Foreign Policy Success? What Successes?

The MSM have been spilling a lot of ink over the "success" of Obama's "leading from behind" doctrine as exhibited in Libya.  Some experts in the field of geopolitics have gone so far as to extend the Libyan outcome as being but the latest in a string of unappreciated but real "successes" or at least non-failures attributable to the Nice Young Man From Chicago.

All things considered, there has been one real victory achieved by President Obama.  His combination of responding to domestic political pressures--particularly the pervasive Democrat fear of being seen as "weak" on national security--combined with lofty, progressive rhetoric of the Bill Clinton sort has removed foreign policy from the election table.  From his decision to allow the lethal takedown of Osama bin Laden to the murky way in which the US backed into the Libyan adventure in regime change, Obama responded more to the dictates of the public's political mood than any realistic assessment of US diplomatic needs and goals.

While it is no doubt true that defense and foreign policy will not play any discernible role in the 2012 election, which is a misfortune to say the least, the canny political sense of the incumbent in denying the Republicans any point of legitimate attack constitutes a real advantage to the Obama campaign.  Also offering powerful assistance to the president's reelection effort is the combination of amazing ignorance and retro thinking which typifies the current elephantine field in its collective consideration of America's role in the world.

It is to be regretted greatly that none of the current GOP aspirants have yet gone after the record of failures which is the record of the present administration.  The universe of discourse is both vast and central to the near and mid-term future of the US.

Consider Iraq.  Yes, we are out of the place.  That is good.  But the cost of our exit has been to see failure left in the wake of the endeavor.  True, the initial blunder belongs for all eternity to George W. Bush and his neocon ninny soulmates.  But the Obama people knew the withdrawal date fixed by the Status of Forces Agreement was looming.  They also knew that total withdrawal would be dangerous, perhaps fatally so for Iraq.  So did the Iraqis.  Yet, with nearly three years to act, the administration failed to find a formula which would allow sufficient troops to stay with the requisite legal immunity.  Rather than search for the obvious alternatives to an act by the Iraqi parliament, Obama opted to get out of Dodge--and place the blame on the Boys In Baghdad.

Some success that--for the mullahs in Tehran and their local Iraqi henchmen.

In Afghanistan, the Obama authorized "surge" provided two results.  The first was a short duration set of battlefield victories, which were meaningless given the publicly announced draw down and pull out dates giving the adversaries all they needed to know to stay the course.  The second accomplishment of the Obama surge was to provide political cover and advantage as the surge forces come home before the elections.

The result was to embolden both the Taliban and Haqqini network as well as their Pakistani handlers.  A second result was to undercut the will of the Karzai government to conduct the needed reforms, to develop an effective national force, or to prosecute the war with vigor.  Along with the totally wrongheaded firing of General Stanley McChrystal, the date certain withdrawal schedule did nothing to enhance either the will or the operational ability of US and other foreign forces to conduct their mission with high morale and the most effective approaches on both the tactical and operational levels.

What a "success."  Yes, for Islamabad and their proxies in Afghanistan.

Then there is Israel and the Palestinians.  The Obama policy not only froze a bad dynamic in place, it worsened matters to a point that the two state solution has become even more unlikely now than at the end of the reign of George W.  The truckling Cairo speech raised Arab expectations to a level that could not be met by a mere American president, particularly one whose guiding star was provided by domestic politics.  As if that were not bad enough, the president has a very bad personal as well as political relationship with the Israeli prime minister, which in no way made it probable that Israel would go along with Washington's policy preferences.

What a success--if you are Palestinian head of government Abbas.

The "Arab Spring" had to be a success, right?  After all it was the triumph of democracy over autocracy, and how can anybody see that as other than a success?  Sure, it was--if you are a member of an austere, political Muslim group.  As was the case in Iran all those long years ago, the legendary power of the people, the voice of the democratic ballot box, the exercise of free voting, will most probably bring austere Muslims into power. And, once there, it will take more than merely voting to get them out.  (Once again see Iran as the paradigm.)

How about the "war on terror?"  Fortunately our intelligence, law enforcement, and military forces are highly competent, so we have not suffered a homeland hit for ten years now.  None of this is due to brilliant policy on the part of Mr Obama and his "team."  On the policy level, the Obama administration has been every bit as clueless as its predecessor.  BH Obama is no more willing than was George W to acknowledge that terror and other forms of asymmetrical war we have faced for more than a decade have been and are predicated on the religion. The same religion serves as the motivation of the various austere, political Islamists who carry out the acts of war and terror.  Failure at the basic level of knowing the nature and character of the enemy assures the overall war will not be successful.

OK, the Geek hears you object, what about the standing of the US in the eyes of the world?  It's gotta be better now than when Cowboy George was in the Oval.

You betcha, bucko.  It is.  And, more importantly, it is not.  But that is a subject for a different post.  Maybe tomorrow if the weather and the tetchy computer allow.

Once More, Adrift At The Policy Level

"Somebody will have to pay!" So said a high level Saudi royal (is there any other sort of royal?) regarding the Iranian plot to ace the Saudi ambassador to the US.  Secretary of State Clinton as well as Vice President Biden made the customary formulaic statements about somebody, somewhere, somehow being "held accountable," in connection with the same bit of outrageous but normal Iranian diplomatic conduct.

Throughout the rarefied levels of the American government, there has been much bloviating and bleating about just how terribly Iran has violated international law and custom about the corporeal sanctity of diplomatic persons.  This predicate was followed by earnest statements about the need to forge international solidarity against the rapscallions of the Iranian Islamic Republic.  To this end, special missions have been dispatched to brief and enlist the full support of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Gulf Coordination Council (GCC), and the Arab League.

By golly, this will sure show the ayatollahs, mullahs, and imams, won't it?

Of course, the Iranians have not only denied the existence of the plot, they have engaged in the expected counter accusations.  At home a number of Iranians interviewed by the AP indicated there was no way anyone in Iran could have been either so ill-advised or so creative as to have developed the plot, let alone put it into initial operation.

It is easy for a skeptic to doubt the plot, it is too redolent of Hollywood thriller elements to be totally plausible.  The only problem is that it is a very competent covert/clandestine operation completely in line with other previous Tehran initiated assassinations.

The al-Quds component of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is quite experienced, highly motivated, has excellent operational mechanisms, and is well acquainted with the drug trafficking organizations (DTO) of Central and South America.  Given this last consideration, it is to be expected that the IRGC would turn to the drug smugglers of Mexico to actually conduct the mission.  While it is a tad surprising that the men in Tehran turned to an American citizen rather than use one of their agents already resident in Mexico, the use of the dual national did provide some potential advantages.

It was fortunate (almost too convenient) that the DEA had a credible and reliable informant asset on tap to play the role of a Los Zetas member, but that may be clarified as to dynamics and timing as the legal processes unfold.  Manssor Arbabsiar, the dual US/Iranian national, lives in Corpus Christi, so he would have been quite familiar with the Zetas and their extensive record of highly competent killings carried out with the flair and skill of an experienced special operations force.

The hiring of a group with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct a bombing at a Washington, DC restaurant for a mere 1.5 million dollars is a feat of excellent bargaining.  If the hit on the Saudi ambassador was carried out in conjunction with a set of simultaneous bombings on other, unrelated targets, the net result would have been to decouple any hint of Iranian sponsorship or involvement.

The combination of several, simultaneous bombings with the use of readily available explosives (which category includes military grade munitions such as C4) and equally common electronic components would have complicated the investigation further, reducing the probability of discovering the Tehran connection.  A further fog would have resulted from the inevitable claims of responsibility which would have flooded the ether, an eventuality which would have grown with the size of the body count.  Every group espousing violent political Islam, including those which are totally notional, would have jumped in with an appropriately worded media release.

As the investigation floundered about in the many leveled swamp of false flags, inconclusive forensics and competing claims of authorship, the ayatollahs and their operational tools could have sat back, smiling with grins wider than the Cheshire Cat, knowing the truth, a truth they would keep to themselves.  Of course, the Saudis would have had their suspicions (as would the Americans), but without a case meeting legal standards, neither arrests nor military retaliation would have been politically feasible.

In short, the plot in outline is highly credible in all respects.  Assuming the puppet masters in Iran and the operational assets in Mexico and the US observed standard operational security measures, the probability of detection either before or after the event would have been low.  The probability of attaching the tail to the Iranian donkey would have been even lower.

It was either a matter of awesomely good luck or an intelligence coup of the first water which allowed the plot to have been penetrated so early and so successfully.  The fact that the US did penetrate and did arrest a key conspirator in no way undercuts the brilliance of the concept--nor provide a firm basis for assuming the whole deal was an American confection.

The question which confronts the US (or at least the administration) is what to do now.  Not to go into hyperventilation mode, the Iranian plot does constitute, or did once constitute a cause of war.  The plot was not simply a crime.  It was much more.  It was an act of war.  Asymmetrical war is still war.  And that is what the Iranians intended.  The killing of a third party national of diplomatic status, thus a protected person under international convention, along with a significant but unknowable number of Americans by an infernal machine is every bit as much an act of war as the attacks of 9/11.

It is no less an act of war by virtue of having been detected and thwarted before culmination.

The US would be fully justified by undertaking a military response.  Such a response is equally justifiable under international norms and law if conducted by covert/clandestine means or by open use of force.  There is, of course, no real possibility of the current administration exercising this latter option.  The American public to say nothing of the federal budget would not sit still for an open act of war.  The possibility of failure would inhibit any low visibility, light footprint response against either the IRGC or its masters.

Inhibition is not the same as prohibition.  The US has engaged in covert/clandestine actions intended to impair the Iranian march to nuclear threshold status.  These serve as a paradigm for a suitable response to the plot.

It is to be hoped that behind the wall of indignant oratory spewing forth in Spindletop fashion from the highest circles inside the District there is some quiet and sober consideration of who might be a suitable candidate for being "held accountable."  Targeted killings of high ranking military or paramilitary figures might be distasteful in some quarters, but there is something far worse.

That something is allowing the senior decision makers of the al-Quds force or the IRGC to be reinforced in their view that the US is nothing more than a "paper tiger."  Unless the US does show its displeasure in a quiet but robust way, we will continue to be seen as week, indecisive, on the decline--and a suitable venue to wage a nasty little war.

Hey! Israel--Before Cheering, Look At Taiwan

Much ink both real and virtual has been spilled in Israel as well as pro-Israeli outlets in the US praising President Obama for his forthright stance regarding US support of the embattled and increasingly isolated Jewish state.  Even a man who has to be a bete noir around the Oval, Benjamin Netanyahu, almost broke his arm patting Obama on the back.

Given the context of the impending UN action on the request for recognition requested by the Palestinian Authority, the outpouring of hosannas is not surprising.  However, the Israelis and their American supporters would be well served by taking a close look at the Obama administration's handling of the request by the government of Taiwan for a significant upgrading of their aerial self-defense capacities.

By way of background, it must be recalled that the US is committed to assure that the island nation has sufficient means to defend itself against attack by the Peoples Republic of China.  This commitment is contained in the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979.  This piece of legislation was a key part of the complex mechanism by which the US finished the job of facing the reality that the PRC was a real state with a real government deserving of both American diplomatic recognition and the status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.  The TRA was designed by members of the Congress to assure that Taiwan would not be taken over by the mainland by either the reality or threat of military attack.  It was passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of the Democrat controlled Congress and quickly signed by Jimmy Carter.

Until recently, the act served to assure that the US sold or provided military means adequate to the task of deterring Beijing's ambitions to reclaim the "rebellious" province.  Things changed in the past decade as the Chinese military underwent a transformation.  The vast modernization program has resulted over the past few years in the PRC developing a massive preponderance of force.

During the last two years of the George W. Bush administration, the Taiwanese government forwarded a set of requirements for an expansion and modernization program including new F-16 fighters and submarines.  A portion of the request was filled before the days of Bush/Cheney came to an end.  A second part was filled (along with supplemental items) by the Obama administration.  Along the way, the submarines were deleted by the US side.  The desired F-16s of the C/D model remained in limbo.

In limbo they stay today. The administration did not deny the request but offered in its stead an upgrade package for the 160 or so F-16 A/B variants in the Taiwanese inventory.  The upgrade package for these now aging aircraft (dating back to 1992) do not include new engines capable of higher speeds and greater combat endurance.  As a consequence, the improvements in sensor, guidance, and weapons suites do not give the Taiwanese air force the additional capacities needed to survive in the air against the several hundred more modern, more competent, mainland fighters.

In a slight but pardonable exaggeration, the average Taiwanese pilot flying an "upgraded" F-16 might survive long enough to shout, "Mayday" before being shot down.  This is not the end the congress had in mind when it passed the TRA.

Whether or not the Nice Young Man From Chicago simply capitulated to Beijing's opposition to this (or any) arms deal with Taiwan is, as they say, "a subject fit for adjudication."  The fact remains that the Obama "team" effectively eviscerated the TRA.

Given the continued force draft development of the PRC's air, naval, ground, and missile forces as well as the probable running down of American air and naval power in the Pacific, all that Beijing needs to do is be patient for a couple more years and then take back the "lost" province with a short, sharp, and decisive little war.  The US will be able to do nothing other than ask the Security Council for a resolution.  That, of course, will be vetoed by the Chinese.

The Obama administration's interpretation of American responsibilities under the TRA gives a strong hint as to the reliability of his steadfastness under pressure.  No political leader in Israel should see the president's words at the General Assembly as other than empty rhetoric.  Even the prospect of an American veto of the PA's request shows no depth of commitment, no willingness to run real risk.

Should some larger consideration enter the American field of view, the seemingly resolute support of Israel radiated yesterday will evaporate with blinding rapidity.  All that need be kept in mind is that before the PRC embarked on its massive rearmament program, Washington went ahead with arming Taiwan, showing total indifference to the whims of Beijing.  Now, affairs are a bit different.

Should the OPEC bully boys decide on another oil embargo, the US would be sorely tested in its relation with Israel.  Should such a hypothetical occur during the run up to a presidential election, it is doubtful that the smart money would be placed on the Israeli connection trumping.

Fifty years ago, the hard hearted, cold eyed Charles de Gaulle acted on a belief that many Europeans shared when he ordered the creation of an independent French nuclear force.  He was of the view that the US would never place Chicago at risk to defend Paris.  We will never know if the general was right, but his apprehension was well placed and well rooted in history.  The US has not always been noted for consistency over administrations, particularly if new and unpleasant realities develop as they have in China.

The takeaway for Israel is both simple and disheartening.  As Taiwan has found out over the past four years, an American promise--even one enshrined in law--is not bankable.  How much less is a piece of oratory given by a president up for reelection in a tough environment?

Don't Veto The Palestinian State

Palestinian Authority jefe grande Abbas has tossed down the gauntlet to Barack Obama and the rest of his "foreign policy team."  The PA will seek full membership in the UN as a sovereign state Abbas declared in a highly reported speech to his fellow countrymen.

This move seems to be a very severe defeat for both Israel and the Obama administration.  The Netanyahu ministry has done everything short of declaring war on the PA.  The Obama "team" including the president has not been much more restrained, threatening (or promising, if you prefer) to veto the move when it comes before the Security Council for action.

A veto would not be looked at with favor in the Arab states generally as was made palpably clear in a recent op-ed piece in the WaPo by one of those interminable Saudi princes and diplomatic heavyweights.  Participants in outdoor sports favored by the "Arab Street" such as riots and suicide bombings will be much less restrained in their disapprobation.

Advocates of realpolitik have noted that even admission to the UN either as a state or a state observer will change nothing for the better on the ground.  There is much to justify this view.  Likewise there is much to support the dystopian notions that the Palestinians will  use either state observer or state status to cause a world of hurt for Israel in the assorted UN sub-agencies and the International Criminal Court.

The pessimistic interpretations do not, however, merit the US using its veto power in the Security Council.  Doing such would only assure the PA would take its petition to the General Assembly in search of the consolation prize of state observer status, which would give it all the trouble making possibilities along with assuring a very large can would be tied to Uncle Sam's tail.

A far better course of action for the Obama administration to take is that of delay.  The process established for seeking recognition as a state by the UN provides an almost infinite mechanism of creative stalling.  The formal request must first go to the Secretary General.  The Secretary General does not have to handle the matter instantly but can request further information before forwarding the request to the Security Council.  Doing this can take weeks--or months.

The Security Council can also demand more information as well as proof that the proposed Palestinian state meets all the diplomatic requirements for state status.  This means the Council can find itself caught in a set of hearings and debates over the degree to which the Palestinian Authority and the territory under its purported control does in fact constitute a fully functioning state.  Given the deep and growing divide between the West Bank based Palestinian Authority and its rival in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, and the fiction that Palestine constitutes a single entity, this could lead to a number of second thoughts within chanceries seemingly committed to the idea of Palestinian statehood.

A full fledged inquiry and debate within the Security Council could even have the potential to undercut any move in the General Assembly for state observer status.  This is not a nontrivial benefit given the uncertainty and ambiguity extant within the European Union for this gambit.  The US might even enlist the cooperation of Russia in seeking a complete airing of whether or not the Palestinian state really exists by quietly noting that any approval by either the Security Council or the General Assembly would constitute a bad precedent from the Kremlin's point of view considering the current ethnic and religious unrest in the Northern Caucasus.  The name, "Tibet," whispered in certain ears might elicit a reasonably favorable response from Beijing.

The point is the US could lobby effectively for a prolonged inquiry by the Security Council, which would buy that most precious of commodities--time--for bilateral diplomacy to make another run at the moribund "peace process" between Israel and the PA.  Abbas would have his political posterior covered enough to keep him in his tenuous position for some while since he would have delivered on his promises and cannot be held personally responsible for UN protocol.

Sure there would still be some riots, some bombings, some threats of worse from the "Arab Street" and other usual Muslim suspects such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, but what else is to be expected?  The US would be spared the major problems which exercise of the veto would bring.

The Israelis, or at least some of them, would not be thrilled but, again, what else would you expect?  A delay might allow calmer heads (assuming there are any) around Netanyahu to provide sound counsel respecting the recommencement of talks with Abbas and company.  There is even the faint prospect that the Obama administration might find the right magic to convince Netanyahu to wake up to the new and alarming political realities in his neighborhood, realities which cannot be addressed by simple words and the implied threat of Israeli military displeasure.

A delay would benefit all interested parties.  A veto would not.  It looks like a no-brainer.  Of course, being the simplest and safest way to go means it is not acceptable to either the Deep Thinkers or the ideologues who populate too much of the foreign policy world, not only here but everywhere.

The Next Ten Years

The US (and a hell of a lot of other countries) is approaching the zero point marking the official start of "The Global War On Terrorism (GWOT.)"  To err on the side of accuracy, the US had already been in a war against advocates of violent political Islam for eight years when the hijacked passenger aircraft were turned into cruise missiles.

Osama bin Laden had dispatched his declaration of war against the US six years earlier, but few here paid any attention.  Two years before that, violent political Islamists only semi-associated with al-Qaeda had tried to take down the World Trade Center with a VBIED.  The Clinton administration in the lawyerly way which typified that brand treated this informal, undeclared act of war by a non-state actor to be a criminal offense rather than an act of overt aggression.  The later al-Qaeda sponsored attacks on the USS Cole, the Khobar Towershousing complex in Saudi Arabia, and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania did merit a military response of a limited and highly irrelevant sort.  The dispatch of Tomahawk missiles rather than FBI teams must have bothered the peace loving Clintonites--and was equally ineffective.

The 9/11 strikes could not be termed other than an act of war even if the aggressor was a non-state actor.  It was Afghanistan's misfortune to be the state on whose territory and under whose protection the attack was planned and launched.  It was even more unfortunate that the head of the Taliban government (if that term is truly apposite), Mullah Omar, valued Islamic hospitality over the territorial integrity of his country or the lives of his fellow Afghans.

Nearly ten years later there is little doubt but the original al-Qaeda is all but dead.  At the least this particular band of violent political Islamists has been organizationally weakened to the point it presents no direct threat to the US or other "infidel" states.  The same cannot be said of Taliban, particularly as it appears that the US and its allies are seeking a political accommodation with the group and are supported in this by at least some critical segments of the Kabul regime.

Neither can there be any optimism about success having been achieved against any of the many groups espousing and practicing violent political Islam which have come into existence since 9/11.  Some of these have consciously adopted the al-Qaeda brand name or claimed affiliation with the legendary name of the initial group and its leader.  Two of these, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), constitute very real threats to the nations of the West as well as regional states.

As between the two al-Qaeda franchises, the first, AQAP, is the larger menace.  Located in the rapidly disintegrating state of Yemen, AQAP has not only established a strong presence (effectively becoming the government of at least one province), it has brokered relations with two African entities, al-Shabaab in the fictional country of Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.  Because of its successes to date and apparent prospects for doing even more in the months and years to come, AQAP has become the  new focus of the Americans as they pursue the GWOT.

The US is currently planning to ramp up its use of armed UAVs with the goal of replicating the success in targeted assassinations enjoyed in the FATA of Pakistan.  The use of the highly lethal unmanned platforms over the past two years in particular has been largely responsible for the emasculation of al-Qaeda and the progressive reduction of Taliban's ability to conduct hard target operations.  The Obama administration believes the Predators and Reapers can work the same grim magic in Yemen against the AQAP.

The ongoing political crisis in Yemen with its prospect of internal war gives a new urgency to the challenge of defeating AQAP before its creative bomb makers can score a success or before the American born and educated immam, Anwar al-Awlaki, can smooth talk another incomplete personality into undertaking a one man martyrdom operation.  Should an Awlaki guided suicide bomber or a well concealed package bomb penetrate US security with a resultant high body count, it would be difficult or impossible to avoid sending the troops one more time to a land filled with inhospitable terrain and flatly hostile people.

Awlaki is a mediagenic fellow.  AQAP's online publication Inspire is equally attractive to the Western media. The past bombing attempts by AQAP have been noteworthy in both the imagination behind them--and their failure.  Overall AQAP has attracted a very great deal of attention and generated a significant amount of apprehension without having actually done anything significant outside of Yemen.

In short, AQAP is far more shadow than substance.  AQAP is, in the deathless words of Chairman Mao,  "a paper tiger."

The fear that AQAP will slide easily into power in Yemen as the state energetically disassembles is overstated.  There are a couple of reasons for this push back against the conventional wisdom.

The first is the tribal nature of Yemen's population.  AQAP is primarily supported by one tribe, the one from which Awlaki springs.  Other tribes are not thrilled by taking orders from either AQAP or its tribal sponsor.  They will fight to preserve their autonomy and the privileges which go with it.

The second reason is the Salifist austerity of the AQAP is not compatible with the views of most Yemenis.  In those cities where AQAP has been able to establish dominance in recent months, the locals have bridled rapidly when confronted with the severe limitations the Salifists place upon life and its few pleasures.  This is in keeping with prior experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the austere advocates of violent political Islam outwore their welcome with surprising speed.  Salifists from Kabul to Somalia have proven themselves to be their own worse enemies.

The combination of popular rejection and tribal hostilities automatically limits the probability or even the possibility of AQAP exercising an increasing sway in the ruins of Yemen.  Their natural support base is too deficient to provide for long term, unchallenged authority.  They would not even find the same percentage of initial support as Taliban had in its first year or two in power.  (And, never forget, Taliban never had a firm hold on the non-Pushtu population of Afghanistan.)

There is an important caveat to this.  Should the US kill too many civilians, the base of support for AQAP will grow rapidly.  This is not to say Yemenis will embrace either Salifist religious ideology or necessarily support AQAP's agenda of violent political Islam.  They will simply seek to resist the Americans who are killing their kinsmen.

Reports out of the FATA are contradictory, but the many which point at increased animosity directed at the US as a result of the Predators killing non-combatants should not be discounted.  Neither should they be diminished.  The Afghans have demonstrated great antipathy over the killing of civilians by US and allied forces.  The same animosity is not shown regarding the deaths of civilians caused by Taliban bombs and bombers.  In both the FATA and Afghanistan, the locals expect their Muslim civilians to be killed by Muslim combatants.  It is OK.  A fact of life.  But, they do not cotton up to being killed by infidels.

When the infidel Predators cause collateral fatalities in Yemen, the first result will be the engendering of hostility to the US and those Yemenis who support or are seen as supporting the US.  The winner would be AQAP.

The US is facing the prospect of a self-fulfilling prophecy in Yemen.  In the attempt to stamp out a menace which does not yet exist, we are in danger of creating a genuine menace which cannot be stamped out.

We did this once before.  In Vietnam.  The bombing campaign directed against infiltration into South Vietnam by North Vietnam which did not exist prior to the commencement of the bombing resulted in the North starting up infiltration of supplies and trained manpower which could never be stopped.

Arguably, we are doing much the same today in the FATA although the prospect may very well be overstated.  But even in an overstated form, any bolstering of the Taliban or Haqqani network is not in our better interests. So far, the balance between positive and negative effects in the FATA has been on the plus side of the ledger. However, that is not a proof of concept which should be used to justify the employment of UAVs in Yemen.

Right now, the least-worst option is using the Predators in a watch and wait role only.  The situation in Yemen is to tenuous to run the risk of tilting affairs in favor of AQAP.  Watch, wait, and try to work sub rosa to help the Yemeni themselves contain and finally eliminate the adherents of violent political Islam.  Odds are the locals can do the job--unless we 'help' them in a lethal way.

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.

Smart(?) Power In Action

The other day Hilary Clinton and Leon Panetta were on stage at the National Defense University.  In the course of the action Ms Clinton bragged on the use of "smart power" by her boss, The Nice Young Man From Chicago, with respect to the Syrian conundrum.  She went on to imply strongly that the graduated escalation of economic and diplomatic sanctions in support of the anti-government demonstrators was both without precedent in American diplomatic history and (drum roll, please) constituted a paradigm for the future.

This multi-tier exercise in pure idiocy would normally provide grounds for a Bugs Bunny Memorial "What a Maroon!" Award but as the Secretary of State just received one of these highly coveted tributes only a week or so ago, she was (temporarily) ineligible.  Instead Ms Clinton will be given an Honorable Mention in the Rampant Distortions of History and Reality For Base Political Purposes.

While the term "smart power" must mean something else in the Clinton lexicon, to the disinterested observer it can only signify an exercise in simulated policy covering hesitation, irresolution, hemming and hawing to say nothing of the lack of a clear focus on American national interest and an inability to understand the limits of coercive diplomacy.  "Smart power" also serves to obscure if not hide completely the utter failure of the Obama administration to properly calibrate the relation between policy and the mechanisms by which policy might be implemented effectively.

Years ago, way back when the current president was blathering on constitutional law and plotting radical change in the parlors of such as Bernadine Dohrn and her co-revolutionist, Bill Ayers, and Ms Clinton was in Little Rock, President George H.W. Bush showed just how "smart power" is supposed to work in the real world of enemies, partial enemies, allies, pseudo-allies, and the usually uncommitted states-in-the-middle as he patiently assembled an ad hoc coalition under US leadership to eject the Iraq of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

In the past, Ms Clinton has characterized "smart power" as the process of coalition building with the goal of meshing diplomatic, economic, and military assets into an effective package to counter a given threat or meet an unexpected contingency.  In principle, her understanding is correct.  It should be--it was taken directly from the record of the H.W. Bush administration.

The response of the H.W. Bush administration to the unexpected Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 is the practical expression of "smart power."  All any successor administration has had to do is read the book that Dad Bush wrote and follow its guidance.

Leaving aside one very embarrassing factor basic to the Iraqi invasion--the US diplomatic misstep which seemed to Saddam to have given him a clear signal of any lack of American interest in the readjustment of the Iraqi border--the Iraqi attack and occupation of Kuwait came as both a surprise and a major challenge to the US.  Long standing American policy opposed any single state gaining hegemony over the oil states of the Persian Gulf.  It was for this reason that the Nixon administration provided military assistance to the Iran of the Shah as well as to Saudi Arabia.  It was for this reason that the US established and expanded its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The Iraqi occupation of Kuwait would have violated this policy.  Certainly the notion of Saddam Hussein controlling so much of the oil reserves in the region was against American interests.  And, worst of all, the prospect of Iraq either pushing on into Saudi Arabia or exercising an oppressive influence upon the Kingdom was both destabilizing for the region and against American strategic interests.

The decision to roll back the Iraqis was not difficult to make.  Far more demanding was the process of doing so.  Unilateral action would have been unacceptable given the political dynamics not only of the region but also in the rapidly changing international political environment following the collapse of the old Soviet Union.  The status and sensitivity of the Kremlin was a major consideration as the new Confederation of Independent States tried to assemble itself out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union.  Also exercising great influence on the problem of rolling the Iraqis back was the tenuous nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict.  These major factors along with a host of lesser issues meant the US could not act hastily or without the broadest possible base of international political support.

Military considerations were also an important limiter on the rapidity of American action.  The rolling back of the Iraqis from Kuwait could not be accomplished by air and naval power alone.  Sure, the US could obliterate the Kuwaiti (and Iraqi) oil fields and their supporting infrastructure.  Certainly, the US could inflict great devastation on the Iraqi military and government.  It could even 'bomb Iraq back to the stone age' without resorting to nuclear weapons.  However, none of these alternatives would be effective in that each would cause counterproductive levels of destruction.  Winning a rubble field covered by a pall of smoke from ever burning oil wells is not a good definition of victory.

A ground war would be necessary.  To be successful, a ground war would of necessity have to be of short duration and very limited casualties.  A long war or an inconclusive one or one which resulted in too many Americans coming home in body bags would be politically insupportable at home.  To assure the war came to a speedy conclusion with an absolute minimum number of fatalities, a very large force would be necessary.  In order to assure a maximum degree of international support, the US would have to assemble a vast coalition of military contingents from countries lacking any real history of warlike cooperation.

These two foundation truths along with the diplomatic requisites took time.  And they took great effort, personal effort from the president and his most senior people.  Adding to the time requirements was the decision to refrain from using any established multilateral institution other than the UN in the assembling of both the diplomatic and military coalitions.

The use of the UN Security Council was a necessary preliminary.  Not only was gaining the proper authorization from the Security Council a proper preliminary to coalition building, it was essential for securing universal political support domestically.  The Americans like the use of the UN baby blue flag as a figleaf covering the policy genitalia of the US.

The long months of the Fall and Winter of 1990 were well spent in assembling the coalition, transporting the very, very massive American military forces to the theater of operations, and integrating contingents from traditional American allies as well as assorted countries better known for opposing the US than cooperating with it.  The diplomatic and military preparations were highly visible thus giving Saddam ample time to reconsider his position and repent the error made.  (This period of reflection was, in and of itself, an important factor often overlooked at the time by critics and equally ignored by post-conflict writers.)

The war itself was conducted in a manner which well meets the requirements of "smart power."  The early, overly muscular, and unsubtle operational plans of the theater commander were rejected and replaced by a much better thought out use of American mobility and firepower.  The president ignored his critics who bayed for a quicker commencement of hostilities and who chaffed under the seemingly unnecessary delay of a very long preparatory period of aerial bombardment.

The final plan focused on the necessary--the ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait--and a limited incursion into Iraq itself.  This perturbed critics greatly as there were many who wanted the US to go all the way and eliminate Saddam for once and all.  The decision of the H.W. Bush administration not to go all the way, to resist the pernicious virus of the "victory disease' was proper.  The realities of both the domestic and international political scene militated against a total war.  A drive to Baghdad would have resulted in ever stiffening Iraqi resistance and a commensurate body count among friendly forces.  Further, the removal of Saddam would have saddled the US with the problems of post-conflict occupation and the specters of a crumbling coalition and a dissolving Iraqi society.

While there are grounds to criticize the post-truce American policy, on balance the end of the war was as good as could be expected at costs which were politically and economically acceptable.  It was an exercise in "smart power."

By comparison the Obama administration approach to the problems of Libya and Syria were demonstrations of "dumb power."  First and foremost, the administration did not choose the right battle against the right enemy.  Libya and Gadaffi were, at best, a nuisance, an annoyance.  Syria is an adversary of consequence.  As the US has not been able to influence Israel in the direction of returning the Golan Heights to Damascus which, of course, had the potential of prying Syria loose from the embrace of Tehran and ending Syrian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, the alternative is the removal of Bashir al-Assad with the hope that the new regime would be less threatening to both Israel and the West.  (Admittedly a weak hope given the potency of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups espousing violent political Islam.)

Had the US opposed the delusions in London and Paris, there would have been some bloodletting in Libya but less than has accrued to date.  More importantly, the administration could have focused on the very difficult task of gaining support for strong action against Syria.  The difficulty of the task given the long standing relationship between Russia and Syria would have been extreme but not beyond the realm of plausibility.  It is not unthinkable that Moscow could have been persuaded to abstain in the Security Council and as a result Beijing would have done the same rather than be seen as the sole protector of a very unpleasant regime.

The months of diplomacy along with the necessary and highly visible redeployment of US and other forces would have given Assad pause and time for thought.  The lengthy preparations would have provided impetus for the Baathists to have found a face saving way out of the dilemma which came about more by accident and miscalculation than malicious aforethought.  The diplomatic ramp up to war could have made the war itself unnecessary.

This, bucko, would have been "smart power."  Sure, it would have required a level of political courage to prepare for yet one more war with a well armed, well prepared adversary in the face of opposition from the Obama political base.  And, political courage is not this administration's long suit.  It would have taken a high degree of diplomatic finesse along with patient persuasion to build a coalition.  Both of these have been qualities conspicuously absent of late.

"Smart power" ain't easy as the Gulf War demonstrated.  It is, however, far preferable to the hopeless, feckless series of spastic blunders which have scarred our diplomacy in the Mideast in recent months (and years.)

Madam Secretary, get it right.  Saying that something is "smart" doesn't make it so.

Egypt (Or Its Generals) Looks To Ataturk's Turkey

In a set of moves which is in no way surprising, the supreme command of Egypt's armed forces is seeking a continued, large role in the upcoming government.  The reason for the sudden political aspirations of the generals is not hard to unpack.  They are more than a tad scared of the Muslim Brotherhood and other advocates of political Islam.

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development.  That implies the US government will soon do so as well.  One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.

It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government.  As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.

Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal.  Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.

The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution."  Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones.  This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.

Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!"  Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty.  Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.

The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square.  Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement.  Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.

The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents.  They could not be.  The very success of the protesters assures that.  In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement.  The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt.  The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power.  The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately.  They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately.  They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections.  The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.

Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence.  Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate.  This is what the generals hope to preclude.

Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.  He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years.  The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations.  The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.

In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict.  Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse.  Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.

(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus.  She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)

The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters.  They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster.  They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses.  They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice.  They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.

The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable.  It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat.  If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops.  For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.

It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt.  It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.

Well, one can hope.  Can't one?

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 Land Of Pinocchio Is At It Again

No one oriented in time and place expects governments to be open, honest, and ever truthful in their public (or most private) statements.  Diplomacy is often a contest of careful mendacity on a par with the sort practiced by lawyers working in an adversarial system.  That is, blatant duplicity of the easily exposed sort is eschewed in favor of the well-crafted framing of a statement, an issue, a position.  The good diplomat like the good advocate in court depends on what is not said even more than that which is said to mask the truth--particularly when the truth is uncomfortable from one's perspective.

The heavyweights of the Pakistani military and intelligence service (ISI) fail to meet the standard of proper diplomatic lying.  This is unfortunate as the armed forces and ISI are the government of Pakistan far eclipsing in both power and public esteem the elected civilian political structure.  As such, they are far more a part of the problem and in no way a contributor to the solution as regards the threat posed to civilized states by the damaged but not yet defeated advocates of violent political Islam which stalk Afghanistan, the FATA, and Pakistan proper.

The power elite of the armed forces and ISI is back at it.  As has so often been the case, they are lying in a fashion which boggles the mind in its breathtaking absurdity.  In the most recent ejaculations of denial and counter accusation, the spokesman for the Pakistani general staff insults the intelligence of all who read or hear his thundering denunciation of a recent spate of articles and editorials linking the ISI and armed forces with groups dedicated to violent political Islam and the recent murder of a well known and respected Pakistani journalist.

The immediate reaction of any half-way intelligent and well-informed person to the preposterous posturing of Major General Athar Abbas' remarks is to quote Ronald Reagan's comment during one of the 1980 debates, "There he goes again."  The line delivered with a slow, sad shake of the head.  The modern major general was announcing that the shoe put upon the collective foot of the Pakistani military and ISI fit tightly--it pinched and he was yelling, "Ouch!"

As unbelievable fables go, the Abbas Denial was on a par with the outpouring of outraged dignity following the Great Abbotabad Raid.  The credibility of the Pakistanis, never high, was stretched far beyond its Young's Modulus with the earnest protestations of innocence with which the Pakistani heavies met the news that the Americans had found and liquidated Osama bin Laden within pistol shot of their very own military academy.

While the US government for reasons of state (the justification of all ill-advised and ultimately less than productive actions) has downplayed the possibility that the senior ranks of our "ally" in the "joint" war with al-Qaeda, the various Talibans, and all similar groups could possibly have known that bin Laden resided close at hand in comfortable isolation, this reticence should not be interpreted as accepting the Pakistanis as being pure and lofty of motives and intentions.  Indeed, it is hard to see how anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the long standing relationship between ISI and the army on the one hand and the several terror merchant groups on the other could keep a straight face while stating they had seen "no smoking gun."

Back in the Oligocene--the days of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush--one did not have to be a member of the American intelligence community to know that ISI and the Pakistani armed forces were connected hip and shoulder with various Islamist groups, including the one which would come to power in Afghanistan as the Taliban.  Minority opinion in both administrations warned against turning over responsibility for the endgame in the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan to the Pakistanis as the latter would take advantage of the opportunity to install entities hostile to the interests of the US in the region and globally.  As is usually the case, the minority was shoved to the margins so they could watch their gloomy prognostications come to pass with the fullness of time.

Way back in the regime of Zia it was obvious that the Pakistani military would eagerly embrace the ideas of the dictator which focused on importing Wahhibism so as to promote Islam of the most austere and demanding sort as a mechanism of social and political cohesion.  The implications of this were high profile: The Islamification program would drive a move to the more and more extreme.  The program would facilitate the growth of violent political Islam oriented groups.  And, ultimately it would assure that Pakistan would become an evermore Islamist state.

American decision makers were immune to the negative counsel, seeing instead an easy way to slip out of the continued burden of doing something in a small, inconvenient, and out of the way state with a history of being ungovernable.  Anyway, the boys of Islamabad were big on reassuring Washington's rarefied levels about the pacifistic nature of Islam and the need of the Pakistani people for a stronger national identity in the face of Indian aggression.

In the event, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the cold war put the problem of Pakistan and its operations in Afghanistan very much on the far back burner.  The Clinton administration was so disinterested in Pakistan that its Deep Thinkers would have had a hard time finding the place on a map--until the Pakistanis demonstrated their nuclear capacity.  By then, of course, it was too late.  Too late to stop the nuclear arms race between Pakistan and India.  Far too late to undo the damage done by the Pakistani backed installation of Taliban in Kabul.

Of course, the ending of the cold war reduced Pakistan's importance in American eyes.  For decades Islamabad had depended upon the Left-leaning policies of India to turn on the spigot of US military aid along with the occasional civilian project.

The best thing that happened to Pakistan was the attack on 9/11.  After a nearly proforma demonstration of reluctance, Islamabad signed on to the Global War on Terror in exchange for massive amounts of American money.  It was interesting to say the least that the goodies demanded by the armed forces of Pakistan were those useful for high intensity conventional war with India rather than the more pedestrian items having utility in counterinsurgent or counter terrorist operations.

To keep the goodies flowing, the Pakistanis had to rely on their capacity to lie convincingly and in a well-timed manner.  They played a transparently double game from the very outset of the so called "joint" effort.  Given that the US already knew that the only reason Osama bin Laden had escaped a cruise missile strike years before 9/11 was a phone call from Islamabad, yet we went on catering to the Pinocchio of the Sub-continent. There was no intention of even closing the borders to Taliban and al-Qaeda personnel escaping the American invasion and its aftermath let alone actually fighting the Mighty Men of the Koran.

But the Pakistanis talked a good game.  And, because they had a nuclear arsenal, we had to pretend they were telling us the truth.  All we could do was hope that the bribes we paid bought us sufficient influence on their decision making that the armed forces and ISI might stop their training, supporting, harboring, and strategic planning efforts.

The hope was illusory at best.  However, the US had compounded its errors by invading Iraq and so mishandling the day after "victory" that it became the main event and Afghanistan a mere sideshow.  As a result, we had to continue believing the palpably false assurances of cooperation issuing from Islamabad on a daily basis.  The reality was far different.  The Pakistanis provided sanctuary in the FATA in return for a promise, since broken, that the Great Warriors of the One True Faith would limit themselves to killing Americans and apostate Afghans.

During the long interim from 2004-2010 the Taliban(s) and the Haqqani network as well as al-Qaeda rested, retrained, refitted, and grew safe from harm in the cities and hillsides of Pakistan and the FATA.  As a result, the Americans were losing more and more in country and the Pakistani military and ISI felt more and more confident in their ability to lead Uncle Sam around by the nose using a string of lies.

The pity of it all was the lies worked.  They worked because there seemed no viable alternative available to American decision makers.  We became co-conspirators in our own defeat.  Our role was limited to a continued refusal to blow the whistle on the easily demonstrated prevarications of the Pakistanis.  One of the services provided by Private Bradley Manning and his publicists at WikiLeaks has been to expose many (but not all) of the lies peddled by Islamabad as well as the reality that American diplomats knew them to be untruths.  In short we were not stupid, merely adrift at the policy level.

The Pakistani string of successful lying came to an end dramatically in May.  There was no way the lies of the Pakistanis could be accepted, even as a pretense, after the raid.  It is regrettable that the Obama administration has not taken advantage of the sea change initiated by Boat Six to force the Pakistanis to choose sides finally and definitely.

The biggest advantage which will accrue to the US from the decision to draw down our forces in Afghanistan and adopt more of a counter terrorist posture is our logistics dependence upon Pakistan will be decreased.  This means we will be in a much better position to link any continued assistance to Islamabad on demonstrated performance rather than nice sounding words.  It is much harder to lie by actions than it is with mere words.  So, Pakistan will be deprived of its advantage, an advantage it has used against us for a decade now.

While it may not be approved diplomatic form, it would be good politics both domestic and international to call the liars of Islamabad to account.  Diplomacy is usually conducted by vague words and ambiguous phrases so everyone walks away claiming success, but the Pakistanis need to be handled with a direct and blunt approach.

The time is now to say to Islamabad, to the armed forces, to ISI, to Major General Abbas, "Cut the crap!  You're busted!"