Putting Politics Aside to Save Iraq – Henry Kissinger, International Herald Tribune
Two realities define the range of a meaningful debate on Iraq policy: The war cannot be ended by military means alone. But neither is it possible to "end" the war by ceding the battlefield, for the radical jihadist challenge knows no frontiers.
An abrupt withdrawal from Iraq will not end the war; it will only redirect it. Within Iraq, the sectarian conflict could assume genocidal proportions; terrorist base areas could re-emerge.
Under the impact of American abdication, Lebanon may slip into domination by Iran's ally, Hezbollah; a Syria-Israel war or an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities may become more likely as Israel attempts to break the radical encirclement; Turkey and Iran will probably squeeze Kurdish autonomy; and the Taliban in Afghanistan will gain new impetus.
That is what is meant by "precipitate" withdrawal - a withdrawal in which the United States loses the ability to shape events, either within Iraq, on the anti-jihadist battlefield or in the world at large…
What is the U.S. Military’s Role? - Kathy Roth-Douquet, USA Today
The pending Defense Authorization Act begins the budgeting for nearly 100,000 new ground troops to be in place by 2013. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have talked about this increase in terms of easing the strain on the force today. But as Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank, argues, expansion can't relieve today's strains. Because it takes time to recruit and train, expansion is about the future. Arguably, we need these troops to confront everything from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation to failing states. The price? $108 billion in the first six years, and $14 billion a year after that.
If we are going to use our troops (in Iraq and beyond) as we have lately to globally deter, police, stabilize, build and rescue, then indeed, we need to expand. But it's worth noting that the United States continues to undertake most missions largely alone. We have more than 200,000 troops in about 130 countries other than Iraq today, all doing one of those missions mentioned above. In contrast, most countries' foreign-deployed troops number in the hundreds or low thousands.
The new troops proposed are a force roughly the size of the entire British army. They number nearly twice Australia's combined military forces. They are more than the first force President Lincoln raised to fight the Civil War. These numbers create a debt in both coins and soldiers that the American people don't seem willing to pay, judging from current recruiting troubles and a Gallup Poll showing the public thinks we already spend too much on defense.
If we pay attention to it, this proposed increase of forces presents a chance, not only to reinforce our overworked military but also to challenge its roles and missions. Are there ways to better share the costs and work with other countries profiting from global stability? After all, our circumstances differ from all previous periods in history when one country served as a "global" guarantor of peace. Unlike the Victorians or Romans, we have true partners and allies that are free and strong states…
Jim Webb’s Antiwar Bill – Washington Times editorial
When the Senate resumes debate later this week on the defense authorization bill, one of the first issues on the agenda will be an amendment by Sen. Jim Webb that would effectively cripple the troop surge in Iraq — even as it is demonstrating real success. The real goal of this legislation is to embarrass President Bush and score propaganda points with the antiwar crowd. But it would be a mistake to gloss over the destructive nature of what Mr. Webb's amendment would do to the military and the National Guard.
Mr. Webb's amendment would bar the deployment of troops to Iraq or Afghanistan unless they have spent at least as much time at home as deployed overseas. It also would tie the hands of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, making it impossible to move troops to the battlefield in a timely manner. Mr. Webb, a Democrat, may perhaps have the 60 votes necessary to defeat a Republican-led filibuster of the amendment. It is doubtful, however, that the Democrats would be able to muster the two-thirds majorities necessary to override a presidential veto of the defense authorization…
Critics Knew Petraeus Was On Point – Alan Nathan, Washington Times
Reminiscent of the days when soldiers and sailors were spat upon by large segments of anti-war activists in the '60s and early '70s, congressional expectorating was launched in the direction of one Gen. David Petraeus before, during and after his testimony in both the House and Senate.
Though senators unanimously confirmed Gen. Petraeus to head up the multinational forces in Iraq as of January this year, too many of them supplanted tempered reason with temper tantrums: "By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working," said Sen. Dick Durbin in Congressional Quarterly on Sept. 7. "And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes, 'We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves,' " said Sen. Charles Schumer on Sept. 5.
So, despite having predicated the general's confirmation on his honesty, fealty and military professionalism, many of those same politicos now characterize him as a liar, a cheat and a patsy — simply because his status report on the troop surge did not comport with their agenda…
First, Do No Harm – Frank Gaffney Jr., Washington Times
Sen. Jim Webb is a serious guy. A decorated Vietnam veteran, a Navy Secretary in the Reagan Defense Department, the Virginia Democrat is also the father of a veteran of the conflict in Iraq. And Mr. Webb is seriously opposed to the U.S. military campaign there. So when he decides to try to end that campaign, it would be advisable to take him and his legislative initiatives, well, seriously.
That is particularly true given the seemingly unobjectionable nature of an amendment he proposed earlier this year and is expected to offer anew this week. It would afford troops who have been pulling repeated, exhausting and dangerous combat tours guaranteed respite between deployments. To add to its appeal, the Webb Amendment affords the president the latitude to waive its requirements in response to "an operational emergency posing a threat to the vital national security interests of the United States." For these reasons, those in the know think it may be able to command the 60 votes needed to cut off debate.
Unfortunately, the Webb requirement is so fraught with logistical and administrative problems that it would be devastating for the very people it is intended to help — the troops and those responsible for safely leading and successfully managing them in time of war. As one of the most thoughtful military strategists of our time, Fred Kagan, put it recently in National Review Online…
An American Ally, R.I.P. – New York Post editorial
Last week, a bomb attack killed Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the charismatic leader of the coalition of Sunni tribes responsible for driving al Qaeda out of Iraq's Anbar province.
While unlikely to affect the continued cooperation of the Anbar tribes with Gen. David Petraeus' Coalition forces, it was a clear warning to other tribal leaders contemplating a similar alliance.
That is to say, don't.
It bears remembering, however, that this is precisely the kind of al Qaeda thuggery that flipped Anbar to the Coalition's side in the first place - and that was never clearer than in the case of Abu Risha himself.
The sheik had lost his father and three brothers to al Qaeda killers, giving his switch credibility with tribes suffering under the jihadists' odious presence.
Under his lead - and encouraged by the promise of American constancy - the Anbar tribes last year started tipping off Coalition forces to the location of al Qaeda hideouts and weapons caches, while thousands of locals joined up with the Iraqi army.
Since then, the province has returned to some degree of safety and normalcy - so that attacks like the one that killed Abu Risha are now the exception instead of the rule…
Mugged by Reality in Iraq – Thomas Sowell, Real Clear Politics
In a world where the tragedy that is Iraq is usually discussed only in media sound bites and political slogans, it is especially gratifying to see an adult, intelligent, and insightful account of life inside Iraq by someone who lived there for nine months in the early days of the occupation in 2003 and 2004, and who saw the fundamental mistakes that would later plague the attempt to create a viable Iraqi government.
John Agresto, a career American academic and former college president who volunteered to go help create a better higher education system in Iraq, learned a lot about Iraqi society in general and about American attempts to create a better society there.
His recently published book is titled "Mugged by Reality" and is subtitled: "The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions."
What is refreshingly different about this book is that it does not take the Bush administration line, the Congressional Democrats' line or anybody else's line.
Agresto is not out to prove some theory or push some pet scheme but to convey what he saw with his own eyes and discerned from his own experiences with both Iraqis and Americans in Iraq…
The Haphazard War – H. D. S. Greenway, Boston Globe
… Early in the Iraq invasion The Washington Post's Dana Priest compared our Iraq strategy to a pickup basketball game. That haphazardness has never ceased. Re-Baathification follows de-Baathification. One day we fight Sunnis, next day the Shia. Benchmarks to which the Iraqi government will be held become mere suggestions. Neighborhoods are ethnically cleansed, and the resulting silence is taken for a drop in sectarian violence. It must be comforting for Iraqis to know that if they are shot in the back of the head it is sectarian violence, while being shot in the face is merely a crime.
Serious policy discussions are put off with silly slogans, such as "return on success." It replaced "we'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up" for the simple reason that the Iraqis haven't stood up, and we need to do some standing down or break the army.
So the pickup game continues, with no real strategy - just keep hobbling on, hoping something will show up. Getting some tribal sheiks to sign up on our side is presented as the Holy Grail without consideration of the damage creating provincial militias and local war lords will do to the authority of the central government we are supposedly trying to bolster…
What She Ducked – Richard Cohen, Washington Post
If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- are linked to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency.
The swipe at Petraeus was contained in a full-page ad the antiwar group MoveOn.org placed in the New York Times last week. It charged that Petraeus was "cooking the books" about conditions in Iraq and cited statements of his that have turned out to be either (1) not true, (2) no longer true, (3) possibly not true or (4) like everything else in Iraq, impossible to tell. Whatever the case, using "betray" -- a word associated with treason -- recalls the ugly McCarthy era, when for too many Republicans dissent corresponded with disloyalty. MoveOn.org and the late senator from Wisconsin share a certain fondness for the low blow.
Almost instantly, though, it got pretty hard to find a Democratic presidential candidate willing to dispute MoveOn.org. To his credit, Joe Biden did. "I don't buy into that," he said. "This is an honorable guy. He's telling the truth." But lonesome Joe, whose virtues have yet to come to the attention of the vast and apathetic electorate, was seconded only by Joe Lieberman, not a presidential candidate, and John Kerry, a man whose tomorrow is yesterday. When Clinton was asked about the ad, she avoided answering.
It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she does indeed have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found…
Unfair Press Power – John Lott Jr. and Bradley Smith, New York Post
Last week saw an outcry over the unfairness and content of MoveOn.org's New York Times ad belittling Gen. David Petraeus as "General Betray Us." But the episode also illustrates a much more fundamental problem with campaign-finance regulations - the advantage that these laws give to the institutional press over ordinary citizens. It's time to admit the unenforceability and hidden favoritism of campaign-finance regulations.
As The Post reported, MoveOn may have received a massive and illegal in-kind contribution from the Times. The group paid some $65,000, but Abbe Serphos, director of public relations for the Times, told The Post that "the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692." Another reporter who called the Times was quoted a rate of $167,000 for a full-page ad run on a Monday (as MoveOn's was)…
Wake Me Up When September Ends – Mark Hemingway, National Review
It’s September in D.C., and that means that it’s time to protest. Originally, large anti-globalization protest actions were semi-annual events in town because they were held to coincide with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in April and September. The dates have stuck, though nobody cares much for globalization issues anymore since the war in Iraq began. For the last few years, the September antiwar protests have been organized by International A.N.S.W.E.R., an offshoot of the Workers World Party — a group so staunchly Communist it supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan…
Teaching Terror – Nina Shea, National Review
Saudi Arabia now supplies jihad fighters for conflicts near and far, often in numbers far disproportionate to its size. As new statistics become available, one thing becomes ever clearer: The Saudi kingdom is the world’s leading exporter of suicide bombers and terrorists.
When it was discovered that three quarters of the hijackers in 9/11, along with the founder of al Qaeda himself, were Saudi native sons, the whole world suffered the realization that Saudi nationals were deeply involved in suicide terror. Less well known, however, is the fact that a Saudi was the mastermind of the terror in Chechnya, that Saudis have figured prominently in recent suicide attacks against Spanish tourists in Yemen, and that a Saudi doctor was a principal in the attack against the airport in Glasgow. Last summer, the state-backed Saudi Human Rights Organization was kept busy visiting Saudi jihadists imprisoned in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon…
Ahmadinejad at the U.N. – Washington Times editorial
It is a disgrace to the founding principles and mission of the United Nations that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be allowed to speak before the body next week during the gathering of its General Assembly. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is slated to speak next Tuesday in New York City, has openly called for the destruction of Israel, a U.N. member-state.
"God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime," Mr. Ahmadinejad said in June. In 2005, he claimed that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world."
Such rhetoric has been condemned by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, despite his strongly worded criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad, must take more concrete action against the Ahmadinejad regime…
Tehran’s Campus Crackdown – Amir Taheri, New York Post
As millions of Iranians prepare for the new school year, the scene is being set for what could be a long hot autumn on university campuses across the nation. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has promised to "cleanse" the Iranian educational system of what he calls "the corrupt influence of the infidel" and has mobilized a special militia to crush the expected student revolts.
The radical president refers to his "academic cleansing" plan as "The Second Great Islamic Cultural Revolution." The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini closed the universities and launched the first "Great Islamic Cultural Revolution" in 1980…
Osirak II? – Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal
In the late spring of 2002 the American press reported that Israel had armed its German-made submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. In Israel, this was old news. It was also headline news.
"Washington Post: Israeli subs have nuclear cruise missiles," was how the Jerusalem Post, of which I was then the editor, titled its story of June 16. It wasn't as if we didn't previously know that Israel had purchased and modified the German subs for purposes of strategic deterrence. Nor did we delight in circumlocutions. We simply needed the imprimatur of a foreign source to publish items that Israel's military censors (who operate as if the Internet doesn't exist) forbade us from reporting forthrightly.
So it's more than a little telling that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz chose, in the wake of an Israeli Air Force raid on Syria on Sept. 6 dubbed "Operation Orchard," to give front-page billing to an op-ed by John Bolton that appeared in this newspaper Aug. 31. While the article dealt mainly with the six-party talks with North Korea, Mr. Bolton also noted that "both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched." He went on to wonder whether Pyongyang was using its Middle Eastern allies as safe havens for its nuclear goods while it went through a U.N. inspections process.
How plausible is this scenario? The usual suspects in the nonproliferation crowd reject it as some kind of trumped-up neocon plot. Yet based on conversations with Israeli and U.S. sources, along with evidence both positive and negative (that is, what people aren't saying), it seems the likeliest suggested so far. That isn't to say, however, that plenty of gaps and question marks about the operation don't remain…
Justice for Detainees – Washington Post editorial
Congress is once again poised to consider legislation to give those held as enemy combatants the right to challenge their detention in U.S. federal court. As a matter of law and conscience, lawmakers should act quickly to pass it.
It's one of the sad and confounding legacies of the administration's war on terrorism that the United States has imprisoned for years people who have had no real chance to challenge their imprisonment. This failure falls primarily on the shoulders of the Bush administration. From the earliest days after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001, the administration resisted extending even a modicum of due process to those whose freedom it unilaterally stripped away. That was not only un-American but unwise…
The Avoiding Congressional Accountability Act – National Review editorial
If ever there has been cravenness hidden under bold rhetoric, it is the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, brainchild of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s senior members, Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy. This effort to return to the federal district courts the cases of alien enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay might more aptly be called the “Avoiding Congressional Accountability Act” — or, as the Brookings Institution’s Benjamin Wittes has tartly suggested, the “Leave It to Justice Kennedy Act.”
“Habeas Corpus Restoration” is in any event a misnomer. In first introducing the bill last year, Specter argued that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) had impermissibly “suspended” habeas corpus despite the fact that the Supreme Court “in the Hamdi case made it plain that these habeas corpus rights apply to aliens as well as to citizens.” Where not flat wrong, Specter’s claims were misleading on several levels.
The writ can be “suspended” only if the persons in question are constitutionally entitled to habeas corpus in the first place. This would mean that Congress could not rescind their ability to challenge their detention in federal court, except in cases of rebellion or invasion…
Wishful Thinking Will Not Cure Economic Ills - Bronwen Maddox, London Times
The original conception of the Government’s report on reviving the Palestinian economy, published yesterday, was a good one – when Gordon Brown commissioned it two years ago.
The aim was to find ways to bolster that economy, deliberately separate from the politics. It is an honourable principle that there are few situations so bad that they cannot be improved, even if they cannot be resolved. The approach appealed to Brown, when Chancellor, as a way to avoid Tony Blair’s grandstanding, while tackling problems on the ground.
But the past two years have made a nonsense of this approach – and incidentally, of Blair’s new job, which is supposed to focus on the Palestinian economy. Hamas’s victory in the January 2006 elections, the collapse of the joint Hamas-Fatah Government, Hamas’s seizure of Gaza in June, and the disintegration of the economy under Israeli security curbs make it impossible to divorce the economic from the political. Without political progress, there will not be economic progress; there may not even be much worth calling a Palestinian economy…
Mao Marches On - Philip Cunningham, Los Angeles Times
During a recent visit to Beijing, I was looking at the sky on a clear night when I was startled to see the ghost of Mao Tse-tung staring down at me. The legendary tyrant's mellow, moon-like visage sparkled above a spanking-new shopping center while a hidden PA system amplified his high-pitched Hunan accent: "The Chinese people have stood up!"
One of the urban wonders that tourists and journalists alike are sure to descend on during the run-up to the Olympic Games is The Place. This is an open-air concourse that runs like a slash through a modern shopping center not far from Tiananmen Square, covered by a dazzling LED screen the length of two football fields and suspended 80 feet above the ground.
Mao's space at The Place is both ironic and dead serious. Mao, who branded China with a sharp and cutting anti-capitalist philosophy, is now a brand name in his own right, bestowed with the pride of place in an opulent urban mall, occupying center stage in a slick piece of visual propaganda drawn from archival footage. The Mao show, exalting the lineage of China's Communist Party leadership as an important party congress approaches, is sure to stir a flutter of reflexive pride in the casual passerby, well-heeled shopper and barefoot rag-picker alike...
Does This Mystery Matter? – Anne Applebaum, Washington Post
Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked his prime minister last week and replaced him with one Viktor Zubkov, an obscure official never before mentioned as a potential leader. Wondering why? Here are a few of the rumors in circulation:
Because Zubkov is completely unimportant, Putin intends to make him the next president of Russia, a possibility that Zubkov has not denied: After all, the presidential election is not until March 2008, leaving plenty of time for the Kremlin-controlled media to introduce Zubkov to the Russian public. (Putin's motive? Zubkov can keep the Kremlin office chair warm so that Putin can return in 2012. The Russian constitution prohibits a third consecutive presidential term but not, apparently, a nonconsecutive third term.)
Because Zubkov is actually extremely important-- he is, in the words of Russia expert Anders Aslund, the "spider in the web" who knows the financial secrets of Putin's inner circle -- he will remain prime minister while Putin, possibly following declaration of a national military emergency, remains in office…
Oh the Horror, US Naval Academy is Part of the US Navy – Idras Leppla, Columbia Spectator
I know why I chose Columbia: the campus is magnificent, the education is top-tier, and my peers are intelligent. I could look at a stranger, tell him or her that I went to Columbia, and hear the predictable, “Wow, you must be smart.”
When my brother was getting ready to go to the Naval Academy, everyone ooohed and awed about how brave he was. Aunts and uncles would say, “John, you must be one of thousands of kids who wanted to go—you must be so smart!” When he appeared unsure about whether he wanted to choose Navy or University of California, Berkeley, one uncle who works on Wall Street said, “John, businessmen love hiring people from the academies. You will be set for life.” With that kind of promised prestige, my brother found it tough to give up a spot at Navy. So in June, my family dropped him off in Annapolis…
When I looked at the course catalogue, which boasted seminars about leadership and selflessness, they were in fact seminars about weaponry and leading troops into combat…
My brother ended up liking Annapolis and he has decided to stay. While it has been difficult for me to accept that I have a brother in the military, I must allow him to pursue whatever path he is drawn toward, and he has admitted to me that he feels called to being there. However, for anyone else out there considering a career in the academy, let it be known: the U.S. Naval Academy is not an elite college; it is first and foremost a branch of the U.S. military and the prestige comes at a big price—it taxes parents, siblings, and participants if they do not understand what they were signing up for.
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