Today Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has tweeted …
Israel Is A Hideous Entity In the Middle East Which Will Undoubtedly Be Annihilated
Obviously a perk of being an Ayatollah is that you can use Twitter with out governmental interference.
Neil’s Discoveries
3
Sep 10
Khamenei Tweets
3
Sep 10
What if Ahmadinejad Fell Down the Stairs?
I saw this comment by retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor in a post over at Tom Rick’s blog.
Not a pretty picture to contemplate, but a likely scenario. Despite the crowd of academics in the United States that says we can live with an Iranian bomb, Israel will not allow the Iranians to go nuclear — at least, not while a Holocaust denier who has made pointed threats against the Jewish state remains in power.
Now I’mjust thinking out loud here… Makes me wonder if someone is saying something along the lines of, “Listen, we can avoid dorpping bombs. All we have to do is take out this Ahmadinejad nut job. So lets get someone on making sure that he accidentally falls down the stairs on purpose.”
2
Sep 10
The Guardian’s Tomasky on Iraq
This goes along with another post I wrote today. In it I continue to sort of think out loud about the long term stability of Iraq…
Michael Tomasky has a great article today in The Guardian about the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq.
There’s a lot of big-think, big-picture stuff I could be saying about Iraq today, looking back over the whole arc of the thing, but I’ll leave that for another time, or leave it to you all to debate among yourselves.
What I wish to raise this morning is this question: what conditions would have to obtain for the US to have to resume combat operations there one day? Because this is the bottom-line question, right?
Mr. Tomasky goes on to state that he believes that as Iraq comes into its own politically it is very likely things will become violent. (He uses points made by Tom Ricks of Foreign Policy to further to back his opinion). Tomasky seems to be suggesting that the level of violence could, and and probably will, force the US military to become involved in combat.
However, Mr. Tomasky (rightly) suggests that Shi’a militias will be looking to set up a fundamentalist regime in Iraq.
I find this disturbing for two reasons…
1. If the Shi’a militias deliberately draw the US into combat that can help them politically. i.e. it will give the Shi’a a chance to capitalize on anti-US feelings in Iraq and win political power.
2. If the Shi’a militias don’t draw the US back into combat, such an event can help them politically. i.e. it will give the Shi’a a chance to use violence unchecked to win political power.
In short: I really hope that the US has gamed this sucker out ad nauseum and has some creative solutions in mind for the about 50,000 non-combat (but combat ready) troops that will still be hanging out in Iraq. Because if there is not a damn good plan for how to proceed when shit gets nasty it is only a matter of time before people are saying things like, “If only we had just finished the job we started back in 2010, we would not be needing to deal with [insert catastrophe here] today.”
Unfortunately, this is an election year, and as Mr. Tomasky also points out:
Back in 2006-2007, as Congress debate the question of a “date certain” for withdrawal, Republicans said that if the baddies know the pull-out date, they’ll obviously start planning mischief for immediately thereafter, while Democrats said, well, you gotta pull out sometime (and our base wants us out, although that part they didn’t much say).
Our elected officials have a different set of priorities that focus on shot term electoral victories rather than long term geopolitical stability.
2
Sep 10
Abdul Rashid Dostum, One Hell of a Right Hand
A paragraph this good -and by good I mean packed with information that most people don’t know- just needs top be shared. Notice the area that I bolded..
The inner circle includes but is not limited to the Hazara Vice President, Karim Khalili; Kabir Mohabat, an Afghan with American citizenship; “Marshal” and now Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik; and “Marshal” Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord who disdains any government post but is the President’s “right hand.” (Dostum deserves an Olympic gold medal for opportunism. A leader of the Uzbek people of the North, he fought the Russians, then joined them to fight the insurgents; then he joined the insurgency to fight the Russians; next he joined the Taliban; then he switched sides again to join the anti-Taliban “Northern Alliance” and is infamous for suffocating in steel lift vans in the sweltering summer captured Taliban soldiers. Now – for how long? – he is a supporter of President Karzai.) It also includes Zara Ahmad Mobil who ran what is regarded as the most corrupt organization in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Interior, and (as an editorial in The Guardian put it) “is now in charge of the opium industry;” and, of course, the Karzai family. [Source, first paragraph on the page.]
My reaction to this was to read the paragraph three times in a row. Sit back and think about it for a a few seconds, then read it a forth time.
I can’t make up someone that shady! And yet… Un-fucking-believable.
Time to get some lunch.
2
Sep 10
The Surge (+) the Sunni Awakening = Not in Afghanistan
I heard a great bit on NPR as I drove into work today where Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst who has advised the U.S. military on Afghanistan, was interviewed. During the interview Biddle was asked to compare the surge in Iraq with the surge in Afghanistan
The surge — President George W. Bush’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq — is often credited for the turnaround there. But [Biddle says that was only one piece of the puzzle. He says it was the Sunni Awakening — when Sunni leaders stopped fighting the Americans and joined with them against al-Qaida — that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of the U.S. and its allies.
"The Awakening without the surge would have died under an al-Qaida counterattack," he said. "The surge without the Awakening wouldn't have been nearly large enough to suffocate an insurgency the size of Iraq's. It was the two coming together that made the difference."
Link: Text & audio of the story.
[Disclosure: I think it is important that Mr. Biddle is far more qualified to provide an analysis of the current effects of US foreign policy than I am. However, being less than qualified has never stopped me from shooting off my mouth...]
I totally agree with Mr. Biddle that the Sunni Awakening played a major role in the initial success of the surge in Iraq. However it remains to be seen if Sunni Awaking, which is also known as the Sons of Iraq, will have a positive effect on Iraq long term.
Consider the following two groups of information:
Group One: Minority status + privilege = Sunnis
- The Sunni Muslims make up the minority of the Muslim population in Iraq.
- The Sunnis live in the more oil rich section of Sothern Iraq. Having access to oil allowed the Sunnis to enjoy a level of privilege.
- In addition to this Saddam Hussein was a Sunni, and he provided the Sunnis with a level of privilege not enjoyed by the Shi’a majority.
- The combination of oil privilege, Saddam privilege, and a minority status did not make the Sunnis any friends among the Shi’a majority who now-a-days controls the government of Iraq.
Group Two Armed Sunnis + Shi’a controlled government – US funding = Potential Problem:
- During the Sunni Awakening a group of Sunni Sheikhs banded together because they realized that doing so was in their best interest.
- After banding together under the name “the sons of Iraq,” and they worked with the US to reduce the threats caused by insurgents.
- The US paid the sons of Iraq for their assistance.
- The Shi’a majority has expressed concerns about an armed group of Sunnis. The current Shi’a controled government has absorbed about 1/3rd of the Sons of Iraq into the regular Iraqi Army, leaving about 2/3rds of the group out in the wind.
- The US army is departing from Iraq, and it would not be unreasonable to assume that the funding of Sunnis will be far less (perhaps non-existent?) in the future.
My point:
The Sunni Awakening was one of the things that undoubtedly lead to the success of the surge in Iraq. However, even though I hope it is a long lasting success, it remains to be seen if this success will carry into the future. i.e. it is very possible that hooking up the Sunnis was great short term, but could backfire long term.
So the fact that there is no equivalent of the Sunni Awakening in Afghanistan is going to mean that the US is going to have to employ the surge differently. My guess is that the surge in Afghanistan will not enjoy the same level of initial (short term) success that it did in Iraq. I won’t make any long term projections as to how the surge will work out over the aggregate (long term) in Afghanistan… that region is just so unstable, and I don’t have anywhere near enough information to feel comfortable saying what things will look like in a week, let alone what they will look like in six months or a year.
2
Sep 10
Keeping Up Appearances
From the William R. Polk article “Impressions of Afghanistan” in the Atlantic.
Before I got to Kabul, I had received an email from the escort officer assigned to me, saying that since Kabul is a “high danger” area, the embassy wanted me to rent from a private security company known as “Afghan Logistics” an armored Toyota “4 Runner” and hire both an armed security guard and a bullet proof vest at 20,000 Afs (roughly $450) daily. I was to be reassured that the rates included the driver’s salary, fuel and taxes. No bullets were stipulated. I guess they were extra. However, the daily rate was only for 8 hours and overtime was at double rate, Kabul being presumably more dangerous at night. But my embassy escort officer said, these arrangements were both necessary and standard procedure, and with them I would thus be reasonably well protected.
I declined. My doing so was not a sign of bravery but a calculation that such a display would mark me as a worthwhile target.
Brilliant? I’m not sure. But it is an interesting idea.
Later on in the same article, when Mr. Polk has moved on to talking about some of the dangers that exist in modern day Kabul, he makes what I think is a very apt description of the Taliban…
We think of the Taliban as a coherent unit. No doubt it is partly that. But it is diversified in command structure because of the weakness of their embattled communication system. So whatever the “center,” which is presumed to be far away in Quetta, Pakistan, decides may not be known in a timely fashion, if at all, by more or less isolated cadres. Moreover, the organization has many, perhaps not always wanted, part-time volunteers. Although they may operate in the name of the Taliban. Many of these people are not auxiliaries but opportunists. Because of an insult or the presence of a target, groups of young thugs often carry out assaults or kidnappings on their own. Such events are different from the well-planned attacks (like the one on this hotel a few years ago) involving suicide bombers and commando units. The aim of the independents is not political; it is either revenge or money, or both. This makes their danger unpredictable.
1
Sep 10
Interesting, but I’m Not Sure I Agree…
From the 60 Second Expert: The Divergence of America and Israel, over at FPIF.
In reality, Israel offers limited value in the most important areas of the U.S. foreign policy agenda: stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, given the ongoing expansion of Iran’s power in the Middle East, Turkey will likely become a more instrumental U.S. ally, as it is capable of balancing Iran’s inevitable influence among Iraq’s Shiite majority.
The full article is also very illuminating.
I agree that Turkey (and the Kurds) are becoming very important allies of the United States, however I don’t think that they have become more important than Israel. As evidence I offer the following four things…
- Israel’s military is the most mighty in the Middle East.
- The Mossad is one of the most bad ass intelligence agencies in the world.
- Isreal has nuclear weapons.
- Every US President has a desire to make the “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians part of his legacy.
It will be interesting to see where things lie in ten years, but for the time being, I’d say Israel will remain the country to which the United States stays the closest.
1
Sep 10
Long Term Human Security Should Be the Focus
~Point One: Complex problems are hard to solve~
In a world where wars are being fought between nongovernmental groups (drug cartels, insurgencies, fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, etc.) the major powers of the globe need to rethink how to achieve meaningful and sustained victories rather than short term (politically advantageous) victories.
The thing about the sort of victories that I believe the United States and Europe need to focus on is that they require a huge investment upfront, which is exactly the kind of investment elected officials are — more often than not — unwilling finance. The “global economic downturn,” or whatever today’s economic woes are being called now, make such an investment even less likely.
In other (my own) words: In order to establish a period of time where citizens of the West and the world will be more secure requires that the West take on complex problems that don’t have any silver bullet solutions. Said complex problems will take a lot of time, energy, and money to solve.
A recent FPIF review of the book The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon, by Mary Kaldor and Shannon D. Beebe has convinced me that, at the very least, other people are thinking about this as well. The review states…
According to Kaldor and Beebe, the West needs a paradigm shift in how it views security when contending with global crises and terrorism. They argue that because poverty, limited political rights, or threats of physical violence drive insurgencies and violence, the United States and Europe should not emphasize “defeating enemies,” but rather prioritize the economic, political, and physical needs and rights of people, namely human security. Then and only then will the West achieve a truly sustainable security for itself and countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.
The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon is a guide for Western policy-makers and activists on how to form what the authors call global civilian-military “engagement brigades,” which would specialize in enhancing physical security and political and economic development. These brigades would be deployed to conflict zones to implement a multilateral human security approach, as opposed to the conventional unilateral military response.
As I talk about these ideas with people who I work with many of them say that this is a “good idea” but that it has “never been tried before.” That simply is not true. Taking the longer and initially more expensive road which seaks to create human security by developing the economy and infrastructure of struggling nation states has not only been tried, it has worked remarkably well.
From the Wikipedia article on the Marshall plan that helped Europe recover after being ravaged by WW II…
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary program, 1947–51, of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Europe. The initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan. Marshall spoke of urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947.[1]
The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was established on June 5, 1947. It offered the same aid to the USSR and its allies, but they did not accept it.[2][3] The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. During that period some US $13 billion in economic and technical assistance were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. This $13 billion was in the context of a U.S. GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and was on top of $12 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the Plan that is counted separately from the Marshall Plan.[4]
The ERP addressed each of the obstacles to postwar recovery. The plan looked to the future, and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reduce artificial trade barriers, and instill a sense of hope and self-reliance.[5]
By 1952 as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall plan recipients, output in 1951 was 35% higher than in 1938.[6] Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it. The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of western Europe
Unfortunately people don’t really understand the Marshall pan as well as they think they do. Be that as it may, it remains a strong data point in the arsenal of people who, like me, argue in favor of making the investments necessary to create human security.
~Point Two: The problem is the voting public~
When human security is not a priority and things go wrong people are often very quick to place blame on the shoulders of our elected officials, and sometimes that is indeed where they blame should be placed. However, sometimes the blame needs to be placed on the shoulders of a greedy short sighted voting public.
Here is an analogy for you. Picture the United States as a company. The President is a CEO of sorts and the Congress is a bunch of department heads/managers. The voting public are the shareholders. Let’s say the CEO and the department heads say to the shareholders, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a plan that will create long term profits, but in order to get those long term profits we will need to lose money in the short term.”
I believe when something like this goes down what tends to happen is the shareholders say, “Did you say lose money? FUCK THAT SHIT! Dude, you are such a fucking asshole. In fact you’re so much of an asshole that we need to seriously consider firing you.”
~Point Three: Thinking long term needs to be **the** subject of public discourse~
Outside of the ivory tower, no one really talks about long term thinking. Why is that? Seriously, it is not a rhetorical question.
Regardless of the answer, I believe that it is the responsibility of the intelligentsia, the wonks, and new media types to bring up thinking’s merits as often as humanly possible.
1
Sep 10
Frank Deford on the Amazing Ichiro Suzuki
When I was driving to work today I heard a really thought provoking and entertaining bit by sports commentator Frank Deford about the baseball player Ichiro Suzuki.
From the story…
Ichiro is probably better at the task of putting a bat on a pitched ball than anyone — ever — in history. Only, at a time when first home runs and then pitching have been fashionable, what he does is like singing Gilbert and Sullivan when everybody is listening to rock.
If he were a basketball player, Ichiro would be shooting set shots. If he were a football player, he would be drop-kicking. Ichiro just brings the bat around, raises his leg and pivots in his peculiar fashion — and then he makes contact and sends the ball to an empty place.
If he isn’t injured, he will easily reach 200 hits again this season. Only Pete Rose did that 10 times, and it took him 17 years. Ichiro will be 10 for 10.
Link: Story in text & audio.
31
Aug 10
The Guardian (+) Science = Very Wonderful
The Guardian’s science site is really very wonderful. That is all. Full stop.