Wretchard and Alexis,
The KSA is not on the list of the Axis of Evil, there is a reason. Despite the compact made with the Wahabbi a century ago, to enable the House of Saud to reign in and rule over the other clans, It is not Wahabbi complicity that today keeps the Saud on the throne. The internal workings of the kingdom will be changed by diplomatic and necessary other means not associated with violent overthrow (unless that force come from within KSA) but by the necessity of retaining the hajji.
It is and remains an uneasy arrangement with KSA, due to the dual and vital nature of their position in the Islamic world, But the house of Saud is not stupid, neither is it suicidal. They don’t owe their health and future fortune to a returning Imam. There will be a reckoning, but it will and should involve Islam and not us.
Iran is being dealt a serious economic blow that can be sustained and made to cause the long suffering people of Iran to toss off their mullah approved rule as bing something not sensible or sustainable. It can happen, if Iraq can retain its unity a move which is in the three party’s best interest, there can be no threat from Iranian influence weakening the Shi’ah’s resolve. With the Baathist’s relegated to the dustbins of history, the Syrian version of the NAZI party remains the only viable ME variant. Jordan, Turkey, Egypt (and the KSA) want no part of disrupting the peace which they have attained with Israel, as they prosper more from that arrangement than any counter offer by Syria or Iran could hope to profit them.
Remove Iran its irritant Hezbollah and outrageous Palestinian irritants and reason returns to the Levant. With the exception of fighting Iran’s proxies, and brief struggles on the level of LEOs the overwhelming military aspect of the GWOT ought by rights to be done, but it must be held out as an option.
Since elevating Sec. Rice to the head of DOD there has been some greater cooperation between State and DoD, a real headache in the early planning which was not DoD’s doing, but nearly the military undoing due to the cross-efforts of DoD and CIA Careerists.
Progressive ideas are more than welcome and are embraced, so long as a real effort to understand and support the President’s policy and by extension the policy of the American congress and people and me, is made by those same Careerists. So far as I can tell, and I can only judge by the snippets of whispering campaigns what here and there caused this or that to fail.
I have not witnessed where this has been the case, but in damnable case after damnable case it is certainly the cause of much death and heartache. And even though it appears to have sold a lot of news print, it really ain’t so. I have every confidence in the intellectual prowess of my fellow citizens that the vast majority of them, when confronted by the facts, can make a just decision. Why cannot the government careerists and panderers in the press allow for similar trust?
Stepping on toes of the DoS in an attempt to get it to do its job, is why congress passed laws making sure DoS would not have to actually do its job of promoting the policy of the President. I am sure the careerists are grateful. The children of those parents getting shot at in Afghanistan and Iraq are certainly not as thrilled. The congress which has struggled mightily in freeing the FBI and CIA from the burdens of having to collaborate with one another does us no favors either. The level of humint and even publicly available intelligence translated into something of use by Analysts wasn’t enough to provide a safe trip to the corner store, much less take down OBL or determine the level of Al Qaeda infiltration into the US not to mention Iraq. And pardon me but when was it ever the purview of a former ambassador to determine that his were the definitive observations on anything. That is not his job, until he proves otherwise.
What the heck is a Progressive method of fighting anyway?
What pressure has this Congress ever put on the Administration to negotiate that the Administration has not first placed on itself? Tillman’s situation has been aired and resolved, yet I find myself questioning what purpose it suits to resurrect it here. If you are as i think, more than wrong in your assessments of his demise, if you are being willfully disingenuous on the cause and eventual effects of his situation, why should I respect your opinion or choose to take your advice no matter what the party is to which I belong?
