Does The US Have A Secretary Of State?

Pakistan has finally reopened the road line of communication which has been providing a target rich environment for the rocket firers and trigger pullers of Taliban these past several days.  The reopening has come without any credit due the ever absent Hillary Clinton who holds the job title "Secretary of State" but only occasionally acts as if she believes it.

While matters have been accelerating from bad to worse in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, our low profile SecState has been busy preparing for her first trip to the Balkans.  Sure there are American interests in play there, and the frictions between Kosovo and Serbia are real and intractable, but the situation is neither dire nor even particularly worrisome.  There is no apparent requirement for a hands-on secretarial visit.

The mess currently described by the term, "American-Pakistani relations" is of a different breed.  It is a situation which cries out for a highly energetic and engaged secretary of state of the George Schultz or even Henry Kissinger sort.  Clinton should have been on the spot, in Islamabad, in the faces of President Zardiri and his chief henchmen.  It should have been Ms Clinton and not Leon Panetta, Ms Clinton and not Jim Jones, Ms Clinton and not Richard Holbrooke or any of the other reasonably high ranking US officials who carried the word to Pakistan's leaders.

Even if Ms Clinton had not felt personally up to the task, she should have gone as part of a Gates-Clinton tag team.  The presence of the American Defense Secretary at the shoulder of the SecState would have gone very far to convincing the ever reluctant Pakistanis that not only was the US mightily concerned about the lack of effective effort in the purportedly joint effort against the merchants of armed political Islam but, absent a mending of ways in Islamabad, there would be consequences.  Consequences which would not warm the hearts or charm the minds of the irresolute crew at the top of the Pakistani heap.

Using Jones, Panetta, and the others became even less effective the day after Woodward's new book on Obama's war hit the street.  The many, gratuitous insults attributed to these personalities and directed against both the Pakistani government and its counterpart in Afghanistan has rendered their representations in either Islamabad or Kabul risible at best and counterproductive at worst.  If Woodward's account is complete, Ms Clinton refrained from joining the abuse group.

Instead of doing the serious twisting of arms in either Islamabad or Kabul, Ms Clinton has been dining out on tales of how many foreign leaders she knows and just how much they all like her.  While being likable may be a minor requirement for the top US diplomat, it far less important than simply being there.  Being where the action is and where the muscle is most needed.  Being where the primary US national interest challenges are most immediately engaged and starkly threatened.

In Woodward's book, SecState Clinton is reported to have said during a strategy review meeting a year ago that a problem was "your problem."  She made that observation to the president, and it is telling that she did not say "our problem" even though she is reputedly the latest incarnation of what Al Haig once famously characterized as "the vicar of foreign policy."  In that one word, Ms Clinton appeared to be washing her hands of any responsibility for American policy in the AfPak region.

Go it alone is fine--if you resign first.  Unless and until she resigns, Ms Clinton is presumed to be the major player in formulating and executing American foreign policy.  The presumption is predicated in large measure on the simple fact that the president is situationally naive and fundamentally ignorant of the ways in which the game of nations is played.  In comparison Ms Clinton is both experienced and focused.

While presidents can fritter away time, energy, attention, and political capital as the current Guy in the Oval has done (and as Ms Clinton's husband did), this option is not open to the Secretary of State.  This is why able occupants of the office have dirtied themselves in the toe-to-toe slugfests which are so much a part of contentious diplomacy between states which have broadly coinciding national interests but differ markedly on the details.  This is precisely what is happening today in the relations between the US and Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan, the US and its partners in both NATO and the ISAF.

The American led effort has grown massively unpopular among the folks in each and every one of our associates now operating in Afghanistan.  The bad guys, Taliban et al, have resolved to raise the unpopularity level even more by inflicting casualties on the forces present.  The recent fatal attack on the Italian contingent gives one more indicator of both the Taliban operational concept and its effectiveness.

The American "partners" are wavering.  The degree of seriousness is such that Ms Clinton should have been working not only the phones but face time as well.  Unless the administration can keep these allies from "going wobbly" on us, the pressure for an even more precipitous withdrawal will be well nigh irresistible--particularly by a president whose commitment to the war is dubious at best.

Then there is the little matter of the Israeli-Palestinian Authority direct talks.  In a fit of generosity the Arab League has given the US a whole month to get Israel to agree to another freeze on "settlement" construction and restart the talks.  There can be no doubt that dealing with either or both Israel and the PA can be tedious and frustrating in the extreme.  Still there is no alternative, Ms Clinton has to board the shuttle and get on with it.  At this juncture, the stakes are too high (thanks to the ineptitude of Mr Obama) for the job of levering two reluctant (one only slightly and the other very much so) parties to look across a polished table at each other.

Of course, looming in the background is Iran.  Ms Clinton has shared the spotlight with the treasury secretary to announce more sanctions against the mullahs and their minions.  That isn't quite enough.  The US and its more of less allies have run out of options.  Despite tantalizing hints of readiness to come back to the P5+1 talks later this month or perhaps in November, there is no reason to believe this is other than a tactical ploy, a way of buying more time and sowing more uncertainty among some of the P5 group.

We are close to the point where only two options remain: Learn to live with an Iran having an intentionally ambiguous nuclear capacity with all the game changing features that implies or use the "military option" with all the risks and costs that course would mean.  Secretary Clinton once again must be in the very thick of the fray both in the rarefied circles of DC and around the capitals of the world.  Sure enough, talk of war or even consideration of a nuke owning Iran is both scary and productive of uptightness--but that is what SecStates are paid for.  (And what Hilary Clinton assured We the People in one of her most famed campaign ads that she was up to.)

It is a couple of minutes to midnight in much of the American foreign relations portfolio.  Ms Clinton for her own good and that of the country must choose between being a secretary of state or a vice presidential candidate in waiting.  Or, if she believes that Mr Obama will not let her function effectively, she has no honorable option but that of resigning.  If she is not up to the demands of the job, she must stand aside and let someone else take a whack at it.

She is out of choices.  And We the People and our country are running out of time--rapidly.

Failed And Failing States--And Violent Political Islam

There is a pair of diplomatic T. rex sized critters stomping around the room today.  As this nearly conjoined twin blunder about threatening to trash the international furniture, all the polite people in high places carefully avert their eyes and keep their mouths resolutely shut.

Virtually all hands studiously have ignored the reality presented by violent political Islam.  With the notable exception of former British prime minister Tony Blair there has been a veritable conspiracy of silence concerning not only the nature of the enemy of the civilized states but, more importantly, the success which has been enjoyed by the enemy over the past several years.  Instead of confronting the face of the enemy, rather than name the name of the guilty, the tired, hackneyed, long discredited tropes regarding poverty, political marginalization, the Israeli refusal to make a deal acceptable to the Palestinians, or American foreign policy generally are trotted out as if repetition could remake reality.

Even though the recent rumors of back channel talks between the Karzai government and elements of both Taliban and the Haqqani network give some hint that the military pressures are showing on the political will of the insurgents to continue, this straw in a favorable wind is more than offset by the many alarming (and that is not too strong a word) developments in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, and other parts of the North Caucasus to say nothing of Yemen, Sudan, and Nigeria.  The bad outnumbers the faint good by an overwhelming amount.

Pakistan is lurching ever closer to either collapse or a co-option by the indigenous groups advocating violent political Islam.  Even though those Pakistanis who found from personal experience that living in the Islamic paradise promised by Taliban was far closer to hell on Earth than the heavenly reward have had ample time and opportunity to spread the word, the majority of the people are so fed up with the corruption and inefficiency of the government that the Islamist way seems the better one.  Coupled with a virulent anti-Americanism, which has been in no significant way lessened by the outpouring of US aid following the floods, this widespread public mood bodes poorly for the future stability of Pakistan.

Even a perfectly calibrated American policy which demonstrates the ideal mix of pressure and inducement will not change the underlying reality--most Pakistanis have come to see the US as being in demonic alliance with both India and Israel.  This unholy trinity constitutes the stuff of Pakistani nightmares--and has as little substance.  However, the power of the nightmare is great and real.  Thus the US and others in the small and beleaguered community of civilized states had best prepare for the eventuality of Pakistani state failure or the equally probable embrace by Islamabad of some variant of political Islam.  To do less is to court major disaster given the nuclear arsenal in Pakistan's possession.

This aspect of regional political context also demands a very hard look be taken at our current goals and plans in Afghanistan.  Bluntly, there is no hope of accomplishing more than further perturbation of armed political Islam espousing groups before changes in Pakistan render our presence in Afghanistan nugatory.  The best nightfall case we can now expect in Kabul is a regime which includes both Taliban and the Haqqani network.  This implies that the most we can hope for is a regime which will not provide support, sanctuary, or assistance to advocates of armed political Islam contemplating operations outside Afghanistan or the FATA of Pakistan.

The upcoming strategic review of the AfPak campaign will have little realistic alternative to that of reorienting to a goal of a coalition government in Kabul whose components are willing to forswear cooperating with groups such as al-Qaeda.  Ironically, this means we must "settle" for a goal and definition of victory which should have been in place when the first American boots hit the ground all those years, dollars, and dead bodies ago.  Had only we gone for the punitive expedition model in the first place, sigh.

Preparations for the Pakistani implosion should accompany the reframing of goals in Afghanistan.  It will be nearly impossible to assure that Pakistan does not become even more than it currently is the seedbed of plots against the West by violent political Islamists.  The most the US and others can hope to do successfully is pull Pakistan's nuclear fangs.  That along with finally turning off the great spigot of foreign aid will do much to lower the danger presented by Islamists emerging from the hospitable human and geographic terrain of that country.

Shifting from Northwest Asia, the unpleasant facts of failing states must be confronted.  There has been more than a little wringing of hands over the impending collapse of Yemen and what that would mean taken in conjunction with the mess called Somalia.  Yemen seems doomed to fail.  It is running out of its only cash crop--oil.  It is running out of water for its population burgeoning not only from indigenous increase but from the flow of refugees from Africa.  The government is so corrupt, so unbelievably inefficient, so riddled with cronyism, so laden with denial as to make the lads in Islamabad look like recipients of the Nobel Prize in good governance.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is not responsible for the current sorry state of affairs in Yemen.  It is not behind the two separate defensive insurgencies.  Nor is it an outside agitator stirring up discontent within the population.  Those honors belong to the government.  True, they are enhanced by the history and social construction of the Yemeni people.

However, AQAP can and is benefiting from the internal disorder created in largest measure by the government.  To the extent AQAP benefits, the other countries of the Arabian Peninsula as well as the civilized states generally will suffer.  This implies that the US has a dog in the fight.

The problem comes in that there is little, if anything, that the US and other outside powers can do about the root causes of insurgency or political disaffiliation within Yemen.  We can provide aid, military supplies, and training, intelligence support, but none of these will change the fundamental trajectory of Yemen.  Its failure is virtually certain so the most outsiders can hope for is the delay of the final collapse.

Time is a precious commodity since time is what is needed to build a diplomatic consensus about what the "international community" can do, if anything, regarding the challenge of failed states generally and those which harbor violent political Islam in particular.  Perhaps this will mean the nearly impossible task of reinventing the old "trusteeship" concept of the UN.  Perhaps it will mean an open ended international "peace keeping" presence oriented to suppressing advocates of violent political Islam--even though this will seem one more example of a "war on Islam."

The challenge of failed and failing states looms larger, much larger, when the dynamics of Sudan are considered.  The real deal is Sudan is poised on the brink of multi-party internal war.  The North-South divorce will not occur without bloodshed even if the vote goes off as scheduled and is cleaner than clean, attested to by Jimmy Carter.  The North is not going to let the cash cow of Southern oil get milked without Khartoum holding the pail.  And, the South will not twiddle its thumbs if Southerners living in the North are persecuted, which seems as likely as the Pope being against married priests.

Darfur is doomed to crank up again.  There are no alternatives.  The Khartoum regime isn't about to see the huge desert area drift away while it may have to watch the South go its separate way.  The residuum of hate left from the past conflict assures scores still must be settled in the one acceptable currency--dead bodies.

Africa's most populous state must be placed on the list of failing states.  The frontline of political Islam runs through the country.  The dynamics of the upcoming election are framed by the Muslim versus everyone else contest.  Much of the prevailing sentiment is anyone who is not Muslim is the enemy.  Given the record of what can be termed politely as "sectarian" violence, the election  is not going to settle the great divide which pits Nigerian against Nigerian.  The most active and influential group in the Muslim north is avowedly violent political Islam in its agenda and methods.

The last time Nigeria fell apart was over forty years ago.  The secessionist movement was defeated, but the time was long and the cost high.  While Nigeria recovered from that adventure in falling apart before it collapsed as a state, it was a near run thing.  Since then much has changed so that the probability of holding together this side of failure in the likely event of a Muslim generated internal war is low to nonexistent.

That's enough as the Geek is a sensitive sort of guy who can take only limited amounts of bad news.  The takeaway is self-evident though.  The enemy is violent political Islam.  The best friend of the enemy is the failed and failing state.  And, the time to get a grip on both is short.

Bad Analogies Equal Bad Results

There are a lot of people--including senior decision makers, even heads of state--who think by association.  You know it, the this-reminds-me-of-that approach to assessments and deciding.  It is this mental characteristic which results in the often used and frequently quite misleading reasoning by analogy.

Foreign policy, even matters of war and peace, are quite susceptible to reasoning by analogy.  A complex current situation is understood and explained by use of an overly simplified, normally highly inapposite analogy.

So it was during the Vietnam War when criticism of the war was typically rebuffed by use of the Munich analogy.  "Anything less than total commitment to stopping Ho Chi Minh is appeasement."  During the run up to the Gulf War twenty years ago, President George H.W. Bush constantly used Hitler as an analogy for Saddam Hussein--a comparison which was unfair to both men.

During the weeks preceding the more recent invasion of Iraq, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and many others assured each other and the American public that the invading troops would be greeted by cheering multitudes, bouquets of flowers, and general rejoicing in a manner identical with the reception given the American, British, and Canadian forces during the days following the landings in Normandy.  It was a heartwarming picture, easily reinforced by ancient black and white footage of joyously delirious French crowds waving American and other flags.  The idea like the grainy images were so appealing, so easy to believe, so seductive, so---

Wrong.  Utterly, absolutely, totally wrong.  The analogy used with such abandon by the planners and decision makers right up to the Decider Guy in the Oval equating the warmth purportedly extended to the Allied "liberators" in France with what would be expected in Iraq was tragically, disastrously wrong.  The tragedy and disaster alike came from the fact that planning for the day after was based upon an analogy which was not only indescribably wrong for the Iraqi context but was without basis in the reality of the days following 6 June 1944.

Wait one, Geek!  The old newsreels did show crowds of French and Belgian citizens kissing the GIs, the Tommies, tossing flowers, waving bottles of wine and champaign.  That was the truth.  All contemporary films, news reports, letters, even private diaries attest to that.

You bettcha, bucko.  The crowds, the cheers, the kisses were all genuine.  But, none came from the actual combat zone.  All happened after the breakout from the beachhead and the drive across France was in full sway with the Germans beating feet in all out retreat.

In the combat zones, in the areas surrounding the landing zones, the picture was completely different.  Different and not so encouraging.  Where the fighting occurred, there were no cheers, no kisses, no flowers, no joy.  The diaries, the letters, the censored and therefore never published dispatches, the intelligence reports all agree.  At best, the local folk, the French who cowered in fear as the bombs fell and the shells exploded, as their cities, towns, and villages were ground to dust by the white hot plow of war, were at best sullen, withdrawn, and anything but kindly predisposed to their "liberators."

The only reasons that armed resistance did not break out from the wells of local hostility were the lack of effective organization and, more importantly, the very high density of Allied personnel on the ground--some two million just before the breakout nearly two months after D-day.  Still, the anti-Allied sentiments were clear in attitudes and behavior alike across the ruins of Normandy.  The intelligence and civil affairs documents of the day make that obvious.

The joy of liberation sprang forth only in those areas of France and Belgium where there was no, or, at worst, minimal combat operations and concomitant damage and death.  Good feelings were directly proportionate to the lack of dead bodies and broken buildings.

Whether from pure ignorance or volitional misinterpretation, the Bush-Cheney neocon crew used a false analogy so neither the administration nor the military nor the American and world public were prepared for the instant outbreak of violence in the wake of the invasion.  There were no cheers.  No flowers tossed at the onrushing tanks.  No plethora of kissing.  There was a lot of looting.  A lot of shooting.  A lot of resistance both silently sullen and noisily hyperactive.

There was also a lot of local settling of old scores.  This aspect of the invasion and its aftermath could and should have been predicted on the basis of the World War II in France analogy.  The settling of assorted political scores, debts, vendettas poured swaths of blood the length and breadth of France.  This sanguinary effusion was well known at the time as it is by later generations of historians.  Only the Bush/Cheney crew seemed unaware of it with the result there were insufficient men and resources to deal quickly with the problems of "liberation."  The results of that are well known by all of us.

Bad analogy brought bad results.

But all the use of bad analogy does not exist on the American side of the hill.  It resides as well, for example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad commented during his recent Great American Tour that the US had never been involved in a "real war."  He opined that not even World War II, generally considered to be an excellent example of the breed, constituted a "real war."  The Ahmadinejad view of history and war has been echoed repeatedly by senior Iranian governmental and military officials over the past several years.  The constant refrain of Iranian military supremacy and an equivalent lack of American competence in the field can be amusing or infuriating in its unrealistic appraisals.  However, it is based on reasoning by analogy.

The prevalent Iranian understanding of war is predicated quite unsurprisingly on the Iraq-Iran War, which started thirty years ago.  To the Iranians, particularly those of Ahmadinejad's generation, this singularly bloody and inconclusive multi-year conflict is the paradigm of modern war.  The Iranians have produced a narrative of the war which celebrates their steadfastness, bravery, willingness to die, ability to accept fatalities unequalled since the brutal combat on the Eastern Front during World War II.  The narrative always concludes that the ability of Iranians to die in windrows and keep on fighting constitutes the strength of their nation and thus its ability to best the US or Israel or whoever.

The problem comes in that the analogy of the Iraq-Iran War is utterly, totally, and absolutely wrong.  The ground truth behind this evaluation is the simple fact that the war was not a modern war.  Rather it was a Medieval war fought with modern weapons.  This is a crucial distinction which renders the analogy fatally dangerous to the Iranian decision makers who rely upon it in making choices regarding the confrontation with the US and other Powers.

The Iraq-Iran War was Medieval in its essential nature.  There was no concept of strategy, operations, or tactics beyond that of hurling masses of poorly trained or completely untrained men in assaults on prepared positions.  In this respect the Iraq-Iran War was far below even the stereotyped and unsuccessful approaches to combat seen on the Western Front between November 1914 and early 1918.

Even the use of missiles during the so called "war of the cities" phase of the Iraq-Iran War did not differ from the use of trebuchets tossing corpses and incendiary payloads over the walls of fortified towns during Medieval campaigns.  There was no aspect of modern mobility, modern command, control, and communications, no correct coordination of movement and firepower.

In comparison, the battles of Crecy or Agincourt were modern.  At least these showed tactical and weapons employment features of a novel sort with the result the British won at low cost against a larger French force relying on outdated methods.

Ahmadinejad and company do not show any appreciation of the American way of war either in its classical sense as exhibited in World War II or even in Korea and Vietnam or in its more evolved form exhibited in both Iraq wars as well as in Afghanistan.  Ever since the mind altering experience of the War Between the States, the US has emphasized the expenditure of materiel over the sacrifice of American lives.

During World War II or Korea or even Vietnam, the US was willing and able to heave awesome amounts of lethal stuff down range if such would save American lives.  In these conflicts the US was relatively oblivious to collateral damage and civilian deaths--as the French in Normandy found out on and after 6 June 1944.  It was not that the US intentionally sought civilian collateral damage.  Rather, it was the technological limitations which precluded any true precision which might have spared lives and property.

The imperatives of changing international norms as well as realpolitik considerations in interventionary operations combined with a need to assure that every round fired had a maximum probability of scoring a first round kill to propel the development of ever more accurate weapons and munitions.  It is not that the US now wants to wage bloodless war, but the need to limit collateral damage while enhancing the potential of killing those in need of being killed have become preeminent.  The ideal weapon from the American perspective now is one which will kill the target first time, every time, without splattering any viscera on the "innocent" person standing at the target's shoulder.

The result is the capacity to inflict awesome devastation on a target.  Whatever must be hit will be hit.  And, if hit, will be obliterated (hopefully leaving enough DNA in the smear of protoplasm to allow identification).  Even hardened or mobile targets cannot escape engagement and obliteration.  A very great deal of money and brain power have been expended on assuring the ability to find, engage, and destroy even fleeting and intentionally elusive targets.  As much has been spent on developing means to penetrate hardened targets with non-nuclear munitions and pleasingly destructive effects.

Coupling this weapons and munitions approach with a highly evolved intelligence, command, control, and communication system gives the US a capacity to find, fix in place, and destroy targets which is hard to match and impossible to exceed.  This constellation along with the superb mobility and flexibility of US forces constitutes genuinely modern war.

While the Iranians may have progressed somewhat beyond the Tenth Century level of warfare, which constitutes their paradigmatic experience, there is no reason to assess their level of competence in modern war to be anywhere near that of the US or other civilized states.  As a result, any reasoning by analogy with the Iraq-Iran War will prove (literally) fatal to the Iranian regime.

Bad analogy brings bad results.  Or, should the Iranians insist on basing their calculus of defiance on their narrative, the results may as severe as the ending of Iran as a functioning state.

Oh, well, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.

ADMIN NOTE: Ignore the frustrations of the anti-spam comments as the Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments.

Here A Bomb, There A Bomb, Everywhere A Bomb

No.  Not those pesky and ubiquitous roadside bombs, not even the upscale models now being imported by Taliban in Afghanistan from those friendly mullahs across the border in Iran.  No.  Not the personal type of bomb so beloved by wannabe seekers after martyrdom.

The bomb(s) in question are those of a nuclear nature.  It seems the latest growth industry in such stable, peace loving countries as North Korea and Pakistan is making more plutonium and, in the fullness of time, more fission or (drum roll) fusion weapons.

The situation in North Korea is somewhat ambiguous as is to be expected, but there are rather alarming indications that the Hermit Kingdom of the North is either cranking up the supposedly decommissioned plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon or is taking another pass at reprocessing the spent fuel rods so as to extract more plutonium.  The South Koreans, who have both a tendency to get nervous and a set of good reasons for doing so, also believe the Northerners are enriching more uranium.

Recent satellite imagery shows construction work in progress near the foundations of the cooling tower destroyed by the North three years ago as part of the now moribund denuclearization process.  The indications are minor and give no hint as to what is--or is going to be--constructed.  There is even the possibility that the Northerners, knowing that the site is constantly monitored by both national and commercial imaging satellites, are engaged in a bit of creative chain rattling.

However, the impending transition of power from Dear Leader to his Number Three Son brings a number of imponderables into play.  These include necessary genuflections before the hardest of the military hardliners or counters to the new, improved South Korean psyops program, which can be commenced at any moment for any reason.  Or, it may simply be one more of those, take-us-seriously-damnit! gestures of which Pyongyang is so fond.

The capacity for Pyongyang to make mischief cannot be overstated and must not be underestimated.  The impending succession does nothing to lessen either the intentional making of mischief or the potential for miscalculation.  While the North may only have sufficient plutonium for a half dozen bombs, the amount of highly enriched uranium cannot be estimated with rigor.  It is within the realm of conservative plausibility to estimate the Hermits have sufficient fissile material to double the number of potential warheads on the shelf.  In addition, the fact that the North does not yet have warheads small enough to mate with their current stock of missiles in no way lessens the degree of threat.

Pending miniaturization--an accomplishment not likely to be in the distant offing--the North can wreak a sufficient degree of havoc simply by getting one or two truck borne devices across the DMZ.  Even a couple of small (Hiroshima sized) nudets in or near the Seoul metroplex would all but fatally cripple South Korea.  In short, the war could be over almost before anyone knows it had begun.

In this context it might be recalled that the Northerners are the tunnel rats from hell.  Their subterranean earth moving skills have provided a number of tunnels easily capable of passing five ton trucks under the Z.  Sure, the North would (to quote a line in Dr Strangelove) "get their hair mussed," but the costs to the South would be much greater, potentially quite unbearable.

That's enough for one depressing subject.  Time to go to the next, even more depressing one.

Pakistan.  That's right, our "ally" and "close friend," the always stable, ever reliable, constantly honest, and aboveboard "partner" in the Grand Campaign Against Violent Political Islam.

The context first.  Pakistan is broke.  It depends upon the success of its extortion program to keep the international (primarily US) money flowing.  The floods have made the basket case even more supine.  The army is allegedly engaged in both flood relief and fighting the Taliban in the FATA while actually standing ever vigilant on the Indian border facing a threat which will not come--no matter how much Islamabad may wish otherwise.  The government is an excellent definition of the term, "non functional."  At the same time the perceived existential and functional legitimacy of the government has sunk to levels which make President Obama's approval ratings seem stratospheric in comparison.

With this as background consider that Pakistan is plunging on at flank speed in the construction of a third reactor in its Kushab plutonium production facility.  Satellite imagery shows that the second reactor has been finished, tested, and may be in full scale production while the construction work on the third unit is proceeding at a rate faster than that of the second.

The Kushab complex exists for one primary purpose, the production of plutonium.  Plutonium for weapons.  The increase in production indicates that Pakistan is pushing for a thermonuclear capability as well as boosting the number of deployable weapons.  As the details of the reactor as well as its predecessors are not available in the open literature, the secondary purposes of the reactors cannot be determined.  However, it is fair to assume that at least one of the reactors is configured for the production of tritium, the form of hydrogen central to initiating fusion reactions.

There is undoubtedly a direct linkage between the forced draft expansion of the Kushab complex and the Pakistani resistance to the fissile materials limitation treaty which has been languishing for years now.  This makes the unopposed election of Pakistan to chair the IAEA all the more ironic.

Pakistan is not only a member of the nuclear club, it is a particularly ambitious one.  The Islamabad government and the army both justify the investment in nuclear weapons production as defensive, a necessary deterrent to any Indian employment of its arsenal.

That position is, to be polite, a mess of caca.  Pakistan already has a sufficient number of weapons to serve as a credible finite deterrent.  Considering the distances involved and the flight time of either missiles or manned aircraft, the Pakistanis must use a launch-under-warning approach.  This doctrine is most effective if the targeting philosophy is counter-value not counter-force.

Given the size of India and, thus, the number of alternative launch points as well as the near term potential of an Indian submarine launched cruise missile capacity, the notion of counter-force targeting in a second strike configuration makes no sense.  Only a form of mutually-assured-destruction predicated on counter-value targeting operates as a sufficient deterrent.

For this approach there is neither need nor justification for a large number of warheads and launchers.  A modest--less than one hundred deliverable warheads--is sufficient.  The enormous expense of expanding the Kushab complex cannot be justified on legitimate defense needs.  Complicating the situation for the government is that the expansion of the physical plant and concomitant work force enhances the problems of security.  The same applies to any proliferation of warheads or fissile materials stockpiles.

Other than a sort of military elephantiasis, there is no excuse for what the Pakistanis are doing at Kushab.  There is certainly no rational explanation.  But, considering the propensity for the grandiose often exhibited by Pakistani senior military personnel, the elephantiasis diagnosis may be correct.

The US has cause for enhanced anxiety with the expansion of Kushab.  The civilian government of Pakistan is, to be kind, not overly stable.  The military forces of Pakistan are riddled at all levels with adherents of violent political Islam.  The strategic ambitions of members of the armed forces, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the bureaucracies are no less than grandiose as all hands focus with an irrational but deeply historically rooted hostility on India.

For the US and other civilized states, the problem of securing the Pakistani nuclear facilities, arsenal, and fissile stockpile are real and pressing.  Bluntly, the possibility of violent political Islamists gaining a nuclear capability via Pakistan is greater than the nuclear threat presented by Iran.

Pakistani officials have proclaimed loud and long that their country is both stable and responsible.  These protestations ring hollow when considered in conjunction with the irresponsible action of expanding the Kushab complex at a time of very real, very great national peril.

There is an upside to the Pakistani nuclear dilemma.  The US and its Western European allies are not alone in this contretemps.  The prevailing winds--both those geographic in nature and those of armed political Islam--assure that both Russia and China have a dog in the fight, whether they either recognize or like the idea.  Any nudet in the sub-continent will have impact in both countries.  Similarly, any access via Pakistan to nuclear materials or weapons by advocates of violent political Islam will have effects deleterious to both.

The takeaway?  Simple.  To date the nuclear club has been able to exercise self-control.  Today, that reassuring state of affairs is under direct threat from both North Korea and Pakistan to a degree surpassing the danger represented by Iran.  And, it is up to the initial members of the club to keep matters from getting worse.

A (Very) Rare Defeat For Muslim States At The Human Rights Council

Last Friday at the bitter end of its three week Bash-Israel-Fest, the UN Human Rights Council did something almost without precedent.  The majority rejected a Muslim sponsored amendment to the resolution creating a mechanism which would flesh out and provide means to implement effectively the UN convention on the rights of women.

The resolution called upon all member nations to "revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex or gender bias in the administration of justice."  This mildly worded bit of high mindedness constitutes a direct and hard kick in the gonads(?) of such pillars of Shariah as Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.  In a move as unsurprising as calls to prayer five times a day, the offended Muslim states mounted a counterattack.

The Saudi representative introduced an amendment which, if adopted, would have gutted the measure as it applied to Muslim majority states.  The carefully crafted wording would have allowed Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states, which have formally signed other conventions including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women with reservations assuring the primacy of Shariah, to ignore the requirements of this resolution.

Islamic law does discriminate against women simply on their status as women systematically and completely.  The extent of the bias is indicated by the legal requirement that a woman's accusation of rape be attested to by four men (or three men and two women.)  This is absurd on its face.  Equally absurd but even more lethal is the differential in punishment for such "crimes" as adultery.

There is no way around the ground truth involved in this resolution.  For countries such as Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to abide by its provision--removal of sexual and gender bias in the administration of justice--would demand that Shariah be jettisoned.  And this, of course, is unthinkable to the insecure misogynists in charge of these states and the many others like them.

The delegate from Libya made a valiant effort to muddy the already turbid waters further by introducing the fashionable concept of cultural relativism.  His plea that "some concepts are relative" may haul heavy freight with members of the every-so-sensitive elites of Western Europe and the US but failed to move the majority of the delegates present and voting.  Apparently sensing the failure of his pitch, the Man From Tripoli then offered a veiled threat to the effect that Muslim states simply would not sign nor accept the resolution.  In essence, he challenged the civilized states to just try and make Muslim majority countries act as if they were deserving of membership in the civilized category.

The threat was not effective.  The majority went with the resolution.  Much credit is due the several Central and South American governments, most notably Mexico, which engineered the garnering of support from the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia.  Their efforts as well as the vote itself well merited the words of congratulation offered by Secretary of State Clinton.

The Mexican representative Juan Jose Gomez Camacho put it with perfection.  The root of the matter was not culture, not religion, not sensitivities, it was "discrimination against women.  Full stop."  Right on, Sr Camacho.

It may be true that this resolution like so much of the paper ground out by the UN and its subsidiaries is purely symbolic, without practical meaning, but as some observers correctly note, symbolism is important, perhaps even central in today's conflict between civilization and the adherents of violent political Islam and their state supporters.

Ms Clinton made a favorable name for herself years ago when as the president's wife she splashed onto the world stage in the context of the women's rights conference in Cairo.  Her dedication to this cause is well established and totally genuine.  Now, she needs to put her formidable political talents to work so as to assure the US actually ratifies the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.  It is long past time that the US do so--the Convention has been around since Carter was in the White House.  To be on the same side of an issue as Sudan is pathetic to say the least.

The reality is Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the rest of the reactionary Muslim majority states will continue to do everything in their power to maintain the status quo.  To do otherwise is literally unthinkable to the men in charge.  They, like the religion whose tenets they invoke with dreary repetition, is reactionary in many essential respects.  Of these, the most critical is the role and status of women.

When free of legal and other disabilities, the potential of women to change societies, polities, and cultures is impossible to overestimate.  Women are, after all, fifty percent of our collective brain power, our collective energy, our collective will.  In addition, women have the primary responsibility for the early acculturation of children.  The ancient cliche about the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world is laden with truth--and awesome power.

It is this the men of Islam fear more than anything else.  As soon as women get out from under the heel of the oppressive weight of Shariah, they will be able to fatally perturb the adolescent boys gang structure seen in so many manifestations of contemporary Islam including the adherents of violent political Islam.

Removing the shackles of Shariah will mean that some (perhaps many) Muslim men will have to do something shockingly new, revolutionary even.  They will have to look women straight in the eye as equals in all respects.  They will also have to finally toss aside the junior high fantasies of honor, of killing mom, of treating women in ways no self-respecting Homo erectus would have thought proper.  In short, they will have to grow up.

And, being grown up is a hard thing to do.  But only by exhibiting maturity can Muslims overcome their own worst enemy.  No, not the West.  Not the "Crusaders."  Not even the Jews and the "Zionist entity."  Themselves.  More than most, Muslim men can say along with Pogo, "We have met the enemy and it is us."

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When Will Israel Lose Its Reason For Existence?

Many reasons can be adduced for the existence of the Jewish state.  Likewise many accomplishments can be credited to Israel's existence from the revivification of Hebrew to the impressively dynamic cultural, scientific, and other intellectual products which have emerged from this small segment of the Mideast.  But, despite the other reasons and regardless of the many accomplishments, the core reason for Israel's establishment and its continued existence is that of providing a safe haven and guardian for Jews worldwide.

The horrors of the Holocaust, the realization that even a state and a people of the demonstrated cultural maturity of the Germans could engage in a coldly planned and executed mass butchery so shocked the infant conscience of the West that a Jewish "homeland" was seen as an absolute necessity.  Not even the intransigence of the Arab majorities of the Mideast and the Arab tilt of the British government could do other than marginally slow the process of recreating a reasonable approximation of the Israel which had existed two thousand years earlier.

It is important to keep in mind that no effort was spared in the attempt to create the old/new Israel by means purely peaceful.  Negotiations, mediations, compromises were all for naught in the face of an implacable Arab/Muslim animus to both the proposed state and the Jews generally.  All of the efforts to bring Israel into existence without the trauma and bloodshed of war collapsed before the Islam intoxicated armies of the surrounding Arab states.

The armed resistance of the Arab states was not unexpected.  The historical record was littered by attempts at compromise, exercises in diplomatic negotiation scuppered by the Arabs.  Even the most generous of agreements which would have left Arabs in control of the vast majority of the old League of Nations Mandate of Palestine were rejected--often to the accompaniment of violent street protests.

At the same time the Mandatory Power, Great Britain, showed continued partiality to the Arab cause which was wrapped in the most thinly disguised antisemitism.  The British were loath to see the new state come into existence, a loathing which was enhanced by the excesses of Zionist terror groups such as the Stern Gang.  In the end, the resistance of the British was undercut not by sentiment but by the harsh dictates of economic reality.

Even in the US there was no great consensus on the need for or desirability of an Israel.  Even though Americans were vastly disturbed by the revelations of the "Final Solution" and the ruthless means by which it was carried out, the odor of antisemitism hung heavily in the political air.  This reality coupled with the first realizations that the US and the West needed the oil found under Arab sand made more than a few senior diplomatic and political personalities reluctant to put American weight behind the proposal to create a Jewish "homeland."

To his everlasting credit, President Harry Truman recognized that facilitating the birth of Israel was the right thing to do.  It was the right thing because there could be no more assurance in the future than there had been in the past that antisemitism would not spring back in full, highly lethal form.  The presence of an identifiably Jewish state would provide an ultimate lifeboat should the seas of human hatred raise waves against the Jews of the world again.

Later American administrations as well as We the People supported the existence of Israel.  While the Jewish state has often been an annoying ally or client (take your pick), it has been recognized generally that the need for Israel has been and continues to be very real.  The base hatred expressed in the word "antisemitism" has not evaporated over the decades since the full picture of the "Final Solution" emerged.  Quite the contrary, it has grown.  Most recently, the growth of lethal hatred for Jews not only in Israel but around the globe has been propelled by Islam.

That is a harsh statement.  Its harshness is fully justified not only by words and deeds recorded in the Koran, the Haddith, and the Sunnah or in the actions and rhetoric of Islam's "golden age," but are contained in the rhetoric and behaviors of leaders, both clerical and secular, in Muslim majority societies today.  It is not that every Muslim is antisemitic, eager  to kill or even inconvenience Jews, but rather that enough highly placed, quite influential Muslim figures, including the heads of states and governments, are of such a mind.

Even if by some miracle the current peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel result in a real, viable agreement over the next year, Israel and the Jews of the world will not be appreciably safer.  The Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, like the puppet master in Tehran, will not embrace any accord.  None of these will join in a chorus of "Give Peace A Chance."  All will remain armed, hostile, and quite eager to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

Even if Bashir al-Assad suddenly decides that Washington has offered the better deal and Israel relinquishes its hold on the Golan, the basics will not change.  Sure, it would be nice if Syria switched sides, but even this highly unlikely eventuality will not address the basic contextual reality.

The unaddressed but absolutely fundamental reality is Iran.  More specifically, it is an Iran with a nuclear capability.  Should Iran achieve its long sought goal of nuclear weapons, the Jews of Israel will be not one wit safer than those of their religion living in Germany or Middle Europe in the Thirties.  The Iranian leadership is and will continue to be (absent a dramatic regime change) implacably antisemitic and anti-Israel.

Given a nuclear capacity, the Mullahocracy will have a vastly increased diplomatic influence in the region and throughout the globe.  A nuclear Iran linked with the current nuclear power, Pakistan, will be the first among equals in a community of nations profound in their hatred of Jews generally and Israel in particular.  This is not an exercise in alarmism but rather a sober reading of the trajectories currently at work not only in Iran and Pakistan but in most of the majority Muslim states of the world.

No faith can be placed in deterrence.  In principle either or both the Israeli and US nuclear capacities should be enough to give even the most zealous fanatic pause for thought.  In reality, the game is not so simple and straightforward.

In the real world the most potent nuclear weapons are those which remain unused, the ones which constitute the ultimate force in being.  These unused weapons assure not only greater diplomatic status and influence but also give a measure of safety for employment of asymmetrical means.  One of the most under appreciated features of the Cold War nuclear balance of terror is the freedom with which both major contestants waged indirect, proxy, or minor wars under the shield of the nuclear umbrella.

Beyond this ground truth, it is important to ask, is the American deterrent credible?  Would an American president, any American president, risk the consequences of authorizing retaliation for an attack on Israel?  Even if the adversary lacked the means of delivering a heartland strike, would not the other potentials exercise profound inhibitions on the person in the Oval?

The Israeli "Samson Option" is real.  It is real in the sense that the Israelis have the hardware to retaliate.  But, is retaliation enough after even a small number of nuclear weapons have hit Israeli targets?  Or is it simply the hand from the grave?  Israel is a small place filled with six plus million Jews.  A bomb or two hitting almost anywhere in the country would inflict a massive number of casualties.  In a real sense Israel would be dead as a functioning polity and society.  The retaliation might kill a larger number of Iranians or whoever else is down range, but to no useful avail.

To answer the question posed in the title of this post: Israel will lose its reason for existence the day Iran gets a nuclear capacity.  At that point it, can no longer be the credible protector let alone lifeboat for Jews everywhere in the world.  At that point, Israel will no longer be what it was meant to be by the farsighted statesmen who shepherded it into existence.

At that point, on the day Iran gets the bomb, the faith and commitment, the work and effort of generations, will be rendered pointless.  It will be the blackest of black days in human history.

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They Are Getting Uptight In Lebanon--For Good Reason

One of these days, quite soon by all accounts, the special tribunal established by the UN to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 is to be released.  The history of this investigation is marked with false steps and false accusations, but now it appears the tribunal thinks they finally have achieved a firm grip on the event.  The tribunal's staff are convinced that they know who dunnit and why it was done.

The murder of Hariri was roundly condemned by the US.  That was a standard issue, off-the-shelf response.  Not so standard and certainly not well-advised was the precipitate action taken by the Bush/Cheney administration to false reports directly linking Syrian President Bashir al-Assad to the killing.

With a haste which was both unnecessary and unseemly, the neo-con ninnies suspended diplomatic relations with Syria, calling our ambassador home.  One result of this act and the charges underlying it was the sharp turn toward Iran made by an irate Bashir who felt that his country and himself personally had been insulted.  In addition the Syrian regime saw itself threatened by the suspension of normal diplomatic representation.

Syria has cleaved most tightly to Iran ever since.  This relationship is not in US interests any more than it is in the interests of Israel.  The Obama administration was well enough oriented toward reality to attempt damage limitation and repair.  This effort has proven fruitless as too much time had passed, too many connections made between the clerics of Iran and secularists of Syria, to allow any substantial or speedy change in the status quo.

The only action the US might have undertaken which would have resulted in Syria executing an about face was the return of the Golan Heights from Israel.  Since the administration decided to focus its efforts and attempts at pressure on levering Israel back to the negotiating table with the Palestinian Authority, it was impossible to do the same with Syria and the Golan.

The unwillingness or inability of the Obama administration to do anything useful on the Golan question assured that Bashir al-Assad saw nothing to be gained by dumping the mullahs and embracing the US.  An additional obstacle to changing Syrian affections from Tehran to Washington has been the repeated refusal by American administrations to acknowledge that Syria has both interests and a special position in Lebanon.  To us the notion of a "Greater Syria" incorporating Lebanon is a nul referent; to Syrians it is a reality demanding full recognition by the world including the US and its allies.

The real deal is Syria has a special position in Lebanon.  Whether Syrian troops are present in country or not, whether Syrian police patrol the streets of Beirut or not, whenever Syria decides to sneeze, Lebanon will catch pneumonia.  In short, to use the words of Winston Churchill, in Lebanon Syria has one hundred percent of "the say."

Since the US threw one hissy fit after another until all Syrian armed forces were withdrawn from Lebanon, the Boys in Damascus have employed the tried and true method of use-a-surrogate to exercise "the say" in Lebanon.  Hezbollah was a creation of Syria a quarter of a century ago and more.  Over the years the lads of Hezbollah have demonstrated a clear utility to Syria both in Lebanon and, when necessary, elsewhere.

However, the situation has become more complicated in recent years as a direct result of the tight and getting tighter linkage between Iran and Syria.  Particularly after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the flow of money, material, and training from Iran to Hezbollah has strengthened the direct ties between the theocrats of Iran and the adherents of armed political Islam of Hezbollah.  (It's nice to remember that the name translates as the Party of God.)

The situation is such that Hezbollah is almost in a position to play off Syria against Iran should its best interests demand it.  At the moment, however, the best interests of Hezbollah are served by unity between its two patrons.  The problem comes in what that may mean for Lebanon overall as the UN tribunal cranks up to go public with its investigation.

The conclusions of the tribunal's investigation is, Hezbollah did it.  This prospect has Hezbollah worried.  It has the current Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, very worried.  It has the Lebanese political elite very, very worried.

Hezbollah's capo, Hassan Nasrallah, has the capacity to tumble the government.  In lieu of simply causing the chaos a forced collapse of the central government would bring in its wake, the very hardline Islamist group and its leader may simply demand a reformulation of the Taif Agreement which ended the simmering internal Lebanese war by bringing Hezbollah into the government.  Any reformulation would grant even more power to Hezbollah, a prospect which Israel, among others, finds alarming.

Three ago the politics of Lebanon as threatened by the UN tribunal report made for strange bedmates as Bashir al-Assad met one on one with the King of Saudi Arabia.  The two long standing foes had come together in the hope of making sure there would be no reawakening of the dormant civil war.  For a couple of months it appeared the two had succeeded in brokering some sort of undiscussed in public means of preventing a Lebanese collapse.

The rapprochement has proven short-lived.  The Kingdom of the Two Mosques and the Baathists of Syria have come to a parting of the ways on Lebanon as a direct result of the Syrian-Iranian alliance.  The Syrian government has come out in favor of the candidacy of Nouri al-Maliki.  Maliki is the favorite son of Iran for the office of Iraqi prime minister.  Being Iran's favorite means Maliki must be Syria's as well.

The opting for the Iranian Candidate has infuriated Sunni Saudi Arabia.  Even if it was not possible for Bashir and his government to come out in support of Allawi, who was acceptable to Saudi Arabia, the overt endorsement of Maliki was too much for the Keeper of the Two Mosques.  It was, as they say, a deal killer.

Bashir has also blasted the on-again and now once more, off-again Israeli-Palestinian Authority talks as existing only to "boost Obama."  That he delivered himself of this opinion with Ahmadinejad beaming away in the next chair was not lost on any observer--particularly those in Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian Orator-in-Chief is scheduled to return the call in a couple of weeks.  This means the internal politics of Lebanon will remain in stasis at least until the Man From Tehran heads home on 15 October.  After that date, all bets are off regarding the internal stability of the faction ridden state of Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad, accompanied by Nasrallah, is scheduled to dedicate a garden located not far from the Israel-Lebanon border.  At this time the Guy From Tehran is expected to toss a symbolic stone in the general direction of Israel.  This action close to what Ahmadinejad has called "Iran's border with Israel" raises a question.

No, bucko, not what shape is Ahmadinejad's arm.  Rather, will the Israelis go for a commando raid and snatch, bringing Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah back to Israel to stand trial for either war crimes (in Nasrallah's case) or exciting genocide in regard to Ahmadinejad's many calls for the destruction of Israel.  In a way it is too bad that this intriguing prospect (think glass booths, simultaneous translations, hordes of international observers all in the ala Eichmann manner) is a non-starter.  It would solve so many problems all at once as well as raise a number of other, more fascinating--or at least less repetitive--issues.

In any event watching Lebanon will be a whole lot more fun after the UN tribunal releases its report.  It will be one more episode in the long running and ever-so-bloody drama of Can Lebanon Survive?  In the worst realistic case, the Lebanese situation will be reality TV at its most compelling.

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