Third Time, Lucky?

The US tried.  It failed.  Ethiopia tried (with US backing.)  It failed.  Now it is Kenya's time.  The third country up in an attempt to restore some semblance of order to the bloody chaos called "Somalia."  Will this effort end as did the two predecessors with failure, humiliating withdrawal, and the leaving of a geographic expression with no real reason to exist as a state in even more of a sanguinary mess?

The US failed as a combination of mission leap, one disastrously ill-planned operation, and the lack of both a policy focus and political will in and around the Oval.  When Bill Clinton inherited the "humanitarian" operation initiated by George H.W. Bush, he neglected to define the goal of the force deployed in country.  For reasons which escape rational analysis, his administration decided it was necessary to engage in regime change.  This was odd as there was no real regime to change but rather a welter of tribal leaders engaged in a robust contest for supremacy.  The man on the top at that moment was particularly unpleasant but no threat to the long term prospects for the Somali people.

In a fit of absent mindedness, someone decided--and others farther up the food chain confirmed this choice--to go after the Unpleasant Guy On Top.  The result was the loss of nearly two dozen special forces troops, the bodies of whom were depicted being pulled around, naked, in the dirt of the streets by gangs of cheering women.  This nauseating vision was displayed on the televisions of Americans with the result that Clinton and Company determined to cut and run rather than take proper action against the Somalis responsible.

This loss of political nerve was not justified and counterproductive, not only in Somalia but all over the Arab and Muslim world.  It was this ostentatious failure of testicular and policy fortitude which gave the muscle to Osama bin Laden and his odious outfit as well as other advocates of violent political Islam.

With American support and assistance, the Ethiopian army invaded Somalia in the opening years of this century.  They were successful in toppling the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which was an effective government albeit given to policies and means antipathetic to American and Western norms.  The ICU was speedily replaced by "the Youth" better known as al-Shabaab.  This crew was orders of magnitude more dedicated to the cause of austere, violent political Islam than the ICU had been.

The Ethiopians rapidly found out that they had bitten off far more than they (or their now preoccupied American sponsors) could chew and swallow conveniently.  For two years the Ethiopians held on, never secure even in their own bases, unable to broker a coalition of Somali tribal leaders willing to take over the burden of freeing their own country from the ever less popular zealots of al-Shabaab.  Finally, the Ethiopians tossed in their towel and departed, leaving the field to the victorious "Youth."

From there it has been all down hill not only for the people caught in Somalia but for the West generally.  As international diplomats played the game of creating a government and the African Union--well at least two member countries--deployed "peace keeping" forces to the center of Mogadishu, al-Shabaab consolidated its hold on the southern third of the country while pinning the Transitional Federal Government and its AU troops to a few blocks around the presidential palace.

During the same time, ambitious Somalis found a new and very profitable line of work--piracy.  Even now with warships of several dozen navies on patrol, the maritime marauders commandeer ships every week with tens, no, hundreds of millions of dollars of ransom collected.  The consensus of "experts" around the world is the pirates will not be defeated unless and until there is a functioning government with effective control of the Somali coast.

In recent months, the Gangbangers of Somalia, both landbased and maritime, have expanded their actions to include the kidnapping of Westerners frequenting expensive Kenyan resorts within in a convenient distance of Somalia.  This has perturbed the Kenyans mightily.  Even more disconcerting to Nairobi has been the tsunami of refugees flowing over the border.  The tidal wave has grown since the drought enhanced famine has been worsened by al-Shabaab's stopping of food aid by international agencies.

The hundreds of thousands of Somalis self-dumped on Kenya is an unacceptable economic burden on the country.  More, it represents a clear national security threat given Somali claims on the northern portion of Kenya and the large number of al-Shabaab agents living in Nairobi and Mombasa.

Kenya has clear reasons to see the end of al-Shabaab at least in the southern portion of the place.  With this in mind, Nairobi aimed at the Somali port city of Kismayo.  The port is the major source of al-Shabaab revenue: taxes on trade, particularly charcoal, headed for Yemen.  It is also a prime source of pirates.

With its invasion, Kenya is doing a service not only for itself but for the West generally.  Al-Shabaab is a threat not only to African states and the sea lines of communication but more broadly.  Not only is it "officially" allied with al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab has direct operational links with al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and Nigeria's Boko Haram.  Adding al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to the mix is apparently in the works.  Given the widespread proliferation of weapons including MANPADS from the old Libyan arsenals, it is to be expected that al-Shabaab's military competence and potential for transnational terror will grow.

The biggest question is simply: Will Kenya succeed where others have failed?

The prognosis is, at best, mixed.  The Kenyan armed forces have no real experience with war, even the limited sort of which al-Shabaab is capable.  The forces are large, reasonably well equipped and trained, but without combat experience, it is hard to see if these factors are all that important.  The launch of the invasion just as the annual rains were scheduled to start (they commenced on time) shows a lack of proper planning.  The two thousand men across the border have been bogged down in the mud for some days now with the mechanical transport totally immobilized.

Overall the force (ten thousand at most) seems too small to deal with a highly mobile opponent along with the demands of MOUT--if the Kenyans do reach Kismayo.  The Kenyan air dominance will not matter once their ground forces are in close contact with al-Shabaab fighters.  The fight will become a slogging match between the mechanized, fire power heavy Kenyans and the more mobile, lightly equipped guerrilla opponents.

At that point, it will be what all asymmetrical wars must be--a contest of political wills.  Already there are indications that the Kenyan opinion molding elite lack the stomach for a protracted war, which is exactly what the invasion will become without a game changer.

There is only one game changer which might be available.  Not the African Union.  Not the other states of the Horn of Africa.  Nobody local is capable of altering the nature of the war.

The role of game changer properly belongs to NATO.  Fresh off its "victory" in Libya, most of the NATO combatants already have a dog in the fight--the pirates.  Certainly NATO ships have been heavily involved in the anti-pirate patrols and have actually killed pirates!

The leaders of France, the UK, the US and perhaps some of the others will be well advised to man up and back the Kenyan play.  NATO has the aircraft, the ships, the logistics, the special forces, the intelligence assets necessary to change the game in Somalia quickly and surely.  The pirates along with the bloody hands of the brutal killers of al-Shabaab provide more than enough justification for entering the war, even for invoking the doctrine of R2P.

There is no need to invoke the UN.  Even the opposition of the AU can be ignored with impunity.  The morass of Somalia is intolerable now--and will only get worse should the Kenyans suffer the same fate as did the Americans and Ethiopians.  A robust NATO effort will be gratefully acknowledged (even if privately only) and might even silence some of the loud voices criticizing the alliance's efforts in Libya.

Get on with it, Messers Sarkozy, Cameron, Obama--the history books are waiting.

The Hardest Thing To Do--Nothing

The signs of ascendant, austere, political Islam are unmistakable in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.  The sharply Islamist party, the Renaissance Party, is expected to hold a plurality if not an outright majority in the new constituent assembly in Tunisia.  In Libya, the outgoing head of the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced changes in banking and family law to make Libya more Shariah compliant.  In Egypt, the Salifists who are the granddaddy of all the austere, politically oriented Muslim groups, are battling with the Muslim Brotherhood for the number one spot in the forthcoming government, with the inevitable result being the triumph of austere political Islam as the two entities share far more than not.

Throughout both Egypt and Libya, both Christian and Muslim communities are under direct, physical attack.  The Sufi shrines, venerated graves, and mosques in both countries have been vandalized, even destroyed by armed men bearing the symbols of Salifist affiliation.  As the world well knows, the Coptic Christians of Egypt have been brutalized, killed even, not only by mobs of the austere and violent but by security force personnel as well.  In Egypt as in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Christians have become a highly endangered species, occupying the same slot in the local social and political ecology formerly possessed by Jews.

There can be no doubt but the austere groups--the Salifists, the Wahhibists, the Deobandis--are well on their way to establishing operational dominance in the countries of the "Arab Spring" as they are in Pakistan and the Arab Peninsula.  The Shia equivalents have done the same in Iraq.  The outcome in the next few months will not meet the expectations of the Western leaders and governments which embraced the purportedly democratic fervor of the "Arab Spring."

In the context of looming disappointment, the opinion molders of the West would be well advised to consider a chain of events which hit the tipping point twenty years ago in Algeria.  Back in 1991, Algeria was experiencing the same basic problems as ignited the "Arab Spring."  There was very high unemployment, particularly among the educated youth.  The economy was stagnant despite oil riches.  Internal divisions of tribal and class origin split the nation.  The long running autocratic government was out of ideas, and, more importantly, out of perceived legitimacy.

The government decided to call for elections.  The campaign was loud, enthusiastic, energetic.  Algerians went to the polls with joy, believing a real future beckoned.  When the votes were counted, the government, its supporting elite, and the armed forces were shocked.  The parties of the austere, political Islamists had won.

The army nullified the elections.  Next it took power directly.  Then, quite predictably, violent unrest started.  By the time the shooting stopped, more than 150,000 Algerians were dead.  Scores of thousands more had been wounded.  Even more had been jailed.  Many of these had been tortured.

Even today, more than a decade after the internal war ended, the scars remain.  Despite the return of a semblance of democracy, a sort of "guided democracy," the echoes of the police state soldier on.  Voices are quiet and furtive.  After sunset, streets are weirdly quiet, a testament to the curfews of the period of military rule.  The government supported Gaddifi until the bitter and bloody end.  And, jobs are still scarce, the economy still in doldrums, regardless of the special relation with France.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There is no real probability that rule by austere Muslims will see the end of the myriad economic and social problems which propelled the demonstrations which brought down ben-Ali, forced the military to toss Mubarak to the wolves, and led to the NATO enhanced violence in Libya.  Prayer, beards, and putting women in garbage sacks will not assure jobs--particularly for the over educated, Western oriented youth which served as the shock troops in Tunisia and Egypt or provided many of the trigger pullers of the revolt in Libya.

Islam and the Koran will not, pace the Muslim Brotherhood's two best known slogans, be the answer.  When the faces of disappointed revolutionaries are rubbed in the mud of reality, the most probable result will be another round of violence.  Also, topping the list of outcomes to be expected will be the charges levied by the austere Muslims running affairs.

The folks in charge will accuse a sinister conspiracy on the part of the "Zionists" and the US for any and all failures.  There will be calls for jihad to defend the new, faith based governments against the cabal of Jews and Americans.  The path blazed by Iran (and to a lesser extent, Pakistan) will be traveled by the incoming regimes of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.

The countries will either go the way of successfully focusing anger on the mythical enemies in Israel, the US, and Europe or dissolve in a welter of internal war and blood.  In the latter case, it is to be expected that the military will step in to restore order in a manner akin to the process which drew a bright blood red line through Algeria twenty years back.

Absent a miracle of Biblical proportions which will do the impossible--squaring the circle of austere Islam with the real requirements for success in the contemporary world--the picture which will be painted across much of the Mideast and North Africa over the coming months and years will be ugly as hell.  The challenge to opinion molders and senior governmental wallahs will be to watch.  To watch while doing nothing.

Given the past record of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism, or plain vanilla intervention and interference, the West, including the US, has no viable alternative.  Rightly or wrongly, many, perhaps most, citizens of the countries in the regions see the West, its governments, its institutions, its corporations, its policies, its militaries as the props and supporters of dictatorships, the adversaries of indigenous desires, internal perceptions of dignity, as both indirect and direct exploiters, and as "the Crusaders" bent on the destruction of Islam.  The truth or falsity of this belief set is irrelevant.  What is relevant is simply that the beliefs are widely and deeply held.

The only viable option for the West, for the US, is to keep out.  The people in the several countries must travel the very rough road alone.  We must not even seek to use "soft power" methods to shorten the journey or pave over the worst parts of the road.

All we can or should do is make it clear that internal affairs of any and every Muslim majority state is of no concern to us.  Beyond this, we must make it plain that any export of political Islam, most importantly, any export by violent means, will be met by robust, very robust means.  As long as the austere, politically motivated Muslim governments keep it at home, they will be left to their own devices, but should they cross their borders, we will stop them by means of our own choosing.

This posture will be difficult, very difficult for NGOs given to humanitarian goals to accept let alone support.  It is an unfortunate truth that any approach other than patient watching and vigilant guarding of our interests will make life worse both for us and the people who live under the sway of Salifists and others of their ilk.  This is a stinging nettle of the sharpest sort, but we all need to get a grip on it.

What Victory(ies)?

Today The Clueless Guy In The Oval announced (as expected) that all US troops other than the embassy guard will be out of Iraq by the end of the year.  Instantly if not sooner, the political flacks which surround the Oval sprang into action averring with straight faces that this was the desired result as well as the fulfillment of a major campaign promise.

What a crock!

As American military and diplomatic officials including both the past and current Secretaries of Defense have maintained with a fair degree of passion, the continuation of a US military presence was essential for assuring that the past nine years, something on the order of a trillion dollars, and, most importantly, over 4,000 lives had not been wasted.  Iraq's internal stability is very fragile on the best of days--and there are damn few of those.  In addition, the Iranians present a clear and present threat against which Iraq has no credible means of either deterrence or defense.  Beyond that, the Iraqi forces need much more training in their new weapons systems as well as in the areas of intelligence, logistics, air support, and communication.

Over the past year, the Obama administration had and threw away numerous opportunities to keep a suitable number of training, combat support, special operations, and combat forces in Iraq.  The alleged block was the unwillingness of the Iraqi government to grant immunity from Iraqi judicial processes to the US personnel.

This, too, is a crock.

The administration--the president--insisted that legal immunity be granted by specific action on the part of the Iraqi Council of Representatives.  This would have been politically impossible as the Obama foreign policy "team" must have known.  There were other means of obtaining the requisite immunity which would have sidestepped the field of mines which constitutes the Council of Representatives as well the total Iraqi parliament.  The simplest means would have been to list the names of each and every spook, special operator, trainer, and trigger puller on the embassy personnel roster, which would have made diplomatic immunity automatic.  The Iraqi ForMin was wide open to this gambit as were other senior members of the Iraqi executive branch.

While it is true that Allawi--the head of the opposition bloc which was narrowly and questionably defeated by Maliki's bloc--complicated the matter, the US had and has sufficient juice with Allawi to end the stall he introduced.  In short, there were no insurmountable obstacles in Baghdad to continuing the American presence even at the level of 20,000 troops.

The real deal was the Nice Young Man From Chicago was and is hoping that by bringing the last troops home against the rhetorical backdrop of declaring victory he will gain political mileage for the upcoming reelection bid.  He has been purposefully willing to toss aside the last nine years, the trillion dollars, and the lives of more than 4,000 Americans for personal, partisan reasons.

The same applies to the specious claims of victory in Libya following the killing of Gaddifi yesterday.  It was not a victory for the US.  Nor was it one for NATO.  While it is true that without the US/UK/French/NATO air campaign, on the ground advisers, weapons and equipment supplies, intelligence support, and diplomatic game playing, "Brother Leader" would still be oppressing the Libyans and haunting the international scene.  But, the only "victors" were the assorted militias who did the fighting and dying--and who will now claim the rewards.

It will be up to these sundry groups of trigger pullers as well as the myriad of tribal and religious leaders who more or less control the men with the AKs to decide which reward will go to who.  The probability of continued and escalating violence is somewhere between high and extremely high.  Rewards will be claimed and fought over.  Payback will be the word of the day for months to come.  The body count, already high, will increase.  The NTC is losing support, in large measure because its actions and decision making are as transparent as a sandstorm.  Regional, tribal, and religious loyalties far exceed any attachment to something called "Libya" or the "Libyan nation."

The death of the "King of Kings of Africa" removed whatever thin and tenuous glue held the competing factions and their guns together.  Now it is a matter of every region, every tribe, every city, every clan, even every individual for him or itself.  Every man raises his AK or RPG or MANPAD against every other.

There is no "victory" here for the US or France or the UK.  There is and will be only more challenges to regional stability, regional peace, to international efforts on behalf of these worthy end states.  There is utterly and absolutely nothing for the US--or Mr Obama--to crow about or see as a good lesson for tomorrow.

There is only the hope on the part of the president and his advisers that the Libyan adventure in "leading from behind" will bolster his fading reelection chances.  (Note the recent Gallup poll placing his approval rating at the new low of 41%.)

Iraq is frail.  Libya is even worse.  The risks and sacrifices taken and made in both have been in vain by any rational calculus.  One can only hope that the Obama campaign will not be aided by these false "victories."

Going To Hell In (Allah's) Bucket

Due to cloudy weather, the demands of woodcutting (winter is a-coming on) and the debilities of age, the Geek has been kicking back reading the news from around the world and generally coming to the conclusion that a large segment of the globe and its attendant population is going to hell in a bucket.  And, the hand carrying the bucket is a collective one--the aggregate of the large and rapidly growing advocates of austere, political Islam.  Not to put too fine a point on the knife of reality, the single largest problem resident in the global political order is not the economy, nor is it "global warming," not even American "arrogance" and "unilateralism."

The problem confronting all of us today, whether or not we like the idea, is simply Islam.  Islam is the necessary and sufficient foundation of that most detestable phenomenon, austere political Islam.  In both its violent and non-violent forms, political Islam, particularly the most common sort, the variety growing from the austere roots of Salifism, Wahhibism, and Deobondism, constitutes the single largest threat to international and national stability, order, and peace.

In all the hosannas ringing out during the days of the "Arab Spring," a simple and critical fact was ignored by the political and opinion molding elites in the US and the rest of the West.  That seemingly willfully ignored ground truth was the power of austere political Islam to attract and mobilize adherents during periods of great political, social, and economic turbulence.  Also ignored by all the applause makers of the West was the companion fact: As uncertainty increased due to the many, often violent changes in all aspects of life, the appeal of austere political Islam would necessarily grow.

Humans are genetically programmed to fear uncertainty, to be risk averse, to seek security in the storms of change.  Islam, more than any other religion promises certainty, assures security--if only the rules of the faith are followed absolutely and completely.  Islam also provides a roster of acceptable scapegoats upon whom blame can be foisted and whose persecution onto death is given positive sanction.  The combination of rule based security and approved scapegoats affords a powerful appeal to austere Islam of the Salifist sort or of the Wahhibist variety.

The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt caught it perfectly in its slogan: Islam is the solution.

When fear or apprehension or anxiety or insecurity threaten, the bracing and strict requirements of austere Islam in its political expression do constitute the solution.  The irrefutable fact that life under the rigor of austere Islam is unlivable in practice is no bar to the inherent appeal of the promise given by the faith.  The equally irrefutable fact that Islam is inherently incompatible with modern economics, contemporary technology, or even the oft asserted "universal" rights of all humans is likewise no barrier to its attractiveness to people suddenly confronted with all enveloping upheaval.

We have seen the direct correlation between social and political tumult and the rise of austere political Islam in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and, over the past nine months, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

It is worth noting that ten and more years ago, Pakistan was peaceful.  Back then, before George W. Bush presented the "with us or suffer the consequences" ultimatum to the government of Pakistan, sectarian violence was essentially unknown.  Also a stranger to Pakistani life was the horrid specter of "honor killings."  Also absent were suicide bombings.  Even the FATA was relatively quiet.  Karachi was not the political murder capital of Asia (or, to err on the side of accuracy, the world.)

The peace left never apparently to return with the influx of Taliban from Afghanistan.  The ISI undoubtedly believed it could continue to exercise full operational control over Taliban, the Haqqani network, and all the other entities predicated on violent political Islam.  ISI and the rest of the military and government committed an error in this belief.  In justification stands the reality that the destruction of critical elements of traditional society and its polity which occurred in the wake of the Afghan invasion promoted an unexpectedly rapid growth in fear and uncertainty which resulted in an ever widening recruit pool for the advocates of austere violent political Islam.  Events outpaced the capacity of ISI to control its monsters.

In the Big Three of the "Arab Spring," Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the organizations of austere political Islamists were not only the only groups ready to take advantage of the new situation.  That was reasonably widely understood even if belittled here in the US and elsewhere in the West.  What went by unnoticed was the automatic appeal of austere political Islam to the uprooted, the suddenly unmoored, the majority of the people living in all three countries.

Islam is the answer,  the solution for those who crave certainty, security, a firm mooring in the new, white waters of "democratic change."  Only austere political Islam pretends quick, easy, certain remedies for all the myriad ills resident in the gales of social, political, and economic change blowing through the high deserts and crowded cities of each and all of the Big Three.  Not surprisingly, the Salifists, the Wahhibists, have gained the most support in record time.

Equally unsurprising has been the fast boost increase in "honor killings," and overt persecution of Christians, which has been seen with particular drama in Egypt.  While most visible in the Land of the Pharaohs, these uniquely Islamic crimes have been occurring in Tunisia and Libya.  (It is worth noting that fear of the same happening in Syria has motivated Christians and other sectarian minorities to side with the Baathist regime regardless of other considerations.)

In Libya, the values and imperatives of austere political Islam have been demonstrated in the persecution of sub-Saharan Africans.  The rebels have averred repeatedly that the victims (if, indeed, there were any) had been Gaddafi "mercenaries."  This excuse is fantasy.  The vast majority of black Africans singled out for persecution were not fighters but simply guest workers, most of whom happened to be non-Muslim.  This second consideration is non-trivial when assessing the basis of rebel behavior.

The groups advocating austere political Islam will be the new ruling class in each and every of the Big Three.  The inevitable failure of the new regimes to address effectively the economic concerns of the citizenry will be met by charges of "infidel" or "Zionist" or "apostate" directed counter-revolutionary conspiracies.  Blood will flow in attempts to quash dissent or divert attention.  The afflicted countries will, like Pakistan, become less rather than more stable, less rather than more peaceful, less rather than more prosperous.  Dissent and repression will lock in a mutual and deadly embrace.

As the societies grow less stable and life less secure, there will be an accelerating move to more austere, more inclusive forms of political Islam.  Nothing else can be expected given that tumult and fear demand the anodyne of certainty--the only anodyne promised by Salfiism and the rest of the austere ilk.  The predictable failure of Salifism and the rest to provide an effective cure will (as in Iran) result in more and more repression.

The search for outside sponsors of failure along with the religiously sanctioned need for scapegoats will have a high probability of resulting in war.  War with Israel is highest on the list, but there can be other candidates as well--including Turkey which can be cast in the role of the model which failed or branded with interference in internal affairs given Ankara's search for Ottoman Empire 2.0.  The mere fact that the combined armed forces of the Big Three even if augmented by other Arab or Muslim states will be defeated will be of no moment should the austere Islamists running the show see war as the only way to stay in power.

Looking at the Mideast or North Africa or Northwest Asia or almost anywhere austere political Islam has and is making headway provides no pleasure.  Rather, it provokes a strong desire to engage in projectile vomiting.

Only ten years and a month ago, the world looked like a good place to enjoy life.  Thanks to advocates of austere violent political Islam, that all changed.  Worse, there is no way back to the good years before the Muslims of Osama bin Laden's world view forced the entire globe into Allah's bucket on the road to hell.

Small Straws In A Stiff Wind

There are weeks when the Geek has regretted his lifelong interest in matters of war, diplomacy, and the shadow lands of covert/clandestine affairs.  The past month of so has been one of those periods.  It is not that the world has suddenly been infected by a fulminating virus of peace and love.  Quite the contrary.  Rather the intellectual languor has been promoted by the combination of events having unfolded in a drearily predictable factor and the lack of imagination exhibited by the Deep Thinkers and Bold Actors on all sides of all the many conflicts, armed and otherwise.

A useful example of both predictability and the lack of imagination is presented by the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.  The energetic dismantlement of the New Mexican borne cleric is both welcome and long overdue.  The fact that he was accompanied on his trip to paradise by the one time resident of North Carolina, Samir Khan, rendered the event all the more pleasurable.

Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the UAV campaign in the FATA and the building of a base convenient to Yemen from which Agency operated Predators might make their lethal flights well understood that Awlaki's days were numbered, and that the number was small.  The violent death of the genius of Internet (and personal) radicalization became as certain as sunrise when he was placed on the "kill or capture" list last year.  Despite the inevitable wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth by the ACLU and other advocates of human rights above the dictates of real life, and regardless of the equally certain condemnations of "extrajudicial execution" already resounding around the world, the Obama administration by it's listing of the imam let it be known that the governing considerations were those of war--a war in which Awlaki had voluntarily enlisted and waged with ever growing success.

With the failure a few months ago to capture Awlaki by a force of Yemeni personnel backed by USSOCOM assets, the only option was killing, and the only practical tool was provided by a Predator launched Hellfire.  The only time limits were imposed by the requirements for constructing an operational base and gaining from both Yemeni and national technical means sufficient actionable intelligence.  When fractured open source reports out of Yemen a couple of weeks ago indicated a diminishing of drone traffic over the area of Yemen in which Awlaki's tribe holds sway with a ramping up over territory to the country's north, it became evident that the endgame for the preacher was underway.

The removal of Awlaki and Khan from the board is good.  But, it is drearily predictable that it is not much more than that.  The strike in no way lessens the nature or effectiveness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP).  Had the reported inclusion of AQAP's chief bombmaker in the body count not been later retracted, the Hellfire would have well and truly hurt the group.  As it is, the most that can be said is the killing has had a marginal beneficial impact by reducing AQAP's capacity to use Internet radicalization with the same effect in the future that it has in the past.

Neither the killings nor the knee trembling on the part of human and civil rights lawyers and groups will change the nature of the ongoing war between advocates of violent political Islam and the civilized states and people of the world.  The bad guys will keep on being bad actors.  The administration and any future one as well will use whatever means are necessary within the broad limits of proportionality to defend the country and its allies against attacks of whatsoever nature.

If there is any alteration in the future, it will be in the direction of placing increased reliance upon UAVs and other means of long range, low signature, low cost of commitment war fighting.  The use of special forces teams and UAVs has been both tested and proven in the harsh laboratory of the FATA as well as the one next door in Pakistan.  Both capabilities can be of great assistance in countering the potential threats resident in AQAP, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM.)  Both may be required urgently against the latter threat if AQIM demonstrates greater capability as the result of having tapped into the arms stream flowing from the looted arsenals of Libya.

A greater use of UAVs will provoke an enormous consternation on the part of the usual suspects--the NGOs involved with human and legal rights as well as the apologists for countries which wish ill to the US but cannot match the American technological capacities.  There will be more and more political strange bedfellows both domestic and international as the US leans more heavily upon the impersonal, remotely controlled deliverers of death from above.  There will be demands beyond count for new conventions to bar such devices as Predator.  There will be calls for a moratorium on the use of these infernal machines until the law can catch up with the new technologies.

The only reply to those who believe the Predator and its tribe are inhuman and inhumane is,"Phooey!"  It is far better for a single Awlaki to die downrange than to see real war with its effects, unpredictable in detail but certain to include hundreds if not thousands of dead--most of whom will be civilians.

The Predators will continue to fly over Libya even long after NATO's warplanes have packed up and gone home.  They will be overhead to observe not only the intended targets of weapons being smuggled or saboteurs preparing but also the probable agony of protracted internal war as the joy of liberation turns into the pain of political disagreements of a very fundamental nature.

Libya (and its neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt) is also drearily predictable.  Much of the reason for this observation is found in a remark made by a Salifist Tunisian, 23 years old and holder of a degree in engineering who, when interviewed, opined, "We Salifists are the majority.  Democracy is rule of the majority.  Why should we allow the minority (secular oriented Tunisians as well as their non-Salifist fellow countrymen) dictate how we should live?"

By this question as well as similar content expressions by legions of Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, and their supporters in the West, the young man demonstrated just why the "Arab Spring" will turn into a Winter, a most harsh and bitter Winter.  The promoters of democracy show they well understand democracy in and of itself but fail to see the necessary corollary: Democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

Unless properly constrained within the firm dikes of a representational republic and held in check by dams formed by both division of powers and an independent judicial system, democracy is tyranny pure and simple in which the rights of the minorities are either non-existent or tenuous at best.  In the rush to embrace democracy without the time necessary to build the essential dikes and dams, no citizen is secure, no rights and liberties are permanent, nothing is safe from the fads and fantasies of public opinion and the winds generated by demagogues.

Libya, unlike Egypt or Tunisia, but quite like Yemen and Afghanistan or other Islamic states, has the additional burden of tribalism.  This is not to say tribalism is bad.  It isn't.  Tribal identity is predominant in several states to the point that they are not real, integrated nation-states but rather collections of tribes sharing a flag.

The attempt to force tribal based societies and polities to pretend they are Western nation-states is doomed to fail.  Don't believe?  Take a look at Somalia.  It is not a failed state because it never was a real state.  Rather it was an artifact created by Western diplomats who used the only model making sense to them--the nation-state.  The same is true of Afghanistan.  Much of the inherent instability there results from ignoring the tribal nature of the human terrain in order to pretend we can make it into a Western style state.

When looking at Libya or Yemen or, to a lesser extent, Syria, the same dynamic is present--tribes forced to act as if their members owed a higher loyalty to the state.  The example of Iraq is instructive here.  As long as we outsiders insist on democracy and the nation-state as the touchstone of legitimacy, we are helping to doom the targets to a long, harsh Winter.

Even if tribalism of the usual sort is absent as it is in Egypt and Tunisia, there is a functional equivalent at work. That is the existence of differing interpretations of Islam and thus the relation of the faith to the state.  The ground truth is Islam carries the seeds of its own failure as a foundation of state.  This actuality has been shown in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  People may think they want to live in a Shariah based system until they are actually in one.  The proponents of austere Islam have and will find that their vision of life is totally unattractive to most people.  Then, they must (as do the austere Islamists of Iran) rely upon naked force to oppress their way to continued power.

Put together, the two forms of tribalism, traditional and religious, along with unchecked democracy point to a long, bitter Winter of pronounced discontents.  This, in turn, implies a high possibility of protracted or episodic internal war in all its manifold and evil forms.  Such is the result of ill-advised exercises in "nation-building" or regime change or support of the "peoples' will.

Coming full circle, the several downsides of either intervention or unthinking support are circumvented completely by using Predators or even special forces units.  These approaches to defending against hostile intents and acts minimize the probability of unintended consequences.  Predators do not engage in "nation-building," neither do they change regimes.  They kill people in serious need of being killed.

To this end, the killing of Awlaki is one important small straw in the very stiff winds of the coming Arab Winter.

Going To Hell In A Bucket

To paraphrase a mantra of the early (1920s) self-help movement, the Mideast and coterminous regions appear "in every way and every day to be growing worse."  For those of us who are fans of collapse and chaos, these are the glory days for the benighted folk living in the vast arc from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and beyond to the point where sand dunes meet the surf in Morocco.

Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU.  You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis.  In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.

The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan.  Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business.  The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad.  The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence.  The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.

Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes.  Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.

The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind.  No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.

Bad ideas do not die.  It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world.  The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces.  The lesson of life remains the same.  Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.

Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back.  Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province.  Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.

These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood.  It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president.  The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel.  Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state.  Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American.  They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.

The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah.  They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.)  Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha.  Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.

The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya.  The invisibility doesn't imply absence.  Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime.  It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago.  While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.

The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best.  Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya.  There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.

Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change.  Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them.  That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes.  The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.

Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq.  This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious.  It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.

The takeaway?  To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"

One More Victory?

The huzzahs over the capture of Tripoli have been almost as loud as those which greeted the entrance of American troops into Baghdad.  The cheers and applause for President Obama's "leading from behind" have been greater than the response with which the dislodging of Mullah Omar and his odious Taliban government engendered.  It has been, from all appearances, one more victory for the democrats of an oppressed people and those high minded foreign governments which supported them.

Anyone having a cursory acquaintanceship with military history knows there is nothing more misleading than a victory improperly appreciated--unless it is a defeat which passes without examination. When considering Iraq or Afghanistan or, now, Libya, it is rather important to determine whether or not the locals and their outside supporters actually achieved a victory or suffered a defeat not yet properly recognized.

Of the three wars, one--that against Taliban--was a war of necessity.  The other two, Iraq and Libya, were clearly optional wars, "wars of choice," to use a newly coined formulation.

The invasion of Afghanistan in its opening phase was self-evidently one which was both justified (as retaliation against an act of unparalleled aggression) and necessary as a punitive measure intended to assure that Afghanistan would not be a source of attack at some future date.  The decision made by the Bush/Cheney administration to engage in an exercise in nation-building transmogrified the war into one of choice.  The expansion of the war from one of limited and achievable goals to one which was inherently both open ended and unwinnable in any meaningful sense turned a narrow victory into a wide defeat.

There is not and will not be any genuine victory in Afghanistan.  That chance was unthinkingly flung into the ditch within weeks of the first American boot hitting Afghan soil.  Ideology trumped national interest with results most baleful to the US, Afghanistan, and the world generally.  The negative effects of ideologically driven decisions could not be reversed even after the US dedicated more assets to the war and employed those assets according to a superior operational and tactical doctrine.  Sometimes (and Afghanistan is one of those) the courage and dedication of the troops at the sharp point even when backed by excellent warfighting doctrine and outstanding technology cannot and will not redeem a failed policy.

Iraq presents a more interesting case of presumed victory gone astray.  Even more than the "mission leap" in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq represents the disastrous impact of ideology upon decision making.  As has been clear since before the first American bombs and missiles plowed up Iraqi targets, the exercise in fostering democracy by armed means was the product of ideologues.  More, it was the product of ideologues so blinded by the light of their beliefs that they warped intelligence, failed to consider the nature and character of the Iraqi human terrain, and perverted history.

Few would dissent from the proposition that Saddam Hussein was a most odious man running an equally odious regime.  There is no argument that in a perfect world he not only deserved to be displaced but would have been to universal applause.  But, this world is far closer to imperfection than its utopian opposite.  Even if the American viceroy had refrained from the spectacular blunders such as that of disbanding the armed and police forces or the one of insisting on removing all Baathists from positions of authority, the results would not have been subsumed by the phrase "mission accomplished."

Woodrow Wilson discovered nearly a century ago at low cost in both money and lives, it is impossible to impose democracy--American style--at bayonet point.  His lofty goal was to provide a civics lesson--to, in his words, "teach the Mexicans to elect good men."  The lesson was taught by US Marines with due diligence and remarkable restraint.  However the lesson was lost upon the Mexican population for the simple reason that the lesson were not "made in Mexico" but rather in the US.

The same dynamic applied in Iraq.  The same dynamic to be sure but one which was fueled not only by nationalism but also by religion.  Well, to err on the side of accuracy, the second fuel was religions, plural, while the first was nationalisms, again plural.  The singular failure of the Bush/Cheney administration as well as their assorted minions in country was  to understand that not only were there two religious communities sharing the same generic title--Islam, but that each considered the other to be apostate.  The Deep Thinkers also apparently overlooked the fact that the concept "majority rules" would result in a zero sum game for the minority.

As if not seeing that particular T. rex in the bedroom was not sufficient, the same ideologically propelled Deep Thinkers managed to ignore the practical effect of three nations uneasily coexisting within a common international border.  Among the impacts would be a search for external support on the part of at least one of the three nationalities.  In this case, nationality was reinforced by religious confession.

As a result of these blind spots, a man emerged to undue importance.  This man is Muqtada al-Sadr.  He is a Shia cleric.  He is an outstanding politician in the Iraqi context.  He runs a very large and rather competent private militia.  And, he is an exponent of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.  When these factors are combined and taken in conjunction with the utterly dysfunctional Iraqi government, al-Sadr becomes the most powerful personality in the country.

The Maliki government exists because al-Sadr gave it his personal blessing.  Al-Sadr blessings are rather like Catholic indulgences in the years before Martin Luther--they come only for a price.  For Nouri al-Maliki the price was that of taking warm and tender regard for the policy desires of the ayatollahs in Tehran.  Chew on that one for a moment, bucko.

The obvious implication is that the real winner of the American orchestrated invasion of Iraq has--or shortly will be--Iran.  The US expended thousands of American lives and who really knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars to secure a political victory for the ultimate bad boys of the region--the dictatorial theocrats of Tehran.

A test of the Tehran wins hypothesis is coming soon.  Al-Sadr has called upon his followers to engage in massive demonstrations against the Maliki government.  The ostensible reason is the failure of the current regime to restore basic services to their pre-2003 level.  The substantial reason is to demonstrate in an unmistakable way what will confront the government should it agree to a continued substantial American presence after 31 December 11.

The departure of the Americans will have two results.  One will be a reignition of the violence which marked the mid-period of the US combat operations.  The second will be an invitation to Tehran for assistance in providing domestic security.

Isn't that a fascinating prospect?

The possibility of Iraq becoming a "hollow state" where all the real power resides with Tehran and its Iraqi proxies is very real.  The reality is underscored by the recent signs of Tehran retreating from unqualified support for the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad.  Losing one outpost in the Arab states is acceptable if the loss of Syria can be offset by the gaining of a larger, far more oil rich and Shia majority Iraq.

President Ahmedinejad and his boss, the Guardian of the Revolution, may sound like utter fools or delusional maniacs to many in the West, but they are not.  They, particularly the Grand Ayatollah, are careful and dedicated practitioners of regional realpolitik.  Iraq is the better "ally," the better "hollow state" in all respects as compared with Syria.

Now, in looking at the latest "victory" for democracy, please recall that the governments of both Iran and Iraq came to power via the ballot box.  Simply having elections does not guarantee an outcome compatible with the interests of the US, or the UK, or France.  The many critics of the "NATO" campaign in Libya who focused on the many unknowns resident within the rebel forces and their Transitional National Council were well justified in their cautionary notes.

Libya is in a profound state of flux.  It will remain that way even if Gaddafi and his sons are caught or killed.  The many factions, the multitude of conflicting priorities and agendas, the rivalries which constitute the most important hallmark of the TNC alone assures the flux will go on, and on, and on.  Also contributing to the ongoing lack of stability will be the simple fact that there currently exist in Libya a large number of very well armed young men who have discovered that it is not all that hard to push the cancel button on another human being and who have their own agendas as motivators.

So far the US is 0 for 2 in the victory department.  While the final bell has not yet rung in Libya, there are few reasons to conclude the record will not soon be 0 for 3.

Makes you kind of wonder if Ron Paul and his message of neo-isolationism might not have something going for it.  Doesn't it?

The "Fall" Of Tripoli And Other Polite Fictions

You will recall no doubt that NATO air forces have been operating under the authority of a UN Security Council resolution to "protect" civilians caught in the crossfire between rebels and troops loyal to noted humanitarian,  African "King of Kings," and Brother Leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi.  To some of the NATO countries such as Germany and Turkey, even this limited mission was unacceptably broad and all too fraught with the possibility that someone, somewhere, somehow might kill someone else.  To other members, the US, the UK, and France come to mind, the only way to accomplish the prescribed action was through the removal of Gaddafi.

Since all NATO decisions must be made by consensus, it was inevitable that the actual campaign would be fragmented, relatively ineffective, and of dubious utility in gaining an end to the obnoxious regime.  When President Obama ended the active American combat role in Operation Unified Protector and handed the task over to NATO so as to adopt the policy of "leading from behind," the already lurching effort shambled ever closer to the ditch of failure.  It was no surprise that the combination of NATO fecklessness and rebel ineptitude in the arts and crafts of war not only made the loyalist forces appear downright competent in comparison but moved the war to the dead waters of stalemate.

In the past few weeks, the rebels gained new strength, new courage, new competence and went from a stance of barely held defense to one of successful offensive, particularly in the Berber inhabited mountains of the west.  The mainstream media seemed more than a bit shocked by the sudden transformation.  Many attempts at explanation were offered, but only one seemed to gain traction.

The explanation which stood head and shoulders above all others was the redeployment of NATO aircraft from whatever they had been doing to direct, close, tactical air support of the rebel ground forces.  Whenever and wherever the rebels sought to advance they were preceded by (to  use the most common term employed by the amateur fighters of the rebels) "Mr NATO."  Airstrikes preceded and ran in parallel with rebel attacks such that the rebels were always successful at a surprisingly low cost in lives.

The reports from journalists in the field made it abundantly clear that the rebels had not turned into super-troops during the weeks of stalemate.  Often the advances were held up and even routed by a handful of snipers moving from roof top to roof top or apartment block to apartment block. The engagements were almost risible in their small size.  The associated body counts were equally small.  In short, no evidence of either side having fought with skill or mass was evident in all the myriad accounts coming from the frontlines.

As the NATO air attacks grew in number, there was no significant increase in collateral civilian casualties.  That should have raised flags with all observers.  There were darn few dots to connect.  The rebels were suddenly more effective.  "Mr NATO was always there, on time with hot metal on target.  There was no ramp up in the collateral deaths and damage.

Putting together the dots confirms one conclusion: The more robust proponents of getting rid of the obstreperous Leader had authorized the deployment of special forces personnel or operations officers of the clandestine service to provide training, advise, and, most decisively, forward air control.  In the past couple of days, due  in probability to the euphoria of achieving seeming success, the British and French governments have allowed that special forces personnel both active duty and retired had been and continued to be present in Libya.

The Americans have not been so forthcoming--yet.  In a sense there is no real reason.  After all who but Americans would have been driving black SUVs in conjunction with the advancing Berbers and others from the Western mountains?  Who but Americans wearing jeans and bush shirts would have been encountered standing next to the quite atypical for Libya black Suburbans?  Who but Americans would have been using very advanced commo gear and laser designators while parked on a convenient hilltop watching the rebels mount out as "Mr NATO" circled nearby?

Positing for the moment that the jeans wearing dudes glazing Qaddafi tanks and missile launching trucks were either Agency operations officers or sheepdipped special forces members, then Mr Obama has been telling the truth when denying the presence of American military personnel in Libya.  A narrow, technical truth is nonetheless a truth.  The combination of the primarily Berber forces (recall that the Berbers were never well and truly subjugated by the Italians or the monarchy and steamed hot under the heavy oppression of Qaddafi) are made up of men with many generations of guerrilla warfare in their blood and American directed air delivered firepower was highly effective.

The close cooperation of the Americans with the Western mountaineers also had the advantage of putting some blue sky between Washington and the forces controlled (if that is the correct term) by the Transitional National Council in Benghazi.  The conflicting agendas and presence of advocates of violent political Islam in the TNC makes the development of an alternative locus of political authority desirable.  The Western towns and tribes are under represented in the TNC which makes an alternative locus not only desirable but necessary.  The key role played to date by the Western mountaineers in the "conquest" of Tripoli assures that the future government of Libya will be more inclusive--a key American policy goal.

The results to date make manifest the effectiveness of the direct training, command, and control as well as forward fire direction services provided by British and French military personnel.  Without these critical components as well as the equally important intelligence and targeting assistance coming from the Europeans, the rebels would still be dithering around many, many klicks to the east of Tripoli.  In short, the discrete assistance made the rebels something more like a fighting force and much less of a source of comedic relief.

The important take away is the "victory" to date of the rebels is not a credit to NATO per se but rather to the decisions taken by three major members of the alliance. NATO has not come back from the graveyard of obsolete political assemblies.  Rather the effectiveness of "Mr NATO" and the rebels came despite the alliance not because of it.  On the ground, under the pressure of real world events, what started as a purported out-of-theater operation by NATO became a "coalition of the willing" in the same model as that patented back in 1990 by George H.W. Bush.  But, as a polite fiction the credit will be given to NATO.

A second, parallel polite fiction is already being written by the Obama administration and its supporters in congress and among We the People.  That fiction holds Mr Obama as a pillar of triumphant diplomatic policy and his "leading from behind" policy paradigm as the most important new foreign policy development since the Marshall Plan.  Hooey!  Obama did what he did in the way he did for domestic political reasons alone.  He attended closely to the polls which showed We the People had no inclination for one more war in a Muslim majority country.  This political reality was reinforced strongly by the simple fact that the US had no definite, marketable national interest in play in Libya other than a vague, emotional commitment to the ideal of democracy and a strong distaste for Qaddafi.  There was neither reason nor way in which even the most limited of wars could be sold to We the People and congress--and Obama did the only thing he could do other than abandon the UK and France as well as the Arab League to their own devices with the result that US influence would go even deeper in the tank than it is now.

There is a final polite fiction.  That is the tale of the "fall" of Tripoli.  Leaving aside the tragi-comic features of the last twenty-four hours, the fact remains that Tripoli is not under any sort of rebel control, military or governmental.  The companion fact is that even if Tripoli becomes fully under TNC authority, it does not mean the war is over let alone that a new Libya is well under construction.  The simple, ground truth, the brute fact of life in Libya is that the Libyans will have to be very, very lucky and careful in order to prevent the start of a long, bloody, and destructive set of internal wars.  Beyond that, a successful outcome (defined as a stable Libya with some plausible semblance of democracy) will depend upon the outsiders--the British, the French, the Americans, the UN, the brigades of ever ready NGOs-- to do very little.

The danger from outside Libya is that the well-intentioned foreigners both governmental and NGO will try to do too much rather than too little.  Particularly if there is a period of settling scores, of payback violence, of armed quest for political authority, there will be an almost irresistible temptation to interfere, to impose and keep the peace, to "teach the Libyans to elect good men."  No matter what happens, no matter how much blood might flow, no matter how loud and obnoxious the rhetoric might become, it is critical, utterly central, that the outsiders keep their hands off.  For Libya to emerge eventually as a stable, peaceful, hopefully democratic society and polity, it is imperative that the processes leading to that end state be organic to Libya and the Libyan people.

A new polite fiction is emerging to the effect that we, particularly the British but also the Americans, have learned the big lesson of the dreadful and avoidable experiences in Iraq.  That may be true in an abstract, academic way, but down deep in the emotional brain which drives the really big decisions, it is not.  Should Libya enter a period of adjustment marked with retribution and revenge, it is doubtful that the Deep Thinkers in government and media throughout the US, the UK, France, and elsewhere will be able to kick back and remind the critics, inform the anguished humanitarians, chastise the eager to intervene, that this time the mistakes of Iraq will not be repeated.

The biggest challenge ahead for Libya and its people will not be the capture or killing of Qaddafi.  It will not be which way should the TNC go in preparing for its eventual demise.  It will not be transforming the fighters of the deserts and mountains into a professional constabulary capable of keeping the internal peace.  It will not be who will try the criminals of the former regime.  None of these begins to match the really, really big challenge.

That challenge?

Simple, bucko, the make-or-break of Libya's future is found in a short and easy question: Can the High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the West keep their hands off and their mouths shut.

If the past is any guide, the answer is short and bitter: No.

More "Followership" From The Hindmost

Coming late and out of breath from the unusual bout of exertion, the US today decided that the rebels, The Transitional Government" is the only legitimate game in Libya.  The US has extended full diplomatic recognition to the far less than coherent bunch in Benghazi.  The practical effect of this move is the freeing of the billions of Gaddafi bucks languishing in American custody, impounded under UN sanctions.

The American extension of recognition comes long after similar acts by the UK and France as well as other, lesser members of the anti-Gaddafi coalition.  The reasons for the lengthy American delay are inscrutable although it may be contended that Mr Obama has been too involved with negotiating a treaty over the deficit with his Republican interlocutors to have had much time to waste on minor matters such as Libya.

Arguably, there was no real need to grant diplomatic recognition and the international legitimacy that entails in order to give the Libyan money back to the Libyans in the personage of the Transitional Government.  Arguably, the granting of diplomatic recognition was premature in that the nature of the Benghazi crew is not exactly pellucid.  It is still unclear as to who holds the balance of power in the Transitional Government--the advocates of violent political Islam (some of whom have pulled triggers against Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan) or the secularists.  There is no way of being sure that the end result of the regime change will be more or less favorable to American national and strategic interests.

There is a larger reason to have not extended the prize of diplomatic recognition to the Lads In Benghazi.  The US has no direct stake in the country.  Other than the general imperative of countering the actions of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the US has no definite or definable interests in play.  That reality enough was enough to have militated against our involvement in the air campaign against Gaddafi and Company.  It is also sufficient to undercut any push to granting enhanced status to the rebels whose interests more likely than not do not run in parallel with our own.

There is something even more disquieting contained within the delayed but unnecessary recognition of the rebels as the only legitimate government in Libya.  It is the same disquieting factor already seen in play with the vacillating policy regarding Mubarak and the "Lotus Revolution" in Egypt or the similarly disconnected set of moves masquerading as policy regarding Syria.

The disquieting, not to say alarming, dynamic at work in Libya, Syria, and Egypt is that of indecision, lack of focus, and an apparent unwillingness to engage in the messier, less pleasant aspects of diplomacy.  The Nice Young Man From Chicago is too given to compromise, too willing to evade responsibility, too averse to making clear cut decisions and holding to them (unless a basic tenet of his ideology is at work) to engage in the risky business of establishing and hewing to a foreign policy.  While the Secretary of State may not be as averse to muscular diplomacy, it has become evident that Ms Clinton lacks the capacity to differentiate between that which is really important and those options which simply appeal on an emotional level.

One of the inevitable results of the Obama approach to foreign policy has been that of eroding confidence in the will of the US to undertake difficult actions.  An excellent example of this is the Saudi decision to broaden their weapons acquisition efforts to include Germany and Russia.  The movers and shakers among the gerontocracy running the Kingdom have concluded that the US is unreliable even as a source of expensive hardware.

The Saudis have noted with interest and no doubt considerable apprehension the way in which the US under both George W. Bush and Mr Obama has evaded the formal request by Taiwan to purchase sixty new generation F-16 aircraft.  In doing so the Obama administration has blatantly violated the law, specifically the law requiring the US to see to Taiwan's defense needs as defined by Taiwan not the US.  Considering that not selling the F-16s to Taiwan will result in the loss of thousands of good paying jobs during economically tenuous times, not even American self-interest can offset the stifling influence of Beijing on US policy.

If Beijing can put the screws to the US such that American jobs are sacrificed along with the law and US interests in Asia, Prince Bandar among others must have reasoned, what are the odds that at some point the US will go lame in an area crucial to Saudi existential interests?  Right now only one feature ties US interests to those of the Saudis.

No, bucko, not oil.  The only real coinciding national interests between ourselves and the Saudis is fear and loathing of Iran.  It is important in this context to underscore the importance of the recent high profile allegations of Iranian complicity in lethal attacks on US service personnel in Iraq.  These statements are aimed in part at the bootless excuse for a central government in Iraq to be sure.  But there is a far more important audience.

That more important group of auditors is located in Tehran.  In a real sense the comments regarding Iranian sponsorship of the attacks on Americans stands as a proxy for the most recent developments in the Iranian nuclear weapons program.  The Iranians have installed examples of two next gen centrifuges.  More importantly, these as well as hundreds of the older, less efficient models have been placed in hardened, underground facilities.

Taken together, these twin, interlocking developments make manifest the nature of the Iranian nuclear effort.  It is focused on getting the bomb.  Period.  There is no need for any more discussion on that aspect of the Iranian nuke program.

Rather, the only place for discussion is on the general question of options available to the US.  In this discussion the unique Obama approach to policy in the Mideast becomes relevant, highly so.  As the administration's fit-and-start facsimile of policy in Libya, Syria, and Egypt demonstrates, it is germane to ask whether or not the US will deign to lead from the front.

"Leading from behind" is not, as the White House creator of the term must have believed, a feat of brilliant statesmanship putting Obama on a par with Bismark or Talleyrand, but rather a total abdication of leadership. As the resulting mess in Libya shows in full color and stereo sound, the concept of leading from the rear is not only intellectually bankrupt but operationally equates with self-inflicted defeat.  A robust, albeit unpopular, US presence at the head of the NATO pack would have allowed a bad policy to be redeemed from the failure it so richly deserved.  The absence of the Americans in any meaningful, violent way from the effort has assured that the bad policy would fail, and, worse, would fail in a way which rebounded to the discredit of NATO as well as key allies.

Despite the documented successes of the sanctions imposed on Iran, most notably those impinging on maritime trade, the mullahs move closer to the "Mahdi Bomb" with every spin of every centrifuge.  This means that push-comes-to-shove time looms closer by the day, by the hour.  We the People place great faith in the efficacy of diplomatic and economic sanctions as the best form of coercive diplomacy.  In doing so, the American public overlooks the unpleasant reality that the effectiveness of sanctions rests in the last analysis on the perceived will and ability of the imposer of sanctions to use military force should the sanctions fail.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Iranian government and the mullahs behind it are convinced the US lacks the will to use military force.  They may (in private) be willing to grant that the US has the material capacity to destroy not only the nuclear facilities but Iran, but they are of the view that mere material ability is irrelevant.  The mullahs are right in this.  Ability without political will is simply so much very expensive hardware.

The Iranians are not alone in this appreciation.  The Israeli government shares it.  Benjamin Netanyahu along with the majority of his cabinet and party are convinced that the US is a toothless tiger regarding the looming Iranian threat.  They are also certain that the Obama administration is already willing to adjust its policy to an Iran with nuclear capabilities along with the implications this brings to the region and the world.  A similar sense of things must be growing as well in Saudi Arabia and other conservative Gulf states.

The current government of Israel is both crazy enough and filled with existential dread enough to go it alone in a strike on the Iranian nuclear plant.  There may even be a lingering belief that should Israel start the war, the US must join in.  If nothing else, the Netanyahu ministry probably believes that should Israel mount the first strikes and cause a mass attack in return by Iran and its closer adjuncts in Lebanon and Gaza, the American congress will do the necessary heavy lifting to assure the US moves fast and hard to bring the new war to a successful conclusion.

Given the power of the Israel Lobby in Congress, the Israeli calculus is not irrational.  It is a realistic reading of the political landscape of the US.  Even though an Israeli originated war with Iran would be devastating to the fragile American (and global) economic recovery, the US would have very few choices other than to join the fight with the goal of bringing the war to the most rapid and decisive conclusion.

The most rapid and decisive ending to an Israeli-Iranian war would be the total destruction of the Iranian governmental, military, and economic infrastructure.  The US could accomplish this using only conventional munitions, but the job would be longer and more difficult than might be presumed at the outset.  As the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya have shown, the ancient saw holding that wars are always longer and more difficult to end than seems to be the case at the beginning has not been obviated by changes in technology.

A war between Israel (and the US) on the one side and Iran (and its proxies) on the other would be a world historical event.  But, the obtaining of a nuclear capacity by Iran would prove to be such as well.  This means the matter is a choice regarding the perceived lesser of two evils.

To the Israelis, particularly the government of Netanyahu, the choice is a no-brainer.  To the US, the choice is not so simple and clear cut.  However, to be in the position to make a choice, the US, and, more specifically the Obama administration, must be universally perceived as a leader.  In this context it is critical to recall that the most effective form of leadership is leadership from the front.

The leader, as the Infantry School at Fort Benning makes plain, shouts, "Follow me!"  The leader does not say, "Go ahead, I'm right behind you."

As today's decision regarding the rebels in Libya shows, Mr Obama has not yet learned this vital fact.  By default he has handed control of the future of the US and the world to Benjamin Netanyahu.  That is not a failure of policy.  It is not even a simple error of judgement.  It is a world class blunder.

The End Of The Big Battalions

Ten years ago the concept of unmanned combat systems (UCS) existed more in the pages of science fiction yarns than on the battlefields of the real world.  As the ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq rolled along, the UCS intruded more and more into the plans and actions of the American military.  The evolution of both aerial and terrestrial UCS has been rapid.  It will become more so in the next few years.

Arguably, the UCS in all its many forms--air, land, and on as well as under the water--have the potential to change human conflict at least as much as did the arrival of gunpowder weapons nearly a thousand years ago.  There can be no doubt that the UCS far outstrips such game changers as the aircraft carrier, armored combat vehicle, submarine, and high speed aircraft in its impact on the nature and character of military operations.  The high probability that the majority of warfare in the near- to mid-term will be of the asymmetrical sort increases the impact of the UCS all the more.

The UCS fits perfectly with the American way of war as such has existed and evolved since the horrifying joint losses of the War Between the States.  Ever since then, the US has been willing to expend any amount of materiel, money, and technology in order to save American lives.  All of our wars have been materiel and technology heavy--and casualty light.  In the context of the counterinsurgent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this strong imperative of saving American lives gave an additional impetus to the development and deployment of UCS.

The use of such systems--whether UAVs like the Predator, the Reaper, and their smaller tactical kindred or the various ground systems suitable for bomb neutralizing or entering fortified structures ahead of the troops--has proven successful beyond even the most optimistic initial projections.  The success has served to breed more UCS research, development, and deployment.

One cannot help but have noticed the proliferation of posts dealing with the ethics and legality of UCS employment.  The assorted ethical arguments against the UCS are specious.  There is nothing unethical in employing UCS when there is a human operator in the loop.  The presence of the human in the loop makes the system no more "robotic" than a tank or artillery piece or manned bomber.  True, the operator of a UCS is quite out of range, immune to the dangers which might exist for the tanker, the artilleryman, the pilot, but the absence of risk does not make a weapon system somehow ethically suspect.

The human in the loop also defeats objections from a lawerly perspective.  The operator and his command structure are just as responsible to the strictures of the laws of land warfare as any other military institution.  The same criminal liability exists when operating a Predator as when flying an F-16.

Ethical and legal objections might have some validity if and when UCS are capable of operating totally autonomously with no human in the loop.  The rapid evolution of the necessary technology will allow for autonomous operation in the very near future, but the probability of allowing more than routine, non-contact environment, autonomous operation is slight at the present time.  Operating agencies will demand a good deal of experience with any given UCS before risking autonomous operation in a combat environment.  When that happens, the question will (or should) be straightforward: Does the autonomous UCS resemble a landmine or not?  That is, does it represent a danger for civilians who happen upon it by accident after active combat has ceased in a given area?  Or, does the presence of an autonomously operating UCS represent a clear and unacceptably high degree of threat to any civilian who finds himself wandering around a combat zone during periods of active combat?

The expense of a system as sophisticated as a UCS capable of autonomous operation militates against the system being left behind after combat has ceased.  It is not a fire-and-forget device like a cluster munition.  Nor is it a plant-and-forget expendable like the landmine.  Programming solutions exist for the challenge presented by the apparent civilian found in an active combat zone.  Presumably pattern recognition software coupled with contingent algorithm based decision making could prevent instant lethal action while permitting either non-lethal detention or the summoning of a human to the loop.  In either broad case, the ethical and legal questions can be addressed fully and effectively.

The loudest and most vociferous denunciations of UCS will come as they have already not simply from civilian organizations dedicated to the most extreme understandings of civilian immunity but from those countries which are and will be inferior in the development and fielding of UCS.  It is to be expected that states hostile to the US in particular will take the lead in seeking international conventions prohibiting the use of UCS.  The historical record shows the pervasive but ultimately unsuccessful deep rooted desire of have-not states to shackle the have states to the lowest level.

The most silly objection to the further development and deployment of UCS is that these systems will make war not only more "thinkable" but far more likely.  There are two, mutually incompatible components to this idea.  One is the removal of the threat to friendly forces by providing the bravery of being out of range removes a powerful inhibition to the resort to war on the part of states such as the US.  The other is the reduction in collateral civilian losses reduces the horror of war to the party inflicting the damage.

There is no doubt that reduction of friendly losses is critical to decision making in the US and other civilized states.  War does become a bit less repulsive when there is little if any chance of soldiers coming home either in body bags or on stretchers.  But other potent inhibitory factors are not removed by the use of UCS.  Some of these, particularly diplomatic complications and the enhancement of enemy political will, can actually be enhanced by the employment of UCS.  This has already been seen in the Predator strikes in the FATA of Pakistan.

The reduction of collateral civilian deaths and physical destruction made possible by the further development of UCS should be welcomed by human rights organizations.  Increased accuracy in the delivery of lethal munitions allows the use of lower potency ordnance.  There is no need to use a Hellfire missile with its impressively large bang down range if one can accurately deliver a "smart spike" which puts a large hole in the intended target without disturbing the dandruff of the person standing next to him.  As has been demonstrated most recently in Libya, the concrete bomb can obliterate an antiaircraft gun mounted in a small courtyard without even breaking windows a couple of meters away.  Evolution to greater accuracy has been and will continue to be rapid with life saving effects increasing accordingly.

The UCS operated by a man under no pressure of combat aided by technology oriented toward the utmost of precision can kill the person in need of killing without any collateral damage.  The lofty thinking and tender hearted must remember that the purpose of war is to gain political dominance over an enemy in order to establish a better state of peace.  This means there are people who need to be killed.  The concept of the operation is to kill those who must be killed and not kill or injure anyone else.  The UCS provides a much better means of doing this.

Another objection that has been raised in opposition to the UCS is the capacity resident in such systems to vastly expand the area of combat operations.  This is one more risible example of a totally specious objection.  While some military operations can be confined to a tidily defined geographic area, others, such as the neutralizing of groups practicing violent political Islam, cannot.  Such groups by their very nature are diffuse in location and critical nodes of command and control.  The practitioners of violent political Islam have defined their area of operations to be regional at the least and global at the most.  The UCS provides the capacity to attack the noxious practitioner wherever he exists.  The choice has been his, and the response is not a voluntary expansion of the military theater of operations but a realistic appreciation of the enemy's nature, character, and intentions.

While the UCS has much to recommend it and will have even more in the years to come, there is no way that the UCS can by itself win wars, that is impose one's political will upon the other.  The UCS is and will remain a force multiplier, a way of doing much more with fewer active combatants involved in theater.  There will be fewer boots on the ground, but those fewer boots will be all the more important.

There are several reasons why the boots will be there and be important in their presence.

One reason is purely psychological: Only human presence is truly intimidating.  Being there, being in the enemy's face nearly every time he turns around, has the effect over time of undercutting his will to continue.  Importantly, the surveillance capabilities provided by UCS allow the forces on the ground to be deployed more effectively, to be in the enemy's face more efficiently, and thus to undercut his will to resist faster with less actual blood being shed in the process.

A second reason is political.  The presence of men on the ground is an easily understood signal of political will.  Since all wars, but the asymmetrical form in particular, are contests of political will, the presence of boots on the ground is essential if the enemy is to be convinced that the US, for example, has the political will to fight on until victory.  The UCS plays a role here.  The casualty reducing capacities of the UCS assures that American political will remains intact for a longer period of time.  Even the frustrating war in Afghanistan retained support for years in largest measure because so few US personnel were killed there.

A third reason is found in the intelligence area.  Contact between friendly and hostile forces constitutes an important source of intelligence.  Only contact and the resulting firefight can give a useful indicator regarding the enemy's will to combat as well as on his capacity to make good his losses in manpower and equipment.  Perhaps the most important indicator of enemy morale, of his will to fight, is found in how eagerly he seeks contact, how he reacts to contact, how well he fights, and how prolonged is his resistance.  This is an area, a very important area, in which the UCS is of little or no assistance.  There are and will be some things in war which only humans can do.

The progress in the development of UCS has been revolutionary.  Absent a real shooting war, the future evolution of the systems will be slower, more hesitant, and liable to interruption due to budgetary or political concerns.  On the upside, we can be quite sure the believers in violent political Islam will make every effort to keep the war going.  As the war goes on, so also will the development of the UCS.  And, that, bucko, is a very fine thing.

The GOP And A (False) Forced Choice

Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives, and most particularly the GOP members of the House, have twisted their panties over the propriety, or, at least, the legality of the ongoing American operation in Libya.  The knot in the elephant's knickers is, of course, the War Powers Act.  The Republicans have been huffing and puffing mightily over the Obama administration's purported failure to abide by the requirements of this act, an act, it deserves reminding ourselves, the Republicans have often and loudly decried as unconstitutional.

The Nice Young Man From Chicago in no way helped his position when he declared that the US was not engaged in "hostilities" as such might be construed in the context of the War Powers Resolution.  This was an utterly preposterous notion which could only have been conceived by an academic with a potent lust for power.  The president took an unworthy stance.  By so doing he insulted the intelligence not only of the House Republicans but of Americans generally.  As an example of legal pettifoggery, the presidential assertion was on a par with the similar legalistic parsing engaged in by Bill Clinton to prove that getting one's knob polished in the environs of the Oval was not engaging in sexual activity.

Now the hypocrites in Congress are locked in a face off with the hypocrite in the Oval.  Regardless of which prevails in this imitation mano a mano exercise, the loser will be the United States.  What is at stake in this affray is the ability of the US to operate effectively on the global stage in forthcoming years.

The bent-out-of-shape Republicans in the House along with their liberal Democratic colleagues are seeking not simply the humiliation of Obama or the further clipping of the imperial presidency's extensive wingspan or seeking to economize in parlous financial times but rather the forcing of a false choice between an isolationist stance on the part of the US or the continuation of "wars of choice' as defined by the president.

The Republican "deficit hawks" along with their very strange bedfellows, progressive Democrats, are forcing a clear and ongoing limitation on the ability of presidents to wage what has been called "wars of choice."  The House leadership as well as most of the current Republican contenders for the Oval have been channeling the ghost of Robert Taft, the "Mr Republican" of sixty and more years ago.  Senator Robert Taft of Ohio defined more than any other single man the concept of isolationism.  More than other noted congressional proponents of this philosophy of total withdrawal from the political challenges of the world, Taft opposed any and all foreign "entanglements" and "adventures."  In support of his position he advanced economic arguments as well as contending without end that not only would our overseas activities end in failure, they would produce more enemies than friends.

The soi dissant conservatives on the Red side of the aisle have been making the same Taft type contentions.  Our overseas adventures whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Libya have ended in failure or will do so unless wound down speedily and completely.  Our overseas adventures have made us far more enemies than they have created friends.  And, certainly neither last nor least, our overseas adventures have been far too costly and can no longer be afforded.

The particular species of overseas adventure which has reigned supreme in the narratives of both progressive Democrat and deficit hawk Republican has been that of "wars of choice."  This is a fine term.  It gives the clear impression that presidents of both parties search the world from time to time looking for a war in which to involve ourselves.  This is a specious notion but like all truly preposterous ideas it contains a small but critical measure of truth.

Considering all of the military interventions in which the US has participated since the Reagan administration there have been some which were clearly optional in the sense the US had no critical national interests at stake in the conflict.  George H.W. Bush's humanitarian intervention in Somalia rests in the "optional" category.  So does his adventure in regime change, Operation Just Cause in Panama.  But the US response to the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait is of the "mandatory" sort.  Key US national and strategic interests were in play in that war.

Bill Clinton's expansion of the Somalian operation fell in the "war of choice" column.  The same is true with respect to the American operations in former Yugoslavia.  The US had no bull in the herd in Somalia.  The bloody implosion of what had once been the totally artificial state of Yugoslavia was of concern to Europe but not to the US, pace the recently deceased Larry Eagleburger.

The invasion of Afghanistan, if that use of force had been confined to the original mission statement, was mandatory, a justifiable exercise in retaliation to an attack on the US.  However, George W.'s  invasion of Iraq fell clearly in the "war of choice" category.  It was an ideologically driven "build it and they will come" sort which produced if not a debacle certainly a bloody and expensive tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, people who will be dealing with the aftershocks for decades if not generations to come.

The ideologically propelled "mission leap" in Afghanistan along with the "war of choice" in Iraq are the ghosts at the political banquet now being served over Libya.  There is a delicious irony at the banquet.  That irony resides in the main course of the meal--the War Powers Resolution.

The War Powers Resolution was passed by the Democratic Party controlled Congress as a reaction to the Vietnam War which was seen by the Democrats as having been a "war of choice" waged by imperial presidents.  The Democrats who so loudly demanded limitations be placed on the president's capacity to wage war cheerfully ignored reality as they voted.  The American entrance into the Vietnamese war was seen by both the Democratic presidents (JKF and LBJ) as well as the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress to have been "mandatory."

If anything the documents show the congressional Democrats were far more willing and eager to go to war then either JFK or LBJ.  The Democrats along with the Republicans understood our commitment to the South Vietnamese to be central to our guarantee of the global status quo during a very frigid period of the cold war. Support for the introduction of combat troops, the commencement of the air war against North Vietnam, and the central decision to escalate our forces in country were all monolithically supported by the Democratic Party.  It was only after the war seemed (incorrectly) to have devolved to an unwinnable stalemate during the administration of the detested Richard Nixon that sentiment on the Blue side shifted so as to produce the War Powers Resolution.

Now the Republicans motivated by their political calculus are willing to invoke both the War Powers Resolution and the power of the purse to limit or end the Obama policy in Libya.  Standing in opposition to the efforts of the deficit hawk Republicans and progressive Democrats to end the minimal American presence in the Libyan "war of choice" is the neocon outfit, The Foreign Policy Initiative," which authored an open letter to the House leadership imploring a rejection of the proposed strictures and urging an expansion of US efforts in the Libyan Affair.

The neocons are no more correct than are the wing clippers in the House.  The answer to the problems of "wars of choice" is to be found in a more effective means of determining the nature of US interests in play in any given potential area of intervention.  The critical difference between "mandatory" and "optional" wars is to be found in the answer to one question: What key national and strategic interests are to be served and to what degree by this proposed intervention?

Had this question been both posed and accurately answered, the US would have not invaded Iraq.  It would not have expanded the mission in Afghanistan to include the impossibility of nation-building.  And, the US would have sat out Libya as it did conflicts even more bloody elsewhere in Africa.  The "wars of choice" all share a common feature--they were driven by ideology.  True, the ideology might have been clothed attractively in American values, norms, aspirations.  The motive might have been expressed in pleasant words regarding democracy, transparency, or the evil nature of repressive regimes.  The matter of refugees might have been adduced in support as well as concealment of the underlying ideological imperatives.

There is only one reason to go to war--when there is no realistic alternative way by which a better state of peace as defined by American national and strategic interests exists.  There is one large reason not to go to war--when the motive is one of ideology, of belief, of personal or collective vision.

How to parse between the two is the only effective way to assure the US does not waste blood and treasure in pursuit of impossible dreams.  And, parsing between the two is the only way to assure that when war in the national interest is necessary, we have the way and will to do so with success.

Of course, Congress being what it is, there is no chance the Deep Thinkers in that body any more than the Great Strategists in and near the Oval will consider this matter, the only matter which genuinely counts for more than a few votes more or less in some future election.