Rick Perry And The Big, Bad World

As had been expected for several weeks, Rick Perry has entered the GOP contest.  Of this the Geek is both glad and positive.  Governor Perry appears to possess the stomach and head necessary for a down and dirty campaign against the Nice Young Man From Chicago which is singularly lacking with other Elephant hopefuls.

The Geek became a fan of Texas politics during the years necessity compelled him to live and work in the Lone Star Empire.  The doings at that model of law making decorum called the "Lege" were and are as fascinating as the inner workings of the Cook County (Ill.) Democratic machine.  The emergence of Perry showed him to be a man having a strong, visceral understanding of the political soul of most Texans.  Over the past year Perry's performance has demonstrated that this gut level talent is not restricted to the denizens of the LSE but extends to many of We the People.

It is important to enter an important caveat here, a warning of relevance to international politics.  Other significant leaders who have exhibited a strong, visceral understanding of their people's national politics such as Vladimir Putin have seen that understanding stop abruptly at the border.  They have little if any understanding of the political mood or mode of other people in other countries.

Governor Perry stated strongly in Charleston that he was a strong believer in "American exceptionalism," which places him in very sharp contrast with the relativistic Mr Obama.  This posture while laudable in itself demands yet another caveat in the arena of global affairs.  The "exceptionalism" part of the phrase consists of characteristics, attributes, and values which are under a permanent export ban.  American exceptionalism is not only made in America by dint of suffering, war, political struggles, and endless effort, it must forever stay in the land of its fabrication.  It is unique to us for it is uniquely us and ours.  No bayonet, no tank, no stealth fighter, no UAV, no aid program, no propaganda effort, no executive order or congressional enactment can force its export to other, foreign soils.  As a transplant it must fail.

On his campaign website, Mr Perry avers that his service as a C-130 driver as well as his many foreign trips as governor give him insight into the needs of American diplomatic and national security policy.  While it is true that the governor flew Herky birds with numerous RONs and TDYs, the result would be an intimate acquaintance with nocturnal resorts of entertainment and recreation but little contact with the dark doings of foreign chanceries or the gavottes in distant corridors of power.  (To this truism any person with a peripatetic military experience can attest.)  And, as governor Mr Perry's overseas jaunts were in the interest of the economic development of the LSE not the national interests of the US.

In his speech at Charleston, the Texan was more than kind when he characterized whatever passes as foreign policy within the Obama administration as a "muddle."  It is, of course, far worse than that.  It is even worse than a collection of blunders wrapped in empty, high sounding rhetoric.  Rather, it is an ideologically driven exercise in ad hoc reaction coupled with a set of self-defeating visions of how the world ought to be if only it were designed in Left leaning academic salons located near the University of Chicago campus.

At least implicitly (if Rick "No One Crosses Me and Lives" Perry can ever be merely implicit) the Texas Cyclone of Prayer vowed to change this.  He evidently intends to assure the US once again walks tall and proud on the international stage.  This would be a welcome change after the years of "leading from behind" but carries with it yet another, larger caveat.

This caveat resides in the coterie Perry has assembled to date as his advisers on foreign and national security affairs.  Without notable exception, it is comprised of neocon ninnies out of the years of the Bush/Cheney administration.  At the head of the list is the execrable Doug Feith, the top architect of the debacle in Iraq.  Other members have an equally illustrious record.  From their post administration writings and speeches, it is apparent they have neither learned nor forgotten a single iota.  None have seen the failings produced by their own ideologically predicated view of the world and the role of the US in that world.

Unless Governor Perry expands his advisory staff,  there is a very grave danger that his understanding of the abilities and limits of American power will be as disastrously off the mark as were those of George W. Bush.  Neither the US nor the world can live with yet another ideologically predicated misreading of what the US can and cannot do with respect to the internal workings of other countries.

It is important to note that not since George H.W. Bush left office has the US enjoyed the services of a president who was both internationally focused and relatively bereft of ideological blinders.  The many years of Clinton, George W. Bush and His Hindmost, Barack Obama--each with either or both a disinterest in foreign affairs or ideological predicates of overwhelming power--have seen the steady decline of the US as a Great Power with influence and potency.  Given that the next president will be laboring under serious budgetary constraints, the question of the relations of the US with the rest of the world as well as the American capacity and will to defend and advance its national interests will be under very severe challenge.

More than ever we will need a president who realistically assesses our national interests and tailors our diplomacy and military to protect and advance those interests regardless of extraneous considerations including ideological preferences and prejudices.  The next president will face a world which remains what it always has been--a dangerous place replete with countries which oppose us and our interests and actors both state and non-state who wish to do us harm.  The world will also contain countries which share values and norms with us and with which we have coinciding national interests.

The next president must do what the present incumbent has failed to do with striking obviousness--parse between the enemies and the allies.  He must be able and willing to cozen and stroke the latter while drawing in a credible manner the necessary lines in the sand regarding the former.

As Perry lacks any significant foreign policy experience and whose direct experience with military affairs and war fighting is limited to the perspective offered from the cockpit of a C-130, he will depend heavily on his foreign policy and national security teams.  Given his first picks as advisers, there is, unfortunately, little if any reason to be hopeful in this regard.

In the future national interest as well as his own personal political fortune, Governor Perry ought to fire the present advisory staff.  It is the only smart and prudential thing to do.  He has to put daylight between himself and George W. Bush, and listening to the old gang of neocon ninnies is not the way to offset the inevitable Obama camp attacks seeking to make Perry look like the much disliked (not to say hated) Bush, Jr.

(Full disclosure in blogging statement:  The Geek is not angling for a job with the Perry camp as he is constitutionally incapable of working for anyone.)

Politics Does Not Stop At The Water's Edge

More than fifty years ago Republican senator and one-time isolationist, Arthur Vandenberg, allegedly stated in support of his bipartisan support of the Truman Doctrine, "Politics stops at the water's edge."  Either the senator was being economical with the truth or was caught in a moment of self-delusion.  Politics does not--indeed, cannot--halt at the beach.  Foreign policy is the export version of domestic politics.  It can be nothing else.

A truism well understood by diplomatic historians is that a country's foreign policy must be compatible with the values and norms of a society--particularly when that society has a democratic polity.  It is this organic rooting of US foreign policy and diplomacy in national norms, values, and worldview which gives foreign relations, American style, its uniquely schizophrenic nature.  It is also the reason that persuasive diplomacy--that is the diplomacy of identifying and building upon coinciding national interests--is most readily accomplished between states of common values, norms, and worldviews.  An example: The US and the UK can easily practice persuasive diplomacy particularly when compared with, say, Russia or China or any Muslim majority country.

The schizophrenic nature of US foreign policy--the dynamic and shifting tension between realpolitik and idealism predicated upon common American values and norms--came into sharp focus in a little noticed exchange between Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Republican representative Ron Paul the other day.  Dr Paul, who is today's equivalent of isolationist leader Arthur Vandenberg in the years prior to Pearl Harbor, excoriated Ms Clinton concerning American support for dictators such as Hosni Mubarak almost until the crowds in Cairo pulled the switch on the aging authoritarian.  Secretary Clinton offered the realist justification to Representative Paul's idealist critique.  She noted thirty years of cold peace between Egypt and Israel as well as the Egyptian opposition to the forces of violent political Islam.  She did allow that sometimes the US got the balance between the ideal of promoting democracy and the real world needs for stability and predictability wrong but maintained that the various administrations had gotten it right far more often than the opposite.

The bifurcate nature of American foreign policy has bedeviled one administration after another ever since the first Roosevelt dragged the US kicking and screaming onto the global stage over a century ago.  Woodrow Wilson practiced the diplomacy of idealism with a vigor no other president has matched.  We entered World War I purely for the idealistic notion of fighting a "war to end wars."  The end goal of Wilson for the war was the establishment of a permanent global organization with the chief mission of preventing aggressive war by punishing those states which embarked on aggression.  To the cynical and resolutely realistic leaders of the major European states, the American president was hopelessly naive about the ways of the world, and they worked in concert to so arrange the peace that regardless of the existence of Wilson's League of Nations, the nature of the peace treaty virtually assured another war.

By failing to take the political sensitivities of critical senators into account, by disregarding the privileges of the Senate, and by neglecting to focus public opinion correctly, Mr Wilson brought about the defeat of his own creation in the Senate.  The American public was too new, too unused to playing the part of a Great Power to turn its collective back on the previous generations of disengagement from the affairs of Europe or the rest of the world.  It took the massive shock of Pearl Harbor and the globe wide bloodletting of World War II to convince We the People that playing the Game of Nations as a Great Power was an inescapable reality.  The threats presented by the Soviet Union and China reinforced that view with the result that the American public monolithically rejected the old idea of being a symbol to the world, the "shining city on a hill," which had been our ideal during most of our national existence.

For a few years the tension between "realism" and "idealism" faded to nothing.  The Cold War allowed both realists and idealists to agree on methods and means.  Idealists, for example, did not carp at our support of authoritarian regimes against the much greater "evil" of international Communism.  Nor did realists cavil with the promotion of "democracy" and free enterprise even though many of our clients and allies were neither "democratic" nor given to unfettered free enterprise and capitalism.

The tension reemerged during and in the wake of the Vietnam debacle.  This reemergence came with a wrinkle, the idea that the US should withdraw from the affairs of the world because it was too "evil" and polluted the rest of the world with its purported greed, exploitative nature, and imperialistic goals.  The foreign policy realists became an endangered species caught between two varieties of predatory idealists.

President Jimmy Carter was an idealist.  He was not in the muscular Wilson school,  ready and willing to use coercion to achieve a goal of moral perfection.  Quite the contrary, Carter was almost of the blame-America-first variety of idealist given to feeling the US was much more the sinner than either a leader or a country much sinned against.  His contraction of the American military and intelligence services as well as his elevation of the vague and ambiguous subject human rights to the center of the diplomatic pantheon shows this tendency.  The lack of an effective response to either the Iranian two stage revolution or the unprovoked Soviet invasion of Afghanistan makes his position absolutely clear.

The American national character, the aggregate perception of historical experience by Americans generally, did not take kindly to the notion of a pathetically weak response to two direct, high profile provocations.  While We the People might have been willing to let the Soviets have a pass on the invasion of a country most could not locate on a map, such was not the case with respect to the capture of the American embassy and the kidnapping of US personnel.  The insult given to the American public by the Iranian "students" was not as great as that administered by Japan at Pearl Harbor but ran in the same direction.

As a result idealism was shunted aside in favor of realism.  Specifically, it was set aside in favor of the Reagan version of realism which centered upon a reinvigorated US military and the increased use of coercive diplomacy.  In the view of key members of the Reagan administration, a country needed not only a military capacity which was impressive on paper but one which was demonstrated to be both useful and used.  Only by demonstrating a political will as well as a military capacity would US foreign policy be seen and taken seriously by allies and adverse powers alike.  This is what made the unilateral actions such as the attack on Libya in 1986 and the sledgehammer invasion of Grenada important.

Cold, calculated, and unilateral use of military power provided an important context for the ongoing nuclear limitation talks with the Soviet Union.  The same applied to all American diplomatic initiatives.  When night fell, the minor uses of force proved sufficient to offset the potential debacle of sending troops to Lebanon only to withdraw them precipitously after a pair of high casualty terror bomber attacks.

George H.W. Bush broadened the definition of realist.  He launched the American military in the largest SWAT type operation ever with the invasion and consequent regime change in Panama.  This was unilateralism as last resort after lesser means of coercion failed.  But, only two years later H.W. catered to the strong American idealistic strain of multi-lateralism by the patient building of a coalition of very strange partners as well as creatively using the UN as a fig leaf covering American policy genitalia with Operation Desert Storm.  His approach seamlessly melded realism and idealism with good consequences which were very beneficial to US national and strategic interests.

Unlike the case with George W. Bush, no critic ever accused the US under H.W. of acting unilaterally or arrogantly or imperialistically.  Nor could any aver that H.W. was some sort of neo-Wilsonian.  He was coldly realistic in appraising American interests in play in the wake of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, but he was equally attuned to the music of idealism so important to so many in the American (and European) elites.  Even though the US in 1990-91 could have abated the Iraqi nuisance without the aid of any other country beyond Saudi Arabia and the assorted Gulf states, he correctly chose to take the time needed to deploy forces to the theater of operations and build a coalition and gain UN approval.

When Bill Clinton came along, the realism once more vanished.  Clinton was both uninterested in foreign affairs and indifferent to the concept of national interest.  One consequence was he viewed genuine threats to American national security and interests not as foreign policy challenges or military contingencies but rather as matters of law and its enforcement.  Another result of the Clinton idealist view was the belief that American good intentions, particularly when backed by UN sanction, would be obvious to all.

These two beliefs (not conclusions rooted in an accurate appreciation of real facts but rather beliefs rooted in values, emotions, and worldview) resulted in both the Somali debacle and the inept, limp wrist responses to terror attacks mounted by advocates of violent political Islam, most notably al-Qaeda.  It was as certain as day following night that countries generally would perceive the US as lacking both a realistic perception of the Game of Nations and the political will to use force when force was the only correct response.

Unfortunately for the US and the world, George W. Bush was not a realist any more than was Bill Clinton.  Pace the conventional wisdom, George W. Bush and his administration were Wilsonian idealists. This means they were quite willing to use military coercion to accomplish idealistic goals.

A realist would have seized the universal support given the US in the wake of 9/11 to mount a punitive expedition against Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

A realist would have told the government of Pakistan to take a hike rather than to agree to allow most of Taliban and al-Qaeda along with their Pakistani mentors to hot foot it across the border into the safety of the FATA.

A realist would have let a secular regime no matter how odious and loathsome to remain in power in Iraq as a bulwark against both Iran and the advocates of violent political Islam.  (Admittedly, there was one realistic but unanticipated good result from the invasion of Iraq and that was the sudden conversion of Gaddafi to the side of denuclearization and anti-jihadism, but that result was not worth the costs.)

George W. Bush, Wilsonian idealist, chose instead to embark upon the impossible--building Western style nation-states in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  This was identical to Wilson's landing the Marines at Vera Cruz in order to "teach the Mexicans to elect good men."  It has worked as well as that landing, which is to say not at all, but at infinitely greater cost to the US and the target countries.

Bush was supported at least at the outset because his approach, his goal of nation-building, fit perfectly with the crusading aspect of defining American mythology.  It was organic to the widely held feeling that if only other countries were like us the world would be a much better place.  It arose from the companion feeling that everyone everywhere wanted to live just as we did in all respects and regardless of cultural context.  This, bucko, is idealism.

The current incumbent is also an idealist.  His understanding of foreign affairs, insofar as he has one, comports well with the deeply held American belief in the rule of law and the primacy of democracy.  Again this belief is applied without respect to the specific context of other countries.  In his idealism Obama veers strongly to the Carter as opposed to the Wilsonian approach.  Arguably Obama is even more loath than Carter or Clinton to practice coercive diplomacy let alone use American military power.

This may be due to Mr Obama having accepted without reservation the blame-America-first form of idealism.  He appears to be sincerely convinced the world would be better if the US were weaker, less central to the affairs of the globe and less able to use its power (defined broadly) to seek its goals.  He seems to be firmly of the view that national and strategic interest is a very bad, even evil concept.

Mr Obama has put the realists very much in the shadows and has done so with a high degree of political impunity.  Americans, at least if some polls are to be believed, have resigned themselves to the idea that the years ahead belong to China and not the US.  At the same time it appears from all metrics of public opinion that the American public has lost the most important single component of its past worldview--optimism.  It is this factor which means the current, Obama orchestrated contraction of US influence may be irreversible.

In the past decade the pendulum has swung much too far under two presidents from two different parties in the direction of idealism.  In doing so the pendulum has swung not in spite of domestic politics but because of domestic politics.  The question which can--must--be answered in two years is simply whether domestic politics will shift sufficiently to allow a resurrection of realism in US foreign policy.  Arguably, the US cannot survive as a Great Power unless that happens.  And, unless the pendulum swings back hard and fast, there will not be any need for the sort of exchange typified by the Paul-Clinton dialogue.

The US will be too irrelevant for that.  A not particularly pleasant thought.

Ignorance Equals Defeat

A thoughtful interlocutor who knows the Geek's secure and undisclosed location has requested he dilate upon a passing reference made in yesterday's post. Always ready to oblige, the Geek will do so below.

When the term "nation-building" first hit the rhetoric of the Bush/Cheney administration (an event which occurred even as US troops were failing in Tora Bora) the Geek shuddered, almost ran to the pottie and puked his guts out. For that term showed three critical features were at work to assure a long and eventually failed American effort in Afghanistan.

The first critical feature was simply that we had abandoned, if, indeed, we had ever considered limiting our goal to that of mounting a successful punitive expedition with the focus being upon killing or capturing al-Qaeda personnel and Taliban governmental and military leaders. The second was that no matter how long and loud we proclaimed that we were not waging war on Islam qua Islam or Muslims qua Muslims these protestations would be discounted by Muslims both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Thirdly and most importantly, it showed that the administration did not understand that society and polity in a Muslim majority country arise totally from the religion of Islam.

Mark this well: Any attempt to alter a Muslim society or polity is simultaneously an attempt to change the religion. Unlike here in the West, there is no blue sky between faith and society, faith and polity. There is and can be no, repeat, no separation between faith and state.

The announced intention to transform Afghanistan into some sort of imitation of a Western nation-state gave free pass to any and all Muslims to see the effort as an attack upon Muslims and Islam thus invoking the obligation of defensive jihad upon all believers. This call to defensive arms requires no tortured logic, no semantic games, it is plain and simple in the Koran.

While sometimes there is ample room for interpretation over whether or not aggressive war, offensive jihad is required, this is not the case when the infidel invades Muslim land and drives Muslims from their homes. The branding of Afghanistan as a country in need of severe, extreme make-over rang the bell of jihad.

Had the US made it clear that our goal was the punishment of people, groups resident within Afghanistan, who had caused us great injury and great insult, that would have been understood by those in Afghanistan and elsewhere who were not joined with either Taliban or al-Qaeda. Such a goal would have not crossed the line into invading a Muslim land and chasing Muslims from their homes. It would not have invoked the defensive jihad.

Had the US employed the run-up period to public diplomacy focusing on the nature of the 9/11 attack, the character of the majority of the victims, and the way in which both attack and consequences both violated Islamic principles and caused Islam and Muslims to be covered with infamy, the punitive expedition would have met with a large measure of approval in the Muslim-Arab world. Revenge--which is what punishment is at root--is well understood by Muslims all over the world. An honorable person, a nation with honor and dignity, are both entitled, even expected, to avenge wrongs done to them.

Admittedly, while the notion of a purely punitive military action would not have met with approval by segments of both American and Western European opinion, it would have been eminently salable to the majority of the population both here and abroad. The Lofty Minded, the overly legally minded, the softly sentimental all would have been offended in their sensibilities by the concept of war as punishment. Too bad. The majority would have supported the notion and that is all politics both domestic and global require.

The punitive blow might have been softened by a policy of supporting international efforts to assist the Afghan population in its economic and political development provided there was no odor of external coercion involved. This add-on would have mollified the do-gooding segment of opinion and not provided ammunition for the advocates of violent political Islam.

Had the public diplomacy been accompanied by a bit of very non-public pressure on Islamabad along the lines of "cooperate with us, close the borders, pull out your ISI guys, and allow us to get on with killing or capturing the bad boys or you will never see another big ticket, high tech weapons system marked Made in America," the result would have been the death or capture of far more al-Qaeda and Taliban heavyweights than was the case. There is little doubt that the military high command of Pakistan would have seen the logic of our presentation.

The basic intelligence product regarding the relation of Islam, nation-building, and defensive jihad were all in existence in 2001. It would have taken no particular effort to connect the dots and make the right policy choice.

The rub came back then precisely where it does today. The president and his senior staff as well as the rarefied levels of the military do not know what they do not know. They were and are afflicted with ignorance as to the extent of their own ignorance. Compounding the problem back then as well as today is the simple reality that the people who do know what needs to be known topside are too far down the food chain to bring their concerns and knowledge to the appropriate level. There is no way for knowledge, no matter how mission critical, to leap from way down low to the up high where decisions are made.

Of course it is possible that the neocon ninnies of W and Company were briefed on the fact that the saber toothed tigers of defeat lived in the word, "nation-building," and decided for reasons of ideology or hubris to ignore the warning. If that was the case, the administration of W. Bush stands indicted of the worst sort of war "crime." The one of committing one's country and military to a long, costly, counterproductive war in which naught but defeat is possible.

Let's Try Bribery--Again

Stripped of all the high minded and lofty rhetoric, foreign aid is simply bribery much of the time. It is an attempt to create a simulacrum of coinciding national interest. That is, when there is an insufficiency of actual coinciding national interest so that two states can work jointly on a joint problem, foreign aid can be trotted out to manufacture the appearance of coincidence of interest.

For obvious reasons this kind of fiction is generally the prerogative of Great Powers, or, at least, countries laden with cash or other equally useful and attractive items. The potlatch of bribe-your-way-to-an-alliance hit a (temporary) pinnacle of drunk sailor spending during the Cold War. The old Soviet Union built steel mills in countries without iron ore while China built eight lane divided highways or dual track railroads from Nowhere to Nothingness. For its part, the US scattered shiny new weapons and fresh from the factory warlike stores to armed forces better suited to brigandage than to any real national security use.

At least most of the recipient states had the common courtesy to stay bought for at least a few years. And, these grateful new allies and supporters of whichever Great Power had spilled the greatest amount of its wealth rarely crossed the line from bribery--a limited activity--to flat out extortion--an endless exercise in ever increasing demands.

Bribery as a tool of foreign policy entered into a brief decline during the years immediately following the end of the Cold War. It was no longer necessary for the US to rent-a-friend by foreign aid largess in most of the world.

There were, however, exceptions. One was Egypt. The US under four administrations has felt (word used advisedly as the process has been less than rational, other than based on careful calculation) that Egypt must continue to be bribed lest something unspecified but terrible occur. Another exception was carved out for Pakistan.

In the case of Pakistan the thin and wavering line separating bribery from extortion was crossed years ago, during the days of Bill Clinton. For each and every year of the Clinton, W. Bush, and, now, Obama administrations, the extortion campaign waged by Islamabad has accelerated. Each of these presidents has felt the need to pay more and more tribute to the Pakistanis lest something horrid happen.

Lest, for example, the Pakistanis gain nuclear power status. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis stir up more trouble with India, or in Afghanistan. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis surrender to the importuning and threats of the Islamists. Lest, for example, the Pakistanis fail to fight with valor and dedication against the terrorists of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the Haqqani network. Lest, for example, Islamabad cozies up with the Trolls of Beijing.

Billions of dollars have flowed from future generations of Americans to the leaders and military commanders of today's Pakistan. The result of all these bribes, of answering all the extortionate demands of the government and military of Pakistan?

The Pakistanis have the bomb. The Pakistanis have worked overtime to exacerbate tensions with India. The army and government of Pakistan have waged a quarter-hearted war against carefully selected portions of the Islamist/jihadi congeries in the FATA. Islamabad has cozied up with Beijing to the extent of entering into a deal to purchase two Chinese nuclear reactors despite the objections of the US.

Wow! With this record it seems only sensible that we ship another giant bunch of money to Pakistan. Perhaps the concept "more is more" will work. This time.

Secretary of State Clinton, who is well-known to harbor significant doubts regarding the reliability of Pakistan in the "common" war against Islamic terrorist groups (OOPS! Bad Geek! The Geek meant to write, "radical extremest groups") is in Pakistan with a wad of cash in her hand.

The cash, one and half gigabucks worth, is the first installment of the seven and a half billion promised by Congress for civilian development projects over the next five years. This masterpiece of fabricating the appearance but not the reality of coinciding national interest, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman act, was passed last year. The intent is to purchase Pakistani cooperation in the war against al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the Haqqani Network as well as to buy a large measure of economic, social, and political stability in the country.

Ms Clinton, in announcing the payment of the civilian portion of the annual Pakistani Extortion Scheme, made loud reference as to the emphasis on civilian development as being a dramatic departure from the bad old days of George W. Bush. She is, of course, being quite economical with the truth.

George W. Bush's administration did hand over ten or so billion dollars in military aid to the military junta which ran Pakistan. This is what the Pakistanis demanded lest something horrid but unspecified occur. Similarly Ms Clinton's husband, Bill, did the same when he was in the Oval. So did George H.W. Bush. And, Ronald Reagan.

It is simple to understand why all these presidents paid off in military coin. When one is paying bribery or extortion, one pays in the coin demanded by the recipient. The Pakistanis have always preferred the warlike to the peaceful as they live in a paranoid fear and desire for one more war with India.

Adding civilian assistance, the building of dams, irrigation projects, infrastructure, electric generation plants, and the like is a form of bonus. The real deal continues to be the military assistance. When the US insisted on providing equipment more suitable to counterinsurgency than to a force-on-force war with India, it was necessary to sweeten the deal--again lest something horrid but unspecified occur.

The sweetener, the bonus is the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Soak Our Great-Grandchildren-To-Rent-The-Paks bill. As with all previous bribes or extortion payments, the money will be spent, some projects will be finished in a blare of Thanks Be To Our Government And Allah The Most Merciful And Compassionate propaganda. And, Islamabad will do what it wants to regardless of US interests or representations.

Islamabad has a ready portfolio of reasons why it cannot do what the US desires. It is oh-so-easy to point at the low repute in which the US is held by the great Pakistani public. It is oh-so-easy to say the US is responsible for the animus held against it due to our Predator attacks, or the presence of US troops in Afghanistan, or US support for Israel, or, even the tolerance showed to homosexuals in the US.

"See! You Americans do it to yourselves! And, that is why, we, the democratically elected government of Pakistan cannot and will not compromise our sovereignty by fighting terrorists or seeking genuine peace with India or even not buying Chinese plutonium producing power reactors."

Unless, of course, the US sends more money. Do that and amazing things can happen. For enough of a bribe, we will even grant visas to the more than four hundred diplomatic personnel who have been waiting for weeks, months. Money can move mountains. (Provided doing so does not run across Pakistani national interests as the Paks define them.)

Mr Obama, Ms Clinton, and Congress have set the stage for We the People to once more learn a basic lesson. Bribery is limited in its effects. Extortion has no limits to its demands.

They just don't teach that sort of thing at Harvard Law School, do they?

Time Is On The Side Of War

In the years before World War I large sections of the British politically articulate classes became increasingly convinced that British power, particularly naval power, had peaked and would soon decline in relation to Germany. The idea of war became increasingly thinkable as there was a pervasive belief that time was on the side of the Kaiser and not Britannia.

Today the same situation exists but now it holds forth on both sides of the great divide and not just one. There is good reason for Iranians and Israelis both to have the idea that time is working to the disadvantage of each.

It is arguably true that Iranian power is peaking in comparison to Israel's. When Iran gains even a rudimentary nuclear capacity, the Jewish state is under real and immediate threat.

It is arguably true that Iran is facing potentially fatal internal opposition now that the merchants of the bazaars in Tehran and other large cities have been expressing not only anti-tax but anti-government sentiments. The Iranian government's stability is in no way assisted by the effects of the new sanctions imposed by the European Union and the US. There will be more shortages, more unemployment, more unrest, more repression.

In a very real sense then the rulers of Iran may be expected to conclude that now represents their last, best chance to go to (indirect) war for purposes of regime maintenance and diplomatic diversion. The availability of competent proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas provide the needed avenue for indirect war.

On the Israeli side of the hill it is to be expected that the country's strategists have seen all the alternatives available to the mullahs in the proxy war category--and will not be diverted from their main enemy, Iran. The awareness that being distracted, tied down both militarily and diplomatically in a proxy war in Lebanon would provide advantage only to Iran must pervade the corridors of Israeli political and military command.

In a quirky way the situation resembles not only that before August 1914 but the contest over who would invade Norway first in 1940, Germany or England. For Iran, it is critical to let the Hezbollah dogs of war loose before Israel makes the go decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. For Israel the necessity is hitting Iran before the proxy war, the Hezbollah threat, puts the diplomatic kibosh on any hope of a direct attack on Iran.

Both Iran and Israel have good reasons to resort to war. At the moment the conventional advantage rests with Israel. However, Iran has demonstrated great skill at offsetting conventional advantage with creative use of proxies and terror.

And, at the moment, Iran has the initiative. Iran can decide when and to what initial extent Hezbollah is to be cranked up. After that, of course, Iran will not be able to control either the extent or the intensity of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, which includes the potential that Israel will be able to ignore diplomatic strictures and go for the master behind the puppet.

Israel's freedom of action as well as its ability to ignore any diplomatic repercussions resulting from retaliating to Hezbollah provocations is enhanced by the general perception within the Arab states that the world is much better off if Iran does not get the Big Bomb than would be the case if it did. While only the UN representative of the UAE has made this explicit, there can be no doubt but he was speaking publicly what all others have been saying in private.

Other than Syria there are no Iran fans to be found in the Arab states. The depth of Syrian commitment to the Iranian cause would be tested severely if Israeli retaliation to Hezbollah spilled over into Syria. It would be tested even more severely should Israel seek to buy its peace on the Syrian front by giving the Golan Heights back. That option would have more appeal when taken in conjunction with an ongoing confrontation with Hezbollah and the need for a hard strike on the main enemy, Iran.

Iran has allies on the wider stage but only one, China, is a Great Power. Others, including Russia and Germany, may have interests, primarily economic, in play in Iran but are not or are no longer willing to go to the mat to protect Iran's right to join the Nuclear Club. Words may fly like automatic weapons fire at the UN and other fora but without real conviction and without backing on the action front.

The American administration may, in contemporary jargon, "be deeply conflicted" over any Israeli retaliation to Hezbollah provocation as well as a go-it-alone Israel strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities but will be unable to do anything about it. The political realities of America assure that the Obama administration would be unable to do more than rhetorically hand-wring and counsel "restraint" without expecting the Israeli government to heed the exhortations.

No one will be happy should push come to shove in Lebanon and Iran. Any attack on Iran will derail the fragile global economic recovery as oil prices spike. The noise of terrorist bombs and the body parts of suicide bombers will shatter the quiet and litter the landscape as political Islamists seek their opportunity in the window of chaos opened by any Israeli attack on Iran--or occurring as a sideline to the Hezbollah proxy war.

When the war comes, when Iran unleashes Hezbollah or when Israel preempts by hitting Iran's nuclear constellation, it will be in large measure the result of failed US diplomacy. Two successive American administrations--W. Bush and Obama--have faltered before the challenge of Iranian ambitions. Tough--overly tough--words were backed by weak and vacillating actions to the ultimate advantage of the Iranian regime. Lines were drawn on ever-shifting sand, again to the ultimate advantage of the Iranians.

It must be recalled that whatever benefits Iran acts to the disadvantage not only of Israel and the Mideast but the totality of the world. That is the most discouraging implication of the dismal record of two administrations. The US failed completely in its paramount goal of acting to preserve the global balance of power which acts not so much to the advantage of the US as to the peace of the world.

With every passing day Israel is in more of a get-or-get-got position. Every day the choice for Israel narrows: Fight the war of our choice or fight one of Iran's choice and timing.

Any reasonably able strategist knows the answer to that problem.