Interesting Times

If our previous item wasn’t gloomy enough for you, here’s a dark assessment of the gathering storm beyond our borders, from the Center For Security Policy. A longish excerpt:

Muammar Gadhafi’s death last week prompted the Obama administration to trumpet the President’s competence as Commander-in-Chief and the superiority of his “small footprint,” “lead-from-behind” approach to waging war over the more traditional – and costly and messy – one pursued by George W. Bush. The bloom came off that false rose on Sunday when Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, repeatedly declared his government’s fealty to shariah, Islam’s brutally repressive, totalitarian political-military-legal doctrine.
Among other things, Abdul-Jalil said shariah would be the “basic source” of all legislation. Translation: Forget about representative democracy. Under shariah, Allah makes the laws, not man.

In short, the result of Mr. Obama’s $2 billion dollar expenditure to oust Gadhafi is a regime that will be led by jihadists, controls vast oil reserves and has inherited a very substantial arsenal (although some of it – including reportedly as many as 20,000 surface-to-air missiles – has “gone missing.”) This scarcely can be considered a victory for the United States and will probably prove a grave liability.

An Islamist party called Nahda seems likely to have captured the lion’s share of the votes cast in the first free election in Tunisia. While we are assured it is a “moderate” religious party, the same has long been said of Turkey’s governing AKP party. Unfortunately, we have lately seen the latter’s true colors as it has become ever-more-insistent at home on jettisoning the secular form of government handed down by Attaturk and acted ever-more-aggressively abroad. A similar transformation can be expected, later if not sooner, of any shariah-adherent political movement.

Meanwhile in Egypt, the agenda of the Islamists’ mother ship – the Muslim Brotherhood – is being adopted even before elections formally bring it to power. The interim military government has abetted efforts to punish and even kill the Coptic Christian minority. It has facilitated the arming of the Brotherhood’s franchise in Gaza, Hamas, and allowed the Sinai to become the launching pad for al Qaeda and others’ attacks on Israel.
Egypt’s transitional regime also helped broker the odious exchange of over 1,000 convicted terrorists held by Israel for a single soldier kidnapped and held hostage for five years by Hamas. Upon their release, even the convicts with Jewish blood on their hands received heroes’ welcomes even as they affirmed their desire to destroy Israel and called for the seizure of still more Israelis to spring their comrades still behind bars. This does not augur well for either the Jewish State or for our interests.

The increasingly mercurial Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has announced that – despite the long-running, immensely costly and ongoing U.S. effort to protect his kleptocratic government – in a war between Pakistan and the United States, Afghanistan would side with Pakistan. The magnitude of this insulting repudiation of America is all the greater since Pakistan is widely seen as doing everything it can to reestablish the Taliban in Kabul.

And in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has touted his success in thwarting Washington’s belated (and half-hearted) efforts to keep a significant number of U.S. forces in his country after the end of this year. Already, his coalition partner and fellow Iranian cats-paw, Muqtada al-Sadr, is boasting that he will also drive out the American contractor personnel who are, for the moment, expected to provide a measure of security after the military withdraws. In that case, we may well see the mullahs’ agents take over a U.S. embassy for the second time since 1979 – this one the newest, largest and most expensive in the world.

Alarmist? Over the top? Perhaps, but not by much, in my opinion. Read the whole thing here.

25 Comments

  1. “Read the whole thing here.”

    Before I can read any more doom and gloom, I await, with bated breath, the inevitable Obama-ass-kissing spin from Dick Ed.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 4:22 pm | Permalink
  2. Malcolm says

    I will say this: if Iraq is going to end up as badly as Libya seems likely to turn out, at least Libya cost less.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 4:30 pm | Permalink
  3. Would you also say that Obama had a major hand in locking in that Iraq cost?

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 4:42 pm | Permalink
  4. Malcolm says

    No. We were already deeply committed. As Victor Hanson points out here, if you want to have some influence in what becomes of a nation after you topple its government, you have to insert an occupying force. That’s what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan; it was already settled policy by the time Mr. Obama came around, and he cannot fairly be blamed for it.

    The disappointing results, however, have given ample evidence that nation-building in benighted Muslim snakepits is a fool’s errand; we’re no less despised for building roads and bridges than bombing them. The painful lesson of the past decade is that the best we can realistically hope to achieve in the region with our military might is to be feared and respected, and to make it clear that we will respond to mischief with punishing force.

    Which is exactly what we had achieved in Libya, prior to this latest adventure.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
  5. You didn’t quite get my point, Malcolm. I have no quarrel with what you say, but my point was that Obama has practically guaranteed (by his rush to abandonment) that the cost for Iraq will end up being for a failure of Libyan proportions.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:09 pm | Permalink
  6. Malcolm says

    I don’t see this as a rush to abandonment. I think that at this point we have only two choices in both Afghanistan and Iraq: take them on as imperial holdings and bleed lives and money forever, or get the hell out.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:13 pm | Permalink
  7. I concede the argument.

    But will you at least acknowledge that before Obama’s actions, however you wish to characterize them, there was a non-vanishing chance it wouldn’t have ended as badly as it will likely end up being?

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
  8. Malcolm says

    Again, no. If it was going to end at all, it was going to end badly no matter what. Iraq and Afghanistan are fractious, tribal viper’s nests, with no tradition of anything but autocratic rule throughout their millennia of sanguinary history. They can be only be governed by force, and as soon as the grip is loosened the battle-royal begins again.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
  9. If it was going to end at all, it was going to end badly no matter what.

    Well, if you know the future to such a degree of confidence, I can have no argument left.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:40 pm | Permalink
  10. Malcolm says

    Well, of course I don’t have a crystal ball. Tell me then: What do you think Mr. Obama should have done differently in Iraq, and how do you think it would have led to a better outcome?

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:42 pm | Permalink
  11. Malcolm says

    As if on cue:

    US Tracks ‘Millions’ of Dollars Stolen by Iraqi Officials

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
  12. Here is what I think about these types of discussions, Malcolm, and I hasten to add that it is merely my gut-felt opinion:

    Although there is always something to be learned in any exchange of ideas, even between participants who hold fast to their opinions, speculation about “what might have been” is, for me, not worth the time, effort, or the inevitable aggravation, when more often than not it devolves into mudslinging.

    The best one can hope for is an honest exchange of opposing views, as well as an occasional granting of one’s opponent’s point, however small.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 6:04 pm | Permalink
  13. Malcolm says

    Ah. I thought when you wrote…

    “Would you also say that Obama had a major hand in locking in that Iraq cost?”

    …that it meant you had a definite opinion about what ought to have been done, based on some expectation of the outcomes of various courses of action.

    But that’s fine, we can leave it there.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 6:07 pm | Permalink
  14. I am willing to leave it there, too. But if you would like to present a dissertation on how “no alternative action could possibly have attained a better outcome”, I would be interested in reading it.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 6:32 pm | Permalink
  15. Malcolm says

    My point was as, I said above, that once we loosened our grip, the customary behavior of the region would resume. Our choices, then, were to stay on indefinitely, as despised occupiers, or to leave.

    The idea that by our nation-building efforts we could inspire pervasive good-will toward America, and guide these places to a stable, secular Western-style democracy that would persist after we were gone, was a pipe dream. Would you agree with that?

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 7:08 pm | Permalink
  16. Yes, I would agree with that, as I already indicated when I conceded the argument, above.

    Nevertheless, that point of yours, as you just expressed it, is hardly equivalent to a convincing argument that no (as in zero) alternative action to Obama’s specific choices would have produced a better outcome than the one we will probably get.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 8:14 pm | Permalink
  17. Malcolm says

    Well, I do admit that if Mr. Obama had got the whole US to recite the shahada, or, taking a slightly different approach, had immolated the entire region in thermonuclear fire, things would probably have come out differently.

    Not knowing what specific choices you’re calling into question, however, or what alternatives you have in mind, there isn’t much more I can say.

    On to the next topic.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 8:21 pm | Permalink
  18. I don’t think Obama could succeed in getting the US (beyond the San Francisco Bay Area) to recite the shahada. But your other idea might have been worth a shot …

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
  19. JK says

    TBH,

    Big, big problem for doing anything otherwise re Iraq pullout. Remember back a few years ago when a bunch of US Marines were accused of raping the 12 year old on Okinawa? Coulda been bad had they been tried under Japanese jurisdiction.

    Imagine being under the jurisdiction of an Islamic country – that the Bush Admin failed to read the print on all our other “Status of Forces Agreements” was, was… well maybe it was only because those were written so long ago.

    But this withdrawal wasn’t unforeseen even though the announcement only came about what, a week ago?

    http://www.military.com/news/article/iraq-may-end-legal-immunity-for-us-troops.html?ESRC=dod.nl

    If you’ll check the date on that release, that coincides almost precisely with Panetta’s being in Iraq trying to get “at least” some sort of arrangement for us to remain in the Kurdish regions.

    The main problem with the Iraqi “government” is that it is no government – nobody from the Prime Minister to the President (of Iraq) wanted to even allow the Parliament an opportunity to vote.

    This whole thing fellas from westernmost North Africa to easternmost Pakistan nevermind the north-south axis – is gonna be one big clusterfuck. And it’s gonna be lasting.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 11:24 pm | Permalink
  20. Malcolm says

    That’s about how I see it too, JK.

    Israel is in for a bumpy ride.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 11:31 pm | Permalink
  21. We are in violent agreement here, to coin a phrase. I was only trying to make a teensy-weensy point, namely: given the cost of the Iraq war, by commanding a complete pullout by year’s end (which I don’t necessarily disagree with), Obama will have insured that this entire cost will have been for naught.

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 11:42 pm | Permalink
  22. JK says

    I’d only add one thing – not Iraqi specific though. Not that it’s any sort of bright spot on any horizon.

    Our military is – well “stretched” doesn’t even come close.

    ‘Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer B. Domeij, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, enlisted in the Army in July 2001 was on his fourteenth deployment when…’

    14 deployments in 10 years of war???!!!

    http://www.military.com/news/article/army-ranger-killed-on-14th-combat-deployment.html

    Posted October 26, 2011 at 11:55 pm | Permalink
  23. JK says

    “…Obama will have insured…”

    Obama took no part in negotiating the Status of Forces Agreement.

    Posted October 27, 2011 at 12:00 am | Permalink
  24. Malcolm says

    Wait any longer, more cost. Time to go.

    Posted October 27, 2011 at 12:03 am | Permalink
  25. “Obama took no part in negotiating the Status of Forces Agreement.”

    Neither did I.

    Posted October 27, 2011 at 12:09 am | Permalink

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