What’s Wrong with This Picture?

Both the U. S. and our enemy Shiite Iran are on the same side in Iraq — supporting Shiite al-Maliki against Sunni Al Qaeda.

To a large extent, our frenemy Maliki brought his Anbar province troubles on himself by mistreating the Sunnis there and creating an opening for Al Qaeda.  Now he’s struggling to get the Sunni tribal leaders to turn against Al Qaeda and turn back to him, hoping they hate his guts a little less.

The violence spreading out from Syria shows that the Mideast right now is just fighting the Sunni-Shiite battle that’s been going on since the seventh century.  At this moment, it’s led by Saudi Arabia and Iran fanning proxy wars, just as the U. S. and Russia had their client states during the Cold War.  The Sunni Saudis are trying to fight both the Shiites and Al Qaeda, a monster they helped create.  Good luck with that.

We have to fight Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and we have to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, which would lead to Saudi Arabia’s getting nuclear weapons.  Resolving the Sunni-Shiite thing? Fuhgeddaboudit.

These Would Have Been Guys to Get Diana

The new allegations about Princess Diana’s death don’t just vaguely claim she was murdered by the British military, but specifically by the elite special forces Special Air Service (SAS).

They are analogous in terms of training and missions to the work U. S. special forces (Navy Seals, Army Rangers, Green Berets) do.

The SAS hunted down and took out suspected Al Qaeda members in Iraq and Taliban in Afghanistan in daring and dangerous raids.  Taking out a royal who was seen as a threat for her romance with and possible marriage to a Muslim, resulting in Muslim siblings for the future king, Prince William?   Would have been a piece of cake for these guys.  Aside from her relationship with Dodi, Diana was seen as too much of a loose cannon.

I didn’t expect anything to come out while the Queen and Prince Philip are alive, and I still really don’t.

 

The Mess We Left Behind

As we focus on Syria and Egypt and Afghanistan, let’s not forget the mess we left behind in Iraq, where Sunni-Shiite violence just gets more intense.

There have been almost 3,000 deaths from sectarian attacks this year, with more than 500 so far this month.  This weekend, car bombs in Baghdad have killed almost 40 people.

Not to mention the rapprochement between Iraq and Iran that we created, which is a strategic disaster for us.

I hope that as Bush 43 assumes more of a public profile again, and as Dick Cheney campaigns for his daughter Liz in Wyoming, they will get asked, “WTF?”

Quote of the Day

“Look at the fact that, today, Iran has a greater influence over circumstances in Iraq than we do. We paid a heck of a high cost to put Iran in such an advantageous position with respect to Iraq.”

Former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey to Dave Weigel of Slate on  George W. Bush’s legacy.

Who Is Misha?

From “Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Influenced by Mysterious Radical,” Adam Goldman, Eric Tucker & Matt Apuzzo, The Associated Press:

In the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev fell under the influence of a new friend, a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

“Somehow, he just took his brain,” said Tamerlan’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni….

They [Tamerlan and Dzhokhar] were raised in a home that followed Sunni Islam, the religion’s largest sect. They were not regulars at the mosque and rarely discussed religion, Khozhugov [the Tsarnaev brothers’ ex-brother-in-law] said.

 

Then, in 2008 or 2009, Tamerlan met Misha, a slightly older, heavyset bald man with a long reddish beard. Khozhugov didn’t know where they’d met but believed they attended a Boston-area mosque together. Misha was an Armenian native and a convert to Islam and quickly began influencing his new friend, family members said.

 

 

 

As time went on, Tamerlan and his father argued about the young man’s new beliefs.

 

“When Misha would start talking, Tamerlan would stop talking and listen. It upset his father because Tamerlan wouldn’t listen to him as much,” Khozhugov said. “He would listen to this guy from the mosque who was preaching to him.”

 

Anzor [the father] became so concerned that he called his brother, worried about Misha’s effects.

 

“I heard about nobody else but this convert,” Tsarni said. “The seed for changing his views was planted right there in Cambridge.”

 

Khozhugov said Tamerlan did not know much about Islam beyond what he found online or what he heard from Misha.

 

 

 

 

If Saddam Hussein Were Still in Power…

Secretary of State John Kerry went to Iraq to beg Prime Minister Maliki to stop the flow of weapons and soldiers from Iran to President Assad in Syria via Iraqi air space and land.

Maliki told him to take a hike.

If Saddam Hussein were still in power in Iraq, Iran wouldn’t be allowed to do this.

When we removed Saddam, a Sunni, we removed a powerful bulwark against Shiite Iran.  Maliki, a Shiite, has been close to Iran since the 1970’s when he was in exile there.

We lost all those lives and limbs in Iraq to help Iran extend its sphere of influence, to turn an enemy into an ally for them.

The Iraq War may be over, but the consequences of it stupidity continue.

 

Hagel Disappoints

Chuck Hagel did not exactly hit it out of the park in his hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

He stumbled on Iraq, Iran, and the “Jewish lobby” comment.

Supposedly, he did three mock hearings in preparation, but given that everybody knew what was going to come up, he wasn’t as sharp and well-prepared as he should have been.  The surprise wasn’t any particular question that caused him to stumble, but the fact that he stumbled.

What what me cringe most was when he said he supported Obama’s policy of “containment” of Iran.  It took a passed note to get him to correct that.  Our policy on Iran’s getting nuclear weapons is not containment, but prevention.

John McCain got the better of him when Hagel didn’t defend his opposition to the Iraq surge forcefully enough.  Lindsey “Butters” Graham got him to say he couldn’t/wouldn’t name a senator who had been “intimidated” by the “Jewish lobby” or to name a “stupid thing” Congress had done on Israel as a result of such intimidation.

I don’t think it was a fatal performance, but it certainly was a disappointing one.  Peter Beinart tweeted that it reminded him of the first Obama-Romney debate.  Yup.

What Do You Get When You Cross a Hawk and a Dove? Maybe Some Sane Policy.

From “Why Chuck Hagel Is Obama’s Pentagon Pick,” Bob Woodward, WaPo:

“The two [Obama and Hagel] share similar views and philosophies as the Obama administration attempts to define the role of the United States in the transition to a post-superpower world.

“This worldview is part hawk and part dove.  It amounts, in part, to a challenge to the wars of President George W. Bush.  It holds that the Afghanistan war has been mismanaged and the Iraq was unnecessary.  War is an option, but very much a last resort.

“So, this thinking goes, the U. S. role in the world must be carefully scaled back — this is not a matter of choice but of facing reality; the military needs to be treated with deep skepticism; lots of strategic military and foreign policy thinking is out of date; and quagmires like Afghanistan should be avoided.

“The bottom line:  The United States must get out of these massive land wards — Iraq and Afghanistan — and, if possible, avoid future large-scale war.

“Although much discussion of the Hagel nomination has centered on his attitudes about Iran, Israel and the defense budget, Hagel’s broader agreement with Obama on overall philosophy is probably more consequential.”

I am hopeful that Obama/Kerry/Hagel will spend the next four years devising foreign and military policy that protects our power by getting the best bang for the buck and then uses that power wisely.  Applying our power conservatively — that would make them the neo-neo-cons.

After 9/11, we knew the world had changed, but it’s taken us over a decade to figure out how to change with it.

I would say the Iraq war wasn’t just unnecessary, but was very harmful to our interests because it took Iraq away as a counter-weight to Iran and upset the balance of power in the region.  Saddam Hussein was a bastard, but he was a useful bastard.  Bush 41 recognized this when he freed Kuwait, but didn’t march to Baghdad.

And the idea that we were going to change Afghanistan was always absurd.  No one changes Afghanistan — they just bang their heads against a wall and eventually leave.

 

Realist Hagel and His Neo-Con Haters

Those who oppose Chuck Hagel for DoD, and either whisper or shout that he is anti-Israel/anti-Semitic are really saying that to be pro-Israel, you have to support absolutely everything that Benjamin Netanyahu wants and stands for.

It’s like saying that you’re anti-American unless you support the GOP or anti-British unless you support the Tories.

Suddenly support for Israel is limited to support for its far right.

By this bizarre standard there are a whole lot of folks in Israel and politicians in its Knesset who are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

Senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham and newbie Ted Cruz are afraid of Hagel.  They want to stay in Afghanistan forever, and they know that Hagel will argue to get out sooner than the end of 2014, which is what this war-weary country wants.

Now sometimes being war-weary doesn’t mean you’re right, sometimes you have to suck it up and stick it out, but in this case, the mood of the country matches the strategic reality that we have nothing to gain by staying longer in Afghanistan.

The Hagel haters also fear that he will be an effective spokesman for making DoD more efficient.  They can see him on the Sunday talk shows convincingly arguing that some weapons systems can be eliminated, that the defense budget can be cut without making us less safe.  They can see him authoring cogent op-eds that will sway opinion leaders.

I am excited about the combo of Hagel at DoD and Brennan at CIA.  Brennan is our Drone Guy, and he and Hagel will continue to fight the War on Terror the way it needs to be fought, with more drones and special forces, not tens of thousands of troops stuck manning mountain outposts while Al Qaeda finds other homes.

As Al Qaeda and its affiliates move and spread, we have to be as flexible as they are.  We had as many drone strikes in Yemen in 2012 as we did in Pakistan because we are taking the fight to the enemy.  There is talk of drone strikes in Mali (and maybe they are happening as I write this) because that’s where Al Qaeda is.

Obama, Hagel, and Brennan get it.  They see the big picture of how everything fits together. They see the importance of our relationship with Pakistan, frustrating and infuriating as it is.  They see how the war in Iraq destabilized the region and upset the balance of power by taking away Iran’s biggest rival and constraint.    Now Iran and Iraq are friends, and Iran is freer to pursue its dreams of hegemony in the region.  Hagel is a realist like Bush 41, who recognized that we should kick Iraq out of Kuwait, but not continue to Baghdad because we were better off with Saddam Hussein in power.

 

New Maps for a New Middle East

I have long believed that there should be a Kurdistan.

From “Letter from Syria,” Thomas Friedman, NYT:

“Syria is the keystone of the Middle East.  If and how it cracks apart could recast this entire region.  The borders of Syria have been fixed ever since the British and French colonial powers carved up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.  If Assad is toppled and you have state collapse here, Syria’s civil war could go regional and challenge all the old borders — as the Shiites of Lebanon seek to link up more with the Alawite/Shiites of Syria, the Kurds of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey try to link up with one another and create an independent Kurdistan, and the Sunnis of Iraq, Jordan and Syria draw closer to oppose the Shiites of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.”  Emphasis added.

Certainly a messy and difficult process, but one that’s worth going through to try to get it right a hundred years later.