Joe Katzman has some useful thoughts on "the surge." He's skeptical, as am I, for many of the reasons he states.

He makes an interesting point that I hadn't previously considered:

Iran is arming and supporting both Sunni and Shi'ite groups, using a script I explained long ago in "Iran's Great Game." What does your strategy presume to do about this? The Saudis have also been sending people over to help the Sunnis for some time now, and run martyr's profiles in the Saudi press - and now they are publicly threatening to step up their support of Iraq's Sunnis. How does the proposed strategy plan to deal with this ongoing activity, as well as the threat of more open involvement?

So what we really have going on (among other things) is a war by proxie between SA and Iran. From our standpoint, it's similar to the situation that we faced in the eighties, when the war between Arab and Persian was more direct, and we aided Iraq not because we wanted it to win, but because we wanted both sides to lose. That's the case here as well.

But it also points out that Israel is in an interesting situation, in which alliances are shifting in the sands of the Middle East, with clandestine meetings between Jerusalem, and Riyadh, Amman and Cairo, to figure out how to deal with the Shia menace in Iran. I suspect that Omert's government has been given a wink a nod by those governments against what is now recognized to be a common enemy in Tehran. And of course, it also shows that the war we're in is really a larger Middle East cold war that they managed to export to our shores five years ago.

Oh, also over at Winds of Change--are we being probed for an attack?

[Update about 10:30 AM EST]

Here's another interesting thought on probes and "false alarms."

I don't buy this. Perhaps 10%-20% of the problem we face in Iraq is in one way or the other related to Iranian involvement. The bulk of the problem is internal. I think it should be pretty obvious that an intense battle for survival is at the root of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq. I don't see how an attack on Iran is going to make the job we have set for ourselves in Iraq any easier. Given the oil and therefore the money available internally in Iraq, even if all Iranian connections are cut, there will be funding for the hell we and they are experiencing over there. Attacking Iran would be a sideshow with little direct gain for us with regards to the "mission" in Iraq.

Unless of course we completely redefine the mission from building a democratic secular state to something quite different.

Also, Rand, in your second to last paragraph are you saying that the 9/11 attacks were part of the war against Israel ? That's what the liberals have been saying as why the solution to the ME problems (Iraq included) are tied into solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian issue...I'm surprised if you actually subsribe to that view. Please clarify.

And of course, it also shows that the war we're in is really a larger Middle East cold war that they managed to export to our shores five years ago.

Oh drat, Rand, now you've gone and done it, you've told the truth about the larger situation, it'll get the usual commentators VERY upset.

Hell, I'll go one step further.

The administration is mainly fighting this war to keep that cold war from turning into a massive total hot war similar to WW2. Attempting such a thing gets people like anonymous upset because they want this conflict to be a replay of WW2, except this time they want to be in the driver's
seat to remake American society in their image.

Which is why they glorify FDR so much in spite of his actions leading to the situation we're in today where the successor states to the totalitarians we backed in WW2 have proliferated nuclear weapons to unstable third world countries.

(And in case you're wondering, I think that we could have fought against Nazi Germany without selling Eastern Europe down the river at Yalta.)

Well, that's all I have time for now. Gotta run.

Given the oil and therefore the money available internally in Iraq, even if all Iranian connections are cut, there will be funding for the hell we and they are experiencing over there.

Funding isn't necessarily enough. Iran has been providing sophisticated IEDs and training.

...in your second to last paragraph are you saying that the 9/11 attacks were part of the war against Israel?

Yes, in the broadest sense that it's one huge war of radical totalitarian Islam against the west. That doesn't mean that handing Israel over to the wolves, or solving the "Palestinian issue," will end the war, or cause peace to break out in the Middle East.

"are we being probed for an attack?"

I think that what we should immediately start doing is rounding up all Muslims and questioning them under duress. It's the only way to be sure.

I think that what we should immediately start doing is rounding up all Muslims and questioning them under duress. It's the only way to be sure.

Well, either you're being serious, in which case you're a jackass, or you're pathetically attempting to be sarcastic and clever, in which case...you're a jackass.

The great Islamic war is quite complicated just as WWII was not as simple as most folks would view it today. For example in WWII Britain sent weapons to Finland to fight the Soviets (prior to Germany's invasion of Russia). The US invaded French Morocco and fought French troops and naval vessels.

Today, in the Great Islamic War the US has been dragged into a hot war with Al Qaeda. Our commander in chief (CIC) has choosen for strategic reasons to limit our overt actions to Iraq and Afghanistan (Analogous to Britian avoiding engagement against Norway in WWII prior to the Nazi invasion).

Choosing to engage only certain enemies at certain times can be a useful tactic. On the other hand, the enemy may use its safe havens to organize its attacks as Iran is today doing to us in Iraq.

I believe it would be useful to the war effort for the white house to publically announce the evidence of Iranian military involvement in Iraq. This should be followed up with international diplomacy (for cover) and air strikes against Iranian targets.

I can only assume the CIC has forsaken this option for good reasons (fear of an oil crisis?).

"Perhaps 10%-20% of the problem we face in Iraq is in one way or the other related to Iranian involvement. The bulk of the problem is internal."

I don't believe the situation is so simple to quantify. The above is you opinion and you've every right to it.

I however believe that a great proportion of the strife is externally orchestrated, directly or indirectly. External meaning Iran, Syria, other countries and especially AQ.

There is no easy way to determine what "internal problems" are being created by external influences DESIGNED to create those internal problems. One act committed by an external source can lead to a dozen counter acts, retaliations etc. by internal sources, but the catalyst was external. How do you quantify that? If on the surface it seems that 90% of the violence was internal Sunni vs Shite or similar, but when looked at closer many times it goes back to an AQ attack or other external source.

Good WWII/current day analogies Fred.

One thing on the Norway situation, the reason Britain was hesitant to do anything in Norway was due to British respect for Norways' neutrality, something Hitler could not have cared less about. The modern analogy would be when voices today rant on about how we should not intervene in sovereign countries affairs while other enemy countries have no qualms about doing just that. Take your pick for enemy countries (Iran, Syria etc.) being involved outside their borders (Lebanon, Iraq, Israel etc.)

A quote from Churchill that applies as much today as it did when he spoke these words to the British Cabinet in December of 1939:

"The final tribunal is our own conscience. We are fighting to re-establish the reign of law and to protect the liberties of small countries. Our defeat would mean an age of barbaric violence, and would be fatal, not only to ourselves, but to the independent life of every small country in Europe. Acting in the name of the covenant, and as virtual mandatories of the League (of Nations) and all it stands for, we have a right, and are indeed are bound in duty, to abrogate for a space some of the conventions of the very laws we seek to consolidate and reaffirm. Small nations must not tie our hands when we are fighting for their rights and freedom. The letter of the law must not in supreme emergency obstruct those who are charged with its protection and enforcement. It would not be right or rational that the aggressor Power should gain one set of advantages by tearing up all laws, and another set by sheltering behind the innate respect for law of its opponents. Humanity, rather than legality, must be our guide.
Of all this history must be the judge. We now face events."

3ID moving into Najaf. Crowd gathered outside a shop, one man with an AK-47. Everyone's yelling, the guy with the rifle is threatening the crowd. Ameriki disarm the man, the crowd loots the store. Man starts crying. Linguist arrives, they find out the guy with the rifle was the store owner.

Stuff like that back in '03 is what killed us in Iraq.

"Stuff like that back in '03 is what killed us in Iraq."

BS True Lie.

Sure things like that happened, they happen in every war. But to claim that such things have anything to do with the AQ inspired insurgency is foolish and simplistic.

95% of Iraqis, probably including your store owner, just want peace. It's the few nut jobs who want violence, and they would be no different had your store owner, or any other Iraqi, never been harassed.

Cecil:

Churchill and Great Britian ultimately did decide to forgo the neutrality of Norway but as it turned out they didn't act fast enough to stop the Nazi invasion. The analogy with Iran (or other islamic dictatorships) is that when involved in a great conflict with a determined and hostile enemy as we are now, we must act pre-emptively or pay a much higher cost later.

There is something worth noting though when we consider the war against Isalmofascism:

(1) The PLO and Fatah were basically secular organizations with little if any religious leanings. The law of unsexpected consequences occurred when Israel decided to strengthen the hand of Hamas to weaken Fatah. Now we have Hamas and their version of Islamofascism.

(2) Saddam was a pretty awful guy but the Baathists were basically secular with the occasional pandering to the Islamists but keeping them on a tight leash. Heck Iraq even had a pretty vibrant Christian community which has pretty much packed its bags and fled to Jordan now. All the current thugs jockeying for power in Iraq on the other hand are Islamofascists, even Maliki, since he is suspected of being just a closet disciple of Sadr.

Basically, it seems we have to be pretty darn careful what we do say for example in Syria. It seems wherever you get rid of a fascist over in that part of the world, and especially now, you then wind up with an Isalmofascist bubbling up to the top, which is a much more deadly, dogged, determined and ruthless alternative, as only religion can make one.

Gadzooks. Calls for some heavy thinking doesn't it?

Saddam was a pretty awful guy but the Baathists were basically secular with the occasional pandering to the Islamists but keeping them on a tight leash.

Domestically. But Saddam also had demonstrated ties to terrorists elsewhere. Don't let the Ba'athists' "secular" label fool you. Religious and secular often make common cause on certain matters, even in our own country -- as in, libertarians and the so-called Religious Right voting for the same political candidates.

The GOP lost control of the congress, time to ratchet up the
terror threat.