The Empire Wants To Strike Back

This time around the "empire" is not the US, pace Comrades Hugo and Fidel.  The empire in question does not yet exist in its desired, reincarnated form.  But, given the ambitions of Turkish prime minister Erdogan and the almost done deal between his country and the mullahs next door in Iran, it is not unfair.

The jefe grande of the Ottoman Empire 2.0 is, like his predecessors, terribly upset by the Kurds.  Again in imitation of his non-Islamist forebearers, Erdogan is dreadfully keen on wiping the several groups fighting for Kurdish independence out of existence for once and all.  The Supreme Guardian of the Revolution, just like the Shah during the days of the ancien regime, shares the sentiment heart and soul.

The US as well as the (presumably) US backed regime in Iraq are caught somewhere in the middle.  Baghdad has a much larger dog in the fight to be sure.  Iraqi Kurdistan, which is legally semi-autonomous, is the most stable and prosperous place in the partially rebuilt country.  It is not simply Kurdistan's wealth and security that has raised hackles not only in Baghdad but through much of Iraq.  No.  Rather the deep distaste for Kurds and their region is about the only thing upon which the minority Sunnis and majority Shia can and do agree.

Way back in the mists of history (that is before World War I resulted in a massive exercise in creative cartography), Kurdistan was a territorial whole.  It had so existed for a mort of centuries both before and after the Ottoman Turks came to supremacy in Stamboli (or Istanbul, if that is your preference.)  The carving up of the old Empire was accomplished courtesy of the machinations of mid-level bureaucrats serving their masters in France and Great Britain.  In what was one of the greatest sins committed against the self-determination of nations principle dear to the heart of Woodrow Wilson, the Kurds found their tight little nascent state divided between French run Syria and English operated Iraq with small amounts allocated to the Turkey of Ataturk and the Shah of Persia.

Had this violation of American policy not been allowed to take place, Kurdistan would have long ago been recognized as the independent sovereign state its people wanted (and want) it to be.  But, as was so often the case, Wilson believed that the League of Nations (his centerpiece ideologically) would solve the injustice--an injustice he himself acknowledged.

For many decades, the issue rested silently in the mountains which constitute most of "Kurdistan."  But that came to an end when the respective "occupying" governments came to realize what resources resided in them thar hills.  Oil and hydroelectric resources to be precise.  Iraq battened fat off the oil while Turkey saw the rivers as the source of both agricultural and industrial riches.  The Iranians and Syrians saw potential in the fast running waters if not the oil and vowed to get their share.

With every passing year, the resources of "Kurdistan" have become more and more critical to Turkey and Iraq.  While the other two states have not profited so much, both Tehran and Damascus see the danger resident in a successful separatist movement.  The Syrian government both before and after the Baathist came to power sought to suppress the language, culture, and political identity of the Kurdish population.  The same has been the case in Iran under both secularist shah and Islamist grand ayatollahs.

Right down to the present day, the central government of Iraq has used all methods fair and foul alike to limit the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan.  The only thing keeping Baghdad from emulating the muscular methods of Saddam Hussein in the region has been the military capacity of the Kurdish peshmerga, which could fight the national army to a bloody standstill.

Over the past quarter century, the Kurds have been waging a low level defensive insurgency against both Iran and Turkey.  The PKK (shooting Turks) and PJAK (doing the same with Iranians down range) have been a thorn in the side of their target states.  Because Turkey is a NATO "partner," the US determined that the PKK is a terrorist organization.  Since Iran is a hostile state, the US has not yet made the same determination regarding the other group, the PJAK (aka "good terrorists.)

Comes now Recip Erdogan to announce an impending agreement with Iran to mount a joint effort presumably involving ground as well as air forces against those pesky Kurds and the heavily fortified base camps high in the mountains.  The reason to presume a ground effort is the abject failure of air assaults conducted by the Turkish air force to do more than move a few rocks around as well as kill a small number of civilians who did not find shelter in time but who in their deaths provided excellent propaganda material for the Kurds.

So far there has been no reported word from the Iraqi government regarding this proposed violation of sovereignty.  Perhaps the Iraqis are more easy going about such matters then are, say, the Pakistanis.  Or, the central government might be hoping for a good excuse to move large forces into Iraqi Kurdistan, forces which once there will not be quick to leave.

Nor has the Obama administration made comment on the proposed joint action--except implicitly.  For some while the US has been providing intelligence information to Ankara concerning the PKK.  This shared catch includes imagery and ELINT obtained by Predators.  Now, the word has leaked out that the Obama crew is contemplating basing Predators in Turkey.

Not one to be asleep at the switch, Erdogan has responded by offering to purchase or lease a few Predators so as to cut out the middleman.  Considering that the Paks have wanted to do this for a long while now, it would be quite a diplomatic and political coup for Erdogan to achieve the goal.

Not to put too fine a point on the Kurdish Question, there is ample evidence to the effect that the Kurds and their proposed state meet the tests provided in the UN Charter as well as subsidiary conventions.  With Iraqi Kurdistan as the linchpin, there is no doubt but the hypothetical Kurdistan would meet the requirements of the Montevideo Convention.  Considering this inconvenient context, US policy regarding the Kurds is flatly wrong.

The finding that PKK is a terrorist entity was based simply on the role Turkey theoretically plays in NATO while the similar act by the European Union dates back to the days when Turkey was knocking on the EU door.  In short, these actions had little if anything to do with "terrorism" per se and much to do with extraneous political considerations.

Silence in the Oval regarding the odd couple military plans must fall in the same category.  Arguably, the decision to share catch with Ankara and the basing of Predators in Turkey constitute another bribe to Erdogan for allowing the installation of the US X-band radar.  The decision to allow this anti-Iran move has resulted in severe blowback from Tehran, so the Turkish prime minister probably wants additional compensation.

There is only one open question.  No, that question is not will the US switch its policy regarding the Kurds and their right to and desire for a state of their own.  Nor does this question involve the notion of granting the government of Iraqi Kurdistan its request of redeploying US forces within its borders.  The present administration lacks both the depth of regional understanding and the political will to do either--even if each would be in American national interest.

The only remaining question is whether or not Obama and his "team" will cave and sell-lease a few spare Predators to Erdogan, and through him, the Iranians.

Wanna make a bet?

Those Darn Pesky Kurds

The Kurds are ethnically, linguistically, and culturally different from the Turks, the Arabs of Iraq, and the Persians. That is a reality. It is also a reality that the Kurds have been forced by the winds of the past to live under the domination of the aforementioned Turks, Arabs, and Persians.

This leads to a third reality. The Kurds are not at all happy about having no country to call their own. In one way or another, the Kurds have been expressing their displeasure with the status quo for generations.

The goal of the Kurds is simple. They are a nation, self-conscious, aware of the ties of history, culture, language, and geography. But as such they are incomplete. To be complete, the nation must have a state to call its own. In this dynamic the Kurds are not different from the Palestinians.

There is a fair measure of irony in considering that the Kurds are kept down, divided, oppressed, even, in the estimate of many Kurds, "occupied" by the Islamic states of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. With an astigmatism endemic to Islamic regimes, no member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference seems at all perturbed by the willingness of Muslim majority countries to suppress their fellow Muslims.

Not surprisingly, Ankara which is ever ready of late to hurl rhetorical bombs at Israel over presumed Jewish wickedness in the Gaza Strip is not only silent on the plight of the Kurds, but quite willing to send troops and fighter-bombers over the border into Iraq with the intent of killing Kurds in large numbers. Over in Tehran, Orator-In-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not only unusually quiet regarding the Kurds but has shown himself eager to send Iranian shells and troops into Iraqi Kurdistan with the goal of killing as many of those pesky people as possible.

In Baghdad, the current political stasis is in no way lessened by the role adopted by the Kurds who seek any and every advantage at the expense of the national government. In all probability, there are more than a few members of the new Iraqi government who wish they had the freedom to deal with the Kurds as bluntly and terminally as did Saddam Hussein.

The most aggressive of the several Kurdish insurgent groups, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) is aimed at Turkey where nearly fifteen percent of the population is Kurd. PKK is of the view that a Kurdistan comprising the Kurdish majority portion of Turkey and the semi-autonomous province of Iraqi Kurdistan would be viable in all respects, political, economic, social, and cultural.

This is a correct apprehension. Iraqi Kurdistan on its own would be viable. The melding of the arbitrarily divided major portions of the Kurdish homeland would make an even more impressive new state. The envisioned entity would have both oil and water--the two fluids without which life in the 21st century is impossible. While "greater Kurdistan" would include sections of Syria and Iran, the exclusion of these would subtract nothing of importance from a hypothetical Kurdish state.

In an ideal world, a world where the Wilsonian principle of "self-determination of nations" had trenchancy, there would be no bar to the peaceful creation of a state to match the Kurdish nation as it is currently distributed between Turkey and Iraq. Given Mr Obama's obvious affection to Wilsonian notions of internationalism, it is passingly strange that he has not embraced self-determination for the Kurds. But, that musing cannot detain us.

The reef upon which the potential Kurdish ship of state must founder is the determination of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran to disallow any alteration in the comfortable current status quo. The Turks and PKK have been engaged in a slow motion shooting war since 1984. Neither belligerent has been either willing or able to seek a knock out blow. At the same time neither has been willing to call the war off, to seek some sort of negotiated compromise.

When not engaged in the planning and execution of provocations directed at Israel with the goal of establishing Ankara as the beacon of hope for the Palestinians, the Islamist leaning AKP in Turkey has been going after the PKK with a renewed frenzy of killing and dying. Prime Minister Erdogan with his usual over-the-top oratory has vowed to fight against PKK without hesitation and regardless of the number of "heinous" attacks the "terrorist" organization might mount.

From Erdogan's language one might think PKK had just hit Istanbul with a chemical attack or poured anthrax in the water mains of Ankara rather than simply hitting a border police station and killing a dozen or so Turkish cops. The PKK action was purportedly in response to the border incursion undertaken by Turkish troops and aircraft which cost the lives of a couple of dozen Kurds, some of whom might have been combatants.

This set of exchanges are typical of the war during all of its twenty-six years. The same is true of the Iranian artillery stonks across the border. Bloody "tit" followed by a sanguinary "tat."

For several years the Kurds of Iraq convinced themselves that the American invasion and its aftermath would serve as a game changer for the Kurds generally. In this the Kurds were doomed to be disappointed. While there were (and are) any number of good reasons based both in principle and in national interest for the US to take the lead in facilitating the "self-determination"of the Kurdish nation, the US was inhibited by visions of a destabilized Turkey.

This inhibition need apply no longer. Turkey has changed sides in all but formal announcement. In another of those ironies which makes the Muslim world so interesting to the observer, a reason for the realignment of Turkey with Iran and away from the US, EU, and NATO is the shared interest both countries have in suppressing the Kurds. But, in making its switch so quickly, so openly, and so completely, the Erdogan regime has eroded any US interest in keeping Turkey stable.

This new consideration particularly when taken in conjunction with the self-serving hypocrisy of the OIC as well as the Muslim majority states directly involved, open new possibilities for a US coordinated effort to support the Kurds in their ambitions and, in so doing, embarrass the governments of Turkey and Iran (and, it deserves mentioning, Syria as well) severely. It would also expose the OIC as the duplicitous body which it is.

There is a collateral which, on balance, is more good than bad. That collateral is the truncation of Iraq. To be viable any new Kurdish state must include Iraqi Kurdistan. That province quite literally is the odd man out in Arab majority Iraq. The fact that Iraqi Kurdistan has significant hydrocarbon reserves which the Kurds hate sharing with the Arabs in no way lessens the antipathy which has long typified relations between these two people who uncomfortably cohabit in common borders.

As Baghdad is loath to let the oil leave Iraq much as it might like to see the Kurds exit the area, any divorce between Arab majority and Kurd minority will not be as amicable as was, for example, that between Czech and Slovak. A divorce would require a "realignment" of US forces in Iraq to Kurdistan (perhaps under the ostensible need to protect the Turkmen minority in Kurdistan against ethnic cleansing.)

The Kurds have been in favor of a US presence in Kurdistan. Several times since 2003, the authorities in Kurdistan have extended an invitation to the US to reposition its troops there as a security against outside interference. While it might be difficult to take up the invitation, doing such would not be impossible. Certainly it would be less difficult than trying to support a central government beset by multiple insurgencies and lacking broad gauge legitimacy.

As a side benefit there is no doubt that the Kurdish government would be far more open to seeing US rather than Chinese oil companies develop the reserves in the region. This stance is at sharp contrast to the attitude in Baghdad. An open American presence in Kurdistan would definitely inhibit Iranian (or Turkish) military actions which is also in distinct contrast with the supine reaction of Baghdad to incursions and artillery attacks.

The Kurdish Question is not one amenable to solution by the UN or any other manifestation of the "international community." It is one, however, which can be answered by the US even over the objections of Russia and China.

The partitioning of Iraq would be only the first step in solving the dilemma presented by the Kurdish nation in its search for a state. Ultimately, the Turks would have to accomodate themselves to the reality that they cannot suppress the Kurds forever. The gestures of limited democracy and constrained economic development offered by Gul, Erdogan, and the rest of the AKP are too little, too late. And, their effect has been offset by the moving of ethnic Turks into districts which have been Kurdish since the time of Saladin.

The Turks are discovering that there is a force greater than that of political Islam. That force is nationalism. The Kurds become more committed to their nationalistic vision every time a Turkish bullet kills a Kurd. To put it bluntly, Erdogan and the AKP are on the wrong side of history this time.

There is one fatal problem in considering the new options open to the US. President Obama lacks both the vision and the wisdom needed. He is without the moral and intellectual courage necessary to seize the moment. He does not have the spine of George Washington Plunkett, the spine needed to, "see me opportunity and I took it."

There Are "Bad" Kurds--And Good Ones

That's where the problem lies for the United States. Worse, it's another one for which we are partially responsible.

We all know who the "bad" Kurds are. They're called the Kurdistan Workers Party, usually called the PKK. They've gotten all the news play in the past few days. They are "bad" because they attack Turkish targets as they have been doing for almost twenty-five years now.

But, who or what are the "good" Kurds?

They call themselves the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). They are "good" because they have been attacking targets in Iran as they have been doing for nearly twenty-five years now. They have gotten no significant news coverage.

The PKK have been declared to be a "terrorist" group. The PJAK has not received this distinction.

The PKK has received no US assistance, not even conversational. The PJAK has not only been talked with by American personnel, there is strong reason to believe they have been the beneficiaries of more than mere polite palaver.

You don't need to have a PhD in Kurdish Studies to see the reason for the difference in treatment. Do you?

From Washington's perspective, Turkey is a good guy (most of the time.) Also from the banks of the Potomac, Iran is a bad guy (all of the time.)

There is, however, one small problem.

"What's that?" You ask.

PKK and PJAK are not separate organisations. They share the goal of an independent Kurdistan carved out of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. More, they share leadership. They share logistics support.

They are not even Siamese twins. PKK and PJAK are different names for the same entity.

Washington knows it. Turkey knows it. The Iraqi regime knows it.

All of the above (and the mullahocracy in Tehran as well) know that (ahem) PJAK has and does receive the distant blessings of Washington. Not just the current administration but its predecessors running back a quarter century. (Don't say a word about it. The whole thing has been covert. You know, deep, deep black.)

Of course, that's how weapons supplied to the Iraqis ended up in the hands of dead PKK guerrillas inside Turkey. The strictures of plausible deniability demand that the US never speak on that matter but rather let the whole affair die with time and benign neglect.

Now, it doesn't take a particularly deep thinker to realise that it is impossible to bless one arm of a group while damning the other. Whatever benefits the one limb will aid the other.

Thus, the current problem further bedeviling the current administration's Iraq policies.

The Kurds aren't going to just stop the show because it would make our life in Iraq a little less unbearable. They've gotten up a reasonably good head of steam in recent months.

The PJAK wing has killed or captured a surprising number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. Their pin prick raids have stimulated not only Iranian artillery fire in reply but political difficulties in the northwestern areas of Iran.

During the same time, PKK has raised the noise level in the Turkish countryside to an unacceptable extent. The Turkish Army is good for go.

The Iraqi regime is caught in the middle. There isn't much Baghdad can do, at least in the near-term. Closing the offices of the PKK in Iraq and proclaiming the outfit to be "terrorist" is scarcely a death blow. Neither is the promise that the Iraqi government will do something about the PKK one of these days.

That leaves the US.

In principle the US could collaborate more closely and effectively with the Turkish armed forces and government. We could provide more hard, actionable intelligence in a more timely fashion. We could provide surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to support Turkish interdiction efforts. We could, at least hypothetically, spare a brigade or two to move against PKK facilities in the mountains on the Turkish border.

We could do any or all of these if it were not for the fact that hurting the "bad" Kurds also hurts the "good" Kurds. We could do any or all of these things if it were not for the fact that providing comfort for Turkey does the same for Iran.

Ahh! What a delightful policy bind!

A realpolitiker might focus on the more immediate horn of the dilemma. That would be Iraq. The realpolitiker would agree to work with the Turks in abating the PKK nuisance without regard to the collateral damage inflicted on the PJAK. Help the necessary ally without worrying about the attendant assistance given to the adversary, Iran.

The current administration has not been noted for its grip on the requirements of realpolitik. Given the recent rhetorical blasts leveled by the Decider Guy and the Veep at Tehran, as well as the counterblasts from the mullahocracy, discomfiting the Iranians may well out weigh placating the Turks.

Short-term, the Turks (with US support, and Iraqi understanding) should be able to lower the capacity of PKK to mount attacks. They've done that much before.

Longer term, military operations are not the solution. The Kurds are not going to lose political will in the foreseeable future.

The longer term answer will have to reside in some sort of semi-autonomous Kurdistan.

The Kurds face a harsh reality.

They have to come to terms with geography, just as the Turks, Iraqis, Iranians, and Syrians have to accept the dictates of ethnic and historic identity.

The Kurds may have material resources (read oil) but without the collaboration of their neighbors, it might as well stay in the ground. Kurdistan of whatsoever size is landlocked.

Another reality on the ground is water. The Turks have spent much time, effort, and oodles of Lira on their hydro projects on the upper rivers. No matter what works out finally with respect to Kurdistan, Ankara is not going to include the dams in the deal. Neither would the downstream nations, Iraq and Iran, allow the Kurds to take over control of the faucet. It's bad enough that the Turks have it now.

There will be a fair amount of killing in the future. There will have to be a lot of tough talking between countries as well as with the Kurds--even those of the bifurcate semi-Marxist guerrillas.

How much killing as well as how and when the talking will start is in some measure up the US. Ironically the situation parallels that in Palestine. (Or the West Bank and Gaza, if you prefer.)

We all know how well American efforts at brokerage have worked there.

Turkey, Iraq, PKK, Iran, Cheney and Twelve Captains

Turkey is ready, raring and probably able to go into Iraqi Kurdistan in one more attempt to abate the nuisance called the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Not surprisingly, this development has heaved Baghdad into a full blown state of panic.

Equally unsurprisingly, the Turkish move is deplored by the current administration.

Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, the Kurds have been a thorn in the paw of every would be Lion of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates. Ataturk pretended the Kurds didn't really exist. The British, as part of the sporadic Empire Policing Scheme, tried to bomb them into submission.

Later the Shah, Saddam, Assam, and the mullahocracy periodically mounted punitive expeditions against them. The body count varied from minimal to massive, but in the end the Kurds were still there--and still unacceptably uppity from the perspective of Tehran, Baghdad, or Damascus.

In comparison, the Turks were remarkably easy going in the face of PKK provocation. While Ankara's estimate of thirty thousand Turks killed in the past twenty or so years by PKK attacks may err on the side of exaggeration, PKK has inflicted unacceptable damage to the Turkish society, polity, and economy.

Since the American sponsored "regime change" in Iraq and the virtual independence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) in that country, PKK has been on the attack with a vengeance. Months ago (with an arguable amount of justification) the Turkish government pointed a finger at the United States as having a (major) share of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in southeastern Turkey along the Iraqi border.

The current administration did not make an effective reply. The (covert, so don't say a word about it) introduction of a handful of Special Forces teams into Turkey to work with the local forces in detecting and interdicting PKK squads along with the promise of an investigation to find how weapons transferred by the US to Iraqi security units ended up in the (dead) hands of PKK guerrillas were the main features of the totally ineffectual American response.

The PKK attacks escalated. Finally, they went one bomb over the line. The Turkish Army howled. Given the current internal politics of Turkey with the recent, hotly contested election of a perhaps Islamist leaning president, the protests of the army could not be ignored.

Neither could the implied humiliation of the Turkish government by the brazen PKK strikes. When coupled with the pathetically misguided and mistimed effort on the part of Sten Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, which was in itself a perceived insult, the vote in the Turkish parliament to authorize raids of undefined size into northern Iraq was drearily predictable.

US military officials on the ground in Iraq as well as in Washington are correct when they aver any Turkish incursion will destabilize the most peaceful portion of Iraq. The band in Baghdad which claims it is the government of Iraq is right when members state (off the record, of course) that the writ of Baghdad does not run to the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Time to get a grip.

There is not much the US can do about the situation in the KAR. There is not much we can do to stop the PKK using the rugged border territory as a sanctuary. There is not much we can do to enhance stability there or in the rest of Iraq if any Turkish incursion stimulates an uptick in the anti-Occupier, anti-government violence.

There isn't much the US can do to dissuade the Turks from mounting attacks into the KAR. Right now, we need them a lot more than they need us. We are not alone in the lack of influence upon Ankara--particularly if PKK makes another high visibility, high body count hit. In that case, even the EU with its potential for denying Turkey membership in the Union may find that threat insufficient to deter.

Why the impotence?

The short answer is one word long. Iraq.

The long answer isn't all that lengthier. There are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq to deal with the KAR along with all the rest of Iraq.

Grunting and groaning at great economic and greater political cost, the US could, in principle, put enough additional manpower on the ground to provide the necessary combat muscle to stop PKK and assure stability in the KAR. That would take time. Six months would be wildly optimistic. Eight months slightly less so.

The PKK won't wait that long. Neither will the American election cycle.

Imagine for a moment what the effect of adding fifty thousand US personnel to the Iraq TOE would be on the American electorate. Can we say, Republicans go the way of the dinosaur?

The continued effects of the current administration's blundering miscalculations regarding the aftermath of ejecting Saddam Hussein continue to come home to roost. Right now, a bunch of very determined guerrillas and their equally determined opponent have the US caught in the painful vise of reality.

The current administration, which so loudly proclaimed the doctrine of preventative war, unilateralism, and the existence of the US as the world's only Great Power, is utterly dependent upon the good will of a very reluctant ally and the forbearance of a guerrilla entity, which has no history of forbearance. Ironic. heh?

Amazingly, this lesson in impotence has been lost upon Vice President Dick Cheney. Yesterday, he announced to a (small) friendly audience at a think tank in Virginia that the US would not allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. (It should be noted that he added, presumably sotto voce, other nations in the world agreed with us.)

Get a grip, Veep!

You and the Commander Guy with his World War III comment are in a race with the Iranians for Most Lost In Space Award for overblown rhetoric.

When a mere brigadier in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boasts of sending "eleven thousand missiles" in the first minute of the war against us, and "grinding (US) noses in the dirt," that is the excusable overstatement of a dude ready to wet his pants.

Better is expected from the President and Vice-President of the United States. Presumably, they have access to both information and expert advice. Presumably, they talk to the realpolitiker, SecDef Gates, even though he is off right now on a damage limitation mission.

If nothing else, they might read the Washington Post.

The other day, midway between the Commander Guy's warning of World War III waiting for the globe in the deserts and ambitions of Iran and the Veep's virtual ultimatum, a letter appeared in the WaPo with a thin, unpleasant, and unheard voice of worst-case realism.

Signed by twelve company grade officers with combat experience in Iraq, the letter maintained correctly that the US had not employed sufficient manpower on the ground to assure an absence of defeat in the country. The letter went on to indicate that there were three options.

The first option was to grind on as we have been with the hope that the apparent progress seen to date would continue. (And, that US combat fatalities would continue to drop.)

The second option was to get out now. Cut our losses. Accept the consequences of our failure. Repent and swear never to do something so half-arsed and foolishly planned again.

The third option was simply to activate the draft. That action would provide a sufficiently large manpower pool to support the necessary greater force presence on the ground in Iraq.

The officers preferred the second option. (The Geek as has been argued in previous posts prefers the first with modifications.)

The invocation of the most feared five letter word in the military vocabulary is the most important part of the letter from twelve captains. It points in a very unpleasant direction.

The direction?

The limits of American military power and what would need to be done to expand those limits. As President Dwight Eisenhower (a man who knew more than most presidents about the requirements of waging war) warned more than a half century ago, (to paraphrase slightly)there is no such thing as absolute security without the odious paraphernalia of the garrison state.

The Geek would add in light of threats which now exist and were undreamed of in Ike's day, "And not even then."

Still, the message is clear. If the US wishes to transmogrify the war of words with Iran into a shooting war, it will need not only to re-institute the draft. It will need to put many of the nasty aspects of total war into effect.

Gas rationing. Price controls. Raw material priority assignments. New "homeland security" procedures. A partial list to be sure, but you get the drift.

Oh. There is one more thing.

The tax cuts for the upper couple of percent of the American public would have to be repealed. Maybe, even the microscopic tax cuts bestowed on all of us unwealthy will have to be revoked as well.

Tax hikes! You gotta be kidding!

No. The Geek never kids. Welcome to the real war, Mac.

Just that the neocon ninnes of the current administration have never fought a real war. They have simply talked about it.