The Syrian Civil War
When Barry Rubin called the Syrian Civil War the “Spanish Civil War of our time” he neglected to emphasize that Spain in the 1930s was the precursor to a larger war. That danger was underscored by car bomb attacks in neighboring Iraq which killed 65 people. “BAGHDAD (AP) — A coordinated wave of car bombs struck Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and several other cities Wednesday, killing at least 65 people and wounding more than 200 in one of the deadliest days in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew from the country.”
It was further emphasized by indications that Damascus might allow the transfer offensive missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post reports that “concern is mounting in Israel over the possibility that Hezbollah will try to move sophisticated weaponry, including Scud missiles, from Syria to Lebanon to protect them in the event of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s downfall.”
If this happens and Israel becomes aware of the transfer, the government will have to decide if it should attack and intercept the transfer or ignore it to prevent such a strike from escalating into an all-out war with Hezbollah and Syria.
An Israeli strike in Syria could provide Assad with the opportunity to use Israel as a scapegoat and divert attention away from his violent crackdown, to Israeli violence.
At the moment the United States seems to be talking from a position of impotence. As Lee Smith wrote in the Weekly Standard, “the Obama administration can’t do a damn thing.”
Maybe Assad will listen to Russia. Maybe Russia will force out Assad. Clarity is the outward expression of resolve, but Clinton’s uncertainty is the rhetoric of impotence, a condition the White House has imposed on itself. It signals to both adversaries and allies that they are free to act on their own because the White House is unable to shape outcomes.
If the Syrian conflict turns into a full-scale civil war, says Clinton, it’s Russia’s fault. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, fears the crisis may spread to the rest of the region and that the international community therefore “had better do something” about it. Obama’s secretary of defense, meanwhile, can’t imagine how the United States could take military action in Syria without U.N. authorization. “My greatest responsibility,” said Leon Panetta, “is to make sure when we deploy our men and women in uniform and put them at risk, we not only know what the mission is, but we have the kind of support we need to accomplish that mission.”
In other words, the administration believes America is incapable of acting on its own to defend and advance its own interests. The White House has come to see the U.S. role in the region much as the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran did. To paraphrase the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the Obama administration can’t do a damn thing.
Not a thing to help any good guys in Syria. Rubin seems to share that view: “the democratic outside world is, for all practical purposes, standing passive. The Iranian regime is helping one side with huge amounts of money and arms, as Nazi Germany did for the Franco forces; the Turkish regime and the Saudis are helping the other side a bit, but giving disproportionate assistance to the Muslim Brotherhood, like the USSR gave to the Communists in Spain. Indeed, U.S. policy is aiding the Brotherhood, too.”
despite all the smug “pro-democracy” rhetoric coming out of the Obama Administration and others, nobody is helping the moderates who are doomed either to being crushed by the repressive regime or being overwhelmed by the totalitarians on their own side. This is a tragedy but it is a tragedy in which passivity is as powerful a force as is evil. That the Obama Administration is mouthing platitudes about human rights and supporting democracy makes the situation altogether more sickening. The debate should not be over whether or not to intervene but how to help natural allies against the inevitable enemies on both sides of the war.
Nor can it do anything to keep outside powers out. Russia has been accused by Hillary Clinton of arming its allies with attack helicopters. “A shipment of attack helicopters is “on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday. But it is unclear what the administration, having given its warning, will do for an encore.
All it can do, for the present, is lead from behind, a strategy which is looking and less and less effective. Former CIA agent Charles Faddis thinks that in just a little while politicians will be asking themselves, “who lost Egypt”? That would be just one of their worries if the Syrian civil war spreads into Iraq and destroys the fruits of America’s expensive victory there; if it pushes hundreds of missiles into Hezbollah hands and forces the hand of Israel; if it results in a full-scale confrontation between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East based on a conflict fueled by Russia, which could turn around and sell Europe the fuel it need but can no longer get from the region. There may be a nuclear confrontation between Iran, whose WMD program has but been barely inconvenienced by the administration and the Saudi-led Sunnis, with the entire Pakistani atomic arsenal at their disposal.
None of this is inevitable. But those catastrophes are now distinctly within the realm of possibility and palpably nearer. The bulk of America’s forces are in landlocked Afghanistan, dispatched by a genius policy that sought to ‘end the war where it began’. Those forces have scant means of resupply through Pakistan, which has finally manifested its open hatred for the United States. Nor can American forces be withdrawn from Afghanistan except through Russian controlled territory — the same Russia which Hillary Clinton must now face off against in Syria.
The administration has checkmated itself in such an epic manner as to beggar the imagination. Ordinary stupidity could hardly have effected such a comprehensive disaster. Mere imbecility would have been insufficient to the task. Only an arrogance that mistook ignorance and incompetence for “smart diplomacy” could have achieved such a train wreck.
And the most astonishing thing is how they are proud of it. Just how poorly the West has been served by its leaders is the shown by the smug satisfaction with which they’ve destroyed its wealth; corrupted its culture and embarked on a fantasy energy policy. What threat? What problem?
Earlier this year, Susie Buell Tompkins, John Kerry’s fourth-biggest money-raiser in 2004, picketed outside an Obama fundraiser at San Francisco’s W Hotel to protest the pipeline. She wanted Obama’s State Department to block it because she thinks tar sands production hurts the environment and the planet.
Our neighbors the Canadians, who are not unconcerned about the environment themselves, disagree. The pipeline’s promoters say it would produce 20,000 American jobs and would tend to lower U.S. gas prices.
Obama came out on Tompkins’ side and blocked the pipeline.
It’s full speed ahead, like the court at Versailles in its final days, with amateur skits of aristocrats playing at shepherd and shepherdess. “President Obama is quoted in a New Yorker column by hooked-in journalist Ryan Lizza as believing the most important issue to address in his second term would be climate change.” And why not? After all the economy is doing ‘just fine’.
Belmont Commenters
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The country is in the finest of hands.
Cheney was right. When you go in, go in big. We should have stated up front that because of the misconduct of the local regimes we were going to invade and occupy for at least 20 years. We should have made it a condition of our acting that we stay for a generation and ensure that all education is up to the tolerant inclusive standards beloved by the NEA.
Send in Bloomberg! The obvious cause of such upheaval is sugary soft-drinks, although milk and movie theatre popcorn may also contribute.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/18774940/health-panel-talks-about-wider-food-ban
If the whole region just blows itself to smithereens leaving twisted wreckage, black ash several meters thick and—who knows?—maybe a whole lot of shimmering glass—across the entire region, it’ll take a good 10 to 20 to 30 years to recover. Perhaps.
Finally, an eerie quiet will pervade the Middle East and Peace, glorious Peace will be softly whimpering throughout.
And Obama will say to himself, “They doubted me; they laughed at me; but I always knew that I deserved that prize….
David Archibald, writing in Watts Up With That notes that Russia “has the longest suit” to play the energy game. They run out of known reserves last.
The Russian strategy would benefit immensely from getting the West to play its cards poorly in order to maximize the power of its hand. From the looks of it, they need scant help. The current crop of Western politicians are playing the very short term hand, maximizing entitlement payments at the expense of even medium term economic growth.
This raises the issue of whether a New Deal Type political system is capable of rationality or whether it is doomed to serving its “factions” — interest groups. The same kind of doubts were articulated about the Western democracies in the 1930s. Could they compete with the “virile” totalitarianisms? The answer ultimately proved to be that the totalitarianisms could not survive themselves. But the challenge has gone forth again, this time from China, the Islamic world, and Russia. The West needs an engine of renewal that will reboot its democracies and tap its potential for creativity.
2. Blast From the Past
“We should have stated up front that because of the misconduct of the local regimes we were going to invade and occupy for at least 20 years.”
Which would entail fighting brutal, bloodly, inconclusive, and costly guerrilla wars for 20 years. A prescription for neverending warfare.
Relatedly see today’s Via Media, “Wilsonian Wars, Wilsonian Ruin” at http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/06/12/wilsonian-wars-wilsonian-ruin/
“The administration has checkmated in such an epic manner as to beggar the imagination. Ordinary stupidity could hardly have effected such a comprehensive disaster. Mere imbecility would have been insufficient to the task.”
Magnificent writing, Wretchard, even by your own high standards!
Maybe we should not even give Obumble credit for originality in his failures. The Obama Administration really has not set any new directions — merely doubled down on existing trends. More borrowing & printing to pay for current consumption. More job-destroying regulations without consideration of the costs & benefits. More deference to the UN. More ‘nation building’ instead of military victories. All of those trends were firmly in place before the Obamination arrived.
About the only genuinely new element Obambi added to the mix was his early practice (now swept aside) of bowing grovelingly to all foreigners with a possible grievance. And that was a decorative (rather than substantive) addition to the ongoing disaster.
Short version — Soetero and his band of incompetents are merely Symptoms, not the long-running Disease itself.
When we had 150,000 troops in Iraq (plus another 150,000 contractors), they could have turned left and marched through Damascus … though better yet, they could have turned right and marched through Tehran.
Now, Obambus is busy trying to occupy Arizona and Texas, and we have a secretary of state whose advise to the moderates in Syria will probably be along the lines of put some ice on it.
I don’t want to save Syria from itself, let them fight, let Russia pick up some red points arming Assad, let those statesmen in Turkey show us what it’s all about, let Egypt send aid to whichever side(s) seem appropriate.
Again, if we wanted to do something about Syria, five years ago would have been ideal, and we probably *should* have as they were supplying the Iraqi jihadis with all kinds of support. Though who knows, maybe they were also in cahoots with us, or we (and the Israelis) just had them so penetrated, it mattered a lot less than it seemed.
The last three years have shown 0bama is way out of his league, so are his handlers, 0bama should have done a couple terms in the Senate before moving up (or in the minds of his faith full “down”) that includes Ms. “Coat Tails” Clinton (Monica and many others had the front…) Being one that thinks “Nation Building” only works when the “World” is in ruins not with single nations who’s GDP’s are smaller than most of our states and in countries that the primary political force (and religion) are devote to the destruction of everything America stands for (gee you think that’s why the Nazi’s and the Japan Militarist where prosecuted and literally hung out of political leadership in those countries?), Ideally the situation sets up a great “Sherman’s March” to a Pakistan or Iranian port and confiscate the Nukes on the way, just lay waste like Sherman did and leave a note that if we gotta come back it’ll be much worse!
An interesting article in AT about Chinas plans for Africa
“The simple resources-for-infrastructure narrative used to explain China’s engagement in Africa is less compelling than suspicions the continent is being readied as a home for a 300-500 million overflow of China’s population.
The main trigger given for the exodus – environmental degradation
– is a less likely than another reason:
the individuals imbued with ambition through China’s “one-child” policy.
Africa offers Chinese entrepreneurs an unprecedented chance to thrive.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NF14Ad01.html
Also KSA, UAE, Qatar and other Gulf states have bought huge tracks of fertile land in Africa so they can thrive in the coming commodity crisis
Food shortages
“Civil war” is a cute term… Not that anyone fully knows what is happening there, but I have real suspicions about Mount Hermon and why crazies are being shunted to France this year.
End game for the cutie pies in the Mideast is encirclement of Israel and permanent ejection of the U.S. from the region. They won’t be fools enough to instigate a frontal war with the Israelis, knowing that they’ll get their a55es kicked to the other side of the planet. They’ll bide their time, use an incremental approach, and strike when they’re confident they can deflect or absorb any Israeli counter strike, including those German-made subs with their nuclear-tipped cruise missiles cruising offshore from Iran. Meantime, our smart diplomats and their amen corner in the foreign policy establishment, on both sides of the Atlantic, will sit at their conference tables and gull themselves into further irrelevance. Watching it all, the thug in Moscow, in charge of that miserable wretch of a nation, chuckles and relishes his next move. And we Americans, after conflicts fought magnificently by an infinitesimal part of our population, are feeling war fatigue. I’m afraid we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
#5 Wretchard: “The West needs an engine of renewal that will reboot its demo
cracies and tap its potential for creativity.”
Mobilizing the financial value in the West’s collections of artworks, antiquities, specimens, manuscripts, etc.– it’s cultural property — might or might not help democracy (that depends on how peoples react to states handing treasures over in exchange for bailouts), but a Cultural Reserve Bank would certainly reboot the financial capacity of the PIIGS countries by capitalizing their most valuable hard assets. If their peoples can use this breathing room to renew democracy and free their creative impulse from stifling bureaucracies, so much the better.
Russia has a lot of bad blood with China over the border areas and those resource rich area’s that are sparsely populated by Russians yet have large none Russian workers (a.k.a Chinese) can become volatile in the next decade as Russian population continues to shrink and the Chinese start to really feel their oats… Russia has as much if not more to worry about the Chinese’s technological advances as America does, Chinese want to steal our idea’s but they need the pristine resource rich land too if not more!
r @ 12: And we Americans, after conflicts fought magnificently by an infinitesimal part of our population, are feeling war fatigue.
Well, let’s see, since 1991 we’ve probably had a lot of Americans travel to the Middle East as uniformed military or civilian contractors, but let’s limit it to since 2001. Combined Iraq and Afghanistan has probably been 200,000 uniformed and nearly another 200,000 civilians for ten years. Let’s call that just one turnover, for 800,000 individuals. And say each affects just five others, parents, siblings, spouses, children. That’s 4m. And maybe triple that for near neighbors who would at least hear about it second-hand. And another percent or two in military supply or aerospace, connected to the war efforts. And I haven’t even counted military in the Navy, in Europe, or at home.
It comes to a few percent, three, four, five, six?
It’s small, but maybe not infinitesimal. And I counted those numbers pretty conservatively, could make a case for 2x that, I think. Enough to count, I hope.
A little schoolboy exercise about the consequences of inaction in another time and another place:
America on the Sidelines
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/neh/interactives/neutrality/
“…if it results in a full-scale confrontation between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East based on a conflict fueled by Russia, which could turn around and sell Europe the fuel it need but can no longer get from the region.”
“The very high tax rate on the Russian oil industry funds the Russian State and its adventurist policies.”
Glad to see this brought up, because every time I see someone, whether pol, journalist or talking head, waxing on about “getting Russia to do something” or “getting them on board to stop Assad”, I think to myself, “WHY the %^#& would they?!?”
I almost get ill thinking about so many of these so many supposedly enlightened and learned people being so completely clueless when it comes to Russian interests and mindset. Are they really that naive and/or delusional? Is that mirror effect that strong (The Russians are just like us; they just need a little encouragement/shaming) that it wipes out both logic and history?
Of course, there is the other possibility, that many of them know the real score, but for their various reasons all pretend things are different than they are. One being that when the region goes to hell, one can state:
“We would have peace in our time, if it weren’t for those meddling Russians!”
Either way, it seems like so much of the “analysis” of so many issues and situations is misguided, blatantly wrong or incomprehensible static, that it is impossible for rational discussion to occur, let alone actual solutions. The question that keeps me up at night is what will it take to blast away all the facades blocking our view. I shudder at the possible answer.
#5 Wretchard: “The West needs an engine of renewal that will reboot its demo
cracies and tap its potential for creativity.”
Mobilizing the financial value in the West’s collections of artworks, antiquities, specimens, manuscripts, etc.– its accumulated cultural property — might or might not help democracy (that depends on how peoples react to states handing treasures over in exchange for bailouts), but a Cultural Reserve Bank would certainly reboot the financial capacity of the PIIGS countries by capitalizing their most valuable hard assets. If their peoples can use this breathing room to renew democracy and free their creative impulse from stifling bureaucracies, so much the better.
4. Barry Meislin
Make a desert and call it peace? Works for me.
David Archibald is wrong. The USA has by far the largest energy reserves. David is counting just OIL that is in the ground and easy to get at. A lot of the Russian OIL is beyond their technological grasp.
Civil War is a rather loose term. Not all civil wars are the same. IIRC one definition of civil war is “A breakdown of established law and order”. Using that definition, not only is Syria and Iraq in a state of ‘civil war’, so is the USA. Think about it.
This administration has flouted the law ever since the Won slithered into the Oval office. His minions have been worse. No shootings. Yet….. That we know about.
Let me continue beating my dead horse. Notice that the arguments against military involvement in Syria are all fear based. Don’t do it because something horrible MIGHT happen. Bomb Assad until you kill him and something good WILL happen. And if the devil we don’t know turns out to be worse then the devil we know, keep bombing. Adding another shift at the bomb factory will help the employment number. Not by much but better then cancelling keystone did.
As far as paying for those bombs, start selling defence bonds. Have the kiddies collect pennies. Soccer moms can do bake sales. The money is there. Americans will dig deep for a worthy cause.
The world is going to be awash in oil in ten years. The real issue and benefit to civilization is the cost. Just as high energy costs are a vampire on the world economy–low energy costs are a total tonic.
Here is an excerpt from my new ebook out on amazon.
Collapsing Water and Energy Costs: How Bill Gates [Or You!] Can Create the Inventions That Spark the Next Industrial and Agricultural Revolution
The Green River oil shale formation in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming has more oil in the form of oil shale (kerogin) than all the rest of the world combined. Most of it is on federal lands (where federal taxes would fund the US government for many decades.) It will take a lot of electricity to mine green river oil shale kerogin in-situ. The price of this extraction has fallen in the last decade. In 2005, Royal Dutch Shell announced that its in-situ process could become competitive for oil prices over $30 per barrel ($190/m3).[56] A 2004 report by the United States Department of Energy stated that both the Shell technology and technology used in the Stuart Oil Shale Project could be competitive at prices above $25 per barrel, and that the Viru Keemia Grupp expected full-scale production to be economical at prices above $18 per barrel ($130/m3).[46][57]
Several companies are currently developing portable mini nuclear reactors that could power pumps. If you drop the price of electricity with portable thorium reactors to ¼ of current cheapest costs—then the cost of extraction will fall much further.
If more water is needed, cheap portable electricity would make it economical to pump and store water from the Mississippi River during spring flooding.
The result? This is what the Rand Corporation said about the Green River Formation. On June 3, 2011, Rand’s James T. Bartis appeared in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power. “At crude oil prices of $100 per barrel, the value of the oil that might be recovered from federally owned land is over $60 trillion,” Bartis said in written testimony. “The public wealth embedded in our oil shale lands is staggering.”
Considering most of the Green River Formation sits on federal lands and Federal Debt is 15 trillion, the oil mined in-situ from the Green River Basin could well pay some bills in an environmentally friendly way. Even if the surplus oil drives oil prices down to 30 dollars a barrel–that would still leave the federal government with 18 trillion dollars–just enough to pay off the national debt. However, the collapse of energy prices would cause an explosion of national and international wealth. This would increase government revenues—and restore the financial design margins the USA enjoyed 40 years ago—before the first arab oil embargo of 1973.
Bolton has a good piece on Syria here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/302104
Bruce Casting has a good piece on Cyprus here:
http://brucekrasting.blogspot.com/2012/06/interesting-bailout-in-offing.html
There may be a nuclear confrontation between Iran, whose WMD program has but been barely inconvenienced by the administration and the Saudi-led Sunnis, with the entire Pakistani atomic arsenal at their disposal.
So it would seem Iran and Pakistan have diametrically conflicting interests, and so will inevitably make competing claims on Afghanistan. This is, again, why our most recent overture towards India is, in its way, brilliant. It makes natural allies of Iran and India, at Pakistan’s expense.
And we can hurt Pakistan further, by encouraging the nationalistic aspirations of Balochistan, which has a deep-water port, (and potential entry point for future humanitarian/democratizing mischief,) courtesy of China.
Not incidentally, China has an already significant Christian population and currently prints more Bibles than anyplace else in the world.
The Persians will eventually throw off the mullahs and continue the modernation and Westernization begun by the Shah, assuming we can help them buy enough time.
The long-term demographics of Iran and China and India are very favorable for us, not so for reactionary Islam.
And sooner or later, one hopes, Russia will recognize where its true interests lie.
Charles @ 20. It’s morning in America. If we let it.
Here’s what Bolton thinks should be done in Syria.
Bolton’s thinking is straightforward, even obvious. What is truly amazing is that the administration, in its vanity, has missed the labeled buttons in favor of some vaporous combination of gyrations which were utterly futile. Bolton would have what Indiana Jones did when faced with the fancy swordsman. What the President did, by contrast, was to respond to the bladesmans twirling antics by doing the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers intimidation sequence with both comedic and tragic results.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18428782
What a switch! The FRENCH are leading the charge while America cowers in fear! Maybe this will be enough to erase those few days of French shame in 1940. Or will it establish a new standard of international cowardice? Set by America in 2012?
Marie will love it. I can hear the jokes now about the new American fighter that flies faster backwards then it does forward.
“Which would entail fighting brutal, bloodly, inconclusive, and costly guerrilla wars for 20 years. A prescription for neverending warfare.”
Roughcoat, any evidence to support that baseless claim? The resistance movement in Iraq was started by Bremmer and State. If the Army had been left in charge, they would have followed the manual and made none of the mistakes Bremmer made.
As supporting evidence for my claim I offer Japan and Germany. If I wanted to stretch the parameters a bit I could add The Philippines, S. Korea and Italy. Those last 3 were All under Martial law at some point and were administered by the military until they were judged capable of administering themselves. They worked out pretty good, although the PI had a few rough spots.
Guerrilla comes about from Natives that object to being ruled by non-natives. Once they understand that the USA has no interest in ruling them, that we only want to build a civil society (nation building) and once that is done, we are outa here. The guerrillas figure out that we are fighting for basically the same thing they are and we become allies. Remember the Sunni awakening in Iraq? If the US Army had been in charge that would have happened in the first week, NOT the 4th year. Once the guerrillas and the population figure out that the quick and simple way to get rid of the Americans is to get with the program, everybody that doesn’t goes from guerrillas to criminal. That is because once the population tuns against them, they are no longer guerrillas but outlaws. Outlaw gangs seldom last years, much less decades.
Syrians: killing each other so we don’t have to.
“Former CIA agent Charles Faddis thinks that in just a little while politicians will be asking themselves, “who lost Egypt”? ”
One question which would be interesting to examine is why it should take two years for politicians to begin asking what was obvious to many of us at the onset of the “Arab Spring” debacle? How did it come to pass that the nerve endings of our system of governance are so malfunctioning that it takes years for real-world signals to reach the brain??? The culture that invented the technologies which make the modern age modern, can be out-maneuvered by primitive and/or barbaric nations and players like the Arabs Muslim fascists, or the regressive gangster Russians and Chinese. One would have thought that the technologies which we invented would give us a huge advantage in this modern world we created. Instead we seem so hide-bound, and our policies seem so utterly unmatched to the challenges which confront us, that something extremely perverse seems to be in play.
Bolton’s prescription: “find Syrian rebel leaders who are truly secular and who oppose radical Islam; who will disavow al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups; and who will reject Russian and Iranian hegemony over their country. …. Such is the kind of opposition that, assuming it exists, we should support …”
Put yourself in the position of that exemplary Syrian opposition group, assuming it exists. There is a knock at the door from an American envoy. She (this is Hillary’s State Dept, after all) comes in and says — The US is with you!
The Syrians think about the South Vietnamese who got the same message; the Montagnard tribesmen; the Iraqi resistance after Gulf War I; and many less celebrated examples of Washington politicians’ lack of constancy of purpose.
Hillary’s envoy would soon learn the Arabic for ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out’. We can’t undo past realities, and any Syrian opposition group which aims to succeed would have to look for partners with better track records than unreliable Americans or feckless Europeans.
25. stoicheion
I wasn’t making a “claim.”
The administration has managed to ‘bottle’ up US forces in Afghanistan, pulled them out of supporting role in Iraq all while blocking the pipeline project and any other pro energy opportunity. They are tipping scales so that US weight can not be factored into any ME solution.
Obama has burnished his brand as a hawk by promoting the Bin Laden assassination and if the region does unravel into open warfare it will work nicely for his campaign for reelection. No longer must he answer whether or not Americans are better now than they were four years ago or whether an accomplished businessman can formulate better policies to “fix” the economy. The question will be – “Who is better suited to managing the US during World War III?”
ON THE THRESHOLD OF GREATNESS
The Obama administration is incapable or unwilling to defend the interests of the United States against states that wish us harm. President Obama has sided with the radical left environmentalists in destroying the economy of the United States. He has placed our armed forces in a landlocked country with no way out, and in spite of all this, Obama is completely at peace with himself, completely convinced that he is the smartest guy in town, and that he is poised on the threshold of greatness. In a personal, wide ranging interview with President Obama in the Oval Office, late at night, no one in the darkened room but the two of us, he leaned close in a conspiratorial manner and whispered,
I’m poised on the threshold of greatness
I need but to step through the door
The women all love me completely
They lust just to be my amour
I was born to be somebody special
In Hilo or Kenya or such
I have a Messiah within me
And that is why I care so much
I speak and the birds think I’m singing
I walk on rose petals folks throw
I smile and the sun hides in envy
The seas and the atmosphere glow
The magic I’m blessed with is awesome
Impossible that I do wrong
The merest of words that I utter
Are turned instantly into song
I’m humbled to be in this office
Where great men have been here before
But none have been here on this threshold
Of greatness with me at the door
I thank you for coming this evening
Not often do I get the chance
To speak without screaming supporters
And women who just want to dance
And hold me real close to their bosoms
And fondle my shirt and my tie
I see now the nurses are calling
It’s time now to bid you goodbye
Bravo Charles. I’ll have to read it. I have been interested in your cheap water bent for some time. Like the cover graphics too!
Kinuachdrach, unfortunately that is too much the truth.
Josh @15: If I’ve given you the impression that I’m minimizing the sacrifices of our service members in these two wars, who have been killed in the thousands and maimed in the tens of thousands, or of their families, who have endured the death or wounding of their loved ones, you have the wrong impression. How will it be if we settle on “a relatively small percentage compared to previous major U.S. wars” and let it go at that? They’re the best of us, whatever percentage they are.
“Which would entail fighting brutal, bloodly, inconclusive, and costly guerrilla wars for 20 years. A prescription for neverending warfare.”
The difference between “claim” and “fact” is evidence. Fear is not evidence.
35. stoicheion
I wasn’t stating a “fact” either. Concerning the future, there can be no facts.
Do you believe my opinion is entirely without merit?
deleted
#35
What happens to the Syrian Christians when the Muslim Brotherhood gets control of the government and the military? The Iraqis drove the Christians out of ancestral homelands while the USA stood by doing nothing and now I should believe that Uncle Sugar is going to do the right thing in Syria?
Bolton has it right but those opportunities are long past if indeed they ever existed at all. It’s reported that Obama has had 100s of secret meetings (no transcripts or minutes) with CAIR, a Muslim Brotherhood organization. Whose interests were being served – you can bet it wasn’t the Syrian Christians or the hundreds of thousands that have been driven out of Iraq.
I’m choosing sides and it ain’t the Muslim Brotherhood.
27. Morton D :”How did it come to pass that the nerve endings of our system of governance are so malfunctioning that it takes years for real-world signals to reach the brain???”
Sorry Mort, you failed Obama Physiology 101; In this administration all nerve endings terminate at the vagina. No brain required.
Wretchard as usual great stuff, but there are a couple of words that I think need fixes
“But those catastrophes is now distinctly within the realm of possibility and palpably nearer.”
I think “is” should be “are”
“The administration has checkmated in such an epic manner as to beggar the imagination.”
“checkmated” needs either to be: a noun and preceded by a verb such as “been” or a verb and followed by an object such as “itself”.
John Bolton: find Syrian rebel leaders who are truly secular and who oppose radical Islam; who will disavow al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups; and who will reject Russian and Iranian hegemony over their country. We will need some reason to believe that this opposition can prevail against not only the Assad regime but also the terrorists and fanatics who also oppose Assad. This must be not a faith-based judgment but a clear-eyed assessment of reality.
Is Bolton having a laugh here? Is there any evidence that such an opposition exists?
35. stoicheion
“I wasn’t stating a “fact” either. Concerning the future, there can be no facts.
Do you believe my opinion is entirely without merit?”
Yes. Concerning the future, It is a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow.
You fears could come to pass, IF someone like Bremmer works to make them happen. If SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) are followed they won’t.
ALL guerrillas, Insurgents, revolutionaries, etc. want something. Want it bad enough to fight for it. Give it to them and they quit fighting.
Normally, that something is power. That is why most guerrilas are long drawn out affairs. The occupier has power and doesn’t want to give it up. The USA is unique in that we stopped invading other countries for power long ago. So giving up something we don’t want to avoid fighting over it makes sense.
For dealing with 3rd world despots boots on the ground is a huge mistake. When you have air domination, there is no point to ground combat. The air force tried twice to hit Saddam, half stepping it all the way. They should have not stopped until they got him.
No boots on the ground in Syria. Rubbleize them. Bomb until we get Assad, or he flees the country.
My prediction is that after a few close calls, the Assads will take a helio to one of the Russian ships and then a boat ride to Rodnia. Then the pretenders will use kinetic energy to elect his successor.
The diplomatic term is “Gunboat Diplomacy”. It worked for centuries, until the West started selling the heathens guns. Now B-2′s have replaced gunboats and JDAM’s cannons. That is an advantage because nobody except the USA can build Stealth bombers. It will be 20 or 30 years before that changes.
I figured this was a clever way for Bolton to say we have little interest to support in Syria.
42. stoicheion
It is not a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is a likelihood but not a fact. The sun might explode tonight. Probably won’t. But it might; it could, for all we know–and we don’t know all.
In any case, since you believe that my opinion is entirely without merit, it is pointless to have a discussion.
See instead today’s Via Meadia and Spengler.
Incidentally, I did not advocate abstaining entirely from military action.
4 and out. You’ve had your four too.
The Syrian Civil War is a squirrel. The collapse of Europe is a maneating tiger, one that conventional thinking won’t fend off. Look… squirrel!!!
Sorry about the duplicate comment — it emerged today that Android doesn’t compose or edit comments well in my hands.
The typos is fixed.
Let me ask a dumb question. Is Assad really our enemy or our friend? Is he any worse than was Mubarak? Assad has said some worse stuff to the US and to Israel, and he let jihadis through Syria into Iraq to fight us, and he armed Hizboolah and tried to build his own nukes. But, y’know, maybe he’s been playing both sides for twenty years. He has NOT sent the Syrian military against either Israel or the US, that I can recall.
While we don’t have to like what he’s doing now, just maybe some of our reticence is actually quid pro quo for some quiet cooperation from him in the past.
Or, this could all be unfounded.
As to Bolton’s idea that we find some good westernized secular Syrians and back them, what a swell idea, but if we wanted to do something like that I *know* there are probably MILLIONS of such people in Iran, and we haven’t lifted a finger there to follow such a plan. What’s more if we followed such actions in Iran, Syria would follow automatically.
The dictator formerly known as the Opthamologist of Damascus allied himself with Iran, but there was always some doubt about how far in his villainy he would go. You could reasonably hope to contain him, pay him off or deter him. He caused trouble for the US in Iraq, but never to that extent that the US forces crossed the border into Syria to go after him.
Similarly he was a supporter of the Hezbollah, but he was also their brake, as exemplified in the estimate that he would not let the Hez get their hands on the missiles until he was good and ready. Probably Israel figured they could deter him from crossing that line.
But he is no longer, as Kaspar Gutman in the Maltese Falcon said, able to act rationally in his own interests. To survive Assad must make such alliances and throw in with such friends as will ensure his survival. What will come out of Syria, left to itself, will be something virulent: either a mutated Assad or a new and probably terrorist regime.
In other words, the slow growing cancer that was Syria has gone aggressive of a sudden. And with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran backing their respective horses, no good can come out of it. And between this conflagration and the powerkeg, Israel, there’s Lebanon, the fuse.
The cardinal rule of regime change is once you start it you have to make damn sure than whoever comes up on top is your man bought and paid for. Who says how high when you say “jump”.
What Obama has done is get the literal worst of both worlds. He’s gotten himself mixed up in regime change without any plan to ensure that America’s man climbs to the top the pile. All this is to say that if Syria goes up, it is in America’s interest to make certain that it comes out Washington’s way. “Leading from Behind” doesn’t quite do it.
If you can’t control outcomes in Syria, you build up the firewalls. Strengthen Lebanese independence, reinforce Iraq, fortify Israel. Remarkably, none of these is being done to any appreciable extent. Wall it off. But the President has almost completely ruined his ability to do this.
The President has vacated Iraq. He has done zip for Lebanon and is arguing openly with Israel. It’s like he took all his high cards and burned them. And to top it off, he’s got Hillary making these ludicrous pronouncements about Syria. Who did they send to fix things up? Kofi Annan, the most unscrupulous, impotent and sneaky diplomat on the planet. Why? Maybe because he’s Bill and Hillary’s buddy from the Rwanda days. Guaranteed to turn a Chinese fire drill into a goatrope.
How did it comes to this? What was he thinking? This is the Med, the Levant. America should have a surplus of power in the area. Only a few years ago, Assad was terrified that US Armor would rattle across his border. Russia wouldn’t even show. And now … How did it comes to this?
Wretchard: What will come out of Syria, left to itself, will be something virulent: either a mutated Assad or a new and probably terrorist regime. In other words, the slow growing cancer that was Syria has gone aggressive of a sudden. And with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran backing their respective horses, no good can come out of it.
I’m tired of being the world policeman, so I say leave Syria to itself, good or bad. Assad is a blood-stained chain tying Putin’s foot to Ahmedinejad’s foot, and all three have become the new target for Sunni jihadists the world over just as we’re getting out of the Middle-east. Circular firing squad. I say that’s a good thing.
How did it comes to this?
Obambus is a boob and the entire Democratic party is insane and decrepit, but I’m afraid things have come to where they are through many paths.
* Russia is a bit recovered from where they were five or ten years ago, and Putin is proving to be some kind of rabid weasel. While not as bad as the traditional Russian bear, he is proving a pain.
* Europe is now visibly, obviously impotent. Not that they’ve been active for twenty years, but I think the world, and we, assumed they *could* still act and were just holding back. This served as a moderator for many things.
* Nature abhors a vacuum.
* We’ve acted in Iraq and Afghanistan, with nearly irrational moderation.
* Israel also has acted in almost irrational moderation, since 2000.
* The 2008 crash has weakened us markedly – although fortunately it seems to have weakened *everybody* else even more! Still, it tends to lead towards more stasis.
* We have demonstrated the deadliness of our modern weapons so nobody takes us head-on, but everyone feels free to act on a smaller scale, that seems to flumox us.
* The US is tired, but more than that dispirited at a lack of appreciation and an inability to share the load with anything like an equal ally.
* The UN has proved an absurd joke, other than a fig leaf when we need one, then it is our joke and it is funny indeed.
* The world seems morally and ethically exhausted, and intellectually confused, by which I mean the MSM has utterly failed in their traditional role to field rational opinions and facilitate discussion.
* The Internet and telecommunications bring it all within view, and it is all in all too damn much.
I’m tired of being the world policeman, so I say leave Syria to itself, good or bad. .
That’s a reasonable attitude to adopt and if there were any justice in the world America would be exempted from having to do any more for “the world” for at least fifty years. However what is going to happen in actual fact is that America is going to be handed this problem anyway, when it is ten times bigger and bloodier than it is today.
The reason for this is simple. Russia and Muslim militants will pour gasoline on the conflagration. And the Europeans will run in circles shouting the sky is falling. Between malice and stupidity the fire will grow. What is to stop it?
Two things only. It will run out of fuel or someone will put it out. When will it run out of fuel? Wow, there’s a lot of dry tinder lying around. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Emirates, Egypt. A lot of tinder. What will keep the blaze from spreading until the whole damned region is charred and smoking? Maybe luck or God will stop it. One thing is for sure, neither the UN nor Europe will.
This is how World War 2 started. People remembered the Great War. They were tired of dealing with Europe’s mess. They were sick of the Balkans. Sick of Russia. They wanted France to fix it, Britain to fix it. So they embraced isolation. Refused to play the patsy. They should have fixed it. It was none of their concern. What did America have to do with it?
Nothing.
And yet what started in Spain came back 100 times bigger, until reluctantly, unwillingly and yet ineluctably someone had to go for the fire hose. If there were any justice in the world both sides in Syria would lose. But there is no justice on the earth. Just a bag and the need for someone to hold it.
20. Charles:
All that oil wealth available to the National Government? Are you certain that’s a good thing? Would the National Gov’t pay off the debt?
Or would said Government just blow the wealth on more welfare and crazy schemes as it has done since the 1960′s?
Wretchard: #46 Thank You.
#6 The Russians are more likely to run out of Russians than they are to run out of oil. http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/05/russian-demographics.html
The collapse of the Soviet Union was most clearly foreseen by demographers who noticed that Russian women had stopped having babies, and the life expectancies of Russian men had declined to third world levels. The situation has improved somewhat over the last few years (see link above), but they are not out of the woods yet.
The Bazhenov Formation lies east of the Urals in central Sibera. Surgut in the center of the formation is 1350 mi, more or less, from Moscow. It is 1000 mi from the place where the borders of Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan meet. It will take enormous amounts of capital, know-how, and labor to exploit this resource. The Russians may lack a lot of those, and will have trouble buying them elsewhere because they have been so nasty to their oil company partners in other ventures. Cozying up to the Chinese might seem logical, but the Russians need to think about the day the Chinese say to themselves: “What are we paying the Russians for”?
I’m glad someone else is commenting on the real Russian interest in the middle east: stirring up instability to keep the price of Russian oil high.
On the troops in Afghanistan, march’em out through Iran to the Gulf. Nuke anyone who gets in the away. Okay, it’s just a fantasy, but the only good left in this mess is fantasy.
#51 – Wretchard – a good summary of the state of affairs. What flashed through my mind was: is the United States the UK this time around and Obama Chameberlain “Peace in our Time?” Such an amazing shake up of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that a man like Obama should be President at this time in the affairs of man; that the economic collapse of one EU country will play the domino effect around the world; that Israel should be the “bad guy,” and Arafat receive the Nobel Peace Prize…. that the most ineffective and corrupt world body, the UN, should be the arbiter of U.S. actions… agh.
Walt/31: really good one. The closing twist caught me completely by surprise.
54 John Moore: “On the troops in Afghanistan, march’em out through Iran to the Gulf. Nuke anyone who gets in the away. Okay, it’s just a fantasy, but the only good left in this mess is fantasy.”
Why not Pakistan? I think that the ISI would be glad to see the troops go, and could call off their fanatic operatives long enough to allow the troops to get to the sea. No need for animosity, just passin’ through.
…
Prognosticators seem to be implying a tinder box in the Mid East. What’s new? Have any of the mullahs thought through what happens when they have independent theocracies from Africa to Pakistan (Indonesia)? Who will decide the government? Who will be the boss-man? Just how do independent theocracies work together without strife? When each can pronounce a fatwah, based on their personal interpretation, who’s to say how they will get along? If one considers KSA, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the Emirates, Dubai, Qatar, and then start going West, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, there are so many differing opinions on the color of the sky that it seems to me there can never be a ‘hegemony’ where all live in peace. There can never be a commonality of purpose once other religions are expelled, exterminated or absorbed. Hmmh, Tower of Babel, anyone?
IOW, what does the dog do after it has caught the car{mailman?}? What does Islam do after they have installed Muslim Brotherhood to power throughout the ME? I don’t think it will work out so well for them. Given that, I suspect that arranging for Assad to take a long vacation, followed by some skirmishing among the survivors, will bring about a new regime. If said regime is reprehensible, another vacation can be arranged. Rinse, repeat. These do not explicitly have to be terminal vacations, just ‘encouraged’. Beyond that, investment in the ME is just charity. Soon, there will be a lack of funds to support any ‘strong man’ regime, and what will be will be. The future of extraction based societies that do not use their current income to build sustainable employment is not pleasant. When the oil spigot dries up, the rest blows away in desert winds, and everyone gets hungry. What happens then is the most hungry migrate to the closest place that still has food, or perishes.
In sum, it seems there is no long term plan to work together, or may be I missed all the signals.
tom
When we’re choosing our metaphors and reminding our friends that the Spanish Civil War was a precursor to WW2, let us remember that “like the court at Versailles in its final days” led to the guillotine and decades of brutal warfare. Is that our future, Mr. Fernandez?