Re: Iran

Dear Kingremi,

When you mention the Melian dialogue and its relevancy to Iran, I am reminded of another episode from ancient history.

After the death of Alexander the Great, Macedonia was largely unable to maintain an important part in the politics of the Hellenistic world. Meanwhile, the Seleucids in Palestinia and the Ptolemies in Egypt dominated the Greek East. In the latter half of the third and into the second century BC, Philip V of Macedonia attempted to expand his holdings in the Aegean Sea. By both armed conflict and diplomatic overtures he tried to bring Macedonia back to the primacy it once held. He made an alliance with the Carthaginians to stave off the threat of Rome. He made a pact with Antiochos III of the Seleucid Empire to seize Egyptian holdings in the Aegean Sea.

But Philip overplayed his hand. The Carthaginians could not defeat the Romans, who now had an excuse to march into Macedonia. Antiochos III did not dare come to Macedonia’s aid (at least not openly) because he recognized that it was Rome, not Macedonia, against whom he was struggling in a cold war for control over the Aegean. Macedonia was just a second class state who should have picked a superpower to support instead of trying to grab power for itself. Philip failed because he tried to exert influence when he did not have the political or military clout to do it. As a result, Rome invaded Macedonia and Greece – on behalf of the “independence” of the Greek cities, a novel reason to invade a foreign state indeed – and forced Philip to disarm and become its ally. Philip’s son Perseus was the last king of Macedonia, dependent on Rome to sustain his figurehead status.

The historian Ernst Badian once said that history needs to be rewritten for every generation. He studied the diplomatic and military maneuvering of the Roman Republic against Hellenistic empires in order to understand the Cold War politics of seizing influence over the second and third worlds. Should these histories be rewritten for us today, and who will rewrite them? Is Iran a Macedonia that should just lay down its arms in the face of powers with which its resources simply can not cope? Are we Rome?

Forcing the hand of any state by means of threat is not typically a good idea. And more war is usually the last thing anybody could do with, not least of all us. If history is going to be rewritten at this time, it needs to be done by clear planning and innovative diplomacy.

I think that Iran is fighting – and by fighting I mean clandestinely shipping arms across its borders so other people can die for their agenda – for the same thing for which we are fighting: an ideologically and politically friendly state in the Middle East. Besides this, they are also supporting militant groups against Israel and attempting to make Lebanon its own satellite state. And it is apparent that they have the resources to at least be disruptive, if not actually accomplish anything. But I surmise, or perhaps I hope, that Iran’s cold war/hot war pseudo-imperialist actions will exhaust itself before it can bring about any more destruction and death.

Go-go gadget history,

Aristeides

The Air Force Is Wasting My Money

I am not a fan of the air force.  I think that strategic over-reliance on air power in the latter-half of the 20th century has produced some of the greatest embarrassments for the western world’s military endeavors.  The US expectation that North Vietnam would cower in fear at its bombs to the recent Israeli attempt to bomb Hezbollah into the stone age while they hid in… well… the stone age… are too of the greatest offenses of an air force strategy.  No war will ever be won by anything but an army boots on enemy soil (or the distinct threat of).

Now before I sound like a crazy hater, I’d like to explain my position a bit more clearly.  First of all, I acknowledge the extreme importance of air power.  The Allies do not win World War II without it.  April 1975 would have been a much different month in Saigon if ARVN had it.  But what has been crucial about the success of air power, and its failure, is how it has been used—successfully, it is a means to an end, the best support a soldier could hope for.  Improperly, it is thought to be an end in itself, an expensive way to avoid casualties to the home team while accomplishing very little on the ground.

The Navy still operates their own planes, the Marines still operate theirs, and in my opinion the air force should never have been separated from the Army.  Attempting to promote themselves and their self-anointed role as defenders of my cell phone, the Air Force has been running ads so ridiculous, I thought they were trailers for a bad Babylon 5 knock off the first time I saw them.

The premise of the ad is ridiculous and not grounded in any sort of current tactical reality.  The solution to the ad is vague and non-existent.  So… you want more money?  The Air Force already has the biggest budget of all the services.  If I begin think about how inefficiently that money is spent within the armed forces I will smash my computer screen, but I will acknowledge that inefficient spending is unavoidable, so let’s just say this: if anyone needs more money, give it to the army so there is no excuse for sending soldiers to war without kevlar and hummers into battle zones without armor.  The last thing I need my tax dollars wasted on is an $81 million ad campaign to tell me that someone is going to blow up my satellites.

Which, interestingly, doesn’t make me want to give the Air Force more money.  It makes me want to ask what the hell is wrong with us if the destruction of a few satellites would fuck up our world so much?

Basra’s Back!

Are recent Iraqi victories too good to be true? Only if they lead to poorly drawn conclusions by hawks or doves alike. As the Atlantic correctly points out, the truth is somewhere in the middle. We can see progress, but it is at best progress progressing—these victories are not an end in the themselves.

Still, it’s nice to see potential light at the bottom of Pandora’s box.

How’d You Get Here? Oh, Iran.

Short Answer: I support opening dialogue with Iran.

Longer answer: Here’s a solid run down of recent and upcoming observations about US strategy with Iran.

Let’s begin with this reality: peace is always better than war. I realize that a lot of people see many definitions in this casual maxim, and it causes them ulcerating consternation—what I urge you to do is substitute whatever sensation meadows or comfy couches, where ever you typically find happiness, gives, make it a reality for everyone, and then ball it up in politics as peace. Now, no world is that perfect, so let’s make due with something imperfect, but practical, like utilitarianism, and say that there are always quantitatively more people enjoying peace when there are not wars. With agreement, this conforms to the rules of logic and we see that there is no possible world in which war period, and with Iran in particular, is better than peace.

I am afraid for Lebanon right now and Iran is responsible. Most importantly, I’m sickened when I think of what Iranian weapons are doing to US soldiers in a fight that is, crucially, not about Iran at the street-patrolling level. The battle for Iran is being fought in Washington and those soldiers are not hostile enough to invite bloody Iranian interference. It makes me sick and I want to see it end. Winning Iraq will require neutralizing Iran. Opening up any kind of a campaign against Iran just extends the borders of our trouble.

There have been a few attempts at dialogue, but nothing serious and substantial has been accomplished. Yet it seems to me that nothing serious and substantial has been tried. A new tone is required. Dialogue has acquired a stigma of weakness because of Chamberlain’s appeasement, but appeasement wasn’t because of the dialogue, it came from the politics.

Our tone has an unsettling precedent in Thucydides. When asked why they should give themselves up to Athens and not fight back, the mighty Athenians tell the Melians, inhabitants of a small island who desired neutrality, that “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” The Melians agree, but resist the Athenians anyway to defend their homes and families. The Athenians, as everyone knew they would, prevail.

Inherent in this dialogue is the key cause of war—that the weak should just simply succumb to the strong, that there is nothing worth fighting for when one knows one will lose, if they can even agree to that. We are making a very big show about our military muscle in an ability to dictate Iranian actions:

[Defense Secretary Gates] has ordered the deployment of a second Carrier Strike Group as a reminder to Tehran of US military might. Also, Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff has underscored that all options certainly remain open for US policy.

Despite Iranian posturing, there is little doubt about who would win in an all-out war. We do have nuclear weapons, after all. If we wanted to flatten a country, or several, we can. Maybe Iran doesn’t think we would do this—and it would take an extraordinary desperation or disdain for human decency to do so—but we could, and they couldn’t and they also can’t know we wouldn’t.

A Carrier Strike Group is a threatening thing and Iran is doing an awfully lot to provoke a Tonkin-like incident with these nat-like speedboats zipping around. We are trying to do as the Athenians did and show simply that we are the stronger and it logically follows that if you don’t fall in line with us, you will suffer.

This is a brute theory that is not likely to produce peace.

We focus on differences with a thoughtless strategy that makes me concerned there are other belligerent and selfish forces at work in Iranian policymaking. The top two priorities in our Iran strategy are victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing else—not nuclear power plants, not Hezbollah, not oil prices—is as important as bringing home troops and strengthening a region. Here, we should focus on our similarities.

Iraq is the most complicated for a host of reasons, not the least among them what our long-term military ambition in the country is, but regardless of whether it becomes a South Korea situation or all Americans are home, the ambition must not be to invade Iran. This needs to be stressed in a dialogue. An unstable Iraq is not in Iran’s interests. Clearly they favor a Shiite neighbor, but do they favor that greater than favoring delivering these kidney shots to the US? I doubt it. They are seizing an opportunity to be a pest. Besides, in all out war, other Sunni countries would back Iraq’s Sunnis and the Iranian advantage would level out. They enjoy their evasive ‘bee trapped in our bedroom’ role.

Present scenarios that the Iranians haven’t considered. What might peace be like with the US? Why should you join us, instead of why wouldn’t you? A stable Iraq means security for Iran. They need to reel in, or at the very least, cease supplying Shiite militias. The effects would be noticeable almost immediately—such is the ease of arms smuggling and receiving training on the other side of the massive border that it requires almost no effort by the Iranians to cause us an irritating headache.

In Afghanistan, Iran is not backing Al-Qaeda’s Sunni insurgency, but couldn’t they be offered an invitation into the fold? Here the US could offer an invitation to work side-by-side with NATO and other nations that have been critical of Iran at the UN. It isn’t necessary for Iran to provide soldiers to fight in Afghanistan, just to increase vigilance at the border. Perhaps there could be an intelligence swap, or even, gasp, a gift about some sanctuaries the Taliban could hold in or around Iran? Perhaps Iranian engineers could work closer with Afghani engineers since they will be living next to each other and all.

Both of these scenarios are in both country’s strategic interests. It would require a major change of attitude and I’m not afraid to say that we would have to be the “bigger” country and make that leap. A conciliatory gesture, some kind of information, a lifting of some restriction, should be done to set the tone of a new approach. The timing, with a new president on the way, is perfect.

The nuclear issue will always remain. It is obvious that this is where Iran will want a return for its concessions and efforts. They continue to claim that they use their nuclear facility for peaceful purposes, which I don’t believe, and we can force this bluff as well. If Iran agrees to shift its strategy in the two theaters of war, we will be able to bring it under an umbrella of our protection. Who would Iran be afraid of attacking it if not for us? Let’s take that effort off the table by exposing it as nonsense. Israel is not going to preemptively nuke Iran for kicks. A country might still resent our nuclear capacity, but its existence can’t be denied and if people are kept happy and cared for, the issue will fade in front of the reality.

If Iran finds this unsatisfactory, her motives are revealed and her lies exposed. Our priority in everything must be to defend American life and currently Iran has indirectly killed too many to ignore. Politically, if the truth of the region can be well-articulated, it would leave Iran no choice but to join us because it would be in their interests.

Settled in this manner, Iran is forced to expose its motives. Everyone agreed the Melians would lose and they fought anyway. We should exhaust ourselves discouraging the fight in order to win the wars.

Animal Planet

Not content with mere economic intervention at home and military intervention abroad, Americans have entered the bloody battles on the frontlines of nature, which rage in the rushing rivers and verdant forests of the Pacific Northwest between two bitter enemies: sea lions and salmon.

 

Sea lions are dedicated consumers of protected salmon species in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

 

But six sea lions were found shot to death at the Columbia River, which runs between Washington and Oregon. Ballistics analysis indicates that the shooter, or shooters, occupied elevated territory across the Washington border to the north. Pro-salmon insurgencies are known to camp somewhere in the rough hinterland along the border.

 

The federal government had authorized the states of Oregon and Washington to use search and destroy tactics against up to 85 sea lions within a five year period. Fisherman and American Indians want to kill the sea lions on behalf of the salmon, who are physically unable to wield firearms. Pro-sea lion factions were awarded a ceasefire until an 8 May hearing could more accurately determine humanity’s role as ultimate arbiter of survival in the wilderness.

 

But the sea lion bodies were discovered 3 May. Apparently, the suspects could not wait a week. Instead, frustration from economic depression had driven them to guns, religion, and sea lion murder.

 

The shootings have rocked the formerly peaceful Pacific Northwest, whose bounty has given the world Starbucks and grunge music. Police and residents are on guard as the area is likely to become the world’s next hotspot for natural selection and a regularly working food-chain.

VIVA LA CENTRISM

An article in today’s WSJ says that after years of destructive partisanship dating back to the 1990s, a new non-ideological and pragmatic centrism is moving to center-stage (ha.)

Reasons for this sea-change?

1. The obvious and staggering failure of the present political status quo to get anything done (let alone done effectively) as shown by growing disillusionment with political parties and steadily growing numbers of voters registering as independent (yours truly chief among them. I switched to Democrat so I could vote in the Pennsylvania primaries, but had a voter registration card filled out and ready to switch back to Independent the very next day). Observe the handy-dandy WSJ chart-o-gram:

2. The shift in the epicenter of political fundraising from fewer large contributions inherently partisan special interests to a lot of smaller donations by actual citizens

Can this wonderful trend continue? Gerrymandered districts are still a huge problem. Partisan special interest donations have certainly not disappeared. And divisive and absolutist “wedge” issues (gay marriage, abortion, Rosie O’Donnell’s continued existence) remain too effective at getting politicians elected for them to stop using them anytime soon.

But on the whole I am still optimistic. I certainly hope this trend continues. McCain or Obama, I feel much better about the future occupant of the White House than the last two.

Re: Sad

FYI, Kim Jong-Il did indeed turn away World Food Program workers, opting instead to let the politically expendable classes of North Korean society (btw, what is it with these communist putative “classless societies” always sprouting up classes?). Kim Jong-Il’s cost-benefit analysis concluded (rationally, I’m afraid) that infiltration of outside information and influence was a bigger threat to his regime than letting the North Korean lower-class starve to death.

The legitimacy of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea hinges on maintaining a hermetic seal with the outside world in order to uphold the Big Lie™ that North Korea is a) under threat from evil foreign imperialists who want to kill all the North Korans and b) still better off than the rest of the world. Letting a bunch of foreigners in with bushels of food to spare and a clear desire to help North Koreans undercuts both of those pillars on which Kim Jong Il’s regime rests.

Another fun fact: North Korea is the only industrialized nation in history to have suffered mass famine.

Meanwhile, China continues to destroy any remains of the soft power it had so deftly accumulated up until the Tibet debacle by refusing to use its considerable influence over the Burmese junta to get them to accept food aid–instead insisting on the primacy of the military junta’s “sovereignty.”

I wonder if, a century ago, people ever thought we would reach a world of such stunning moral extremes of high and low that we would be in situations in which Western countries were begging other countries to let us give them food.

Sad.

Pretty much the only word I can think of to sum up the situation in Burma.  Great story here about a journalist’s attempt to see the disaster on the ground.

“The whole country is kind of a basket case,” Rivers said. “Combine that with a disaster on this scale and a government that won’t let anyone in — they’re turning a bad situation into … what really is criminal negligence on a massive scale.”

He’s right, of course.  It’s complete and total madness and no one will ever know how many people simply vanish because of the erratic, inane, and evil junta.

Turning back aid agencies?  I don’t even think Kim Jong-Il could be that crazy (then again…) if a disaster of similar devastation struck North Korea.  There’s little point in praying for Burma’s prisoners–sorry, citizens–I’ve heard those are being turned back as well.

So we’re just left with one moping syllable: sad.

The Crucial Republican Vote

Do people still listen to Rush Limbaugh?  I hope not.

The political process grinds on.  I’m glad the candidates can be so peachy about the inevitable unity of their party come November while they do everything possible to rip it to pieces before then.

Some party.

Get Your Ticket

We are approaching that point in the primary process where Obama-Clinton and Clinton-Obama tickets will be considered and dissected by pundits, supporters, and haters of all stripes. This is good. I’m tired of hearing about extra-political nonsense like Jeremiah Wright’s rants and nightmares of Bosnian snipers.

Andrew Sullivan makes the first meaningful contribution to the debate that I’ve read, campaigning for Obama-Clinton. While I credit my own potentially pro-Obama position with Sullivan’s larger argument concerning America’s image and its symbolism, I’m unconvinced that he is the clear candidate, as Sullivan seems to suggest.

He notes that Obama has had difficulty registering with white working class women, Hispanics, and Reagan democrats.  Unfortunately for him, these are much more representative of the party’s base and focus than the well-educated, enthusiastic youth movement that propels him forwards.  The idea that the opinions of major states like Ohio and Pennsylvania can be swept aside just because of some delegate count is strategically absurd.  I live in Chicago.  I don’t think there is any more Obama’d area in the country, but nothing feels won or finished.

In short: the winner has yet to be declared.

More importantly, though, the idea of teaming up opponents, even cut throat enemies, has terrific precedence in improving a party candidate’s electability and in function and policy of its cabinet.  Sullivan cites Team of Rivals as the example to follow, and he couldn’t be more correct.  The decision to appointed divided views on the same cabinet might have seemed counterintuitive at a time when the nation was physically divided, but it was a stroke of genius by Lincoln.

The question is, at what point is it a political gimmick, and at what point is it a strategic decision?  JFK and Johnson may have won the election, but Johnson was a complete outsider in the Kennedy court.  If Clinton is vice president, will she be allowed to voice her opinions and contribute to an Obama administration, or will she be sidelined to enjoy her obscure post?  (The big question there is, where does Bill’s ego fit in?)  If Obama is a vice president, will Clinton and her team bring him in and help him earn the kind of experience he is most often criticized for not having?  Will he be allowed to enter the dialogue and be ready to make a run in 2012 or 2016, depending?

I fear that we will see them come together at some point, but there will be nothing of the unifying action Obama claims to represent.  I fear it because I think, desperate to revitalize themselves more in symbol than in substance, the democrats will push for electability, and leave any thoughts of serving their country instead of their party on the convention floor.