Transterrestrial Musings

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On the other hand, Rand, divide and conquer cuts both ways.

Take, for example, Iraq, where you have Shi'ites backed by Iran fighting (using the term loosely, since they never seem to actually fight other armed groups) Sunnis who are backed by Syria, which is backed by Iran...

And as I was saying, the armed groups on each side never really seem to fight _each other_, they just predate upon the civilians on the other side without doing anything a western military would consider militarily significant.

(Oh, I forgot to mention: I remember one case where two armed groups did fight each other: Sadr's group did fight the Badr brigades. Both groups have been, at various times, backed by... wait for it.... Iran.)

Posted by Phil Fraering at March 12, 2007 11:56 AM

Broken Post Patrol, reporting for duty!

Posted by John Breen III at March 12, 2007 11:57 AM

divide and conquer cuts both ways.

Not quite. The fractures you describe have always existed. Sunni and Shiite have been at each others' throats for centuries, and Iran has been sponsoring Shiite revolution against the heretofore dominant Sunni minority in Iraq since roughly 1979.

But the fractures Rand mentions are new, created recently by US and allied action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That is, there are no new fractures working against us, and a few new fractures working for us. You'll see that's a net win when you take off the smoke-colored glasses.

Posted by Carl Pham at March 12, 2007 12:11 PM

If that link doesn't work then try here.

I never fail to be amazed at people who seriously believe that it would have been a good idea to leave Saddam in power.

I hope you don't believe the above of all who doubt that taking Iraq was the best move or that there was any pressing need to take Iraq. After the rout in that graveyard of empires, Afghanistan, the threat of further actions may have been enough to achieve our goals.

Posted by D Anghelone at March 12, 2007 01:15 PM

Already fixed the link, thanks.

I hope you don't believe the above of all who doubt that taking Iraq was the best move or that there was any pressing need to take Iraq.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I believe that not "taking Iraq" would have meant leaving Saddam in power, and the world a much more dangerous place because of it. If the world was cowed by our "taking" Afghanistan, there was little sign of it in the leadup to removing Saddam.

Of course, my support for the war was predicated on the assumption that removing Saddam was part of a larger strategic plan that involved using Iraq as a base to subvert the rest of the despotism of the Middle East. The administration seems to have largely squandered any opportunity to do so. But even so, that Saddam no longer rules remains a good thing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 12, 2007 01:27 PM

Well, I don't want to be one of the many magical, mystical masters of post hoc counterfactual analysis, but...I think it may have been possible to apply needed pressures, to the likes of the Lybian Lion, without all it is taking to tame Iraq.

I'm not sure that what is to come in Iraq will be better than Saddam.

I'm not sure that we look stronger now than we did before the military actions in Iraq.

I supported the routing of the Taliban but was, and am, up in the air about Iraq.

Posted by D Anghelone at March 12, 2007 01:55 PM

Rand, et al, you can support the war if you want but spare us more lies.

Saddam Hussein was a Baathist, which is essentially a secular, pan-arab nationalist, movement. Historically, the Baathists have been a counterweight to the Jihadists in the region. To say that Saddam was a brutal despot is probably accurate. Stick to that fact. To say that Saddam Hussein was a major financier of global jihadism and Al-Qaeda is wholly inaccurate.

You say Iraq is better off today. I am not sure if more Iraqi civilians are dying today because of the endemic violence in Iraq or more died as a result of Saddam's tyranny. How many Iraqi civilians died in the four years prior to "liberation" compared to the four years since. The numbers will probably disappoint you. The environment is more lethal today under "Iraqi Democracy" than under Saddam's tyranny.

Posted by Jardinero1 at March 12, 2007 02:24 PM

As an aside, I suppose Kurds might disagree with Jardinero, whoever that is.

Anyway, I'm afraid that Saddam was a small fish. Iran and Sauis are major financers of jihadists. Saddam wasn't all that wealthy by comparisons. Don't get distracted by the golden toilets in his bunker.

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at March 12, 2007 02:37 PM

Sigh. How many times do we have to go around this?

Saddam openly financed terrorism in order to a) give himself street cred with the folks who like that stuff and b) because it hurt us.

Heck, there have been indications that Iran has cooperated with or protected elements of AQ from time to time. And they believe that each other are satanic heretics. But if they can hurt us by working together a little, well, then, that's worth it. So please drop the "Saddam was secular, he'd never work with religious folke" line.

Also, for Libya... anybody remember that quote from Qaddafi where he openly said that he didn't want to have what happened to Saddam happen to him?

The Domino Theory is real. We abandoned Vietnam (and then cut off their funding needed to stop invading tank divisions), and several countries fell, resulting in millions dead to communist governments. We took down Saddam, and Libya turned states evidence (revealing the biggest nuke tech smuggling ring ever), Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon instead of killing a few thousand again, and several gulf countries started talking about democracy. We stalled out, stopped advancing, and Iran and Syria both started getting more aggressive and brazen in their war on us.

Posted by Big D at March 12, 2007 02:44 PM

"How many Iraqi civilians died in the four years prior to "liberation" compared to the four years since."

What an disingenous comparison. How many deaths was he responsible for since he took power in '79? A million? 2 million? More? Do you think he would stop torturing and killing his own citizens because we threatened him? How many people does someone have to kill before you think it's worth getting rid of them? The people of Iraq had no chance at freedom under Saddam. They do now.

Posted by Bill Maron at March 12, 2007 02:49 PM

. The environment is more lethal today under "Iraqi Democracy" than under Saddam's tyranny.

Posted by Jardinero1 at March 12, 2007 02:24 PM

that argument is not very persuasive.

by this logic the Civil War should not have been fought...blacks were "a lot better" as slaves then 100 years of Jim Crow.

For better or for worse what has been enabled in Iraq is "change".

Good or bad that is what we have set in motion. The trick is to make it "good".

I think that this can occur.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 12, 2007 03:25 PM

by this logic the Civil War should not have been fought...blacks were "a lot better" as slaves then 100 years of Jim Crow.

********

Laf

And you claim to be a historian? I am quite sure that zero blacks would agree with your historical assessment.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 12, 2007 03:37 PM

Well at least I know how the shuttle retrieved the comm satellites.

I dont really care if a "black" would agree or not. The fact is that after Reconstruction was ended and Yankee troops left the south, the "keen minds there" resorted immediatly to Jim Crow laws that essentially reinstated slavery at the very least on an ecnoomic and social level.

What the civil war did however was 1) solidify the federal government and 2) allow the instruments of power to initate change when the political timing was correct.

I am sure in your part of the South everything was hunky dory and blacks were working along with whites and socializing etc...and it was the rest of the Mason Dixon south that had the "colored only" bathrooms and blacks sitting if tehre was room, at the back of the bus.

You know the south that really existed.

LOL

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at March 12, 2007 04:19 PM

The administration seems to have largely squandered any opportunity to do so.

Maybe not. If the United States is "tied down" in Iraq that goes double for Iran. The towel-heads are now funneling big chunks of their oil cash into IEDs smuggled across the border and recruitment fees for the families of crazies willing to detonate themselves. That's money that's not being invested in, say, modernization of the oil pumping infrastructure and electrical grid, which means the creaking Iranian economy is increasingly running on borrowed time.

Furthermore that whack Ahmadingusblab has now been roped into seriously invested himself in defeating the Great Satan. If he doesn't pull it off convincingly -- e.g. with the help of his natural allies in the Democratic Party -- he's going to be toast domestically. It's little wonder he keeps rattlin' the nuclear sabre. Got to do something to keep the plebes off the fact that life is going steadily downhill in the Glorious Islamic Republic.

Point being, just because we don't see the mullahs fleeing for the hills doesn't mean Iran isn't being hard-pressed to keep up their side of the fight. There's a good reason they want to do their fighting with their mouths. Provided the US doesn't flinch, it's hard to see the $0.6 trillion, 15% unemployment economy outlasting the $13 trillion, 4% unemployment economy.

O' course, just as in the case of the USSR, we can expect all the nuanced, sophisticated "intelligence" services (not to mention our own media fifth column) to insist that the mullahs are thriving and unbeatable right up until the day the house of cards falls down around them.

Posted by Carl Pham at March 12, 2007 05:43 PM

As much I support W (c'mon, look at the alternatives in 2000 and 2004), Rand is right. I'm extremely P.O.'d at the missed opportunities especially over the last couple of years. We had real momentum going and allowed it to sputter out, and he allowed the Dems and MSM to define the conflict.

When W. is speaking plainly about the great issues of which he has strong convictions, he's terrific. But he hasn't been out there "making the case" consistently enough. This was painfully clear in the last election - I can think of many good reasons to have gone to Iraq, regardless of WMD's. But I'm not the president - he's got to keep making the case! His weakness is having a CEO's mentality - he doesn't like having to explain himself.

Bottom line, he gave up the initiative on both fronts: on the battlefield in Iraq and in the battle for ideas at home.

The only justification I can see (and it doesn't go far enough), is that he certainly doesn't want to telegraph his intentions, assuming this is part of a larger strategy. Seems to me the only way to get a lid on terrorism is to remake the psychotic, dysfunctional Middle East and show them we mean business.

That's a generational project for a sound-bite culture.

Posted by Pat C at March 13, 2007 06:05 AM

The towel-heads...

Not the best way to advance an argument. And, no, that's not political correctness.

Posted by D Anghelone at March 13, 2007 06:37 AM

Well said, Pat. Particularly this point:
But I'm not the president - he's got to keep making the case! His weakness is having a CEO's mentality - he doesn't like having to explain himself.

George W Bush just hasn't done his job of keeping up morale at home. He did promise not to share with the American people all of the successes in the War on Terror, but he didn't need to put a lid on all of them. Any news of success comes from people way down the chain, who don't have the bully pulpit as a medium to get the message a wide distribution. Tony Blair and John Howard have done far better. Bush should be holding an Oval Office briefing (not a Press Conference) with the people at least once a quarter.

Much of the success and popularity with General Schwarzkopf in 1991 was his daily briefings on the successes in that war. I'm not asking for daily, but something a bit more regular than SOTU would be nice.

Posted by Leland at March 13, 2007 07:21 AM

"The towel-heads..."

Hey, we used to call the Vietnamese some nasty names too, right Carl?

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 13, 2007 08:40 AM

D Anghelone, fair point, but to you and Toast, remember the "Global Islamic Jihad Movement" call us "infidels", and their choice of names comes laden with an indictment on our character that is punishable by death.

Posted by Leland at March 13, 2007 12:15 PM

Except that not everyone, Muslim or otherwise who wears a "towel" is in the GIJM, particularly not the Sikhs. One of the first Americans to die in a hate crime after 9/11 was a Sikh "towel-head". The RCMP has "towel-heads" who are hunting down Al-Qaeda in Canada. All in all a highly inappropriate term that applies a generic insult to anyone wearing a turban.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 13, 2007 12:37 PM

All in all a highly inappropriate term that applies a generic insult to anyone wearing a turban.

Maybe he was referring specifically only to people who actually wear towels on their heads. ;-)

You know, as opposed to rags...

I agree, though, it's an unuseful appellation.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 13, 2007 12:42 PM

Leland,

The 'Islamic Jihad Movement' does many things we'd likely not want to emulate.

If someone chose to treat Simberg with a Jewish slur as part of a disagreement with him then wouldn't you suspect personal bias as motive for the disagreement?

Posted by D Anghelone at March 13, 2007 12:43 PM

Yes, especially considering that Carl was probably (I hope anyway) not thinking of this:

http://india.gov.in/images/primeminister.jpg

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 13, 2007 03:35 PM

In my dialect, a towelhead would be someone who followed the Towel when they went on tour and got high in the parking lot...

Posted by triticale at March 14, 2007 03:04 PM

If someone chose to treat Simberg with a Jewish slur as part of a disagreement with him then wouldn't you suspect personal bias as motive for the disagreement?

Why if? AM has done so many times.

Anyway, your point doesn't change mine.

Posted by Leland at March 15, 2007 03:29 AM

Leland

I've called Simberg a neo-con moron many a time,
now if that's a jewish slur, please tell me why?

I've tried to refrain from describing simberg as
anything other then a jew, jewish, zionist,
neo-con, likudnik or Stooge.

Please tell me how any of those are slurs?

Posted by anonymous at March 15, 2007 08:02 AM

LOL, definitely no need for if.

Posted by Leland at March 15, 2007 11:25 AM

So Leland oh keeper of courtesy, what's wrong with
any of those words?

Posted by anonymous at March 15, 2007 02:38 PM

ah, Leland?

Aren't you supposed to explain what's a jewish
slur about Neo-con or Zionist?

Political slur, yes, racial? religious?

Posted by anonymous at March 17, 2007 03:41 PM

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