Saturday, June 30, 2007

IRAN - A Solution

Clients were alerted November 2004 that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would become the key issue on Rice’s plate. Then in a sketch of May/06 we predicted the following: The International Atomic Energy Agency would continue to suffer from impotency, the same malady affecting its parent; Russia and China would remain squeamish, for the near term blocking any meaningful sanctions birthed by the Security Council and finally, that the US, the UK and a coalition would decide to impose sanctions outside the UN framework. One of these would be the blockage of gasoline imports.

It is far more effective for us to target Iran’s economy, to go on the offensive and undermine the Ahmadinejad government in that manner than to select the military option. This is directly out of Reagan’s book. The Iranian people become the proxy for (now pathetic) Western diplomacy. This is a radical change in approach - target societies and let them do the work for you. See our sketch of Feb/07 and that of Mar/07 for more on this process but it is not cosmic in dimension or complexity, does not take more than an hour or so away from the ball game to understand.

We isolated gasoline imports last year. One need only glance at recent riots and destruction in Iran driven by the government’s gasoline price hike of last month (from absurdly low subsidized levels, something Iranians have come to expect as their birthright) combined with the sudden announcement last week of gasoline rationing to understand that we were right; this is the Achilles heel of this corrupt theocracy. It is amusing that although Iran floats on a pool of oil it can refine no more that 50% of its needed gasoline; the rest is imported from India and gulf states. This fact provides the useful lever.

We recommend the complete blockage of gasoline imports by the US Navy Fifth Fleet. Iran has no capabilities to stop us. The government would not survive the economic catastrophe. The blockade would be lifted when the new government adopted complete transparency in 1) abandoning their nuclear ambitions and 2) ceasing any complicity in Mid Eastern affairs, those of Iraq and Lebanon in particular. The Iranian people would see to that. Unfortunately there are some of our "allies" who disagree, Russia chief among these. In addition to selling Iran a $1 billion nuclear plant and being a major supplier of arms and aircraft, Russia is now, through a private banking conglomerate (Alfa Group) looking to invest $300 million to develop Iran’s infant cellular-phone industry. Being who they are the Russians are naturally anxious to water down any sanction which may curtail this activity.

Still, this lever has not been lost on Congress. Last week, leaders of a bi-partisan House panel led by Rep Mark Kirk (Rep) and Rep Robert Andrews (Dem) proposed legislation intended to punish any company that provides Iran with gasoline or helps it import gasoline after Dec/31/07. Such an offender would loose access to American customers through sanctions.
This is not enough but it is something and a step on the way to what is in our view the only viable solution to the Iranian threat.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

IRAQ - Update

IRAQ
6/17/07

We want to expand on two salient points highlighted in our sketch of May/10, a piece by the way which continues to provide an anchor or foundation in understanding the origins of this conflict, its direct linkage to our national security.
Wynton Hall, a fellow at the Hoover Institute noted recently that President Bush’s woes are best summed up with a line from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke": "What we’ve got here is failure to communicate," or in this case the inability or unwillingness of the administration to capitalize on its successes in Iraq, betraying its own good cause as we said earlier by not staying on message. Blaming the liberal media is a cop out; they’ll always try to muddle the message. So? Produce something weekly which is simple - tamper proof. Then play the security angle, Bush’s greatest strength. As Hall suggested, why not a user-friendly web site: "Terrorists are trying to kill us. We are tirelessly trying to kill them. Thank you for your patience."

The administration must highlight positive trends like the "Anbar Awakening," featured in our sketch of May/10. This is of course the uniting of the province’s Sunni Arab tribes against al Qaeda, sparked by a combination of al Qaeda atrocities and the skillful counterinsurgency techniques of US forces which together convinced Sunni leaders that enough was enough. And last week leaders in the Salah-ad-Din province north of Baghdad agreed to work with the Iraqi government and US forces to oust al Qaeda there. Al Qaeda has responded in typical fashion - the campaign of atrocities, most recently the destruction of the two remaining minarets of the al-Askariya mosque. This intimidation worked before. No longer. Today the murders, torture and destruction simply remind provincial councils that al Qaeda is the real enemy, the central point to our earlier comment.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq to destabilize the country, not as a response to any grievance but a calculated response to real or imagined Western weakness. What the liberal press terms a civil war is simply the very transparent product of al Qaeda’s efforts. But Iraqis have increasingly shown that they are not interested; when al Qaeda makes itself comfortable in an Iraqi town, it begins to enforce its absurd and intolerant version of Islam (vegetables in the market to be segregated by sex - too much!). Locals resist and al Qaeda thugs punish them with an increasing scale of atrocities. This is what led to the "Anbar Awakening". According to Fred Kagan, "Iraq’s Sunnis have tolerated al Qaeda’s presence past years for one reason: Terrorists make good fighters. As long as the Sunnis thought they could use violence to regain control of Iraq, or against the Shiites, al Qaeda was a useful, if unpleasant ally." But now the Sunnis understand that they best forget regaining control of the military - it won’t happen, and, make the best political deal they can.

Senator Joe Lieberman recently returned from Iraq and noted that the key consideration now is, "Do we consolidate and build on the successes that the new strategy has achieved, keeping al Qaeda on the run, or do we abandon them?" And Leiberman noted too as we have so many times before that, "American soldiers are not fighting in Iraq only so that Iraqis can pass a law to share oil revenues. They are fighting because a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran would be a catastrophe for American national security and our safety here at home." Could not have said it better ourselves, Senator Joe.