A Fiftieth Anniversary--And An Object Lesson For Today

Cuba went all giddy a couple of days ago.  The reason was the Fiftieth Anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs "invasion" of Cuba by an American trained and equipped motley brigade of refugees.  The initial plan for the operation came during the closing days of the Eisenhower administration.  The plan was predicated upon highly overly optimistic projections of weakness on the part of the Castro regime plucked from the imaginations of recently arriving political refugees.

The Eisenhower administration passed the plan along to the incoming Kennedy people.  The bunch surrounding JFK was comprised of steely-eyed cold war liberals eager to show how the job of containing and rolling back communism should and could be done.  Propelled by faith in their ideology, the New Frontiersmen backed the evermore ambitious plans of CIA for their proxy army.  A glittering assemblage of unjustified assumptions and fond hopes was assembled.  By the time it was necessary to make a final go/no-go decision, all hands with the exception of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had convinced themselves that the operation would succeed.  Even the handful of doubters took comfort in the belief that should the operation stumble, the US military would come to the rescue.

When push did come to shove as it must, the belief that the cavalry would back the play of the invaders was proven false.  For reasons good or bad President Kennedy refused to allow the US Navy, which was offshore with aircraft fueled and bombed up, to take part in the rapidly failing effort.  Our aircraft were limited to making demonstration passes safely offshore, and the Marines most assuredly did not land.

Within two days it was all over.  The invaders were all dead or captured.  Castro was more firmly in control than ever.  The US was humiliated.  And, a valuable lesson should have been learned--there is no such thing as a plausibly deniable military operation after the administration of the United States had declared that a given foreign leader was unacceptable to it.

Before embarking on his strangely bifurcate effort in Libya, President Obama would have been very well advised to revisit the misadventure in Cuba.  After all Mr Obama had made it clear that the policy goal of the US was the removal of Brother Leader Gaddafi (or choose the alternative spelling you prefer.)  Once these words had passed the president's lips, the whole world knew just what the US, the purported front porch dog of the Free World, wanted in Libya.  The real deal of the attendant UN Security Council resolution, for all its diplomatic pap (inserted so that neither Russia nor China would exercise the veto) about protecting civilians, was that the US in conjunction with at least two other Great Powers, France and the UK, sought the removal of Gaddifi.  The Colonel would go, peacefully if possible, violently if that was the only option.

Every halfway thoughtful observer knows perfectly well that the removal of an obnoxious regime is not difficult.  The US did the job in a matter of days in Afghanistan and mere weeks in Iraq.  The removal part of regime change is easy to accomplish.  The problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq came later--in the bootless attempt to create a modern Western style nation-state in Afghanistan and the very difficult task of seeing Iraq create of itself a reasonable simulacrum of a functioning nation-state with some aspects of democracy and rule  of law.

In Libya the same paradigm would have applied if the Obama administration had not opted to retreat behind the screen of proxies, in this case NATO.  When this choice was made, the path to a replay of the Bay of Pigs was charted.

Showing an abysmal ignorance of history--even very recent history, Mr Obama confused the removal part of regime change with the what-next? effort of seeing a new government created by a society unused to the freedom of creating its own polity.  He also failed to understand that there is no way the US can hide the bright light of its policy under the bushel of a proxy.

Had the US gone full bore into Libya, including the use of ground forces for combat against Gaddafi's loyalist units, Brother Leader would be gone already.  It is important to note that by removing the obnoxious leader the US would not have accrued an automatic responsibility for maintaining the good order within Libya.  Nor would it have taken the burden of turning Libya into a modern, pluralistic Western style democratic nation-state.  Both of these are misapprehensions.

The sole responsibility of the US would have been the execution of its declaratory policy--removing Gaddafi and by so doing protect civilians against the harm created by his loyalist forces.  The follow-on of creating a national polity from the tribal matrix of Libya would have been up to the Libyans with whatever assistance from other states or international organizations they might request.  The doctrine of R2P does not impose an unending task upon whatever state or states removes the threat to the civilians in need of protection.

Obama like Kennedy wanted to eat his cake while retaining it intact.  Both presidents wanted to abate a nuisance to American policy interests but had no desire to carry the long term freight of reconstituting the polity.  To this end both sought to use proxies.  In part Obama has seen the rebels in Libya as the equivalent of the exile Cuban "freedom fighters" with NATO playing the role which should have been undertaken by the US at the Bay of Pigs.

The Libyan insurgents are an even weaker reed than were the exiles at the Bay of Pigs.  This implies strongly that the Libyans would need even greater amounts of outside aid than did the Cubans of a half century ago.  An acceptance of this ground truth places an even greater onus on the US to use effective military force against Gaddafi and his loyalists.  Passing the buck to a divided and force impaired NATO set the stage for a stalemate in Libya and a loss of credibility for NATO.

Fifty years ago JFK made the worst decision possible.  If Castro was as American declaratory policy had maintained completely unacceptable to us, a threat to the peace and stability of the Western Hemisphere and a potential threat to CONUS, the right decision was to send in our forces in sufficient numbers to abate the nuisance quickly and decisively.  If, on the other hand, Castro was in fact a mere annoyance, a diplomatic conundrum, an embarrassment, the proper choice was to do nothing.  The worst option by far was the unsupportable attempt at covert invasion by proxy forces.

So it is in Libya.  If Gaddafi really is a challenge to national or strategic interests as Mr Obama's rhetoric holds, then the proper option is to go in fast and hard so as to remove the man and his forces.  If, to the contrary, Gaddafi is a threat only to his own people, then the US should have stayed out.  Or, if R2P is now to be a cornerstone of US policy, the correct choice is once again to move in openly, fast, and hard and then, after the removal of Gaddafi, back out and turn affairs over to the Libyans and whatever leaders they find in their midst giving only such aid as may be requested and justified.

From that list Mr Obama had a two in three chance of getting it right.  He didn't.  He chose the only bad option in the lot--the proxy effort to achieve American declaratory policy.  He sought to justify his blunder by what must either be spectacular ignorance of recent history or flat out tergiversation.  His use of Iraq, his "we have been down that road before" remark is a complete misrepresentation of what happened in Iraq.  The regime was changed in mere weeks and the consequent internal war was in large measure the foreseeable and preventable consequence of an ill-founded effort at nation-building which could have been avoided by the simple expedient of leaving the matter up to the Iraqis and providing only such aid as they requested specifically.

The same could have been accomplished in Libya.  All that was necessary was the assurance that the political goal was carefully and narrowly defined and that military force was crafted to achieve that goal.  Bereft of any implied responsibility for giving the Libyans a turn-key modern Western style state (which they don't want in any event) the task of directly turning declaratory policy into actual events would have been easy.

JFK is one of Obama's heroes.  It is too bad that the Nice Young Man From Chicago could not learn one simple lesson from Kennedy's second biggest blunder.

It's The Economy, Stupid! (Or Is It?)

Recycling the old Clinton campaign adage is appropriate in part, but only in part for the looming Iranian presidential election. While we in the West are most hung up on Ahmedinejad's oratory on subjects ranging from the mullahocracy's pursuit of nuclear weapons to the necessity of expunging the "Zionist entity" to the strident proclamations regarding the non-existence of the Holocaust, none of these matter to the Iranian street. To the Iranians generally the name of the game is the economy.

To err on the side of accuracy, the real deal is the nearly prostrate condition of the economy as well as Ahmedinejad's propensity for prevarication on that reality. When Ahmedinejad won his unexpectedly convincing victory a while back, it was with the promise that Iran's oil riches would find their way to the dinner plates of the Iranian versions of Joe and Jane Sixpack. To say that the promise remains unfulfilled is to engage in world class understatement.

While the collapse of last year's record setting oil prices played a role in the meltdown of the Iranian economy, that was the lesser contributor to the current situation of high inflation and very high unemployment. The greater causes can be laid directly to the policies of Ahmedinejad and his clerical masters.

The mullahs and their mouthpiece have tossed oodles and gobs of the long green at military targets. The spinning centrifuges and the new generation of solid fuel boosters did not come cheap. Even without the sanctions which have caused an unspecifiable but far from negligible increase in costs, these projects and systems are big, very big ticket items.

Below the glitz of the centrifuges and missiles, the Iranians have spent an ever increasing percentage of their diminishing GDP on conventional weapons for their air, ground and naval forces. The overall size of the military, including its paramilitary components, have been increased--in part to offset the thirty plus percent unemployment among young men.

In addition, the Iranian government has continued to funnel large sums into their client groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Largess has also been spread among troublemaking groups from Afghanistan and Iraq to such far away places as the Philippines and Latin America. Quite simply, keeping and expanding the terrorist networks established as far back as the early Eighties is an expensive proposition, the costs of which are only partially offset by an increasing involvement in the fabrication, transportation and distribution of drugs.

Along with the guns, Ahmedinejad--with the necessary support of the senior clerics--has tossed money in the direction of "butter." The base of Ahmedinejad's support was and is the poor, the marginal and the most devout. Make work and relief projects as well as subsidies both open and disguised have been necessary to keep the support of these segments of the population. Holding the poorest from harm has been critical in Ahmedinejad's political future.

Mir Hossein Moussavi draws his support from the young, the "middle class," the less devout. His rivers of green draw from the waters of those who do not get the subsidies, the relief, the people who must work forty-eight hours a day to begin to make ends meet. The "Greenies" also include those who are nationalistic in what might be termed a "Persian" sense rather than one which rests on Islamism. These are the more educated, the more plugged into the world, who have been feeling an increased sense of embarrassment from Ahmedinejad's flights of oratorical excess around the world.

In addition the Moussavi supporters include those who rightly worry about the probable consequences of a continuation of intransigence on the nuclear issue. These Iranians have a sufficient grip on reality to recognise what will happen if Israel decides that the emerging Iranian nuclear threat must be removed regardless of costs.

The mullahocracy's policy of intransigence, more intransigence and even more intransigence has served the regime's interests well for thirty years now. Breaking the norms and customs of international relations has worked well--misleadingly well. The direct and proxy employment of terror, assassination and the other ploys of the twilight sort of war has also worked well--again misleadingly well.

Quite simply, all trains eventually reach the end of the line. The same may be coming true with respect to the thirty years of defiance, obstinacy, and lethal operations. Among the supporters of Moussavi this is a factor which equals or perhaps surpasses the economy.

President Obama does not want to see the military instrument employed in order to bring about a final solution to the Iranian conundrum. No American president has sought out war--not even Theodore Roosevelt despite rumors to the contrary. FDR didn't send the American navy against Japan on 6 December 1941. Harry Truman did not order an invasion of North Korea in 1950. The much maligned LBJ did not eagerly ship ground combat forces to South Vietnam in 1965.

Even George W. Bush didn't stare at a globe hoping to find a country to invade before 9/11.

The Obama version of "give peace a chance" is not new, not unprecedented. But, like the other peace oriented presidents before him, there well may come the day when war seems to be the least-worst option. That day may be upon him long before he or the rest of us expects or desires.

Undoubtedly there are Iranians who recognise this. There may even be members of the clerical elite, the powers in the back room of Iranian politics, who realise it as well.

Ultimately, it is the latter rather than the former who will make the crucial decision to drop the thirty year long policy and embark on a new course. No matter how the election turns out, the mullahs of Ayatollah Khamenei's inner circle make the decisions and enforce them.

The race in Iran is tighter now than any observer might have thought even two weeks ago. It is still unlikely that Moussavi will win. However, a strong showing by the challenger is enough.

Enough to fire warning shots across the bows of the mullahs and frontman Ahedinejad alike. There will be two rounds in particular in this electoral barrage.

The first is it's-the-economy,-stupid! The second is the limits of defiance.

The mullahs will have good reason to re-evaluate the commitment of vast amounts of the country's limited resources to military uses. They will have good reason to ask if they have pushed the forbearance of the West too far. They might wonder if they are perilously close to the line, the limits of tolerance.

The mullahs might even be so un-Islamist as to take a look at history. If they were to make such a bold move, they would discover that American presidents of the Democratic Party are the most likely to take the most robust military action when pushed over the line. Consider Woodrow Wilson, a peace loving man of almost True Believer status. Pushed beyond his limits, the Marines landed in Mexico and elsewhere, and the US went to war only six months after Wilson had won re-election as the man who "kept us out of war."

Or, they might consider Harry Truman's response to the North Korean invasion. Truman not only invoked the UN successfully as diplomatic cover for our military response, he signed off on NSC 68 which put us firmly on the road to the hydrogen bomb, long range missiles, the arms race with the Soviet Union and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

Or, they might reflect on JFK. The Kennedy White House following the president's humiliation at the Vienna summit went full tilt in a campaign against Castro, sent special forces to Laos and ramped up our ability to counter presumed Soviet sponsored insurgencies throughout the world. Among other consequences were the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the last nanometer of the brink of nuclear war.

Even Jimmy Carter, the most un-warlike man to sit in the Oval since Rutherford B. Hayes, would have sent the troops to Iran in 1979--had he not already dismantled our special operations capacity and rapid response interventionary potential.

Barack Obama does not have the kind of mentality to accept diplomatic kicks to the groin while keeping his famed smile intact. President Obama (and the Democratic Congressional leadership) likes to see himself as a progressive, a globalist, even a post-nationalist. But, as the historical record demonstrates clearly, people of a similar self-characterisation have gone to war with a rush and a fury which almost surpasses understanding.

The Iranian regime has lied, assassinated, terrorised and generally behaved as global Bad Actor without real hindrance for thirty years. Along the way the mullahs have repressed and impoverished their own people to say nothing of dragging the long generations of proud Persian nationalism through the mire of Islamism. Now, with a little bit of luck, the elections will produce results which include the clerics re-evaluating their relations with both the Persian people and the governments of the world.

However, if the Supreme Ayatollah and his ilk insist with continuing more of the same old, same old, they and the rest of the world are in for a stretch of very bad road. All that can be hoped for realistically is that Moussavi will do well enough to force the assorted ayatollahs, imams and other bearers of clerical authority to discover that Allah wills, "Cowboy, mend your ways--now!"

The Geek Goes Off Message--Sort Of

Today the Geek read a post by a blogger for SFGate. (Sorry, the Geek lost the link, but as a button-pusher he is a fine tuba player.) The post well and truly rankled the usually easy going Geek.

In the estimate of the SFGate dude, the US and the world stand on the cusp of a genuinely world-historical moment. By this the writer meant the forthcoming election. Suffice it to aver that whatever the reasons may be, they have little if anything in common with Dr Martin Luther King's demand that Americans judge a man not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character.

It is true that the election of a man with a half African genome may serve to convince many Americans that the days of racism and exclusion are behind us. It is even more true that such is not the case. The celebration of the forthcoming world-historical moment is based on myth, not reality. Worse, it is a pernicious form of racism--giving a man a free pass on his character, ability, policies and proposed programs because of the color of his skin (and perhaps the charm of his smile)

The Geek will leave aside any commentary on the probable course of domestic policies under an Obama administration, particularly one backed by a solidly Democratic Congress much as he may fear the looming tidal wave of Progressive interventionism and the concomitant establishment of a run-by-the-experts "Nanny State." After all, the Geek's real area of interest and experience is foreign and national security affairs.

The bloviating Joe Biden, whose career as a "foreign policy expert" in the senate the Geek has watched with much mirth, was right when he opined that a President Obama would be tested in the first months or year in office. While contemporary public opinion polls may show that Obama is much loved outside the US and that many around the world expect that there will be vast changes in the relation between the US and other countries, there are more than a few sharp, able and sinister men waiting with long knives in hand to "test" the newby at the White House.

Even experienced and very able presidents have been tested, not by sinister design but by the normal course of world affairs. FDR was tested by the rise of expansive and aggressive Nazism. He knew he was being tested. He knew perfectly well that the Nazis represented a threat to core American strategic interests. Still, there was nothing he could do to ward the growth of the threat or even its breaking over the map of Europe with seismic force.

Harry Truman, another vastly experienced man, infinitely more experienced and able than either Senator Obama or Senator Biden, was caught flatfooted by the North Korean invasion of the south in June 1950. However, Truman's strength of character, well of experience and coterie of very able advisers allowed for the quick, effective and, in the short-term, very unpopular decision to go to war under the auspices of the United Nations.

Mr Truman's "police action" was widely condemned by the Republicans of the day. The war was unpopular--more unpopular than the Vietnam War during the worst days following Tet. It was decried as a "no-win" war, an endless war without point and without favorable result.

The long term view shows Truman was right. The war was "no-win" but, more importantly, it was the war that we did not lose. The outcome of the war established a paradigm useful today: the accomplishment of the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing."

When General Eisenhower defeated the loved one of American academics and liberals, Governor Stevenson of Illinois, those on the Left predicted horrors beyond count. The reality was different. Ike's military experience gave him both the moral authority at home and the stature overseas to take advantage of the death of Stalin and (with the accidental assistance of the South Korean government) end the Korean War.

Beyond that Ike's knowledge and ability allowed his administration to forge the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction which made the Cold War years stable (most of the time). Ike was tested in Southeast Asia and the Mideast and passed the tests not with an "A" perhaps but with at least a C+.

JFK, who in comparison with Obama was quite experienced, was tested multiple times. He failed the following: The Vienna Summit, The Bay of Pigs, the war in Laos, the war in Vietnam, the Hawk missile sale to Israel. If the Soviets had not proven more responsible than the jocks of the Kennedy administration, the world would still be recovering from the very narrowly averted nuclear exchange.

Flashing forward a few years, the Geek asks, "Do you remember the vastly inexperienced one time nuclear engineer turned Georgia governor and then president?"

You got it! Jimmy Carter. He was tested. As by the coming of the Iranian Revolution. He failed. Failed badly. Sure, the Shah was a less than lovable guy. His regime did violate human rights. But, is the aftermath, the mullahocracy an improvement?

Then there was the policy wonk from Little Rock (or Hope, if you prefer his boyhood home.) He was tested too. He failed. But, foreign policy was not his thing. You might recall that he was bigger on such matters as after dark basketball, school uniforms and Monica Lewinsky. Enough said.

The blogger in SFGate wrote one thing with which the Geek agrees completely. He characterised the past eight years of Bush/Cheney/neocon ninny regime as a "fetid swamp." It has been just that--at best. The current administration was tested and failed.

It failed because of ideology and willful ignorance. The failure of the current administration has been severely negative on the US and the world.

Senator Obama has no experience. He has little noticeable positive character. He does have much ambition. He possesses much capacity at building and playing to the myth of American racism and its bright shadow, inclusiveness.

Also the Senator embodies a great body of ideology. The Geek is impressed by the degree to which Obama is a True Believer in the Western European Left Democratic Socialist world view and political agenda.

The deadly combination of a miserable deficiency in character and experience and a hyper-abundance of ideology assures that when the long knives of test are drawn and sharpened, they will plunge deeply into the senator turned president--and the United States.

That may constitute world-historical moment. But, it won't be one to celebrate.

The Geek Must Be A Racist

Even though the Geek is three-eights autocthonous American (which makes him only one-eighth less a "person of color" than Senator Obama) he would be branded a racist by the Obama campaign and other supporters of the Nice Young Man From Chicago. The reason is simple. The Geek is completely unpersuaded that elevating Obama from the Senate to the Oval is in the best interests of the United States.

Rather the Geek is convinced that the election of Obama would be another example of collective bad judgement by the American people. It would continue the disasterous trajectory of electing individuals who were ill-equipped by any factor beyond ideology and ambition for sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office.

As a nation we survived (barely) Governor Clinton. As a nation we have been schnitzeled by Governor Bush. Given the parlous state of affairs today both domestically and in foreign relations, we may well not survive an Obama administration.

In so far as he has a record during his few years in elected office Senator Obama has demonstrated two things. He is a creature of the machine, whether Cook County or the Democratic Regulars. Second he has shown a remarkable ideological affinity for what might be politely called "left socialism."

The Geek has carefully and repeatedly read the Senator's two monuments to awesome hubris and ambition--his "autobiographies." Leaving aside the impossibility of filling a notebook let alone two monographs on one's life when only in the early part of one's fifth decade, the two memoirs are most notable for what they leave out, not what they include.

The books are a record of a remarkably empty life, devoid of details and misleading as to many of the few particulars referenced. Perhaps that is keeping with a man who has a charming smile, an empty suit and a reliance upon TelePrompters even in the most "informal" presentations.

Most disturbing to the Geek is Senator Obama's sketchy rendition of his relationship with William Ayres. Dr Ayres along with his partner, Bernadine Dohrn, were central to Senator Obama's political debut in Chicago a decade or so back.

The MSM have been remarkably laid-back in their search for the roots of the Obama-Ayres relation particularly in comparison with their hound-dog-on-the-trail barking after Sarah Palin. When the MSM have mentioned Ayres and Dohrn in connection with the terrorist group the Weathermen, it has been fashionable to characterise the group as being bombers with a high regard for human life, for planting bombs where Federal and other property might have been damaged but no lives taken.

Of course that approach requires a selective amnesia equivalent to Senator Obama's. The Weather Underground cell in New York City planned an attack against the NCO club at Ft Dix which would have claimed two hundred plus lives.

It didn't simply because the plotters were as inept at making bombs as they were skilled at planning the attack. The bombers blew themselves and a Greenwich Village house into small fragments while preparing their IED's.

Senator Obama and the MSM would also have us believe that the Weather Underground wasted away to nothingness more than thirty years ago as the leadership languished either in jail or on the run. This overlooks the reality that a Weather Underground successor organisation was alive, well and plotting in the Big Apple at the same time as Mr Obama was a student at Columbia. One of the Weatherman follow-ons was sentenced in 1990 and another remains a fugitive even today.

Overall, the Geek is reminded of another election which saw a likable, articulate man with a great smile running against a symbol of "failed Republicanism."

JFK was a man with a carefully shaded past. No, Kennedy didn't have a (perhaps close) acquaintance with an unrepentant terrorist. (Although he did get in the rack with a woman who was an intelligence agent for a hostile foreign power.)

Rather Kennedy had a history which was carefully crafted to turn an unfortunate act of maritime stupidity into war hero status. And, JFK had a ghost written book on courageous profiles which was both a best seller and the presumed basis of Kennedy's intellectual repute. Then there were the successful attempts to conceal both Senator Kennedy's medical conditions and the treatments for them.

Much has been made of Senator Obama's lack of experience--a couple of years in the senate and a time before that in the Illinois state legislature. In comparison Senator Kennedy was a powerhouse of expertise having been in Congress for twelve years, most of those in the Senate.

When considering the value of experience, and character, it is instructive to review Kennedy's actual accomplishments in the Oval as opposed to the myth of the Kennedy "Camelot."

Kennedy failed in his widely heralded Summit with the Soviet leader Khrushchev. This resulted, in part, in the Berlin Wall Crisis. It also resulted in Kennedy's vow to be "tough" with the Soviets.

Toughness drew a line which led to the commitment of support to South Vietnam. It led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which had the Soviets not shown more good sense than the Americans we would still be recovering from the nuclear exchange.

Toughness resulted in the wide open "covert" campaign against Castro which would have culminated in a well planned attack upon Cuba which was averted only because JFK was shot in Dallas.

Kennedy's administration also brought the Alliance for Progress--which failed--and the Peace Corps which didn't fail but has scarcely been a world altering institution.

Domestically the years of JFK brought a tax cut which did serve to boost the economy out of a very mild recession. Beyond that the Kennedy record is as skimpy as his war hero record.

Remember John Kennedy was far more experienced than Senator Obama. JFK was mildly lacking in character, integrity and personal history. Senator Obama is more challenged in all these areas.

John Kennedy was not an ideologue. Senator Obama is.

JFK faced challenging times as has every president in the past century. The next American president will face problems larger in scale and more vexing in complexity than did Kennedy.

Even though JFK was relatively advantaged in character, integrity, lack of ideological blinders and experience than is Senator Obama, his administration must be evaluated as long on image and short on accomplishment; long on risk-taking and short on rewards.

Is it legitimate to expect better from an Obama presidency?

The Geek thinks not. Color him a racist, Congressman Lewis.