Theater (Never-ending?)

We had a dream last night. There was Neville Chamberlain, waving that piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature before the hopeful crowd. That was history, right? But this morning, as we went to the news, we find that it was not history at all, not by the way of example, or of lessons learned. Nothing has changed it seems. There are plenty of Chamberlains sculpting foreign policy right now; there are plenty of desperate crowds, holding hands, shouting out together in the dark.

UN types have been on a two-week bender given Iran’s acceptance of the last IAEA deal. Iranian apologists everywhere have been ecstatic, waving the agreement in the faces of nonbelievers. In accepting this deal Iran agreed to ship about 75% of its enriched uranium to Russia for processing, then to France for conversion to fuel rods, then (harmlessly) back. Sure.

Today (10/31) Iran reneged. Diplomats are "shocked." Come on now.

Will there be no end to this theater with Iran? The answer is no, not until either Israel sees to her own welfare, or, Obama comes to understand lessons apparently long lost on him, or more likely, never learned.

Now what? Next week, all scamper back to the table. The cattleman in Fresno, the mechanic in Atlanta, the average guy, they understand the situation, that it’s nothing but a stall, that Ahmadinejad and the rest are crackpots. Very simple. Those entrusted with our security apparently do not.

Israel moves closer to a strike with each week. She has few friends in the world; she feels further isolated given recent signals from the Obama administration. The ‘07 release of the NEI estimate changed everything for Israeli planners, never expecting from that day forward to receive an American endorsement, or support, deciding then to prepare to go it alone. Yet they knew that Bush kept the Iranian thugs a tad off balance, giving them time. Now they know, as we all do, that the Iranians and other world nut cases see BO as little more than a push over, a guy who desperately wants to be liked, and so when encountered with decision of 1) bad or 2) worse, votes "present." And Clinton’s stupid remark that the US will "obliterate" Iran if it strikes Israel simply further assured Israel that we will do nothing preemptively. Finally, and key - Israel knows the Iranian leadership to be untethered, not constrained, but in fact immune to rational self interest. One need only recall the Iranian sponsored conference on the Holocaust - denying this ever happened at the same time it was trying to convince the international community of its sanity to husband nuclear weapons!

So no one doubts Israel will strike, notwithstanding Zbigniew Brzezinski’s recommendation to shoot down Israeli war planes if they take off for Iran (this guy remains a nut case). Will it be successful? No one knows for sure. Won’t the implications be catastrophic? Perhaps. These questions however are moot, an aside for a nation seeking to secure its very existence. This is why Netanyahu can be seen traveling all over the globe, building an alliance, securing the private response ("We won't move on you when you strike.") but knowing that publicly Russia, Germany or the Saudis must pretend to be very critical of the move.

There is of course a preferred solution (short of a Delta Force strike, an "industrial accident"). We highlighted this two years ago; now, most agree with us - sanctions on gasoline exports to Iran, perhaps even a gasoline blockade. The economy would slam to a halt, the brave masses would take out the thugs, sow seedlings of infant democracy.

Obama is hesitant. Naturally. He only amplifies the signature failure of the Democratic party - the inability to make tough decisions. Better to wait for an Iranian strike on Israel, or even the threat of such a strike? That’s even worse.

Iran might react to a blockade by the 3rd fleet. They might even try to take out Saudi oil fields with surface-to-surface missiles, knowing that instantly 10MM barrels would evaporate from the market; crude would hit $450 or $500. But the alternative is a Israeli strike and then the Iranians would react for certain, not just targeting the oil fields.

So next week we know Obama will "man" the phone, looking for consensus. What will he find? China could care less, she has too many business deals at stake. For Russian it’s win/win, as the more tension, the higher the oil prices. But Obama will find the Europeans are scared. Since the cold war they have grown accustomed to the protection of the US. They knew it and acted accordingly. Now, they are alarmed because they occupy a position in the political hierarchy, for the fist time ever, to the right of the American president. They complained of Bush but accepted his protection. From Obama they’re not so certain. They want action but have seen nothing by the way of example. Indeed, how many of us expected that we would live to see the day that an American president was lectured by a French president of matters of strength and principle?

As from Obama? He will continue to vote "present" until it is too late.

Robert Craven

Betrayed

In whose hands exactly resides the security of this country? The thought is a tad unsettling is it not?

Today others joined us in slamming BO’s dithering, including Sect of Defense Robert Gates (in an interview on a flight to Tokyo) and, several prominent Democrats. Even much of the lap-dog media is worried. Whoa!

Petraeus was 100% right about the surge in Iraq; candidate Obama, who wanted to clear the country of US combat forces by March 2008, was 100% wrong ("the surge is not working"). So my friends, why would we assume that Petraeus and McChrystal are now wrong on Afghanistan and Obama right? The former have been proven wise and consistent; the latter, wrong in the past and erratic in the present.

BO has no background whatsoever relevant to his job. His expertise is confined to the grievance industry. Is that a qualification my dear lefty friends?

Naturally the left blames Bush, and naturally for everything. We are lectured that Bush took his eye off this ball, while BO has for years promised to reset priorities by finishing off the Taliban - a "necessary" initiative. Well, if we neglected the war in Afg, how come almost no Americans died there between 2001 and 2006? Huh? Fewer perished in 12 months in Afg than in a single month in Iraq.

But no matter. Now the excuse for indecision is Afg politics. The left take this in line and sinker, robotic like, reciting exactly what they are fed by party machinery. Witness the following from a local - "Do you think it makes any difference who is in power in Af (upcoming elections) before we make the decision to go all in or pull out? Sure would be great to have an active partner in power to work with." Oh, ya, missed that one. Elections aren't why we have troops in that country for goodness sake. They're there to fight a war against terrorists that President Obama once declared to be "necessary." This concept is tough?

Now Karzai has agreed to a presidential runoff. Seems fairly reasonable to us. But doubt that will be good enough for our official hand wringer, the head of our own built in United Nations.

For those who care, who may be concerned with the welfare of their prodigy, do the following: Turn off the TV. Next, read or re-read our past postings, esp Moment of Truth, which distills the dynamics key to understanding the Afg situation. Closer to home than you may think.

For those who voted for Obama - how in the world could you have been so careless? You’ve endangered us all.

Robert Craven

Complexity - The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel

Or in this case - Obama.

The White House continues to dither on sending more troops as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. "We'd love the luxury of the debate to be reduced to one question," White House aide Rahm Emanuel told CNN. "This is a much more complicated decision."

Oh pleeeeeasse!

Rahm’s remarks can only be read on an empty stomach. This feint, transparent to all but the willfully blind, is nauseating.

As we predicted, when it comes to the proper conduct of foreign affairs, this administration is worse than useless. No wonder Gadhafi and Hugo Chavez professed their admiration for Obama, calling him "our son," and declared their fond hope that he remain president for life. We have, just a layer above our courageous military (which includes my son-in-law, an Apache pilot soon to be battling in Afg) a confab of gutless wonders, the anointed, who are just too, too wise to do much else but pontificate. We have in fact folks, our very own, built in UN!

The left, the present Democratic party, cannot make a tough decision. This is their signature failing. This separates them, their kind from effective leaders - Reagan, Truman, Thatcher, Kennedy, Churchill. The likes of Pelosi, Obama - not even in the same league, an embarrassment. We will all suffer for it.

Robert Craven

Bad News

President Obama does not intend to decide about sending additional troops to Afghanistan until he is satisfied that the Kabul government can work effectively with the United States, an aide said today. "It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing," said Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff.

Did Emanuel not read today's earlier blog?

The administration's stated reason for dithering - fraud in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election. What? Didn't the administration's generals and diplomats on the ground, not to mention United Nations observers, see the election mess coming? Was the Karzai administration's cupidity and corruption overlooked or ignored during Obama's original review and revision of his predecessor's policy?

Perhaps BO did not carefully think through his March Afghan policy, or does not have confidence in McChrystal, or Holbrooke. But the likely answer - it is now politically inconvenient to follow through on that policy given the increasing number of antiwar Democrats.

What a mess BO is getting us into. The Russians, Chinese and most of Western Europe will publicly applaud this sensitivity of decision making, while snickering backstage. Whatever decision Obama reaches on Afghanistan, his credibility and leadership have been badly wounded by his continuing public display of indecisiveness, the very condition we predicted all along.

Even before the Nobel announcement, liberal American columnists were sounding increasingly skeptical about the man they once supported with such enthusiasm. Richard Cohen wrote in the Wash Post that the president "inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the latter, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama."

We understand in detail the far-left apparatus in charge of the Democratic party but we cannot understand why reasonable folk continue to be taken in. They're going to get all of us in a heap of trouble.

Robert Craven

Moment of Truth

Pakistan is going it alone this weekend. Most of us know by now that their army launched a huge air and ground offensive in the Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan. According to news estimates, 30,000 troops were deployed to root out and kill terrorists. This is a critical development folks, key not only to the welfare, even the existence of Pakistan, but key to US security interests as well.

What Pakistan told Obama this weekend is this: OK, we are doing our part. Now we want you to do yours.

We have been critical of what we view as Obama’s complete lack of instinct in protecting the interests of the US in the conduct of foreign affairs. From the US Constitution, Article II, Section 2, this is his primary duty yet we don’t see how he has looked out for US interests at all. As a matter of fact, we don't think Barack Obama cares much about foreign affairs one way or the other. He does however have a huge transformative domestic agenda. His main interest in the rest of the planet, as one observer noted, " is that he doesn't need some nutjob nuking Cleveland before he's finished reducing it to a moribund socialist swamp."

OK. Perhaps we are wrong. Maybe there is foreign policy somewhere, not just attitude. Maybe BO read our last blog. We’ll soon find out.

Back to this weekend’s offensive. Pakistani president Zardari, army chief of staff Kayani and others are fighting not just this front, but an internal front as well. There are many within Pakistan who oppose fighting the Taliban. Recall the relationship nurtured between Pakistan and the Taliban during the war to expel the Soviets. Those within Pakistan who want to support the Taliban argue that the US will eventually abandon Afghanistan, and that argument has gained credibility given Obama’s track record so far. They believe that given that event the Taliban will be able to fill the vacuum.

See where we’re going with this one folks?

Zardari and Kayani have been able to overcome internal resistance sufficiently to mount this weekend’s major operation. But US lack of support of combat forces will only prove their opponents to be correct. Pakistani operations against their own insurgents--as well as against al Qaeda, which lives among those insurgents--would probably stop as Pakistan worked to reposition itself in support of a revived Taliban government in Afghanistan. And a renewed stream of Afghan refugees would likely overwhelm the Pakistani government and military. How would they then conduct operations against insurgents and terrorists? They wouldn’t.

The collapse of Pakistan, or even the revival of an aggressive and successful Islamist movement there, would be a disaster for the region and for the United States. It would significantly increase the risk that al Qaeda might obtain nukes from Pakistan's stockpile, as well as the risk that an Indo-Pakistani war might break out involving the use of nuclear weapons.

Let’s hope Obama surprises us and gets this one right.

Robert Craven

Afghanistan

I write these words as more than just a casual observer. My son-in-law, Carter Johnston, will very soon ship to Afghanistan as an Apache pilot. Some of our readers may have seen the recent CBS documentary, "Battle of Wanat - Inside the Ambush," where 9 US soldiers were killed. One of them, Lt. Jonathon Brostrom, was Carter’s best friend. Jonathon’s father, retired Army Colonel David Brostrom, was quoted in the piece. We know that Colonel Brostrom questions the lack of resources, the lack of support personnel, the slimly manned base for example allowed to continue to operate in the face of a profound threat. He is on to something. Indecision costs lives.

Let’s back up a tad. In the early days of the Civil War Lincoln was in a quandary. He wanted to take the battle to the enemy but he had a commanding general - McClellan - who was strong on parades but weak on action; every situation lacked certainty; nothing was just perfect enough for a major offensive; all was just too, too complex and only he, one of the anointed, had the mental horsepower to ever fully understand it all. And McClellan always "needed more time," just one more meeting. Lincoln finally had enough.

Now we have just the exact reversal of situation. We have a commanding general in Afg who has a plan and wants to take it to the enemy, and who knows what he needs to get the job done. But we have a president who, just like McClellan, can do nothing but nuance, dither, parse here and there, look ahead to more meetings, and who is in our judgement (and I'll bet Lincoln's if he were still here) ill equipped for the task.

Stanley McChrystal is the General Grant in this war on terror. He recently met with Obama, who was furious that McChrystal had very publically asked to 40,000 more troops, and told the International Institute for Strategic Studies that, "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, nor will public support." Obama’s advisers were "shocked and angered" by "the bluntness’ of McChrystal’s speech. One of BO’s staffers said that, "To my mind McChrystal doesn’t seem ready for Washington hardball and is just speaking his mind too plainly." What a crock.

It’s no secret how to win this war. We’ll win if we listen to the pros. We’ll fail if we listen to the elitists, the anointed, the lefty arm chair quarter backs who have never fought a battle for their Country in their lives but who are just so, so wise - Lenin’s useful idiots.

Witness this from the British Army chief of staff Sir David Richards: "If al-Qaeda and the Taliban believe they have defeated us - what next? Would they stop in Afg.? Pakistan is clearly a tempting target not least because of the fact ...of nuclear weapons.....if only a few fell into their hands, believe me they would use them."

Or from former CentCom Commander Gen Anthony Zinni: "I think we have to be careful how long this goes on. We could be seen at being indecisive - unable to make a decision. We have a general out there who is probably the best qualified we could have that’s telling us what we need on the ground....And I just don’t understand why we’re questioning that judgment at this point..."

Or from the chair of the House Armed Services Comm Ike Skelton (D - MO): "That’s the purpose of this entire mission - to quell al Qaeda and to make sure the Taliban are not there to invite them back. The president chose Gen McChrystal who is the best in the business for this type of conflict. He asked McChrystal for an assessment. He got that assessment. ...I back him up. I sent a letter to the president 6 days ago - spelling out basically - ‘Give the general what he needs’"

Finally, even from Henry Kissinger: "Those in the chain of command in Afg., each with outstanding qualifications, have all been recently appointed by Obama. Rejecting their recommendations would be a triumph of domestic politics over strategic judgment."

Here we go again? Iraq - Wise men frowned, cleared their throat and declared Iraq lost in op-ed opinions. And then Bush did the lonely and good thing by placing his all with Petraeus, the surge, and keeping our commitment. Can Obama follow suit? Sure. Personally, we have little respect for this guy; a charlatan, a Chicago pol, who through the dynamic of political correctness ended up as president despite his complete lack of experience in foreign affairs, despite his history as a community organizer and fan of Acorn, despite a vacuity of judgement as illustrated by the extremist company he kept. But he can listen and he can learn and key - take a lesson from the past. Let's hope he picks up a history book, for Carter’s sake and for all the rest of us.

Robert Craven