A Force Powerful And Terrible

The most powerful force abroad in the world today is not that of atoms splitting. Nor is the result of atoms joining. It has nothing to do with matters nuclear. Rather it comes solely from human nature, the fears of humans, their deep-in-the-back-of-the-brain need for membership in the herd.

The name of the force is nationalism. Its power is great; well neigh unbeatable. Its effects can be magnificent. Or terrible.

Years ago the outstanding American diplomat and historian, George Kennan, warned that the hypergolic spread of nationalism during the great wave of decolonization was producing any number of pseudo-states ill equipped in all respects for effective use of their new, unlimited sovereignty. How right he was. And is.

The collapse of empires is always messy. Whether far back in the deepest mist of antiquity, as with the empire of Rome, or closer in time, yet still distant enough to provide a full view of the consequences as with the ending of the Ottoman Empire or that of the Dual Monarchy, the results were both tumultuous and long lived. Indeed, the world is still dealing with the echo effects of the fall of the Ottomans ninety years ago.

It is small wonder that the implosion of the British, French, Portuguese, and, most recently, the Soviet Russian empires have spread so much bloody chaos in their wake. Beyond the immediate chaos, the prompt bloodshed, the result has been the creation of states without a nation at their core or nations transformed into states not by organic forces but by the legerdemain performed by desperate politicians seeking to quickly end unpleasant sorts of status quo.

To put it bluntly and in terms with which Mr Kennan would not disagree: Most of the nearly two hundred states currently represented in the UN are not equipped to exercise sovereignty responsibly. They are not equipped by experience, by social cohesion, by political stability, by economic security, by inherent tradition to act in ways which promote a stable global political order, or to join in collective efforts to creatively address regional or global problems. The nature of the problems--economic, environmental, human rights, security, stability--does not matter, there are simply too many pseudo-states cluttering the global landscape to do other than impede the securing of mutually beneficial solutions to problems great and small.

Further complicating the establishment and maintenance of a global political system competent to address effectively the great and growing problems confronting all of us with a belly button is the phenomenon of regression which has afflicted many once flourishing and effective states. The rise to power--by election or by violence--of governments driven by ideological True Belief has forced once competent international actors to regress to pseudo-states.

While never described as "failed" or "failing" states, countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have become international juvenile delinquents. If these were individuals rather than "states," their conduct would brand them as people in need of care, custody, and supervision.

Other countries, Pakistan comes to mind, have behaved and continue to behave in ways which are not conducive to regional stability. On occasion at least, Pakistan has been characterized as a "failed" or "failing" state. This designation is not fair. Nor is it accurate.

Like many other nations transformed overnight into "states," Pakistan was and is long, very long in basic national identifiers, most importantly the Islamic religion. It has been and is short, very short on the structures and attitudes which provide for effective international conduct as a sovereign state.

The nationalism which forced the splitting of the British Raj into the sovereign states of Pakistan and India had immediate and profound effects which impaired the capacity of both to function as effective and responsible actors in international affairs. The bloody border between the two which was not made any less bloody by the several wars between them had the effect of stunting the growth of both, but particularly Pakistan, as states ready and able to play constructive roles in international politics.

Events of the past several years indicate India has gone a long way to overcoming the extremes of nationalism which colored its earlier existence. Its actions on the international scene show India to be both a cunning and able pursuer of national interest and an effective, responsible international actor.

The same cannot be said of Pakistan. However, Pakistan is not alone in the category of being a nation in search of statedom. There are many, many others. There are, for example, the tribal, semi-feudal, Islam hagridden oil "states" of the Persian Gulf. There are as well any number of African countries which are so tribal as to not be nations let alone states.

The colonization of Africa by assorted European Powers aborted any indigenous process of forming nations and from them states. The natural propensity of people to assume the status quo would never change went a very long way to assuring that the African properties would be denied the chance to form the national identity and institutions which are the sine qua non of statehood. That historical reality can neither be denied nor speedily rectified.

This admission of reality does not give license for the preposterous notion that tribal assemblages kitted out as "states" should have a sovereign equality with the genuine article as is the current case in all international fora including but not limited to the UN. The UN and all similar entities were founded on a pair of unsupportable notions.

The very well meaning representatives of genuine nation-states who came together in San Francisco at the end of WW II confounded the idea "nation" with that of "state." That notion, specious as it was, paled into insignificance with the second wrong idea: Groups of tribes surrounded by discrete lines on a map, constituted self-conscious "nations" bound together by common language, culture, history, and defining mythology.

A similar distortion of reality came with the assumption that feudal societies founded on religious identity and ruled by autocrats more or less hereditary in nature were also competent nation-states capable and willing to act on a basis of equality with the complexly organized states of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The specious nature of this tender-hearted assumption has been demonstrated amply by the conduct of the Arab sheikdoms over the past sixty plus years with regard to Israel and the Palestinians.

The only justification--and it is a powerful one--is the recognition back in the glory days of the UN's founding of the potency and prevalence of nationalism. Nationalism was and remains a force, the force which is not to be denied.

The truth of that contention as well as the inevitable centripetal effects of nationalism rises to high visibility in much of the world today. Russia is seeking--so far without demonstrable success--to reconquer ethnic and religious groups on its margins. Religiously reinforced tribal antipathies threaten more than one African country. The same dynamic works is bloody way in China and a few other Asian mainland states. And, the emergence to power of Los Indios or the quest for such has ripped across the South American landscape.

Offshoots or products of nationalism have popped up across both Europe and the US. The use of derogatory terms--xenophobia, nativism, Islamophobia--conceal but do not alter the reality that nationalism is not a force confined to distant, lesser developed or politically challenged countries.

Humans evolved as herd animals. That is a cliche of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. There was--and is--safety in the midst of the herd. It is the outriders and outliers who run the risk of losing in the race for survival.

And, what is the "herd?"

Simple, bucko, the preferred herd is a group of people who are closest to us and most like us. It is not simply the group closest to us in geography. It is also those who are most alike in color and shape, most alike in beliefs and values, most alike in the back of the brain: the shared mythology which is the potent but typically uncredited source of collective identity.

Mere geographic propinquity is reinforced by the epoxy of language, the glue of religion, the cement of a shared sense of having been victimized, exploited, marginalized, denied a full sense and reality of losing control of one's personhood to the will of an external "Other." The necessary result is the demand to gain full, unfettered control of a given territory and the people who live there. Usually this demand is accompanied by a shrill cry that all who are not-like-us leave our territory instantly if not sooner.

So comes "ethnic cleansing" in all its manifold expressions.

It is, of course, far easier to diagnose and describe nationalism and its consequences than it is to creatively and effectively deal with them--particularly the consequences. However, unless the reality of nationalism and the universality of the phenomenon are acknowledged, there is no possibility of coming to grips with the ills that come in its wake.

Many within the American hoi oligoi sincerely believe that we live in a post-national world, that the world is or should be seen not as a hodgepodge of entities but a single globe holding a single race. They hold an authentic and strong belief in multi-culturalism, cultural relativism, and the legitimacy as well as the necessity of international institutions.

The unpleasant ground truth is that these folk live alone in the post-national environment. The rest of the people, the assorted non-elites of the world live elsewhere. They live in a world where nationalism is the ultimate force.

And, that, bucko, is the other truth on which we must all get a grip. Only then can we have any hope of getting out of the mess created by our well-intended, well-meaning but out-to-lunch progenitors in San Francisco and so many other places.

The (Fast) Flying Finger Of Death

The most interesting development in the area of more-or-less conventional weapons to come down the pike is embodied in the several alternative platforms collectively called, alternatively "Prompt Global Strike" (PGS) or "Global Prompt Strike" (GPS.) Not only is the GPS concept--and the hardware which can turn it from theory to practice--interesting, it is the only way in which the new Obama approved Nuclear Posture Review can be rendered truly viable.

Nuclear weapons have been prepared and justified in two roles.

One is that of the area targeted "counter-value" mission of city-busting. Whether the area down range was an enemy city containing (perhaps only peripherally)legitimate military facilities as was the case in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki or hordes of advancing troops and armor (the classic vision of the "crimson tide" cresting the "Trace" in Germany), the weapons of choice were thwacking great yield atomic or (later) hydrogen bombs. One (to use the old Soviet term) nuclear charge of beaucoup kilotons or a few megatons and, well, no more city or onrushing horde. Of course, there would be quite a bit of "collateral" damage--particularly downwind. It was the "collateral" damage projected to result from a major exchange which caused the nightmares of "nuclear winter" or even the "On-The-Beach" end-of-the-world outcome.

The other seemingly legitimate usage for nukes was engaging small, hardened point targets such as the opponent's residual nuclear forces or his command and control centers. The question of second, third, and so on strikes focused on two questions. The first was that of survivability, of riding out a first strike with a credible capacity for retaliation. The second revolved around constructing systems with sufficient accuracy and potency to destroy the point targets. The name of this game was "counter-force."

The problems of assuring the destruction of hardened point targets tested guidance systems to the max. These were complicated by the difficulty of delivering sufficient force on the target to overcome the passive defenses of hyper-hardening. Nukes, particularly those carried on maneuverable re-entry vehicles or endoatmospheric systems such as cruise missiles or precision guided gravity bombs, alone had sufficient bang to obliterate the target.

The limits of reliance upon nuclear munitions became more than a tad obvious to American planners and decision makers in the runup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990. The Saddam Hussein regime had constructed an impressive array of super-hardened command bunkers which were immune to any non-nuclear American weapon.

The same situation obtained years later when the Bush/Cheney administration contemplated their adventure in regime change in Iraq. Even the (usually but not always) highly accurate cruise missiles were of no value in taking on highly hardened point targets. Beyond that the slow flight of the cruise missiles provided them with no utility in hitting a moving target such as Saddam was with his constant movement between alternative command centers.

The difficulty of the cruise missile's leisurely pace had already complicated American efforts to take out Osama bin Laden. When the Clinton administration in 1998 received hard, actionable intelligence regarding bin Laden's location, the combination of decision cycle time and slow flight gave more than sufficient opportunity for a person in the Pakistani government or Inter-Services Intelligence to get on the phone and call his good buddy, Osama. The latter beat feet so the missiles finally hit only empty mud and stone huts.

The lack of a fast reaction, short transit time, highly accurate and bang-heavy munition has seriously complicated, arguably even frustrated, any reasonable American plan to neutralize North Korean or Iranian nuclear facilities without the highly negative consequences which would ensue inevitably upon the use of a nuclear munition. The same applies to some extent with regard to removing high value personnel such as Osama from the playing field.

The advent of hardware having the potential to provide ultra-fast, accurate delivery of a whole bunch of bang downrange is a game changer, the importance of which cannot be overstated, and must not be underestimated. Not surprisingly, the possibility of fielding this class of weapons systems comes with problems both technological and diplomatic in nature.

The fastest, cheapest way of putting the GPS on line is the reposturing of current generation land and sea based ICBMs to GPS delivery. Work on reconfiguring current missiles has been underway long enough and with good enough results that a one-for-one replacement feature has been incorporated in the new START.

This little commented upon aspect of START indicates the Russians are not absolutely against this American option. (Hmm, perhaps they hope their espionage boys are up to the task of swiping the technology?) The depressed trajectory of a GPS equipped ICBM should be, in and of itself, sufficient indication that the US was not trying to sneak in a Dr Strangelove attack. If not, there are simple ways to reassure the Kremlin that we really, really are taking out a point in Iran, or North Korea and not, say, Gorky.

The Chinese are another problem. Beijing is not so easily put off its anxieties that the US might want to, say, welch on its debts by obliterating the debt holders. Still, it is not a problem which should exceed the capacity of the State Department to handle. (Well, in principle at least.)

Other, more exotic, more expensive, and longer lead-time systems are in the pipeline or on the drawing board. One of these might be inferred to exist in the recently test launched X-37B. While not the Finger of Death per se, the vehicle could deploy hypersonic, precision guided munitions anywhere along its orbit trace. The X-37B has been under development first by NASA and then by the Air Force for more than a decade and should be viewed as a platform with a range of potential applications as well as the one furthest along in its maturation.

The hypersonic cruise missile is also well along in its development. The Falcon 2 was launched from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Minotaur IV last week. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been close-mouthed about the Falcon, but has disclosed enough about this unpowered hypersonic vehicle to show that its potentials as a GPS mainstay are significant.

Even further down the way is the X-51 "WaveRider." The X-51 is conceptualized as a hypersonic endoatmospheric cruise missile powered by a scramjet engine. It gets its nickname from the designed intent that the vehicle ride its own sonic shockwave, an approach which provides a number of advantages--if it can be made to work. Air launched, the mach-five plus system is intended to provide the capacity to hit anywhere on the Earth within sixty minutes of a "go" decision.

Diplomatic conundrums exist with respect to both the X-37B and X-51 alternatives as with the conversion of current ICBMs to the GPS role. It is easy to argue that the hypersonic endoatmospheric vehicles including a paper proposal advanced by the Army present greater diplomatic difficulties than does the re-configured ICBM approach. Hypersonic missiles whether powered or not present very tough challenges for the defender. And, any hypersonic missile can carry either city busting nukes or point target appropriate conventional munitions.

As has been shown by the diplomatic storms surrounding the decision to deploy a very limited anti-ballistic missile capacity near Russia, it is utterly essential that diplomatic moves proceed in tandem with the research, development, and evaluation of the hardware. There is no doubt but squeals of (feigned) outrage will emanate eventually from both Moscow and Beijing. This is to be expected; it is the default position regarding any proposed technologically driven change in the Great Power status quo which seems to confer some sort of advantage to the US.

This implies that the ultimate test, the real challenge for the US, resides not in the realm of technology but in the area of political will. The question is not will the US develop a workable GPS system or systems in the near- to mid-term, but whether or not the administration can withstand the gales of pretended fury originating from one or more Great Powers which lack a similar, and, presumably, countervailing capacity.

That question in turn hinges on two other factors: Will the new GPS come online before or after 2012 and will the current president be re-elected?

It sure would be nice to have an accurate crystal ball. Or, a forward running time machine.

Memo To Palestinians

Yousef Munayyar is the executive director of the Palestinian Center which, the Geek presumes, is located in Los Angles. At least his op-ed piece today appeared in the LA Times.

Munayyar advances the thesis that the Palestinians resident in and adjacent to Israel constitute a sovereign deterrent to any Iranian attack, particularly one of a nuclear nature. This is an interesting but utterly fallacious notion.

The events of the past sixty plus years have shown that there is no concern for Palestinians held by Arab leaders, let alone those of Iran. The assorted Arab autocrats, kings, and sheiks have exploited, used, manipulated, and assured the deaths of Palestinians time after bloody time. The Palestinians are useful and quite expendable tools in the eyes of Arab and other Muslim political and military leaders.

In and of themselves, the Palestinians are of neither interest nor importance. Beyond their base utility as a cudgel to be used against Israel--and before 1948 the Zionist movement--the Palestinians have no value, be it ideological, political, or religious. The only exception to this general rule is the use of Palestinians as hewers of wood and drawers of water in the various oil based feudal sheik- and kingdoms.

Mr Munayyar and his fellow Palestinians have to get a grip on their history dating back to the immediate post-WW I period. Throughout the ensuing eighty years the Palestinians have been far more cruelly and cynically exploited for ends not of their desire by their fellow Arabs, their coreligionists, than by the Zionists and Israelis.

The record of Palestinian misery directly and solely attributed to the ambitions and goals of assorted Muftis, kings, presidents, dictators is long and so well documented that it needs no dilation at this point. Neither is there any compelling necessity to point out that there has never been an Arab or Muslim equivalent of Israeli historian Benny Morris. No Arab, no Muslim, has done what Morris did so ably years ago--demonstrate and document the ill-usage of the Palestinians.

Morris employed declassified Israeli records to blow open completely the worst kept secret of the Israeli Wars of Independence--the program of Palestinian forced removal. That the Israeli armed forces used atrocious behavior to encourage Palestinians to leave the area is undeniable.

Equally undeniable is the role played by the invading Arab armies whose commanders and political masters worked assiduously to convince Palestinians to leave the area of operations. These appeals were accompanied by assurances of a speedy return in the wake of the victorious Arab armies.

Mr Munayyar is, not unsurprisingly, silent on the complicity of the Arab armies in the "ethnic cleansing" of the land which became Israel. He is equally silent on the manifold sins committed against his fellows by Arab states, Arab statesmen, Muslim Arab clerics, and all the others who sought their goals on the backs and through the blood of Palestinians.

The pall of silence extends to those Palestinian leaders exemplified by Arafat but including scores of others ranging from blood drenched practitioners of terrorism-without-a-reason to imitation diplomats outpointed, out maneuvered at every turn in every conference. Nor does Mr Munayyar mention any of the many times when the Palestinians were offered the better part of a perfect deal only to reject it in the bootless hopes of getting a totality which existed only in fantasy. From the Thirties through the UN offers of sixty-three years ago right on down to the silence which met the Olmert offer two years ago, the Palestinians have rejected ninety percent of the loaf in the delusional expectation of getting one hundred ten percent if only they were intransigent enough, long enough.

In addition to offering the Palestinians-as-human-shields hypothesis, Mr Munayyar spends some time severely excoriating Benny Morris for having come out in recent years as a critic of the Palestinian removal effort not for having been excessive but for not having gone far enough. Morris has repeatedly said in the past decade that the leaving of twenty percent of the initial Palestinian population resident in the land which became Israel was a serious mistake.

From the Israeli perspective the Morris criticism is trenchant. It has much to recommend it. Had all Palestinians ether been ejected or left in response to the Arab importuning, there would be no "Palestinian question" today. Stalin was right when he famously said during the purges, "No person--no problem." This is the centrality of Morris' revised position.

The Geek (who is by genetics, if not culture, three-eighths Apache) has read and heard on a number of occasions that the Whites would have been well advised a century and more ago had they exterminated the indigenous population rather than pen them on the reservations. He has heard and read the same view expressed by descendants of the once free, once proud Native American population both blended like himself and pure of lineage. Anyone who has spent any time on the "res" cannot but help thinking similarly at least every now and then.

Given the conditions under which so many of the displaced Palestinians have been forced to live for generations now, conditions fostered not only by the well-meaning folks of the UN and its lesser bodies but also by the Arab governments, it is not unreasonable to conclude that even the Palestinians of today would be much better off in all respects had the 1948 removal been total and accepted by countries in the region and around the world as a permanent fact. Where they have been allowed to integrate fully into host societies the Palestinians have shown themselves a great addition to the energy, the vitality, the economic prosperity of their new homes.

Full integration, however, has been spotty, haphazard in the extreme. Full, organized integration has been prevented by the reach of Palestinian dreams far outstripping the grasp of reality. Exacerbating this condition has been the exploitation of the Palestinian dream by the self-centered Arab states.

The Palestinian people have been driven to excesses of dream, the farther shores of despair, the violent margins of Islam by a host of manipulators, a legion of exploiters, a monstrous regiment of those who seek their own goals of power through the suffering of others. It is this concatenation of evil doers which has assured the Palestinians have had no moment of peace, no society of harbor, no new world on which to plant feet and family in which to grow a real future.

While Israel is far from guilt free, it is the lesser, even the least of the evils both inadvertent and intentional which have conspired to make the Palestinians inhabitants of a hell on Earth. The same applies when assessing the Palestinians-as-human-shields thesis advanced by Mr Munayyar. It wouldn't bother the mullahs in the slightest if a few million Arab, Sunni Palestinians became ions in a mushroom cloud.

It would be best for individual and collective peace of mind, best for individual and collective futures if Mr Munayyar and his fellow leaders and spokesmen for the Palestinians realized just what Palestinians mean in the Arab (and Iranian) calculus. The entirety of the Palestinian population ranks as less than nothing in the estimate of Arab and Iranian leaders--unless they remain as useful and utterly expendable tools of state policy.

Sometimes One Just Wants Some Prozac

For one who wants very much to have faith in the United States and its role in the world, these are depressing days. Worse there is every indication that the situation will not abate; it will get worse, perhaps much more so.

The utter cluelessness of the Obama presidency in all aspects of foreign policy is sufficient reason to be black of mood. When the True Believing predicates of the president and so many of his supporters are factored in, the mood can only fall into the deepest shade of ebony. Of course, there would be no basis for the overwhelming attack of the dismals were it not for the simple fact that the administration's unremitting record of foreign relations missteps is destined to have a most negative effect upon all of us in We the People. The inevitable extension of this downward thrust to the rest of the civilized world only gives further justification for desiring industrial strength Prozac.

The administration has terminally fumbled the effort, if indeed there ever was one, to bar Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability. There can be no denying either that fact nor the necessary corollary: The US is no longer "the strong horse" in either the Mideast or the Persian Gulf; Iran can legitimately claim that appellation.

The short and long term consequences of this transition cannot be predicted in detail. But, coupled with the Obama mishandling of the Israeli-Palestinian matter, there can be no denying that the results will be bad not only for the US and Israel but for the other members of the League of Civilized States.

Those who take comfort in the efficacy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) during the Cold War and assume the same policy will prove effective when directed against the mullahocracy in Iran are placing their hopes on a very frail reed. Not only is the leadership of that country, both clerical and "secular," overwhelmingly eschatological in it orientation, events of recent years show that deterrence has not worked to inhibit terrorist attacks or the sponsorship and facilitation of such operations.

MAD worked because the guys at the top whether they lived in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington shared a horror of presiding over national suicide. This coinciding national interest assured that competition globally would be disconnected from any possibility of escalation across the nuclear threshold. Sure, that made for proxy war, wars of national liberation, any number of nasty little not-so-direct conflicts which might be covered by the hoary term, "wars of the frontiers."

Iran has and continues to sponsor, support, and facilitate Islamist jihadist entities such as Hamas, Hezbollah, assorted groups in Iraq, and insurgents in Yemen. It has done so because it lacked a nuclear capacity, the sine qua non of direct conflict with countries similarly armed.

Use of proxies allows annoying and diverting the militarily superior opponent. It allows the development and enhancement of political influence. Best of all it does both at very low risk to the facilitating power. The Iranian proxy policy has been a low cost, low risk, high payoff approach to weakening the US influence in the region while inflicting military, political, diplomatic, and social damage on Israel and putting assorted Arab states on a threat based notice of Iranian emergence.

The proxy approach has not been inhibited by the presumably overwhelming conventional military superiority of Israel--to say nothing of the US. Of course, it deserves notice that the Israeli defeat in the Lebanon war a couple of years ago went a long way to destroying the image of Israel-the-invincible. The same can be said of the years of fumbling the US military was forced to endure in both Iraq and, more so, Afghanistan.

In short, as these factors indicate, conventional force based deterrence did nothing to dissuade Iran from developing its proxies. Nor did the proxies show any shyness in the face of the same deterrence.

With the acquisition of a nuclear capability, even an ambiguous, virtual one, Iran could cast off the proxy approach. It won't. There is no need. Quite the contrary, the proxies will be empowered by global hesitation over the (presumed) Iranian nuclear weapon(s). If Iran goes a step more, if it allows, even encourages, the world to believe Tehran has the big bomb, the net effect will be that of allowing a more open, more direct set of Iranian actions with the targets being Israel and the US presence in the region.

The Iranians know that nuclear powers, even Islamic ones, are afforded a uniquely gentle treatment by the US and other Great Powers. The Pakistani paradigm will apply to Iran--and the Iranians know it.

As Iran harbors ambitions of being both the regional hegemon and a global actor of real puissance, there is a positive impetus to gain at least the same sort of nuclear status enjoyed by Israel with perhaps a soupcon more ambiguity. At the very minimum achieving nuclear breakout status will confer much authority upon Tehran as leader of the Global South, champion not only of Muslim states but nuclear "have-nots" elsewhere in the world.

Further lessening the US role and influence in the world over the next few months and years is the Obama administration's totally misguided pseudo-strategy of mixing warm and hostile words, drawing lines in the sand only to re-draw them a few weeks later and seeking the impossible grail of global consensus on the view of from the Oval concerning Iran. By making Iran so damn important the president has assured only that the defeat we are facing in that quarter will be all the more damaging.

This defeat coupled with the recurrent, cavalier treatment afforded traditional American allies by the president will serve to erode American credibility, and, thus, influence in all the capitals of all the countries great and small around the world. No country's leadership will be able to trust a single American commitment, no matter how long-standing, after the Obama reversals, the Obama conflicts of rhetoric and reality, the Obama attempts to make the the US over as a global sort of Back of the Yards Organization and himself a Saul Alinsky for the world.

Rules For Radicals was not written as a foreign policy guide no matter how much Mr Obama may pretend to the contrary. A foreign policy quite obviously predicated upon the recipe provided for community conflict organizing provided in that famed book will not work. And, it hasn't.

There are many other Obama and the Progressives driven factors which produce the almost inevitably impending decline of the US from Great Power status. But, the Geek is a sensitive sort of guy and his delicate psyche can only take so much on any given day. The Prozac bottle just ain't large enough.

What A Shock! The US Doesn't Have A Policy

The biggest yawner of the news cycle is the "revelation" by the NYT of a "secret" memo by SecDef Robert Gates in which the blunt former spook informed the White House that we have no policy, no strategy for dealing with a nuclear capable Iran. Gee whilikers, who would have thought?

The memo was written shortly after the Iranians successfully ignored yet one more of the lines in the sand so often drawn by President Obama. Of course, it is legitimate to ask whatever possessed the administration to believe the mullahs and their verbose front men would actually agree to surrender their uranium stockpile and otherwise live according to the worldviews of the US, the West, the IAEA, and other assemblages of foreign infidels?

As unsurprising as the contents of the Gates Memo was the response from the White House. National Security Advisor, (former) Marine General James Jones, took the predictable route of assuring the masses that the administration has really, really been on top of the policy planning thing each and every one of the past fifteen months.

The general went on to make his key point. The US strategy was not a public document. We had to trust the older?, wiser? heads in and near the Oval. Effective action, the general wanted us to believe would be taken when, how, and if appropriate.

Duh.

The problem comes in determining the actual state of Iran's nuclear capability. The most probable goal of the mullahs is to assemble all the components of a nuclear weapon but not put the final package together in a deliverable form. This would not only allow the transgressor state to keep within technical compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty but immeasurably complicate the task of assessing capability. And the degree of threat.

(It deserves recalling that the US would have been in compliance with today's NPT when the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded on board the B-29s. Final assembly occurred only after the bombers were airborne. Only then did the US possess weapons as defined by the NPT.)

Implicit in the Gates Memo is the most basic question: Is the US prepared to accept a nuclear capable Iran, particularly one which has an off-the-shelf arsenal?

The president and his secretary of state have worn out their vocal cords saying, "No way." Yet the nature of the failed policies on the ground have given credibility to the opposite. We are willing to see Iran join the Nuclear Club (virtual division.)

The Gates Memo also demands a clear cut demonstration of political will in the (rather unlikely) event the administration is seriously committed to a No-Nuclear-Iran policy. Diplomacy requires credible political will as its foundation if it is to have any effect.

The Iranians have no reason to believe that the US will take any real risks to compel Tehran's compliance with our requirements. The soft sanctions which have been enforced with even greater tenderness have not shown that the US and its "allies" are truly serious about forcing the Iranians to abandon the nuclear weapons quest. The unfortunate combination of soft actions and "hard" words, words which have been lessened in their effect by the hearty admixture of kind, gentle, open handed presidential remarks, has combined to assure the mullahs that no icky-poo consequences will ensue over their attaining nuclear status.

It would not be surprising if the Iranian regime has concluded that its robust pursuit of the nuclear goal has been responsible in large measure for the Obama administration's radical shift in policy toward Israel. Considering that the regime's hold on the political and diplomatic context operating on the Israel-Arab matter is tenuous at best and its sense of self-importance borders on the grandiose, it is not out to lunch to infer that the Bearded Lads of Tehran see that their having hung tough in the face of American "pressure" has had the result of forcing the administration to back down in its support of Israel. That is a very important factor in Iranian policy thinking.

Achieving a breakout capacity covered with the same fog of ambiguity which has typified the Israeli nuclear program for fifty years would give Tehran an unaccustomed degree of regional and global influence. The self-evident lack of a well defined, well presented policy on the part of the US, particularly one which includes a credible degree of direct military threat, has not only furthered Iranian influence, it has lessened that possessed by the US. In the region and throughout the world, the loud talk and ineffective action of the Obama administration has done much to erode the American capacity to be taken seriously.

In a similar vein the bumbling actions of the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan for so many years went a long, a very long way to eroding the fear with which many countries once viewed our military capacity. The sheer ineptitude of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years of "shock and awe" in these two wars did nothing to enhance the credibility of the American military as a Big Stick. It must be remembered that all diplomacy other than that between countries with the greatest number of coinciding national interests rests in large part on the "military option." Certainly all diplomacy of the coercive sort, the kind we are engaged in with respect to Iran, rests on the perceived will and ability to employ force in support of policy.

The Iranians have concluded, perhaps quite accurately, that the US lacks the will and ability to use its military against the Revolutionary Republic. Thus it is safe for Ahmadinejad to boast of Iran's military being too "mighty" for any foreign state to consider attacking the country. It is a boast that he believes will never be put to the test.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has recently sent a memo around which reminded all hands of the need for a range of options to be both prepared and refined so that the administration will have the military means available immediately should it conclude that diplomacy has failed and the Iranian nuclear nuisance must be abated. This is a necessary step. But it is not both necessary and sufficient.

As the ancient recipe for rabbit stew starts, "First, catch your rabbit," the first step is to have a definite policy. The Obama administration which means Obama himself, must decide whether or not to declare defeat and proceed to some sort of containment policy directed against a nuclear capable Iran or, with the failure of unsupported diplomacy, to use the long taboo "military option." Given the record of delay, of hesitation, of combining hard words with soft mood music, and the unwillingness of key players such as Russia and China to see the potential threats in a way similar to that of the US, France, and the UK, the choice must come soon and must be made both public and compelling.

War is undesirable, to put it mildly. The consequences of a military strike would be of "world historical" importance. The same may be said of the Iran-Bested-Us alternative. A nuclear capable Iran would be certain to be a severe game changer both in the region and around the world.

Tough choices, it may be inferred from the Gates Memo, do not become any easier with the passage of time. They become both harder and starker. To be blunt, the Obama administration has fiddled while the Iranian centrifuges have spun. The fiddling must stop before the centrifuges have scored a clear cut victory over the Civilized States of the world.

This may mean that Mr Obama will have to act as if he had morphed into George W. Bush. The US may have to act as a Great Power pursuing its national interest whether Brazil or even China likes the idea. Mr Obama may have to run against type, against his own sense of self. But, that sort of thing comes with being in the Oval.

Is Assad Stupid Or Simply Hacked Off?

The widely circulated, Israeli originated report that Syria has shipped Scud missiles to Hezbollah has been confirmed by the terrorist entity which moonlights as a partner in the Lebanese government. In a rather illogical addition to its confirmation Hezbollah averred it couldn't understand what the fuss was all about.

The Hezbollah spokesman, presumably with a straight face maintained the weapons were both old and unusable. Perhaps the speaker's words were lost in translation from Arabic to Arabic and thus appeared garbled in the Kuwaiti paper, Al-Rai. Or, with equal probability, Syria has designated South Lebanon as the approved dump for ancient, decrepit, and broken warlike stores.

Showing their usual propensity for either ambiguity or an inherent inability to keep the stories straight, the Syrian Foreign Ministry continued to deny the reports of a Scud transfer. Instead, the ForMin trotted out the usual counter-allegation: The Israelis are making it all up in order to roil the otherwise peaceful waters of the Mideast and justify their upcoming invasion of peace loving Hezbollahstan.

Showing the fundamentally peaceful inclination of Hezbollah, the Al-Rai piece went on to quote the Man From Hezbollah as saying, "Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread all across Lebanon..." Ah, yes, the old just-in-case gambit.

While there may be individuals in the IDF and government of Israel who may be itching for a rematch to avenge the bloody nose given the Israelis by an unexpectedly competent and well handled Hezbollah force, it is not likely that Israel is in a search for more ways to complicate their already tenuous position. War may be forced upon the country as it was with Operation Cast Lead, but the Israelis aren't looking to provoke one.

It is quite true that Syria has not been showing a great desire to cooperate with either Israel or the US in a quest for a settlement of either regional or bilateral nature. The rejection by Syria of a bid by Israel to establish a trilateral mechanism in the Golan Heights in order to address points of friction is a very recent sign of Syria's harder version of its long standing hard line policy.

Given the rejectionist posture of Syria at the Arab League meeting last month, the rejection is no surprise. Neither is the shipment of Scuds to Hezbollah.

Both the US and Israel have made the customary statements of viewing-with-alarm and warning of the Grave Consequences. In the rhetorical exchanges both sides have played according to long established protocols. The script written so many years back has been followed with verisimilitude. So far, so good as even Hezbollah has sounded almost statesmanlike given its past oratory.

More important than the "who" and "what" in play here is the basic question of "why?"

There are three possibilities.

The first is Bashir al-Assad didn't know what the boys in the backroom were up to. That is possible but unlikely in the extreme. Assad, fils has a firm grasp on all the levers of power and rogue actions would be firmly squashed--as with a bomb under the underling's car when he leaves a party.

The second is Bashir has gone a little funny in the brain housing group. While not impossible a sudden loss of reason on the part of the tightly wrapped man is on the same order of probability as the arrival of a "death star" from the Oort Cloud.

The third alternative is Bashir is torqued off. He is royally hacked over being ignored in the Mideast "Peace Process." As a consequence, the Syrian leader ordered a typically Syrian exercise in subtlety. Sending a few Scuds to Hezbollahstan can be seen as a shouted, "Pay attention to me! I am a major player. The major player. I can make trouble. Or, I can make trouble go away."

Much, if not most of Syria's foreign policy including its "strategic relationship" with Iran can be seen as motivated by the strong desire of Assad, which is universally shared by his government and military, to regain the Golan Heights and, as a matter of slightly lesser importance, exercise operational dominance in Lebanon. These are the pillars of Syrian policy as they have been since the betrayal of Syria by Egypt during the Yom Kippur War twenty-seven years ago.

The most important lesson drawn by Assad, pere and passed on to Assad, fils was the unreliability of allies, even one as supposedly ideologically compatible as Egypt seemed to be in the days of Anwar Sadat. Allies may be useful but, when push comes to shove, any ally will look to its own fortune first.

The linkage between secularist Syria and the mullahocracy of Iran has little, if any, ideological or political foundation. It is an alliance of narrowly defined self-interest on the part of both countries. Services, cash, and support may flow between the mullahs and the Baathist, but there is no further basis than those pragmatic considerations. This implies the alliance is even more fragile than that which died on the battlefields of the Yom Kippur War.

The real goal of Syria in contracting its alliance with Iran was and is to get the US to take Syria seriously, to put an emphasis on pressing Israel to relinquish the Golan, on acknowledging the reality that Syria, not Egypt, not Saudi Arabia, and certainly not the "Palestinians" is the key player in the region. That the gambit has failed to achieve its end is not the fault of the Syrians.

Damascus has played its cards quite well, even putting their own soil at risk to benefit the Iranians. The failure has occurred because American policymakers under both the W. Bush and Obama administrations have been all too willing to be diverted by appearances or spurious events and not see through to the crux of affairs.

The W. Bush administration was unwilling to concede the fact that Lebanon is a geographic expression to a far, far greater degree than it is a functioning nation-state, let alone an authentic democracy. In the long, dark, and bloody years after "Black September," the only force which was able to impose a measure of stability on Lebanon was Syria. When Syria was either devalued in this role or prevented from playing it, chaos ensued.

Damascus considers Lebanon to be in its sole bailiwick. If possible Syria will exercise operational dominance directly but with a a relatively lowered visibility (but always heavy hand.) If prevented from direct intervention Damascus is willing and able to operate through a proxy. This is what is being done with Hezbollah. In point of fact, Hezbollah is the government of Lebanon in all but name.

The danger comes when the proxy becomes strong enough to ignore its patron. This tipping point is coming in Lebanon and Assad knows it. The Scud shipment is a means of postponing the day when Hezbollah tries an end run to Tehran directly.

More infuriating to Syria has been the focus on "Palestine" and the "Palestinians" exhibited by every administration from Clinton to Obama. Being both Arab and a one time sponsor of assorted "Palestinian" groups, the Syrian regime knows quite well that no deal can be made with the zanies of the Palestinian Authority let alone the flat out crazies of Hamas. If for no other reason than the combination of the weight of history and fear of the Islamist jihadists, no figure in the PA can make a deal with Israel on any terms which might prove acceptable to the Israelis and, quite literally, keep on breathing.

Syria knows itself to be a rational actor. In comparison to the PA and Hamas, this position is irrefutable. In Damascus there has been nothing but mystification over the resolute American refusal to see that by solving the Golan Heights question much progress toward a comprehensive peace settlement can be achieved. It is (correctly) thought in Damascus that the Israelis will need to be leaned on heavily if they are ever to disgorge the Golan to its rightful owners. Only the Americans could conceivably apply the requisite diplomatic muscle.

Having watched the Obama administration fruitlessly apply pressure to Israel over settlements in Jerusalem, the Assad regime must be asking itself just what it would take to get Washington to get off the "Palestinian" horse and try something real. If the Americans are going to use pressure, propose their own peace agreement, why shouldn't they focus on the doable? And, what will it take to get the Obama people to see that the Golan is the real center of gravity and not East Jerusalem?

The Scuds to Hezbollah can be seen in this light. The offensive missiles are simply an attention getting device. A way of waking the Obama administration to realities Mideast style. As with their earlier gambits like the Iranian connection any failure will be attributable solely to the blindness of the Americans. On the up side the Scud transfer is a low risk approach. It does nothing to perturb the balance of either military or political power in the region. At the same time it does grab the eye.

Are you watching, Mr Obama? Ms Clinton? Somebody? Anybody??

Women And Children First

The phrase, "women and children first" has been famed for a mort of years in the West. It refers, of course to the priority automatically presumed to apply to women and children in life threatening situations. The iconic manifestation of the phrase is the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Before that famous sinking ninety-eight years ago the same understanding--that women and children must live even at the cost of men's lives was embodied in the words, "Birkenhead drill." This term commemorated the sinking of a British troopship. There were sufficient lifeboats for the women and children, but not the men. The troops stood in formation on the deck of the foundering vessel as their wives, children, sisters, and even mothers watched from the boats.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries where Islamists and jihadists loom large in daily lives and fears, the slogan is also, "women and children first." These, particularly women, are first.

First to be repressed.

First to be demeaned.

First to be terrorized.

First to be murdered.

In Kandahar women are again under the guns and throat-slitting knives of Taliban. Kandahar has been the reborn home turf of Taliban over the past several years, since roughly 2003 when the failed American "shock and awe" approach to war allowed and encouraged Taliban's reemergence from the grave. Kandahar has been well known to be the next destination for General McChrystal's counterinsurgency campaign.

As the pressure has grown on Taliban, these paragons of both Islamic and masculine virtue have responded with an escalating terror program directed against women, particularly those women who would be so uppity as to work for foreign companies or--shock and horror!--go to school.

Unless and until the US and other components of the ISAF move into Kandahar and establish a permanent, effective government presence, the women of Kandahar will provide convenient targets for the bile and fear of Taliban trigger pullers, throat-slitters and other exemplars of the unique sociopathy of Islamism. It is of more than passing interest and certainly more than marginal importance that while the Afghan tribal elders, village chiefs, and even Karzai personally work themselves into frothing rage if an American or other foreigner kills an Afghan civilian, they are totally unconcerned, utterly indifferent to the murdering of women by the Thugs of the Koran.

The contrast between the gnashing of teeth, renting of garments, beating of breasts after four Afghan civilians on a bus which ignored stop orders until fired upon by a road clearance patrol near Kandahar and the yawns which have greeted the killing of women in the city is stupefying. The need to limit as close to zero as is humanly possible the number of civilians killed by interventionary forces is central to success. The Geek was making that point repeatedly to any number of military audiences the best part of twenty years ago, but the fact remains that it is incumbent on the Afghans, at least the government of Hamid Karzai, to distinguish properly between the (mis)fortunes of war, particularly those brought about by civilian stupidity or misconduct or provocation, from the policy of deliberately terrorizing civilians by murdering women in the name of Allah.

There is a ground truth here. Afghanistan cannot hope to become even a shambling simulacrum of a nation unless and until its population, or at least its government at all levels, sheds the notion that fifty-one percent of its citizens are religiously stigmatized as less than human, as mere objects, as chattel. Whether the more true believing Muslims--including those who are not members or supporters of the jihadists of Taliban--like it or not, the world is not and will not become a facsimile of the culture and society of the Arabian Peninsula of the Prophet's time.

This implies that even a traditional, tribally based people such as the Afghans must come to grips with the reality that no country can overlook, let alone suppress, the energy, talents, and potentials of its female component. The attempt to keep women illiterate, covered in garbage sacks, and locked in the kitchen or bedroom is to assure national suicide.

It also deserves mention that the Afghan people generally and government in particular do not seem at all bothered by the latest wrinkle in Taliban's suicide bomber campaign. That is the use of children. In the attempt to avoid falling foul with the security forces, the Always Brave, Always Willing To Die Mighty Warriors Of Taliban have been "recruiting" pre-pubescent boys to be "martyrs." The degree of volitional, informed choice made by these grade school martyrs in the making has been less than zero judging from the statements made by the boys who have been captured before they could hit the clicker on the explosive laden belt.

Sending a boy to do a man's job in this kind of activity is every bit as repugnant as the murdering of women. Making the whole thing even more disgusting--if such is possible--is the religious justification invoked by the clerics of Taliban. It is hard to see how even these fanatics can find any support in the Koran or other sacred writings for cozening and coercing boys many years shy of any legitimate age of majority or even rationality to commit suicide.

The Afghan people and their government most of all have to make a decision about just what is tolerable. They must decide if the uniquely perverse form of "women and children first" is supportable, acceptable. Or is worthy only of the most robust opposition, including supporting the efforts of "foreign forces" to end the Taliban murders.

The Afghan people and their government have to decide whether it is worth accepting the relatively small number of incidental civilian deaths which occur regardless of any and all attempts to prevent them in war, or is it better for Afghans individually and collectively to live under the murderous threat of Taliban. The mere fact that Taliban is composed of Muslims while the foreign forces are not does not make their Muslim victims any less numerous. Or any less dead.

The UN determined last year that Taliban was responsible for seventy-five percent of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan with the balance divided between Afghan national forces and the various foreign combat units. Even the most implacably anti-American non-governmental organizations did not dispute this assessment.

Hamid Karzai and the rest of his governing apparatus have to understand and communicate with the population two simple realities: The US and others in the ISAF are warriors, they kill with care, with control, and, when civilians are caught in the crossfire, with regrets which are sincere. Taliban is a collection of murderers and no twisting of a highly malleable theology can change that brute fact.