David Petraeus and the Failure of American Intelligence
We Americans love no one better than he who helps us delude ourselves. The consequence of our self-delusion is a new isolationism among the electorate, and the election of a president who thinks that American influence in the world is an evil thing and wants to remove it. No Republican candidate dare say the obvious — that America should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in a surgical strike — because the voters don’t trust us.
Now we are less important. After four years of American strategic withdrawal, and the prospect of yet another four, the rest of the world is working around us. As I wrote in Asia Times today:
Intelligence services uncover information not by gazing at stars but by stirring up muck. Sometimes the muck is mined. Whatever ultimately comes to light about the death of ambassador Chris Stevens and his guards at Benghazi, it almost certainly will show that the intelligence failure – the failure to anticipate and respond to an organized attack on an American installation – stemmed from a policy failure.
The Obama administration’s fixed idea of engaging radical Islamists will have the same result as trying to cuddle with your pet scorpion. Whether ambassador Stevens ran into blowback from a plan to run Libyan weapons to jihadists in Syria, as former CIA officer Clare Lopez conjectures, we may or may not find out. What is clear, though, is that the United States finds itself within stinging range of some nasty creatures in consequences of delusional policy.
There simply isn’t any reason to bring information to Washington these days. The Obama administration cannot be argued out of a failing policy, and the path of least resistance for America’s allies and adversaries alike is to humor the obsessives on the Potomac and work around them.
After four years of strategic withdrawal, and the prospect of another four with the new “flexibility” that President Obama promised then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev over a mike accidentally left open last March, the world’s secondary powers are left to their own devices. Every one of them will play a double game.
- Israel will make its own decision as to whether to attack Iran’s nuclear capacity, on the strength of military criteria that outsiders are poorly prepared to judge;
- Russia will threaten to arm Iran with its best surface-to-air missiles while negotiating with Israel;
- China will maintain its alliance with Pakistan but deal ruthlessly with Pakistani-supported Muslim separatists in Xinjiang, the so-called East Turkistan;
- Turkey will threaten Iran over its intervention with Syria while bartering billions of dollars in gold to the Islamic Republic each month to help it beat the boycott;
- Saudi Arabia will continue to fund Turkey as a bulwark against Iran while sabotaging Turkey’s efforts to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Syria; and
- Germany will affirm its commitments to Europe and North Atlantic Treaty Organization while quietly diversifying its energy sources towards Russia.
It is a good time for General Petraeus to leave. His greatest success in the mirror-world of intelligence was deluding his own masters into believing that they were in control of events in Iraq. He was unsuccessful in Afghanistan; it may emerge that he failed catastrophically in Libya.Before America can restore the functioning of its intelligence services, it must have a strategy in furtherance of which intelligence is sought. Such a strategy requires leaders who are more concerned about American interests than about the reputations of their employers.
I can’t help seeing this as a judgment on the United States. If the US doesn’t want to focus on strategic issues in a morally and intellectually serious way our attention is forced to them via farce and humiliation of the idols we trust to keep us safe (Army, USMC, FBI). The story of Samson in Judges comes to mind.
P.S. I disagree, in part, with your analysis of the Iraq Surge of 2007/08. It was operationally brilliant, and relied on a lot of killing as well as “bribing”. Nevertheless, I agree that it was disconnected to a larger strategy because we wouldn’t confront the region’s other bad actors, esp. Iran.
ACTS OF TREASON
Timeline:
Obama was gun and missile running….(Lochkeed supplied)
Petraeus meets with Romney for VP slot
7/13 the Ethicist letter appears in the NYT’s a fraudulent letter probably from The WH…as The Sword of Damacles over Petraeus
8/6 Obama scoffs that Romney “thinks” Petraeus will be his VP
Benghazi 9/11 rape and murders happen as payback…Stevens for Kaddaffi
Petraeus signed on to the Obama coverup to cover his own indiscretions (Obama White House blackmails and threatens Petraeus for political control and to exact his ruin)
Obama reelected (through fraud) 18 million new Republucan voters enrolled…where or where did they go???
Petraeus submits letter of resignation with affair as excuse…..to aviod missile running exposure ( which many knew of)
Locheed new CEO submits resignation letter for affairs ( supplier of missiles and guns to Obama) now excuses himself to Congressional investigation too ( he thinks)
* Other Considerations:
.Obama rebels take out and kill and rape Russian allie Kaddaffi (turning LIBYA over to the Muslim Brotherhood)
.Obama running guns to Russian allie Syria in attempt to take down Assad and bring Syria under Muslim Brotherhood control…and get to the prize Israel
.This was a Russina sponsored attach in Bengazi…payback for what America did to Russia’s surrogate Kaddaffi…a murder and a rape for a murder and a rape…Kaddaffi begets Stevens…
. A victory lap to to rub it in …and humiliate America,,,.,,Russian nuclear subs off our East Coast…election Day
From Lamecherry
“So for a short review, a synopsis, so all can look the expert, Obama tries to get Chris Stevens kidnapped while he is worried about David Patreaus in bed with Mitt Romney, so Obama sends in the FBI via conduits to “investigate” things as the cat fight kitties give a cover reason for all of this.
In the meantime, Patreaus to save himself from being blamed for allowing Obama to arm and train terrorists which got Stevens murdered, starts feeding information to Mitt Romney on all of this to head CIA under a Romney regime, not knowing in trying to save himself, that Obama has a sword over Patraeus in all of this sex stuff, just waiting to cut him off after the election theft, as things start to unravel due to the work of this blog concerning ANALGATE.
ButtreausGate is about the cover up of ANALGATE in which Dave’s Deep Throat got him into trouble.”
In defense of the US intelligence service community, I would like to add that they managed to honeytrap the assistant of a Chinese Vice minister of state security. He was operational for three years until he was discovered this year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9306134/Chinese-official-found-spying-for-the-CIA.html#
I guess, the blindness will mostly affect the Middle East section, where basically all the errs Mr Goldman listed happened. I think there is still a profound interest and confidence about the engangement in East Asia.
Virtally everybody is speaking now about China, from the State Department to the Pentagon; so many young Westeners are learning now Mandarin.
As the USA will be become independent of petroleum and natural gas imports from the Middle East over this decade, it is maybe not the worst thing to focus now on East Asia and leave the chaos to regional stakeholders, like Russia or Israel.
And those who believe the crocodile will eat them last, or not at all, will duly be surprised.
The facts are really very simple and straightforward – Islamists are gunning for the Big Satan, but only after they devour the Little Satan. There is no way around this truth, and the Islamic barbarians, at the U.S. gate, admit as much!
So, if the prescription is to let the Mid East explode, then so be it. But aside from self preservation, Americans would do well to recall who the chief pyromaniacs are – the Islamist-in-Chief and his surrogates, both in the U.S. and all over the Mid East.
The facts are on this blogger’s side, and they are what they are – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/25/the-muslim-mafia-aka-the-brotherhood-their-overarching-plan-what-it-means-for-americas-future-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Again, dumping it at our door isn’t going to save America. To the contrary. If left as is, the blow back will explode with a ferocity that has never been seen before! 9/11/01 will look like a picnic in comparison.
I am concerned that by finding so many generals and government officials guilty of indescretions, we will be at the mercy of Obama choices, many of whom probably could not get a security clearance….that goes for Obama himself also. I can’t imagine John Kerry, who threw his medals over the fence, as the Secretary of Defense. It is questionable as to whether they really were his medals and whether he really earned them.
And I am concerned that just after the election Obama is finding reasons to thin out the current crop of senior military leadership. To appoint who?
Exactly. That was my first impression too.
He did not throw his own medals away. He got others from somewhere and threw them away. Came out in 2004, as I recall. Interesting measure of him, eh?
Adina – with the coming end of operations in the fossile energy sector, the only point of interest in the Middle East seems to be …, well there will be none acutally, I think. Non-energy trade between the USA and the Arabian countries are negligible, and now with lessons learned from the last decade, the Islamist threat is a matter for the Boarder Security.
After they appear to have infiltrated security organs of the administration and now have much influence in the political side?
This seems neither likely nor possible for me.
I agree with you totally. If the US doesn’t start to force their intel operatives to tell the truth, and protect them when they do, we are in for a rough ride. What the world really needs or is going to need is another Charles Martel. Our own meeting at Tours is fast approaching.
Thomas Paine said in the Sunshine Patriot,”they solace themselves with hope that the enemy, if successful, will be merciful.”
On the other hand, Windthorst, they let him get caught.
Mr. Crawford – I’m not educated in these matters, but to maintain such a source just with a sex affair for three years sounds pretty impressive to me. The sacking is of course a personal tragedy, but I guess, the vice minister will be anyway exchanged in the current CP leadership transition.
I’m an admirer of Petraeus because of the surge. Al Qaeda in Iraq had its capital at Ramadi and Baghdad well surrounded and infiltrated. Petraeus defeated al Qaeda in Anbar province and the belts around Baghdad with the help of the Anbarese who were being abused by the al Qaeda foreign fighters. He split the local Sunis from the fanatical foreign fighters and proceeded to kill the latter in concert with with the former well paid for their help. It wasn’t about the Republicans claiming victory, it was about defeating al Qaeda in the field. Petraeus, as all great men of action, took the matter on and decided it beyond the reach of the gilded Yalies of State and the CIA. The Democratic Congress had sent him off with high certainty that he would lose to their political gain, Smooth the pillow a dying war, but he did not. Men of action sometime have that choice, In the end both the Republicans and the Democrats discovered that didn’t get the general they prayed for – they got the general God sent. I din’t think it fair to say he simply bought victory in Iraq. He broke al Qaeda in Iraq with all the means available to him including money and guns and winning over the Sheikhs. I believe that victory has seriously diminished the ability of al Qaeda to function. The successful recent attacks on Sept 11, have strengthened them. I believe we will hear from them again over the next 4 years. And be sorry Petraeus is out of the picture.
And Wesley Clark bombed the crap out of Serbia, including the Chinese embassy. Am I supposed to admire him?
These days, everybody in the armed services above a certain level is political, and nothing but political. Were they anything else, they would have resigned back in the Clinton era during the aforesaid bombing of the Serbs or during the lead-up to that, or at the very least, as soon as it became clear that the ROEs in both Iraq and Afghanistan were just getting our troops killed while letting our enemies stay alive to fight another day. Any high-ranking officer with any SENSE should resign over the very fact that, after Fort Hood, we continue to allow Muslims in our military in ANY capacity.
The Taliban should have been exterminated completely. Not just decimated, obliterated. The fact that we didn’t have the stomach to do that tells our enemies everything they need to know.
Completely agree with this!
The Taliban should have been exterminated completely. Not just decimated, obliterated.
HERE HERE!!! Bravo! An excellent point of view and one which should indeed have been “realized.”
If one does not kill, nay, decimate, (excuse me) nay, “obliterate” one’s enemy (of the non-Western ilk such as the Taliban), then one is destined to fight them over and over again, until either: they die or we loose.
You said it perfectly. Thanks.
Exactly right.
Is there any doubt that the days of dropping the BOMB! Or worse, firebombing Dresden and Tokyo would be even contemplated by any leader in the US today? Do I need to say anymore?
After WWII we forgot how to fight a war. Stop all the limited warfare nonsense. Our exit strategy is…. the unconditional surrender of ALL of our enemies forces-Government-and Civilians. Until then the decimation continues.
There are no real MEN left in this country-we are DOOMED!!
He also may have lied to a governmental committee regarding Benghazi. He may have done that under pressure from a White House that had the goods on him, or for some other reason. Regardless, it appears he lied to the American people.
Now it turns out his lover may have had secret information as regards the goings on in Benghazi, too. Oops.
He knew the jig was up, and resigned appropriately.
Yes, he pulled our ass out of the fire in Iraq, for a while anyway, but only because the war was fought half assed up to that point, and he did it with the only possible way he could given the ridiculous rules of engagement and limited manpower he was granted – and agreed to – by winning the enemy’s ‘hearts and minds’ at the expense of our young peoples’ lives and limbs.
And, he had the chutzpah to blame violence on American troops, on Israeli actions. He never retracted that statement. That spoke to a strategic misunderstanding or politically motivated misrepresentation of reality. Nothing honorable there.
Now, we have lost the enemies’ hearts and minds (if we ever had them), and the war in Iraq will have been for naught, but the lives and limbs lost are forever. Very sad. Nothing to celebrate. And that includes Petraeus’ role in the whole debacle.
In previous bouts of isolationism the United States had the luxury of British, French and even German power, plus the relatively safety of good geography, between two oceans, to give us time to reflect and readjust.
Not so now. His 0′ness has squandered our ‘design margin’ (see Richard Fernandez blogs here at PJM). We have neither residual economic nor military strength left. Our only hope is that we can maintain our technological lead long enough for our energy resources to come on line. They will be needed in the first Great War of the 21st Century.
Hoary Prediction #1. GW21 will begin at or near the end of this term, or at least the small wars that will grow. 0 will lead, this time from the front, into some goofy situation in MENA, Southern Africa etc. He could also ignite some shooting wars in Asia. He will most likely develop an overly legalistic view of our various East Asia treaties for a way to withhold support for Japan, S. Korea, Formosa, Philippines, Australia, Singapore et al.
The rest of the world will then size up our 2016 election slates. Hillary or equal plus some numb nuts RINO. The bad guys will go for it (China and Czar Putin’s New Russian Empire). The good guys are on their own.
We can win a war, even a ground war in Asia, if we get time. Time the British Empire will not buy this time around. In order to win, we will need time to ramp up not so much ourselves as the West in toto. Spengler is not so sure this can be done. I believe it will be a close run thing. The requirement will be the new Democracy Army. Anglo-sphere, Europe, and Free East Asia. Possibly nuke free, but more likely including a limited exchange.
Sorry for the free form rant.
Enjoy your day
ta
You can bet your bottom quatloo that hundreds of employees at the EPA are working diligently right now to figure out how to stop energy independence in its tracks. Private property you say? When has that ever stopped them?
Once the dictator successfully steals an election, all bets are off. It’s over. He gets to do anything he damn well pleases. We’re fools to be talking about how to persuade the voters to see things our way next time. Our base won’t turn out because they already know their votes will be deep-sixed, and thy’re right.
Re your:
“We can win a war, even a ground war in Asia, if we get time.”….
….I couldn’t disagree more. They’ve (the Chinese) the overwhelming population advantage and vast, vast areas of geography with which to absorb more of our blood than any other people or place on Earth.
They (the Chinese) absorbed the Japanese during all of the 1930′s and in effect quarantined them along the coast, albeit that was the most strategic area of China, other than the coal in the north. The Chinese used waves upon waves of fodder-troops against the Japanese.
Eisenhower warned against us getting involved in a land war in Asia….look what happened to us in Viet Nam and Laos, despite (I’ve seen somewhere) more United States bomb/ordinance-tonnage dropped there than during WWII inside Europe. Our blood loss there?…incalculable.
I’m becoming an Isolationist…..we draw a hard “line”, however, at any perceived Muslim covert and overt attacks upon our “interests”…..anywhere. That’s the fallacy of my Isolationism….just where to draw that “line”, and, the definition of our “interests” will vary.
The thought being that we Americans should review our interventionist efforts since 1917 and re-tally our horrendous losses in blood and materiel and treasure in that near century since then……..against what….”gratitude”?…from whom?….prosperity?……where?….how many “secure-years” in that horrific near century?
Let these Muslim factions cannibal-ize each other…we’ll pass the napkins, figuratively.
Charlie, Agree with new isolationism. We wouldn’t withdraw from our alliances (Germany, UK, Japan) but we should foment our W Hemisphere alliances, mostly ignored – Brazil, for example (I assume Canada) and prepare to be on the right side of the indigineous S.A. indian movements to come in South America. Argentina, Chile and others are still shamefully dominated by a tightly-knit, largrly racist European-originated “upper class” that does little work and shares even less with the great majority of their populations – and this wil change in the 21st century, the internet will see to that.. Why Western Hemispherism? Because the global population has doubled on the last 60 years, and 87% of them are in Eurasia and Europe – 80 per sq. mi. In Europe, 180 in China, 380 in India. the U.S has only 36, Canada 13, etc. . The U.S. needs to play the long game, now that we will be energy indpeendent, rather than inventing reasons to get our children killed in the Eastern Hemisphere, which will become increasingly problematic as the information flow increases. Just look at Russia – 190 Million when Yeltsin took office, 130 million now, few of whom work — with an aging population, resource poor, of 1.5 Billion Chinese on their southern border. Let’s build our own house, and the best and the brightest, worldwide, will come.
@“DJPionzio jr
“largrly racist European-originated ‘upper class’… Let’s build our own house, and the best and the brightest, worldwide, will come.”
You condemn racism yet you want “the best and brightest.” This is cognitive dissonance as to discriminate by intelligence is to be racist.
Dan Kurt
Charlie. I believe it can be done, at great cost. My rationale is longer than this blog and way off target…just remember that we are not Japan and both Korea and Viet Nam were restricted by the idiots in DC, democrats all.
ta
What exactly does Putin need to ‘go for’ with military force? Why fight and die for Ukraine earning the opropium of foreign investors when you can just buy it, and buy large swathes of its population which is still dying off more slowly in the Russian speaking east and Crimea than the Ukrainian nationalist West? And Lukashenko in Belarus won’t live forever either. I doubt Russia wants Georgia or Moldova back after the Abkhaz and South Ossetians desperately sought to be part of relatively mineral and military rich Russia instead of piss poor Georgia.
David this is one of your best columns ever, right up there with ‘Americans Play Monopoly, Russians Play Chess’. It is a dissection of the strategic stupidity and blindness of Washington’s elites, including neocon fools like Max Boot who want to give every Islamist who purports to fight Assad or Iran a lifetime supply of Gaddafi SA-7 MANPADs they will happily use to shoot down American airliners (and possibly Russian too, which is why Moscow warned Amb. Stevens through the Turks that it knew what we were up to in Fast and Furious po Arabski).
In fact David you are more than justified in hinting that the very people Obama hoped would fight Assad took American money and Gaddafi’s guns America and NATO intel services facilitated and murdered our Ambassador with them. That is exactly what happened and is why we’re being bombarded with salacious details about Petreus sex life. As the father of the mistress says, there’s a whole lot more to this story and even the Democrats in Congress like Sen. Carl Levin cannot insist Petreus not testify about Benghazi now that he’s been caught with his pants down AFTER the election.
This neocon strategy of trying to play mini-Cardinal Richelieu and have the Shi’a and Sunni fight eachother to the death from Syria to Saudi Arabia (with the larger goal of fighting Eurasia/Eastasia, er, Russia and China to the last jihadi)…WON’T WORK. Besides Moscow and Beijing have seen that movie before during the Soviet-Afghan War, there won’t be any repeat of the 1980s glory days because America is economically, monetarily, and morally weaker than it was then. And Putin knows this. He also might have some SIGINT from Benghazi from offshore or Russian antenaes in that city. Meaning that even if Obama succeeds in squeezing Petreus by the cojones into not testifying and revealing the Big O’s standdown order and Fast and Furious to the jihadis, there’s still the risk that if they push Moscow too far by having NATO directly intervene in Syria that kompromat could come out. If investigative reporters like Douglas J. Hagmann, Clare Lopez and Lt. Col. Anthony Schaffer know this much, just imagine what foreign governments know about Benghazi and how they’re prepared to use that information to blackmail Obama.
And I should insert here as a corollary that if you think cheap oil from shale is going to bankrupt Russia like cheap Saudi crude during the 1980s…here’s a warning. Saudi Arabia will start running deficits first, due to the fact that unlike Russia the Saudis have nothing to export but jobless young men and crude. Plus, if it’s merely a matter of increasing output to make up for falling prices, the Bazhenov shale is probably the single biggest untapped shale formation outside of the Americas. And it’s already conveniently close to Tyumen and the other Western Siberian oil complex, and much more cost effective to drill there than offshore in the Arctic or near Sakhalin.
Mr. X, thanks for the kind words. The “Monopoly” essay is one of my favorites.
I don’t like to guess about things I know nothing about, e.g., Benghazi. But Russia’s biggest worry, I should think, is what to do about Turkey. There are perhaps 11 million Turks and Turkic peoples from the ‘stans working in Russia now. If Erdogan persists in his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (in alliance with Morsi), I should think that security concerns would arise. Russia already kicked the Gulen movement out of the country years ago. Erdogan’s megalomania has crashed against an array of strategic obstacles, and he may react quite badly. These security concerns are part of the explanation for Russia’s continuing support for the Assad government.
Otherwise, as you say, Russia bought the Ukraine handily and made Condileeza Rice look like a fool in retrospect. I have argued in print that the West should make clear that Poland belongs to its sphere for deep historical reasons, but does not have a vital interest in Ukraine.
David,
Well as I admit we are all, whether old line Reagan Republicans or ‘Ronulans’, living in Obama 2nd term world now…where as you say the easiest thing to predict is from the Book of Judges, ‘in those days there was no king, and every man did what was right in his own eyes’. It takes great courage to admit that even Israel is not immune from this trend, nor are the Germans. Der Spiegel in particular (the German equivalent of Time/Newsweek) was among the first ‘Western’ media outlets to blame Saakashvili for starting the 08/08/08 war, and more recently has pointed out that a very significant number of the Syrian rebels are Al-Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood, which happens to correspond with if not be influenced by Moscow’s position.
As for the Turks and Turkics in Russia, while the Uzbeks, Turkomen and Tatars both have strong Turkish genetic and linguistic influences, Tadjiks are more Persian linguistically and in terms of their border with Iran — though the Ghenghis Khan blood is strong in them as it is in the Kyrgiz. And it seems Moscow is keeping very close tabs indeed on any outside efforts to radicalize the Tatar population, which is much a taller order than in the Caucases due to intermarriage and Tatars being slightly MORE affluent than the general Russian population (Tatars are second only to the Armenians in their reputation for drive to success in Russia).
http://www.austereinsomniac.info/blog/2012/10/15/liberasts-and-islamists.html
Liberasts and Islamists
I think the idea that the US is trying to replay the 1980s and turn loose jihadis on Russia and China is a paranoid fantasy. That’s the problem with chess: It’s the ultimate paranoid game. EVERYTHING is significant, just as in paranoid perceptions. That’s why certifiable paranoids like Alekhine or Fisher can be outstanding chess players. The story about Russian SIGINT is fun, but way out of my area of competence.
“just imagine what foreign governments know about Benghazi and how they’re prepared to use that information to blackmail Obama.”
Maybe they already are. Perhaps THAT’s what that overheard conversation with Medvedev was – not “And then we will rule the world!” plotting between equal partners, but a compromised mark pleading for more time to make the payoff.
Since most people in the Middle East are Muslims, any democratically elected government will doubtless reflect that fact. It might be the case that countries run by parties with Islamic affiliations have to be hostile to American interests, but I don’t see why that’s obviously true. Religions don’t have any bones in them, which is why the Christian Democrats can rule Germany and yet not burn heretics at the stake. Anyhow, believing in democracy is always a bit of gamble. Will the Egyptian Brotherhood impose some sort of theocracy on Egypt. I guess that could happen, but the alternative is to support some sort of strong man and I think that approach has had its day. What’s definitely not going to happen, however, is that the Egyptians or the Syrians or the Iranians are going to think like we do or care more about our interests than their own. For a certain kind of Conservative mentality, who, appparently, would only be satisfied by world domination, we can only deal with people who are subservient to us.
“Since most people in the Middle East are Muslims, any democratically elected government will doubtless reflect that fact.”
Most of the West is Christian, but we always have secular government.
Christianity allows for secular government (render unto Caesar…), which is a major difference from Islam.
We also have vote fraud on an unprecedented scale.
“…we can only deal with people who are subservient to us.”
Jim, my friend, where in the heck did that come from? Are you confusing the vigorous exposition of our own ideas a desire for subugation? NOT.
I use, as an example, my fascination with theological dialog with our Jewish fore-thinkers. As a Christian, I have no expectation of converting Jews…or anyone else for that matter, to my beliefs, but the argument and counter-argument makes each of us study our own understandings. Each of thus then grow in our own concepts and relations with God. The same with Western Civilization. Not to mention that most other cultures, and certainly islamic ones, are failures.
ta
Wow, Jim, you sure are proud of your ignorance!
Jim, you’ve made some statements that are unclear to me. You said:
“Religions don’t have any bones in them, which is why the Christian Democrats can rule Germany and yet not burn heretics at the stake. ”
What do you mean by ‘religions have no bones in them’? And just because someone is Christian, this does not mean that one burns heretics at the stake. The two values: Christianity and burning heretics have nothing to do with each other.
Heresy is not a religious but a political value, and was done to render the population subservient to the political authorities. Not religious.
And you wrote: “For a certain kind of Conservative mentality, who, appparently, would only be satisfied by world domination, we can only deal with people who are subservient to us.”
By ‘Conservative mentality’ who want world domination, I presume you are referring to the Islamists who are indeed, fundementalists and do want world domination. Why don’t you say so?
In saying that religions have no bones in them I was merely pointing out that religions, which are human institutions, change all the time and have no eternal essence. After all, they could only be eternally the same if they were based on something real. Or do you think Islam’s identity is guaranteed by Allah? The Neocons and many others often talk about Islam as if it were a monolithic entity always and forever hostile and aggressive. I think they’re projecting. And you often hear people talk about Islamic political parties as if they were all the same. The Islamic parties in Turkey and Tunisia haven’t, so far at least, lived up (or down) to the expectation that they will act badly and I don’t think the Egyptian Brotherhood is particularly radical either.
We have the largest military on Earth and Conservatives are always eager to make it even larger. What is this enormous force for if not domination? The alternative explanation is that you folks are so pathologically fearful that you actually believe your own crap about the triumphant advance of the caliphate. Heck, even the Yellow peril bit made more sense than that.
“What is this for if not for domination?”
Oh sure, we see the American bent of mind when we look at Japan and Germany and what the Amercans did to those nations. Yup, defeated them, enslaved the people, and raped the resources. And also the way the US invaded and took over Mexico and Canada with their vastly superior army, that was a piece of cake for them.
Cuba. Venezuela. Despite provocations that even at this late date are proving doomish for neighbors of the Eurasian giants.
Jim, You can’t be serious. You sound like an intelligent guy, but really, have you been living on another planet for oh, say, the last eleven years?
To say, with all all seriousness, something as obviously stupid as this:
“The Neocons and many others often talk about Islam as if it were a monolithic entity always and forever hostile and aggressive. I think they’re projecting. And you often hear people talk about Islamic political parties as if they were all the same.”
Such nonsense makes it look as though you have learned NOTHING from the West’s experience with Islam over the last decade.
Islam may not be monolithic but it is forever “hostile and aggressive.” It’s in their book. “Hostile and aggressive” is as much a part of Islam as arrogance, ignorance, and condescending attitude is a part of liberalism.
Turkey was an example of enlightened Islam for most of a century because it didn’t act as Islamic as other Islamic countries but that is rapidly changing.
Democracy has never worked in an Islamic society and never will. Islam has never coexisted peacefully with any body else and never will. Stop deluding yourself about the intentions of Islam.
As delusional as the thought that we can negotiate with the Islamists is the thought that we can avoid war by gradual confrontation or “surgical strikes”.
What we will accomplish (and are accomplishing) by participating in continuous hostilities is the dividing of our nation into factions, one of which blames the other for creating the hostilities. The eventual result will be a divided nation when the inevitable total war is finally fought.
We would be far better served by walking softly and being prepared to apply a very large and decisive stick when the time finally arrives that the nation is ready for war.
A horrible war is coming, but one of the worst parts will be because of the divisions within what should be a united West.
There HAS to be the hand of the devil behind this. There is not a country on earth that has not suffered attacks from islam. ALL of them! Logic would dictate that everybody ally and stomp the little bastards into the mud once and for all – then devide up the spoils. There is no logic, whatsoever, in all these world governments insisting on supporting and bolstering these fascists.
lolly, I couldn’t agree with you more. A few days before the election I was talking with a friend of mine. He was incredulous at how the country could be evenly divided between Obama and Romney. I offered the opinion that the only explanation for otherwise intelligent people supporting someone who has openly expressed his opposition to American ideals is divine intervention from the dark side.
I saw him again on election day and he told me he had been thinking about our earlier conversation and he had to agree. There could be no explanation other than satanic influence. I think there may be an increasing number of people coming to this conclusion.
Solid article, Mr. Goldman. The eyes see, the ears hear, but mind can be elsewhere. The eyes, ears, hands and feet should be as one with the mind, which is something the centralized national intelligence gathering establishments can not be, as they are civil service careerists and military careerists who are divorced from the mind — the mind of the chief executive and the minds of the legislature. OF COURSE any chief executive, President, CiC, will follow a philosophic and practical policy, and it is a measure of the energy of the executive just how closely he is able to follow a strong one. Obama’s is strong and he follows it closely — but of itself it is not one that admits reality. Marxism and Mohammedism both are delusional philosophies, and to be strong they MUST have the ability deny reality. And of course that is an unstable condition — or rather a dynamic with only one solution: zero. Zero human progress, and without progress society decays, viz Van Damian’s Land, viz Zimbabwe, viz the Aztecs. At best we all end up at the social levels of the northern American native tribes at the arrival of Europeans. Yet, Marxism and Mohammedism take us even lower than that tribal way, the level of human debasement in Afghanistan — a long established Muslim society — is worse. There is no peace in a place where kidnap and sexual debasement of the young is normative behavior. Marxism is worse for it’s massive genocides. All this is to show the outcome of societal delusion, indulged.
The mind — the person — must be responsible for all actions of the hands and feet, for the use of information gathered by all the senses. And in an organization the same. Our intelligence “establishment” is a failure just for being and establishment. It divides mind from body, body from senses. It is insanity.
So here we are… “Rock Star Government Traitors, Rock Star Victims, Rock Star Generals and Rock Star Presidents” millions of newspapers to print,four more books to write and a movie to watch about it all…..and after billions and billions of tax money spent we get equipment that cannot really guarantee anyone’s protection. Guess we need to increase spending eh?
American intelligence.
Hmmm. Interesting juxtaposition.
Can we now add that to other well-known oxymorons, like military intelligence, government ethics, jumbo shrimp, legal briefs, etc?
George Carlin.
Thanks, thought I was going to have to say that!
This sentence, which I believe to be accurate, summarizes the article:
We Americans love no one better than he who helps us delude ourselves.
We elect those who choose our foreign and domestic polities and they seek to have their notions shown to be correct and to be shielded from inconsistent facts — even though it means becoming more deluded. Since happy talk that deludes the rest of us is also pleasant to hear, we reelect them.
Until we stop, the beatings will continue and we will continue to thank those wielding the whips.
At the risk of flirting with Godwin, who in German history fits that?
Churchill once said something like: American will always do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else first.
I’m not sure in this day and age with such a dumbed down people (at least half) that we are capible of the doing the right thing.
“Bad policy produces bad intelligence.”
So true. But does it follow that good policy produces good intelligence? I’m not so sure. Doesn’t it depend on who is implementing the policy?
“We Americans love no one better than he who helps us delude ourselves. The consequence of our self-delusion is a new isolationism among the electorate, and the election of a president who thinks that American influence in the world is an evil thing and wants to remove it. No Republican candidate dare say the obvious — that America should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in a surgical strike — because the voters don’t trust us.”
Hello again, 1940! THAT is where we are headed under Obama. With Obama’s massive defense cuts under sequestration, we will have a military that is about as capable as it was in around 1940, at least in terms of size, anyway. But that even misses a larger point. Americans are really done with the rest of the world. The last election proved that. All people care about is abortion, contraception, and keeping the money spigot open for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, student loans, housing subsidies, welfare, government grants to education and PBS and NPR, and kickbacks to unions. In short, ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you, and the rest of the world just doesn’t matter in that equation.
Obama always saw foreign policy as a “distraction” from his precious social welfare policy. And the last election proved that he was right. The rest of the country could really care less. Once troops come home from Afghanistan, I doubt you’ll see any American troops going anywhere until well after 2016. And the rest of the world knows it.
We are fast becoming France, my friends, and God help the world when we leave and a huge power vacume needs to be filled. Countries like China and Iran will be happy to step in to fill the void and then it will only be a matter of time before we are drawn into a conflict with either (or both) of them. And then Obama will turn to us and say, “Do you really want to go to war over Taiwan? Is the survival of Israel really that important to the hispanics in Los Angeles? Who really cares if Iran has a nuclear bomb? After all, Pakistan has a nuclear bomb and everything is fine, right?”
I’m not even going to begin to argue with logic like that. America made its choice last week that we’re basically isolationist once again. Hope we can live with that. But if it didn’t work in 1940, I really don’t know why people think it will work now.
The good news is that WWIII will get us out of this depression. Look at the bright side.
LOL, snork, very good!!!
France? At least the French know how to cook. If we go that route, we’ll be French without the food, wine, and fashion.
Hey! Nothing wrong with our food or fashion, since we take it from everywhere.
No, that the French have that we don’t is PRIDE. They are proud to be French! Ever notice how stuck-up they are looking down those long French noses at us?
Well, thanks to the left and their scrubbing (read: rewriting) of history, we no longer have that pride. That assurance of American Exceptionalism. Our youth say things like we are the most evil empire on the planet and we’ve never contributed anything good to the world.
Not having that is like taking someone’s God-Given self-preservation instinct and switching it off. That’s going to hurt us more than anything an enemy bomb could do. That’s having a population ready to be punished. Ready to be slaves.
lolly,
They lost it. Not proud anymore.
Rather, guilt ridden post-colonialism and bought off by petro$.
I would be the last person to defend the French, but out of that country has come some real cultural self-defense measures against illegal immigration (unashamably dragging women and children off to be deported)and passing laws that forbid islamic dress (indeed ALL religeous garb) in the schools.
Now, with the election of another socialist, whose to say if this will continue. But the fact remains that some surprising hardline initiatives have come out of that country (of all countries) in the last few years.
Oh well, there have been some photo ops and articles. De facto, Police forces are instructed to be blind or lenient, and massive regularization of illegals is taking place. French persons clinging to their heritage and customs are labelled extremists by MSM – unless of course it’s non-European heritage and customs.
But I don’t think you’re likely to meet French tourists who’d present themselves as French and ashamed of their President, like those Americans who did so during GWB years.
bof, if it’s all you know that we make in France, no wonder that your foreign policies are such failures
David “Holy Qur’an” Petraeus is a no good son of a #itch. Always has been. Always will be.
You got that right.
And a man who would cheat on his wife would cheat on his mistress (or whatever we call a woman who parlays her *ahem* “access” to a powerful man into fame and fortune).
Did Petreaus do like Obama and refer to the “Holy Qur’an”? I have heard that Muslims must ALWAYS call the book the “Holy Qur’an” like Obama does. If Petreaus did that too its a far worse thing for America than cheating on his wife.
He did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh3eBZmv6Xk
Yahweh, David Petraeus
Would never okay the way you do your thing
Ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding
And you’ll get yours, David Petraeus
Coddlin’ and even sidin’ with that Islam stuff like you do
Boo hoo hoo, boo hoo hoo
Where have you gone, General George S. Patton?
Our nation turns its longing eyes to you
What’s that you say, David Petraeus?
You have banished ‘ol Blood and Guts far away
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey
Coo coo ca-choo, David Petraeus
Mohammad appreciates you more than you will know
Woo woo woo, woo woo woo
Allah uses you, yes,David Petraeus
He may grant some short reprieve to those infidels who humanity betray
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey
Being frustrated with one’s boss is part of life, in various degrees. In the present administration, there must be an unusual number of ranking officials particularly frustrated with their CIC. I wonder if that has anything to do with the incompetence, neglect and bad conduct presently on display.
Gen. Petraeus is known to have done well when he was running the city of Mosul in the early years of Iraq. He must have negotiated rather effectively with local leaders of various degrees of sympathy with the Islamists around. But this was tactical negotiations, for the sake of operational effectiveness, which is well within the purview of a commander on the ground. The fatal mistake is for the CIC to negotiate with Islamists at the strategic level.
My question is whether Petraeus was chosen because he had dealt effectively with leaders on the ground for tactical benefits, or because was truly supporting the big boss in accomodating the Taliban at the strategic level?
Assume, for the moment, that most politicians are corrupt to one exent or another (see ‘lobbyists’ for one example). Also assume that such a power broke is addicted to the excercise of power. Now, with those two assumptions in place… if you were them, would you hire anyone who was more competent than yourself? To hire a competent, more ruthless, person will put your own position in jeopardy. (Most hires will be less troublesome than this, for you and others hire people mostly in order to trade political favors. Keeping it ‘all in the family’, if you will.)
Being an addict to power, if you did hire a competent person for a position, wouldn’t you ensure that you had a catalogue of any character flaws (skeletons in closets) that could be used to control such a person? If such a hire ever gets out of line, certain skeletons will no longer be closeted.
AYes, it’s an oversimplification, but I do think it’s relevant.
Once upon a time I had a pet scorpion named Stinger. He lived in a large glass jar. Stinger was neither cuddly nor playful. Stinger was also bored. Stinger learned that if he stung himself in his head, he could get a buzz off of his own venom. He started out giving himself little doses, and he like it. Soon he was increasing the frequency and the dose.
One morning I found Stinger with his tail buried in his skull, quite terminal.
The end.
The moral of the story is: —————
In a corner of the world full of power junkies, expect them to die by their own venoms.
While I’m concerned about events cooking in the M.E. and N. Africa, I’m simply terrified about O’s second term. Yes, He’ll cut down out military and stop weapons development. Hey he basically shut down NASA and the fools still elected him. What about all the Muslims that have come into the U.S. both legally and illegally. We have CAIR, ISNA, MSA and all other kinds of MuBros outfits prancing around spewing lies. Islamaphobia? Huh, nothing irrational about a fear of people who wouldn’t think twice to lop off your head or blow you up.
Expect O to implement the U.N.’s small arms ban or at least tax the ammo to death so you can’t afford it. What I expect is that he will start moving Islamists onto the Federal Courts. Really is there any hope for us after four more years of O and his merry little band of marxists?
I think were reduced to prayer.
Juan Cole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w8_xPUf2FBs#!
Baltimore announces city-wide surveillance roll out that records passenger conversations on city buses Monday, November 05, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes
http://www.naturalnews.com/037841_Baltimore_surveillance_city_buses.html
Wow! That’s just …… creepy!
The consequence of our self-delusion is a new isolationism among the electorate, and the election of a president who thinks that American influence in the world is an evil thing and wants to remove it. No Republican candidate dare say the obvious — that America should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in a surgical strike — because the voters don’t trust us.
Such a “surgical strike” is nearly impossible, at least it would be a major undertaking. In general I am appalled that anyone really believes that “surgical strike” is an alternative to war. It is also hard to imagine what the legal requirements would be for the US to mount such a “strike” without first declaring war, plus or minus a UN resolution, and what are the odds of that anyway.
Some other strategy is needed, to be more effective long-term.
Here’s the thing, the isolationism is considered The Rapture by the neo-left, and of course elements of the paleo-right. It is considered to be peace, achieved. It is such a lovely delusion, you really want to be the one to harsh their mellow?
the Republican Party still drags behind it the legacy of the Bush administration’s nation-building legacy in Iraq, with its thousands of dead, tens of thousands wounded, millions of disrupted lives, and trillion-dollar expense
I don’t know why you say that, Romney certainly said little enough about it at all. If you mean Obama’s campaign tried to attach that to Romney, yeah maybe. It can be defended, if you can stand the stink – it was probably better even so than doing nothing. No matter how half-witted and costly in our blood it was, given the poor management. Which is what a *good* candidate would have said – it was OK, and we need to do better, and that does not mean hiding under the bed.
Well, Obama has been blaming the bad economy on Bush and the plutocrats. It worked. Now the lost wars (including the “good war”) are going to be blamed on Bush, and his generals (After all, an LBJ didn’t start this round because Clinton was too busy with lap dancers in the oval office). That looks to be working too. Of course, to keep the current president out of the future foreign policy debacles while disengaging, this requires the pussy purges of the Generals who were in charge of the wars through the long night of the sexual harassment e-mails to preclude any future republican presidents from the losing general staff. And the shell shocked moderate republicans in a fit of strategic intelligence want to give a modified amnesty to 12 million Hispanics allegedly to earn their future votes, someday. Yup, that should work out just hunky dory. 12 million more Hispanics, with more coming, pissed off at Republicans for past racial discrimination and vote suppression and immigration enforcement are going to vote for republicans? Game over.
Want the illegals gone? Easy…..Make them all legal and then declare a war…then a draft. VROOOOOM! Gone!
Read the casualty lists from Afghanistan and note the number of Hispanic names … I count about one in ten of the most recent KIAs (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/national/fallen/).
Yeah – you know THOSE are the legals. I’m talking the majority of opportunistic takers that have flooded the country. Those people who think of themselves as mexican (or whatever) first and would only take amnesty if it meant they could bring their whole families here to rape the US. Those people would head for the border faster than Speedy Gonzales if they were expected to actually put their lives on the line for this country.
As I’ve said before, repeatedly, Obama has moved Petraeous to positions closer and closer to him NOT to promote him but to keep him close. Remember the adage about keep your friends close but your enemies closer?
When the good general no longer displayed public loyalty by drinking the poison Kool Aide of public lying, he was dispatched and ruined, leaving a fallen public figure no longer a political threat.
As to Obama, he is now free of the constraints of consitutional checks and balances. Congress is deadlocked, thanks to ally Reid, SCOTUS is scared to object or at least Roberts refuses to vote against the Administration, the Fed will gladly print whatever sums the Treasury needs, and the military officer corps is facing major layoffs. The officers have seen what can happen to the highest public profile of their lot not once but twice in recent days.
Obama has already shown a williness to use executive orders to do that which Congress has not allowed.
This way lies a road to the ruin of our Republic with few roadblocks to Obama becoming a dictator that I can see.
“Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions…Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful good society’ which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean ‘more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.’”
~Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Thank you David for the keen analysis. To sum it up, America is physically separated from the main world theater by 2 oceans, and a world away from reality.
Now you all know why i put my focus on 3000 year old souls who have mastered their demons and conquer with great courage, the queen of Sheba sitting on all the thrones in hell ready to offer these gifts to wise King Solomon to create the 11th heaven the seat of great power for successful conquests for all the right reasons thus so the marriage of “pagan ” Queen of Sheba can take place with King Solomon next week , God willing where heaven reason reigns and the rif raf are full of scorn and shame.
Proverbs 31
New International Version (NIV)
Sayings of King Lemuel
31 The sayings of King Lemuel—an inspired utterance his mother taught him.
2 Listen, my son! Listen, son of my womb!
Listen, my son, the answer to my prayers!
3 Do not spend your strength[a] on women,
your vigor on those who ruin kings.
4 It is not for kings, Lemuel—
it is not for kings to drink wine,
not for rulers to crave beer,
5 lest they drink and forget what has been decreed,
and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.
6 Let beer be for those who are perishing,
wine for those who are in anguish!
7 Let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character
10 [b]A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
American women, American women
What have you done?
What have you done to your daughters and son?
You were respected when you were all a nun.
Now you have become a thing to be shunned
Peddling in flesh, peddling in fun
You’ve made a nation of crazies
And zombies on the run.
Aamerican women, American women
What have you done starting this fire?
What have you done to my empire?
I see you daily on msm as a wicked liar
Leading your friends from desire to desire
And what have you done to me
Made me a zombie consumer and mindless buyer.
American women, American women
What have you become? A model slave
Walking around on two legs mindlessly as a thing to crave
A path of ruin you pave
In the end all is lost and nothing left to save.
Let me remind you American women,
This is not what I signed up for when to you the american dream I gave.
What have you done American women?
Made for yourself a nation of zombies and slaves!
Oh american women, oh american women
What have you done?
Are you happy with what your kids have become?
Having been on the inside of US intelligence and having many contacts, you have to understand that there is little independent thought. Much of what goes for wisdom is only gossip.
I want to thank G. for reminding us that you only hear things when you count. When you do you hear, and when you don’t you don’t. Further, it is necessary to have decent trade goods to get key pieces of the puzzle. You want covert action? You have to be able to help people win their goals, and that requires a lot of resources.
We own G. thanks too for noting that intelligence usefulness is tied to the policy that it supports. The secret is that intelligence is generally forbidden by custom from commenting on the policies that it supports. You may be given goals, then denied the tools to fulfill them: you cannot comment on that.
As a note, Patraeus showed a total lack of judgment with his “All in” choice. When there is fresh bait in the trap one should always vet it before it turns your pretty little head. P chose to believe his own press, as did Arnold: more fool them. Rooky mistake we have here.
The old saw is the CIA never fails at anything just once. Collapse it into the Army and be rid of it.
If Obama really cared about American lives, fortunes and sacred honor, he’d pull everybody out of everywhere worldwide and turn loose the drillers to make us oil independent, which would bring prices WAY down, which would boost the economy, which would provide tens of thousands of jobs, which would solve all the problems we have except that of socialized medicine, for which they ain’t no cure once started.
If Obama only really cared.
Obama’s stolen election cannot be made to stand or you can kiss all your asses goodbye because there will never again be a free election. Obama is still vulnerable, being a foreign-born imposter and usurper IF anyone has the guts to pursue the investigation.
To that I add there are many diferent ways of conducting an investigation – many of which you would not want the people in charge to know about.
Before Obama totally decimates the military, if there is a coup card stuck somewhere in the deck, it had best be played sooner than later.
This country has already been taken over by a bloodless (relatively speaking) coup and it may take another to get it back if people don’t realize that time is our worst enemy. This country will not survive another four years of Obama – or maybe not even another one.
We have the means to make a course correction, but looking around at each other and discussing reasons why it cannot be done is more destructive than doing nothing at all.
We have a government with one half held hostageby the mainstream media who is working to protect the other half. To date, there have been zero consequences for our gangster government and outlaw media who are destroying the country and us along with it.
Blackmail can be used to keep people quiet, like Petraeus, or it can be used to get people to tell the truth.
Then, again, there are also enhanced interrogation methods that are very effective at getting to the truth as well.
Congressional hearings have turned into red herrings when you are dealing with terrorists who know they can keep their mouths shut and withhold incriminating evidence when there are no penalties for doing so.
When Obama aid, “After the election, I’ll have ore flexibility,” that should have been taken as a given the election was already stolen at that point.
Which bring me back to my original comment. This election theft must not be allowed to stand and Obama must not be allowed to escape from Benghazi and gun running to our enemies.
Interesting that Lee Smith credits GEN Petraeus (P4) as one of the most active opponents of Iran in the USG security establishment (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/116625/losing-petraeus-losing-iran). I agree in part but think that, at some point, perhaps after finishing as the victorious Iraq theatre commander, P4 should have retired and spoken out publically about the threat from Iran. Instead, he hung on, moving up until his wings melted.
I agree w/Lorenz Gude’s portrait #3) of the Iraq Surge as a subtle and well executed campaign which successfully combined killing, bribery and offers of political compromise. No one (Max Boot excepted) in theatre ever thought we’d turn Iraq into Iowa (P4 and his staff used to say the objective was an ‘“Iraqacy” not democracy’), but a moderate and pro-Western government was a possibility and could have served as a platform from which to act against Iran. If that had been the case the Sunni/Kurd/moderate Shia coalition Petraeus built would have been an asset to the US. Instead President BHO pulled the rug out from things, w/predicable results.
Lee Smith is a friend of mine, and an excellent journalist, but friends can disagree.
Back in early 2010 when Petraeus made his “linkage” comments, I wrote in Tablet:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/29822/silent-right
Of course what Petraeus actually said or didn’t say is much less damaging to both U.S. and Israeli interests than the undisputed fact that the 100,000 American troops in Iraq have been tasked with the mission of supporting a government that may soon be headed by an overt ally of Iran, Ahmad Chalabi. “We are proposing the creation of a regional alliance among Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran,” the onetime neoconservative favorite wrote in The Wall Street Journal on March 5. As Joshua Muravchik, an erstwhile Chalabi supporter, wrote in a mea culpa on the World Affairs blog, “An alliance of this kind is designed to push the United States from the region and pave the way for Iranian and/or Islamist hegemony.”
Iran has gained political ascendancy in Iraq through intensive subversion efforts. According to senior military sources cited by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on February 25, “The Iranians allegedly are pumping $9 million a month in covert aid to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite party that has the most seats in the Iraqi parliament, and $8 million a month to the militant Shiite movement headed by Moqtada al-Sadr.”
Petraeus’s opinions about the Middle East carry less weight than those of his boss, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, who has been warning against an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear capability for the past year. In a March 16, 2009, interview with Charlie Rose, Mullen said: “What I worry about in terms of an attack on Iran is, in addition to the immediate effect, the effect of the attack, it’s the unintended consequences. It’s the further destabilization in the region. It’s how they would respond. We have lots of Americans who live in that region who are under the threat envelope right now [because of the] capability that Iran has across the Gulf. So, I worry about their responses and I worry about it escalating in ways that we couldn’t predict.”
A rough translation of Mullen’s remarks into civilian political language is that the quixotic notion of building democracy in the Middle East led the United States into an Iranian trap.
“I met [Chalabi] around the time of the first Gulf war,” Joshua Muravchik recounts, “and I gave him a copy of my recently published book, Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny. When I saw him next, maybe five years later, he said: ‘I read your book, but I don’t think your government has.’ I was of course flattered and amused. And I was enchanted by this articulate man from that other-planet of Baathist Iraq who professed the very same democratic beliefs central to my worldview.”
The neoconservatives never appear to have noticed that the Iranian leadership was just as keen on building democracy in Iraq as they were. When the American occupation forces held the constitutional referendum in late 2005 that is the putative foundation of Iraqi democracy, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hailed it as “a great and blessed job” in an October 21, 2005, sermon. “The next important step in Iraq after the referendum is the general elections on which the occupiers are planning right now,” he said. Khamenei called for a truce in the sectarian war between Shi’ites and Sunnis, intoning, “These elements [extremists] are neither Sunni nor Shi’ite but are the enemies of both and Islam.”
Iran retained the capacity to inflict high levels of casualties on the United States throughout the Iraqi democratization campaign but chose not to use it. Instead, it withdrew some of its most exposed and volatile assets, including Muqtada al-Sadr, to Iran. The Iranians counted on the fact that the Americans would soon be gone—and that their proximity, staying power, and affinity with Iraq’s Shi’ite majority would allow the Islamic Republic to emerge as the dominant player in the country.
Were the United States, or anyone else, to bomb Iran’s nuclear bomb-making capacity, Iran has the capacity to retaliate in any number of ways—suicide bombs against U.S. servicemen, Silkworm missiles aimed at tankers in the Persian Gulf, rocket fire against Israeli cities. The consequences against which Mullen warned certainly would include Jewish lives; they might include American lives as well. Bombing Iran also might expose the weakness of an unpopular regime and make its overthrow more probable. Instability might enhance rather than detract from American influence in the region provided the United States had a government that knew how to navigate it.
David – I remember this piece and think that it, along with your current piece are great grand strategic analysis. My disagreements are with some of your views of the Iraq campaign.
For example, you’ve argued that the US circa 2008 to 2010 was somehow paralyzed from acting against Iran due to fear of what Iranian proxies might have done to us in Iraq. I disagree. If we had demonstrated that we intended a long term commitment to an Iraq freed of Iranian influence we’d have had an intelligence flow from the local elites that would have super charged our targeting process and made short work of Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Promise Day Brigade (the pro-Iranian Shia militias in Iraq circa 2008 to 2010, according to the media).
I would say instead that our national security establishment thought and still thinks it can somehow wheedle and manipulate the Iranian regime to ultimately serve US interests.
I’m simply quoting Mike Mullen’s on-the-record comments as to why the US thought it couldn’t attack Iran (and I’ve heard a good deal more at the Pentagon off the record to the same effect). Whether or not that perception was accurate is a different matter; I argued for hitting Iran regardless.
David,
I understand and note that in HCD (BTW, we need a paperback with a 2012 chapter) you recognized that the US would have “made short work” of the Iranian proxies.
My point is that the US security establishment did accept the prospect of hard fighting and significant casualties to reduce or eliminate Sunni insurgent forces in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, Hawijah, etc. IMHO, if they didn’t want to pay a price to do the same to the pro-Iranian Shia (and inevitably take on Iranian cross-border sanctuaries), a big part of the reason was not fear of casualties and Iranian terrorist capabilities or a plan for Iran to provide a fig leaf for our exit from Iraq and Afghanistan, but the hope that the Mullahs could somehow be re-aligned and used as a US tool to contend for the NG resources of Central Asia and to check Russia and China. As you’ve pointed out, the Gates-Brezinski ersatz realist types can be too clever by half.
I note that a principal meme to bash Bush and the “neo-cons” circa 2006 to 2008 was that claims of Iranian WMDs development and terrorism was a cloak to hide the desire for regime change in Iran. BHO mis-characterized the Kyl-Lieberman amendment as a tool to accomplish that. I served briefly as a lower level McCain debate surrogate in 2008 and that was a common theme of BHO’s surrogates.
Shabbat Shalom.
MarcH:
Careful Marc, you’re starting to sound like one of Ron Paul’s foreign policy advisors!
Just to clarify: I did not say that the U.S. government on the whole or even at a broad level was using jihadis to fight Eurasia/Eastasia (sorry Russia, China). What I did say is that there are those inside and outside of government like Mesr. Brzezinski who have a track record of seeing such things as feasible if not desireable. Gen. Wesley Clark also alluded to this in his Google-able remarks to ‘Democracy Now’ where he claimed Paul Wolfowitz told him the collapse of Communism had afforded the U.S. a twenty year strategic window to clean out all the old regimes in the Middle East…starting with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq but also expanding into Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and ultimately, regime change in Iran to make it again an Anglo-American (I won’t casually use the term ‘Western’ and lump the whole EU and the Germans into it) proxy like it was under the Shah. So far on that list the U.S. is batting 3 1/2 for 6. How that plays back into Benghazi is the following: it’s very clear weapons were smuggled under Turkish and French tutelage from Libya to the Syria rebels. It will eventually become crystal clear that the CIA was involved in this traffic as well, just as Gen. Clark’s post-Iraq comments re: Syria can be tested against what has happened since. (And I say this as someone inclined to dislike Clark as a Clinton crony who bombed the hell out of Serbia proper including civilians who hated Milosevic).
I don’t deny the Russians are paranoid. But as the old expression goes…even paranoids have enemies. And if we’re going to ascribe paranoia to the Russian national character of being a nation conceived in blood on an open steppe, one must admit that a considerable part of Israeli stock hails from the Pale of Settlement. In other words, tochna.
Mr. X: “Careful Marc, you’re starting to sound like one of Ron Paul’s foreign policy advisors!”
Perhaps, but I have better taste in newsletter editors.
I would respond simply that trying to eliminate or reduce Iranian influence in Shi’a majority Iraq was always going to be a Sisyphean task, akin to trying to create a Ukraine without strong Russian influence (and Russia and Ukraine really don’t have as much of an ethnic barrier as do Arabs and Persians). They do after all share a massive land border and millenia of shared history.
All of this is true regardless of whether Obama is being advised by Bzrezinski spawn like Brennan.
Obama is being advised by Brzezinski spawn like Brennan
There may be not much choice, X –search [ Brennan TAC LT Harris passport ] –or just check in with the respected American Thinker site:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/obamas_passport_breach_unanswered_questions_and_an_unsolved_murder.html
===
you know, it’s funny –the more time passes under Obama, the less i disagree with your Putin-centric presentation, insofar as my mind makes an automatic and always confusing distinction between ‘America’ and ‘Obama’. But your remark upthread re Georgia beg mention of post 8/8/8 electoral events inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia (especially egregious the office-invasion by pro-Russia thugs and beating of a pro-Georgia female candidate for office) that really should be included in any remark that otherwise would cause the unfamiliar to accept as history what is actually politics.
Another thing about Georgia, the case highlights the recurring phenom whereby (right up to and thru 8/8/8/) the Carter/Clinton/Obama foreign policy team + Soros appears to promote oppositions to Putin in such a way that when Putin counters to resolve the artifice, he does so as the stable fixed point, the bringer of reality and common-sense –as opposed to America, where fond memory is all that’s left of the two-and-a-half century over-ride of our revolutionary every-two-years-elections via “Politics Stops at the Water’s Edge”.
But anyway, for example, the old ex-officio members of this foreign policy faction (notably Brzezinski and Albright) were all over pre-war Tbilisi persuading fellow Harvard man Saakashvili to ‘stand up to Putin’, which in retrospect actually meant ‘supply Putin with enough provocation to animate a post-invasion pro-Russia narrative’.
No mean trick, considering a mouse –a tethered mouse –with an elephant’s foot lightly brushing his head, is unlikely to declare war on the elephant.
I guess, because it comes to the people via written/spoken reports wherein the word glyphs of ‘Russia’ and ‘Georgia’ are about the same number size, that deep in a pattern-recognition mid-brain with no counter info to override the newness effect of the new info, the two entities are re-sized to roughly equal –tho the truth is closer to the entire US military attacking, say, Puerto Rico.
Anyhoo, if Team Provocateur had stayed away, if the now voted-out Saakashvili had had more circumspection, Georgia would be whole today, and Russian armed forces wouldn’t be lodged south of the winter-impassable mountains, with a clear approach to the pipelines, Baku terminals, the three-corner borders of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, and the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.
Meanwhile, back at the new center of the world, there is no paroxysm of Benghazi recrimination overlapping strange election results overlapping fiscal cliff standoffs overlapping a purge of the military high command, but rather, crystal and silver clinking over good cheer and warm laughter among the relaxed and confident traders:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-11-17/putin-and-merkel-tango-moscow-gazprom-stirs-old-ghosts-deals-are-signed
I dunno, Buddy, there’s still a lot of mountains between the Roki Tunnel, Abkhazia, wherever the ceasefire line is with Georgia, and the Persian Gulf/Iranian border with Azerbaijan. Nyquist has his own problem — he’s addicted to the ‘nuke war is imminent in the next decade and USSR faked its own death’ theories. The former tends to dissuade anyone from trying to save the remnants of the Republic as opposed to just digging a deeper hole to hide in when the Bombs go off. The latter is not really a falsifiable theory at all. But in spite of Nyquist’s earnestness and tendency to argue with his own audiences about whether our own government or the eternal Evil Empire poses the greater danger to liberty, I still appreciate your comments. Especially the bit about Soros playing the part of the perfect enemy of the Kremlin while owning massive steel complexes in Russia that were eventually sold to Lisin in quite business like fashion, not seized or touched in retaliation at all for old Georgy’s Colored Revolutions. There is a part of that story that is very Angletonian, hall of mirrors, does not add up. Maybe we’ll know about it in 100 years when yes, we find out Oleg Deripaska was a fulltime employee of Lord Rothschild and the seed money to acquire the choicest bits of the Soviet carcass did not fall from heaven and was not acquired by selling jeans off the back of pick up trucks at Gorkiy Park cerca 1988.
LOL –yes, that IS a safe bet alright –
Brzezinski is a Cold War liberal interested in the exercise of American power; Obama is a post-Cold War type who wants American strategic withdrawal. I don’t think Brzezinski has been near the White House in years. It’s funny; the conservative line on Obama is that he’s appeasing Russia in order to get a global nuclear disarmament deal.
“…trying to eliminate or reduce Iranian influence in Shi’a majority Iraq was always going to be a Sisyphean task …”
Well, back in early 2008, when the US had influence in Iraq, Maliki did a pretty good job of clearing Iranian influence out of Basra.
“The screens are flickering out.”
Will they be lit again in our lifetime?
Keine Ahnung.
Here is the 17th and oldest page (October 2001) of the exceptionally easy to navigate archive of Kremlin-watcher JR Nyquist. One click takes you to the next-oldest page, and so on.
These (more or less thrice-monthly) columns are actually comments and reviews of stories and people who are hyperlinked in the columns, which themselves take about three to five minutes to read.
If one opens this 17th page, then clicks backwards to today, scanning just the titles alone, one sees at a glance the whole history of what and why things have gone so wrong for the old Colossus of the Cold war. The writing is not dry reporting, but has a strong psychological milieu emphasis, and is really quite fascinating, if you can take the body blows administered.