sdemetri,
And you prove yourself a “strategic thinker” by this circular argument?
Brian asked where is the “strategic logic” in my position and I replied that the logic is “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me”. That is an example of a strategic position. You seem to imply that you think it’s incorrect. I think the time is long past for that debate to continue, but, I’ll humor you and ask why? If your rationales are the ones you list (attacking Iraq, weakening our military, etc.), they are all fairly superficial and historically ignorant, as I will now show you.
As Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch has argued many times, and I agree, attacking Iraq was not a strategic mistake and there were enough legitimate concerns about Saddam having WMD to merit invasion and regime change. Go back and look at the ‘state of the art’ intelligence about Iraq. The consensus bonorum was that Saddam had or would soon have WMD even a nuclear scale. Something that was later confirmed when it was reported that he was about a year away from enriching uranium. Oh, and don’t forget that Saddam wanted people to think he had WMD, as a deterrent, ironically enough. I was initially a supporter of the “democracy” project, but I am much more skeptical now that some “empirical” evidence has come in showing that the Iraqis seem content to vote along confessional lines and have very little concept of “the greater good” outside of a religious context. There are things worth dying for, but that isn’t one of them.
Secondly, I don’t see how you can claim that our Iraq mission has weakened the military. On the contrary, the operational experience we are gaining will be valuable so long as the Middle East remains unstable, which seems likely to be a long time. Plus, having an operational base in the middle of the region is a major strategic asset.
Third, our credibility is bolstered by following through on threats like the ones we made to Saddam, not decreased. If a bunch of dictators and assorted anti-American groups dislike that, I don’t see the point in caring. “Can’t we all just get along” is fine as an opening negotiating position (in fact, I am well aware that “friendly tit for tat”, in which I commit to not making an unfriendly move until the other guy makes one, is “empirically” the best strategy for multi-round interactions), but at some point in the negotiations, if you realize the sides are too far apart for their to be any ‘win-win’ situation, it turns into a zero-sum game. Essentially, that’s what happened with Saddam in 2003 and it is what is happening with Iran now. You may be an unknowing victim of “conflict aversion”, which afflicts game participants who are afraid to walk away from a negotiation, once it’s been entered, without a deal, so they take a worse deal. Like a guy who can’t so no to the overpriced options at the car dealership. The Muslim world is offering us an overpriced deal and you just can’t wait to hand over the check.
Fourthly, simply by not being a Muslim, I am morally superior to the jihadis. Period. That “religion” is simply the divinization of all men’s worst traits (loutishness, sentimentality, aversion to change, willingness to submit, sexual anxiety, etc.). I say “men” for a very precise reason, since they are the only ones who gain anything from Islam. For everyone else, it’s nothing but downside, including men at the lower end of the status ladder in Muslim society. And if I were a woman, I’d rather have been born into even a primitive animist society than a Muslim society.
Fifthly, “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me” was Tiberius’ credo vis-a-vis the Roman Senate, as he tried to maintain the Empire against those Senators who would try to break it apart. As history showed, the Roman Empire was extremely durable, so “empircally” my philosophy of governance has a very long tradition of sustainability. If you want to debate the subtleties of technological change and the sustainability of empire under my theory of governance, fine, because that’s a debate worth having, but, as I said before, your objections against my position, as stated, are superficial and historically ignorant.
Sixthly, by relying on the as heretofore impotent Western-loving Iranian youth, you exclude yourself from historical agency. At the very least, then, you should support military action for regime change, since the regime in question that would be changed is the very mullahs you claim the youth do not support. However, you miss a huge factor in this which is that those very youth are being courted by the aging mullahs, with the promise of both material rewards (Middle East hegemony) and “spiritual” rewards (honor in Paradise for dying in battle). There are definitely a lot of dissidents in Iran, but they are obviously too disorganized (or strung out, as my understanding is that hard drug use is rampant in Iran. Do you really want to throw your geopolitical lot in with a bunch of druggies?) to matter in the relevant timeframe. Iran is now reportedly going to get enough nuclear fuel for a weapon within a matter of years. Are your youth going to rise up and take the reins of state by then? What level of certainty do you have about that?
So, for all these reasons, nothing you said has been persuasive. We should go to war with Iran and we should pound them into submission like we did the Germans.
