die one of these days. Get a grip on that.

The doses of soothing, soft glop provided by Secretaries of Homeland Security or Directors of National Intelligence or the FBI don't change the realities in play.

Neither do statements of resolve out of the White House. Sure it would be nice to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but that wouldn't end the threat. Arguably it would only serve to increase it. Our emotional satisfaction with seeing Global Terrorist Number One in handcuffs or as a bullet riddled corpse would be surpassed by the spike in hatred felt by Islamists and Islamist wannabes. Imagine for the moment the reaction by all the true believers who would now clamor to join bin Laden's "Cavalcade of Martyrs."

Some victories are really defeats, right?

We will be hit again. Make book on it. Take it to the bank. Get over it.

What matters is not when or how we will be hit. Nor does it matter how many of us will be killed.

What matters, all that matters really, is how we respond to the hit when it happens.

Will we see it as one more Pearl Harbor? One more war against terrorism to wage? Will We the People and the Wallahs in Congress slaver after vengeance? Seek to strike someone, somewhere, somehow, so our pain and humiliation might be assuaged?

Or will we respond with increased firmness, determination, and focus upon the real enemy? The real enemy is not Osama bin Laden. It is not and cannot be terrorism per se.

The real enemy is and will be for some time to come the Islamist ideology and its practitioners.

The tactics of the Islamist true believers may be as loud as a multi-kiloton bomb. They may be as silent and lethal as a fast spreading, high morbidity pathogen. They might even be as still and seemingly harmless as a plea for understanding, for sympathy. The tactics might even be those of sensitivity and political correctness.

Regardless of tactics, the enemy remains the same. Just as the enemy during the First Cold War was the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and its practitioners in all forms, now in the Second Cold War it is the Islamist and the ideology of Islamism.

To win, We the People must have--and demand that those who seek to hold offices of trust and confidence under our Constitution also have--the will to keep on slogging. To keep our political will regardless of failures, irrespective of deaths among us.

It will be hard. Very hard. It won't feel good. That's right. It will not feel good. In recent years we Americans have put an enormous emphasis on feelings. That won't work. Not in a war.

Get a grip on this. Feelings won't cut it in our struggle with those who would kill us.

Only rationality will work. Grip that tightly. Only rationality. Not feelings.

Cold, unsatisfying rationality coupled with firmness and imagination will finally yield success against Osama bin Laden and the others who wish our collective death.

The Geek Says, "It's Time For A Cold War Mentality

When the Chinese are caught selling defective or unhealthy products to the US, their spokespeople invariably allege that the Americans, "Have a Cold War mentality."

The same charge is made when their military or intelligence agencies are caught with spying hands in our electronic cookie jars.

At the same time, American academics and others of a similar ilk churn out gobs of verbiage alleging that the blame for the Cold War rests squarely and solely on Uncle Sam's shoulders. The same Blame America First bunch stridently maintains that all the unpleasant features of the Cold War including the arms race and the hot wars of Korea and Vietnam were made in America along with the undeniably domestic product known as McCarthyism.

The Geek wants to know, "What's wrong with the Cold War mentality?"

The simple truth remains that we, the US and its allies, won the Cold War. We're still here. The Soviet Union is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Leaving aside the resurgence of Russia which has been facilitated by the inept and relentlessly non-realpolitik policies of the neo-con ninnies in the current administration (as detailed in a previous post), the Geek would like to get to his main point.

Six years ago today, the Geek and Geekess were still in bed as the first reports of the events of 9/11 came over the radio. (We live too far out in the mountains for television and were spared the flood of images to which most Americans were immediately exposed.)

The Geek's gut clenched. He felt an instant, bottomless void in the pit of his stomach. The stunning words on the radio meant much more than a deadly event, an act of war--they meant the world had been changed in a few split seconds in a new and unpredictable direction.

He turned to the Geekess and said, "Our world will never be the same again."

As the words of tragedy and heroism flowed by his ears almost unheard, the Geek reached to the archives of his mind searching for analogies. Two came almost at once.

The first was the most obvious. Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. Peace shattered over the radio. Shockwaves running through the American public. War declared. War waged. Long, bloody battles. Savage combat in remote hells. Victory.

9/11 like 12/7 would be a "day that shall live in infamy." Of that the Geek had no doubt. But what about the rest of the sequel? What of war declared, war waged, battle long and bloody? What of victory?

The Geek was certain that the US would make a military response. He even compiled a target list. Two actually. One of show targets and the other of substance targets. Only one country headed both lists: Afghanistan. (For the sake of historical completeness, Iraq didn't show up on either of the lists. The Geek confesses that the neo-con nuts know-nothings got him there.)

Expecting a several month lead time as regional "allies" were recruited (read "bribed" or "coerced" or "cozened") and ground forces deployed, the Geek was shocked by the speed of the operation but not awed by the low number of troops committed to the invasion of Afghanistan and the search for bin Laden and the rest of the al-Qaeda crew.

The Geek will skip his reaction to the follow-on invasion of Iraq. Instead he will look at the second message from history that came to him a few hours after the Twin Towers fell.

The Berlin Airlift.

The what?

You read it right, bucko, the Berlin Airlift.

In microcosm, the Berlin Airlift represents the Cold War. In roughly eighteen months the US in conjunction with the UK and France demonstrated political will, civic resolve, military competence, and strategic imagination. Without a single bomb falling, without a single tank rolling, and at low cost in lives, the Americans and their partners drew a line in the sand and with a combination of presence, persistence, and patience gave the Kremlin no choice except backing down.

As the brilliant diplomat and historian, George Kennan, advised in his famed "Long Telegram," all the US and its allies needed to do was draw a line with firmness and resolve and contain the Soviet Union until the in-built inefficiencies, injustices, and inconsistencies of Marxism-Leninism drained the faith and political will of the Communists. That is precisely what we did with the Berlin Airlift.

It's what we did in Korea. We drew the line and held it at Pusan. We drew the line and held it at Pork Chop Hill. We did not win in Korea. More importantly--we did not lose.

Did you get that Senator Clinton? How about you, Senator Obama? And you, ex-senator Edwards? If not, here it is again. We did not lose.

By not losing in Korea the US kept open the chance of ultimately winning if enough patience and persistence could be employed. We the People found the necessary strength, resolve, and dedication to keep on keeping on, year after frustrating year. Decade after indecisive decade. We kept on keeping on even through our blunders and losses such as in Vietnam.

Just as the men flying in the Berlin Airlift kept the planes coming despite fog, through rain, over the burning wrecks of the aircraft that didn't make it, we kept on keeping on.

That's why we're here. And the Soviet Union isn't.

That's the Cold War mentality in action.

The current administration made a critical mistake right off the mark nearly six years ago. The neo-con wolf pack opted for the wrong lesson of history. They remembered the "day of infamy" and forgot the Cold War.

Ironic isn't it?

The neo-con crew should have had the right mindset to remember who won the Cold War. They should have been equipped to put the lessons of that victory at work against the new enemy. They didn't. Instead they seemed to feel the decks of battleships quiver with bomb bursts under their feet.

They ached to strike back. They wanted to destroy the enemy. They seemed to feel Osama bin Laden's throat between their teeth.

The current administration did not contain statesmen. It did not contain strategists. No. It contained a bunch of comic book junkies who had read too many "Sergeant Rock of Easy Company" and not enough history.

Get a grip on this. Not only did the current administration not remember how the Cold War was won. They didn't even know who the real enemy was.

The real enemy is not terrorism qua terrorism. Not at all. The real enemy is and was the Islamist ideology and those who practice it.

The Cold War demonstrates that hostility prevails across a wide spectrum. It ranges from shooting and bombing to espionage and subversion to the recruitment of apologists and others of the sort Lenin bluntly termed, "Useful fools." Terrorism is just one tactic to be used by an enemy.

To wage war against a tactic is foolish. Foolishness is a great way to lose.

The Islamist ideology like that of Marxism-Leninism is directed at the accomplishment of a range of political, economic, social, and cultural goals. The Islamist ideology springs from a specific reading of a single religious creed. Marxism-Leninism might have been rigorously secular with only disparaging references to the presumed deity, but it also was based on a specific reading of history.

The Islamist might believe he has Allah on his side. The Marxist-Leninist believed he had history on his. Islamism and Marxism are rigidly teleological. They are both goal oriented. Believers in either are convinced that the ends justify any means.

The Cold War mentality combines resolve, patience, persistence, and firmness. It is oriented to the defensive. At the same time, it acknowledges that a successful defense can be as good as an offense. By keeping on keeping on, the opposition is forever challenged wherever he turns.

The enemy is countered regardless of the tactic he uses. He is hemmed in. He is allowed, no, encouraged to stew away in his own juices of hatred and frustration.

A good defense over time assures that the inefficiencies, injustices, inequities of the enemy's ideology, his system of government, his economic structures, his need for unending repression of his own people will breed dry rot and decay. Ultimately, he will fall without invasion, without bombing, without even the slightest pressure.

The current administration forgot our history. Congress might do so as well. It's up to We the People.

Can we find it in us to keep on keeping on? Regardless of failure, regardless of folly, can we draw a line in the sand and maintain it for decades?

Perhaps.

If we get a Cold War mentality.