From the indispensable Small Wars Journal, a biting reality check to Secretary Clinton's Mid-East trumpet blast:

...anyone who remembers the Cold War should recall that U.S. security guarantees for Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea were not easy, cheap, or simple. A U.S. guarantee for the Middle East against Iranian aggression will be even more problematic than were America’s guarantees during the Cold War.

1) Will the supposed beneficiaries of the guarantee take the guarantee seriously? It is one thing to make a promise, it is another to deliver on it under stress. The credibility of a U.S. security guarantee would increase if there were visible presidential speeches on the subject, a Senate-ratified treaty, and permanent U.S. force structure commitments and deployments to back it up. Until these things happen, statesmen in Israel and the friendly Arab regimes will be rightfully skeptical.

2) Locking in a nuclear standoff between Iran and the U.S. will shift the conflict onto the irregular warfare playing field. Iran will have the advantage on this field while the U.S. and its friends will most likely be stuck on defense. Here again there are parallels with the Cold War. With a nuclear standoff in place, the Soviet Union’s political and military subversions and proxy wars achieved success in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa and the Middle East. Quantitatively Iran is no Soviet Union. But qualitatively, Iran is organized for subversion and prolonged irregular and proxy warfare, just as was the Soviet Union. A U.S. security guarantee policy that accepts an Iranian nuclear weapons capability will have to prepare for another such “twilight struggle.”

3) Be ready to relearn some old Cold War terms such as “hair-trigger alert,” “launch on warning,” “second strike reserve,” “counter-force versus counter-value targeting,” etc. This time, the standoff will be three-sided (Israel vs. Iran vs. Saudi Arabia) just like the gunfight at the end of “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” And Middle East nuclear strategists will look back with envy to the Cold War when ICBM flight times were a leisurely 25 minutes.

Apropos of points 2 and 3, sound nuclear deterrence is predicated on credibility. Though our nuclear forces remain capable and strong, the Obama administration is stretching out Strategic Command's target list while sharply reducing the actual arsenal. That is, more targets to negate with less vehicles to do it. Further, while we do have a nuclear arsenal that's capable of knocking out one or two of the heavy hitters, we're currently in the process of trading away our second-strike capability. Second-strike is our survival mechanism, as the deterrence mission wouldn't disappear after a mass nuclear exchange with sluggers like Russia or China. If the administration is going to widen the nuclear umbrella to cover the entire Middle East, one hopes that such an ambitious defense pact would factor into the upcoming START negotiations with the Russians.

The Washington Post reports on the view among Arab democracy activists of events in Iran:

The frustration comes against a backdrop of deep-rooted skepticism among pro-democracy activists that U.S. policies under President Obama will help transform the region, despite his vow to engage the Muslim world in a highly publicized speech here last month. Some view Obama's response to Iran's protests, muted until Tuesday, as a harbinger of U.S. attitudes toward their own efforts to reform their political systems. The Egyptian government, they note, is a key American ally, and U.S. pressure on Egypt for reforms began subsiding in the last years of the Bush administration.

"When Obama does not take a stance, the very next day these oppressive regimes will regard this as a signal. This is a test for his government," said Ayman Nour, a noted Egyptian opposition politician who was recently released from jail. "If they can turn a blind eye to their enemy, they can turn a blind eye to any action here in Egypt."

Maybe some obscure event that happened fifty years ago can explain why Egyptians would want U.S. support and Iranians wouldn't. Perhaps it was America's support for Egypt in the Suez crisis versus its meddling in Iran to bring down Mossadeq that explains why democracy activists in Egypt view the American role differently. Or maybe an American should always try to be on the side of those who seek democracy and freedom, and stand against those who impose tyranny on their own people.

Andy McCarthy has a long post at the Corner suggesting that the Obama administration's decision to send $900 million to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) in Gaza is, in effect, giving the money to Hamas. It's worth a read. (And while I don't think Andy is a "knuckle-dragger," I might be one of the "la-la land conservatives" he mentions since I think Barack Obama will be much more pragmatic than his various associations might have suggested.)

During the campaign, at least, Obama had harsh words for Hamas, when Jimmy Carter went to Gaza to meet the terrorist leaders. Obama spoke of his "unshakable commitment" to guard Israel from its "bitter enemies." He added: "That's why I have a fundamental difference with President Carter and disagree with his decision to meet with Hamas. We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist and abide by past agreements."

Why?

"Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization."

From a most unlikely source, the BBC, comes an excellent defense of Israel's Gaza incursion. Two points stand out here. One, war is hell. It's completely unpredictable and impossible to fully choreograph. Two, by way of the first point, civilian deaths and collateral damage are unavoidable, especially when the fight is conducted exclusively on the urban terrain. As the good colonel notes below, civilian casualties benefit Hamas, not Israel -- which is precisely why the IDF has taken unprecedented steps (at considerable cost) to shield noncombatants from the fury of their offensive.

HT: Seraphic Secret

Goldfarb noted that the captured Hamas fighters have been stunned bey the ferocity of the Israeli assault on Gaza. That same article notes that the Israeli Defense Force has taken out on of Hamas's elite military units:

The so-called "Iranian Unit" of Hamas has been destroyed, according to Gaza sources cited Thursday by the Haaretz daily. The sources said most of the unit's 100 members were killed in fighting in the Zeytun neighborhood of Gaza City.

The terrorists had been trained in infantry tactics, the use of anti-tank missiles and the detonation of explosives, among other skills, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Hizbullah camps in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley, as well as sites in Iran.

Israel clearly has had tactical successes against Hamas's military arm. Earlier in the week, an IDF official told Ynet News that Hamas has suffered significant casualties in some areas. "Hundreds of people were killed in the various combat sectors," the officer told the news agency. "Some Hamas companies and battalions were simply wiped out. We also see cases of desertions and unauthorized leaves, while some terror activists are scared to undertake moves that would jeopardize them vis-à-vis IDF troops."

Since the Gaza operation began, multiple rocket cell leaders have been killed, as well as Hamas's "defense minister" and other commanders. The Israeli Air Force has systematically leveled much of Hamas's infrastructure. Hamas's military is estimated to have from 15,000 to 20,000 fighters, but the estimate of hard core fighters is not known. Palestinians in Gaza claimed more than 350 Hamas fighters have been killed so far, but that number may be the lower end of casualty estimates.

The Israeli government has been clear the operation is limited to degrade Hamas's military ability and restore Israel's military deterrence capacity, which many believe was lost during the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israelis have no intention of reoccupying Gaza, which is the only way Hamas can be uprooted.

Negotiations have now come to the fore and it is expected a cease-fire will be signed within the week, if not in days. The IDF would be well served to redouble efforts against Hamas's military before the cease-fire is signed. Not only would this improve the Israel's position at the negotiating table, this will make Hamas's job of retaining power in Gaza difficult.

Senior UN officials and Human Rights watchdog groups are calling for Israeli leaders to be brought up on war crimes charges, alleging that the IDF's use of M825 Felt-Wedge projectiles violates international protocols restricting conventional weapons use in densely populated areas.

The problem in the UN's argument, as with most of the arguments against Israel's use of force in Gaza, is that it rewrites international treaties on warfare to better fit an anti-Israel narrative. White Phosphorous -- or 'Willy Pete' -- has been used for decades to create large smokescreens for troop cover and target illumination and is not -- despite any claim to the contrary -- an incendiary weapon (nor is it proscribed under any law on armed conflict). Article one of the treaty banning incendiaries says as much:

Incendiary weapon means any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target. (a) Incendiary weapons can take the form of, for example, flame throwers, fougasses, shells, rockets, grenades, mines, bombs and other containers of incendiary substances.

(b) Incendiary weapons do not include:
(i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems.

That's not to say Willy Pete is without collateral effects. There have been several documented cases where WP has injured or killed civilians, as the illuminant burns slowly at extremely high temperatures. But like with other legal conventional munitions such as artillery shells and guided bombs, the responsibility for incidental death and damage lies with Hamas and any other combatant which uses human shields to mask its operations.

International war crime statutes were written to prosecute those who fill mass graves with the bodies of noncombatants, the Hitlers and the Milosevics, not those who use legal illuminants in small, localized conflict. If a treatise on armed conflict can no longer differentiate between the use of military smoke shells and deliberate rocket attacks on civilian populations, the effect is to doom such treaties to irrelevance.

Naturally, the media is doing its part to maximize confusion and obscure the truth. One particularly egregious example comes in this Los Angeles Times report on the subject in which WP is called a 'gas' and never even identified as a smoke device.

The 18-day old Israeli operation in Gaza appears to be on the cusp of intensifying as Israeli troops are preparing to conduct the third phase of the operation and enter the urban sprawl of Gaza City. Intense fighting is expected as Hamas has dug in and planted mines and booby traps along the roads and in buildings. Clearing a city the size of Gaza City may take weeks and will generate more images of the plight of the Palestinian people.

Reports from the region indicate Hamas may indeed be on the ropes. Israeli intelligence believes Hamas's military arm has suffered significant losses. As Michael Goldfarb noted yesterday, Hamas's leadership in Gaza is pushing for a ceasefire, despite calls to continue the fight by Hamas's leadership in Damascus and the Iranians.

Fatah, Hamas's political enemy, has essentially endorsed the Israeli incursion and has held Hamas responsible for Palestinian deaths. And despite reports to the contrary, the vaunted "Arab Street" has been relatively quiet as the Israelis pound Gaza. Most Arab regimes are pleased to watch Israel destroy the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored Hamas.

Despite the current momentum on the Israelis'side, the word from Israel is the leadership troika of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni may be getting cold feet in taking the fight into the heart of the cities in Gaza to root out Hamas.

Political sources said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni decided late on Monday against ordering troops in the next two or three days to engage in all-out urban warfare.

Opening a "Phase 3" of the offensive would likely complicate truce efforts, lead to intense street fighting and could cause heavy casualties on both sides, a politically risky move less than a month before Israel's parliamentary election.

Israel clearly has the upper hand in the fight. While the Israelis were clear that their goal wasn't to defeat Hamas, they may actually have the opportunity to do so. Olmert, Livni, and Barak could very well snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting a peace deal with Hamas and leaving the organization intact and in control of Gaza. As Goldfarb said yesterday, the Israelis would be well served to "give war a chance."

After ten days of Israeli offensive operations in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' command and control appears to be in disarray, Palestinian analysts told the Jerusalem Post. Hamas leaders are in hiding, and conflicting messages are being put out by Hamas's leadership under Khalid Mashal, who is based in Damascus, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza.

These contradictory messages, Palestinian political analysts said, reflected the state of confusion in Hamas and raised questions as to who was calling the shots in the Gaza Strip. While some Hamas leaders have been openly signaling their readiness to accept a new cease-fire, others are still calling for pursuing the fight against Israel "until victory."

What is clear is that Hamas is now desperate for a lull in the fighting. But it is also eager to score some kind of a "military victory" before a cease-fire is reached. Hamas can't accept a new cease-fire without having proved to the Arab and Muslim masses that it was capable of making Israel pay a heavy price for its military offensive.

Hamas is fighting for its survival and its leaders know that their collapse would constitute a severe blow not only to the movement, but also to its patrons in Teheran and Damascus.

The communications breakdown is so severe that Hamas's military wing, the Izzadin Kassam, is directly taking orders from Mashal in Damascus, the Jerusalem Post reported. Mashal has given the Izzadin Kassam "full freedom to take any measures it deems necessary to prevent the collapse of the Hamas regime." Over the weekend, Hamas responded by arresting and hobbling more than 100 opposing Fatah members and "collaborators."

The Israeli Defense Force has begun its push into the city, and there is a good chance the Israelis can break Hamas's stranglehold in the Gaza Strip. Hamas fighters are nowhere near as disciplined or well trained as the Hezbollah fighters encountered during the 2006 war in Lebanon. And Israeli forces have trained for urban combat for a year, anticipating such a battle.

To break Hamas, Israel must continue to pursue Hamas's leaders and fighters in Gaza and ignore the growing calls for a ceasefire. Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact will be a victory for the terror group.

But Israel has another problem. Hamas's real leadership inside Syria will remain no matter what happens to Haniyeh and company. Will Israel's Mossad take a shot at Mashal? This isn't as far-fetched as it might seem. In February 2008, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah's military commander, was killed in a car bombing in a secured neighborhood in Damascus. Mossad is believed to have carried out the attack.

As Israel continues its retaliatory strikes against the Hamas stronghold in Gaza, so the left increases its collective j'accuse, specifically bemoaning the use of 'disproportionate force.'

The manner in which a nation conducts war, and achieves victory, can be as important as the war itself. Compare the conquests of the British Empire to that of the Mongols under Genghis Kan. Tactics and the utility of force matter, a point that hasn't been lost on modern, Western militaries.

The highly professional Israeli Defense Force, however, is nothing like the Mongol Horde. The IDF's campaign against Hamas is both legal and justified under ever major treatise on warfare, from the Geneva Convention to Thomas Aquinas' jus ad bellum. Israel is on firm ground here.

Observations that the action against Hamas constitutes a limited war, and should be conducted as such, are correct -- to an equally limited point. One of the principle problems with limited warfare is the frequent inability of the side with superior firepower to bring its force to bear in a manner quick enough to prevent the smaller, more agile force from responding, adjusting, and relocating. Israel's tactic of swift, sweeping air raids against Hamas' centers-of-gravity appears to have largely neutralized this trend.

For the left, this leads to clumsy fumbling over terms like 'disproportionate force.’ In today's highly technological battlefield, disproportionate force (or killing a mosquito with a cannon) has as much to do with types of weapon platforms as it does numerical superiority. The Israelis, with their air-delivered precision-guided munitions, are using a scalpel -- not a broad sword. And it's a method that we've used ourselves frequently -- during the Clinton years as well -- in places like Serbia and Iraq. There's no clause in the Law of Armed Conflict or Geneva Convention which states that your enemy must first have an air force before you use your own, nor are there any rules that restrict Israel to using weapons that are of equal or lesser caliber than the ones which Hamas uses against Israeli civilians.

So this is a strange phenomena that leaves critics of Israel forced to create their own rules of warfare to better fit their narrative. It's an odd play for a crowd noted for their championing of global solutions and treaties to local problems.

For more, I highly recommend Noah Pollak's The Juicebox Mafia on Gaza.

In an effort to combat skewed media reports on the current fighting in Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a YouTube channel. The IDF has video of airstrikes on smuggling tunnels and rocket launch sites, the movement of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the deployment of IDF tanks to the Gaza region, and other such videos. Eight videos total have been uploaded over the post 24 hours.

The IDF is targeting the blogosphere and anyone else willing to watch the videos. "The blogosphere and new media are another war zone," IDF Foreign Press Branch head Major Avital Leibovich told the Jerusalem Post. "We have to be relevant there."

The videos show something that is rarely reported in the media. The Israeli strikes are conducted in the heart of built up areas. One video shows a strike on about one dozen Hamas fighters as they are loading Grad rockets into the back of a truck in the middle of a densely packed neighborhood. Another video shows an airstrike on a weapons storage depot that clearly is in a residential area (videos are posted below).

Of the estimated 375 Palestinians killed, only 60 are reported to be civilians. The Israeli strikes are remarkably accurate and are causing a relatively low degree of civilian deaths despite airstrikes being launched in built-up, urban areas.

Compare this with Hamas rocket and mortar attacks, or previous suicide attacks when the Palestinians terror groups could pull these off inside Israel. Hamas and others have clearly targeted civilians; the attacks are aimed at civilians in the heart of cities and villages. Yet the reporting invariably hints that the Israeli attacks are indiscriminate while the Palestinian attacks are a response to Israeli aggression and part of the “cycle of violence.”

It certainly isn't shocking to see that there is a double standard when the media report on the Israeli attacks in Gaza. Perhaps the IDF YouTube channel may help narrow this wide gap in reportage on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yesterday British PM Gordon Brown announced that British forces would be largely withdrawn from southern Iraq by the end of July. Once numbering 46,000 troops, British forces have been reduced to around 4,100--the bulk of which were deployed to the Basra area in southern Iraq. As British forces in Iraq wound down from the 2003 high, Her Majesty's Armed Forces decreased in overall strength. Today the British military is in a sad state of affairs--largely neglected after a decade plus of Labour Party rule.

From a purely historical perspective, one wonders about the legacy of British foray into Iraq. Charles Johnston, Governor of Aden in the early 1960s, wrote that the Middle East was where the British lost their confidence in their ability to deal with situations. Johnston was lamenting the Suez crisis, but his words are just as relevant to 21st century Iraq, where the performance of the Brits in Basra was mediocre given their impressive history.

The slow bleed of England's power and influence is directly proportional to the increase in world instability. America never developed the taste for exporting our values of democracy and free markets like the British (those who do are snidely derided as neocons), nor were we able to replicate their remarkable ability to turn insignificant and remote little corners of the world into economic powerhouses (see Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Dubai). Though, with that said, I have high hopes for what could potentially be achieved in Iraq.

If President-elect Obama asked for an increased British presence in Afghanistan, there's little doubt that our cousins across the Atlantic would respond. But, absent such a request, this may be an ideal time for the British to rediscover that famous 'stiff upper lip' that made them great. With the conservative movement on the island growing, so grows a profound distaste for the erosion of superior British customs under the wishy-washy guise of multiculturalism. Now is the time for them withdraw, recharge, rebuild, and rediscover their inner greatness.

America needs a strong Britain and America needs a strong British Armed Forces. When the two nations are confident in themselves and each other, the rest of the world reaps in the benefits. Look no further than the Reagan-Thatcher coalition that trampled communism and ushered in over a decade of peace and prosperity.

British poet Susannah Centlivre once lamented "Where are the rough brave Britons to be found with hearts of oak, so much of old renowned?" No doubt many on that wonderful little island are asking themselves that very question.

British intelligence has reestablished links with Syrian intelligence at the highest level on terrorism issues and other matters after a visit by Foreign Minister David Miliband. “Mr Miliband's visit, the first by a British foreign secretary for seven years, was touted as an opportunity to test Syria's willingness to engage with the West, lifting it out of its current isolation,” the London Times reported. “Washington has long insisted on isolating Syria but with a change of administration - and attitude - looming, Britain and France are leading efforts to lure Damascus out of the solitude it has found itself…”

Britain has rewarded Syria with diplomatic talks and the exchange of intelligence information, despite the fact that Syria is still a state sponsor of terror and has refused to denounce and turn in terrorists openly operating on its soil. Hezbollah has long been based in Damascus; Imad Mugniyah, the artitect of the 1983 bombings that killed more than 200 U.S. Marines in Beirut, was killed in a car bombing last February. Mugniyah had a home a in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus. Khaled Mashal, the leader of Hamas, is also based out of Damascus.

Syria is strongly believed to be behind multiple terror attacks inside neighboring Lebanon, including the February 2005 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others. Syria has also turned a blind eye to, and in some cases even aided, Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups operating on its soil. Just last month, U.S. special operations forces conducted a cross-border raid into western Syria and killed Abu Ghadiya, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq’s network that pushed foreigner fighters into Iraq.

Syria has never paid a price for its sponsorship of multiple terrorist outfits operating on its soil, and likely never will.

Breaking from the AP: "Mideast peace deal unlikely by year's end: White House."

On the Wall Street Journal editorial page this morning, Michael Oren, whose analysis of the Middle East is unfailingly superior, argues that the Israeli truce with Hamas is a dangerous delusion. Weakness, he argues, begets weakness.

The roots of this tragedy go back to the summer of 2005 and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The evacuation, intended to free Israel of Gaza's political and strategic burden, was hailed as a victory by Palestinian terrorist groups, above all Hamas.

Hamas proceeded to fire some 1,000 rocket and mortar shells into Israel. Six months later Hamas gunmen, taking advantage of an earlier cease-fire, infiltrated into Israel, killed two soldiers, and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

Hamas's audacity spurred Hezbollah to mount a similar ambush against Israelis patrolling the Lebanese border, triggering a war in which Israel was once again humbled. Hamas now felt sufficiently emboldened to overthrow Gaza's Fatah-led government, and to declare itself regnant in the Strip. Subsequently, Hamas launched thousands more rocket and mortar salvos against Israel, rendering parts of the country nearly uninhabitable.

The Israeli Defense Forces response was relatively restrained but nonetheless met with international condemnation. The terrorists were emboldened once more.

Tellingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who once declared Hamas illegal, will soon travel to Gaza for reconciliation talks. Mr. Abbas's move signifies the degree to which Hamas, with Israel's help, now dominates Palestinian politics. It testifies, moreover, to another Iranian triumph.

As the primary sponsor of Hamas, Iran is the cease-fire's ultimate beneficiary. Having already surrounded Israel on three of its borders -- Gaza, Lebanon, Syria -- Iran is poised to penetrate the West Bank. By activating these fronts, Tehran can divert attention from its nuclear program and block any diplomatic effort.

The advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should recognize that fact when applauding quiet at any price. The cost of this truce may well be war.

What's interesting about Oren's analysis is just how much things have changed in a very short period of time. In late March, I spoke to a senior Bush administration deeply involved in Israeli-Palestinian issues. When I asked about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in the near term, he said: I think it's much more likely that we'll see military action in Gaza.

A Kuwaiti man, educated in the United States, has given the Middle East its first comic books:

Mutawa's superheroes are modern, secular and spiritual, moving seamlessly between East and West. They come from 99 countries and are split between males and females.

The heroes include Darr the Afflicter, an American paraplegic named John Wheeler, who manipulates nerve endings to transmit or prevent pain. Noora the Light -- Dana Ibrahim, a university student from the United Arab Emirates -- shows people the light and dark inside themselves. Mumita the Destroyer, a ferocious fighter, is Catarina Barbarosa, a Portuguese bombshell in tight clothes.

They distribute aid to starving Afghan villagers, battle elephant poachers in Africa, fight the evil Rughal and train to increase their powers.

Pretty lame, no? Well, comic-book readers in the Arab speaking world seem to think so. Even after downloads are included, circulation has topped out at 30,000 a month. The thing is Mutawa is on to something, and Middle Eastern superheroes can help pacify the region so long as they aren't depicted attacking U.S. forces and swooping in to rescue terrorists at Gitmo. The problem is that Mutawa isn't taking his idea far enough. There are undoubtedly Christian-themed comic books, and no one wants to read them either. If he really wants to divine the next Spider Man, he should create superheroes that take on terrorists and fundamentalism of all stripes. He's never going to win over the clerics, and that seems to be where his own heart lies.

Sure, Hamas has proved itself relatively resilient, but it is now battling a foe more formidable than the IDF: Internet Porn.

"A couple of weeks ago Hamas installed a filter to prevent people from accessing such pages on the net," said Ali Sarayfi who runs an Internet cafe in the university area of Gaza City.

Inside the cafe dozens of young people are glued to computer monitors, surfing the Internet and enjoying one of their last remaining links to the world outside the fenced-off territory.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip on June 15 last year after routing forces loyal to the secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Israel has sealed the impoverished territory off from all but limited humanitarian aid.

With the economy teetering on the edge of collapse and the vast majority of Gaza's residents out of work, the Internet cafes are one of the last affordable recreational outlets available to the territory's 1.5 million people.

"Before, anyone could gain access to sites with sexual content, and some people even came here to do just that," said Sarayfi. "But today that's all finished, and it's better that way."

In the past when some Internet cafe owners tried to prevent access to certain sites, "they were threatened. People in powerful Gaza families told them the windows in their shops would be broken," he added.

Will the "powerful Gaza families" stand up to Hamas and insist on their right to, well, adult entertainment? And how powerful can they be if they can't afford home-access to the Internet? In any case, this is one battle Hamas will inevitably lose, and not a single Desert Eagle will be fired.

Columbia University has more than its share of intellectual hacks, and high on the list is Joseph Massad. Professor Massad's controversial beliefs invite mockery. He believes the Iraq war stemmed from the sexual prowess of the American male ("In such a strategy, Iraqis are posited by American super-masculine fighter-bomber pilots as women and feminised men to be penetrated by the missiles and bombs ejected from American warplanes."); he condones terrorism against Israel ("This can be done by the continuing resistance of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories to all the civil and military institutions that uphold Jewish supremacy"); and lastly, he attempted to exile a student from his class who had the gall to disagree with him.

Massad's most recent work further supports the idea that Massad belongs on a psychiatrist's couch, not behind a podium. In Desiring Arabs, Massad asserts that the West "produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." But for colonialism, Massad contends, there would be no gay people in the Middle East for the tyrannical governments of Egypt and Iran to persecute. Although Massad says he opposes hanging gay people, he shifts the blame from the hooded executioners to the United States.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia last fall and made a similar claim ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."), students laughed and booed. They recently, however, elected to award Massad the Lionel Trilling Book Award for making the nearly identical claim. Last year, Marty Peretz reported some good news: Columbia University had declined to give Massad tenure. Apparently, Peretz spoke too soon. After cries from the Middle Eastern Studies Department, the Provost agreed to appoint a second ad hoc committee this year. Will Columbia have the good-sense to banish him once and for all?

McClatchy reports:

After eight years of stalemate and periodic tension, Israel and Syria announced Wednesday that they have launched “serious and continuous” indirect peace talks aimed at ending one of the region’s longest-running disputes.

In identical statements issued from Damascus and Jerusalem, the rival neighbors said that they are taking part in indirect negotiations with Turkish diplomats serving as mediators....

If successful, the talks could lead to a broader shift in regional dynamics by returning the Golan Heights to Syria, cutting off critical support for Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and diminishing the influence of Iran in the region.

If the Israelis were satisfied that Syria would stop aiding Hezbollah, and stay out of Lebanon, then perhaps this kind of deal could go a long way towards assuring the security of Israel. I don't know how they can be at all confident of Syria holding up their end of the deal, but they can do the math on that themselves. On the other hand, the Golan is a magnificent piece of land. If I were an Israeli, I'd be hard pressed to give it away. I'd get rid of the West Bank in a heartbeat, as I think most Israelis would if they thought the result wouldn't mirror the situation in Gaza. But after spending just a day driving around the Golan, I felt an odd attachment to it. Then again I'm not an Israeli, so I don't really get a say in the matter.

A new poll conducted by Israel's Television Channel 10 was released over the weekend:

What would you prefer for the Government of Israel to do today: reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas or continue the war against it?
Total: Reach deal 33% Continue war 56% Other replies 11%

Should the IDF act today to physically destroy the Hamas leaders?
Total: No 22% Yes 49% Other 29%

Those advocating engagement with Hamas often point to a (largely discredited) poll conducted by Haaretz earlier this year as evidence that a majority of Israelis favor such talks. The poll results were flogged endlessly by Glenn Greenwald, Ezra Klein, and others as proof that it was only hardline American neoconservatives who were preventing Israelis from engaging in what would surely be a productive round of negotiations with Hamas. So what will they say now that a new poll shows the Israelis would much prefer killing Hamas's leaders to talking with them?

I'm guessing nothing. This was never about what the Israelis wanted, it was about forcing the Israelis to the negotiating table. Supporters of J Street (all 12 of them) know what's best for Israel, and they don't need any "actual Israelis" to tell them different.

Of all the scummy things the Hezbollah and its allies have done during their takeover of West Beirut, the burning of pro-government media outlets is one of the worst. Prominent anti-Syrian media figures have long been the target of political violence: journalists Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni were assassinated during the 2005 Cedar Revolution, and the television anchor May Chidiac barely survived a car bomb assassination attempt.

This time around, Hezbollah militants have ransacked the media offices of the pro-government Future Movement, headed by Saad Hariri, throughout Beirut. Make no mistake: this is an orchestrated attack. Hezbollah's supporters have destroyed Future Movement TV antennas across the city and threatened pro-government journalists. Most egregiously, they invaded and set fire to the Future Movement newspaper, located in West Beirut. As has become routine, the Lebanese army stood by and watched while these offices were destroyed.

This shows that the pro-Syrian forces do have a perverse understanding of the importance of public relations. It is not enough to control the streets, each side is trying to win "hearts and minds." However, Hezbollah's actions have accomplished just the opposite. Their occupation of Beirut's Sunni areas has shattered whatever remaining goodwill the party retained among non-Shia Lebanese.

Fortunately for Lebanon, its journalists are a hardy breed. The Lebanese Press Club organized a march in solidarity of Future media outlets today -- including, among others, May Chidiac. Mustapha, who blogs at Beirut Spring, has also organized a campaign in solidarity of freedom of the press in Lebanon.

The Lebanese will not surrender without a fight.

Hezbollah does seem to have the upper hand in Lebanon at the moment, and while David Kenner reports that, "Now more than ever, the Sunni, Druze and Christian communities are firmly aligned on the side of the central government," that may not be worth much if they are only united in getting steamrolled by Hezbollah.

But here's a hypothetical. Let's assume that Hezbollah prevails in their Lebanese power grab and manages to seize the reins of government. Hezbollah is a terrorist group, and it denies Israel's right to exist, but if it controlled the Lebanese government...would Obama have a sit down with Nasrallah? Just before Samantha Power got canned for calling Hillary a monster, she gave an interview explaining Obama's rules of diplomacy:

Obama would engage with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn't talk to? "Not among elected heads of state. He won't talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas."

Even though she says "elected heads of state," she doesn't really mean elected--he would meet with Kim Jong-Il and Assad, and I don't think even the Obama folks are claiming that Ahmadinejad is a legitimately elected head of state. Granted, the campaign has been as vague as possible on this ever since Obama declared he would meet with any dictator who would sit down with him, but it seems like the key requirement is running a country with internationally recognized borders--you do that, you get your invitation to the Obama summit. So again, the question: if Hezbollah manages a complete takeover of Lebanon, would Obama meet with Nasrallah? There's no obvious reason why not, though it would be great if someone actually pushed Obama for an answer.

To secure U.S. permission, Israel actually presented the United States with a video of the Syrian nuclear facility it bombed last September:

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.”

Syria’s Ambassador likens this to the evidence the United States presented to the UN about Iraq, and warns Americans not to be so gullible this time around. But the real suckers are reporters, like Seymour Hersh, who buy this drivel. In his story last February, Hersh quotes anonymous Syrian officials claiming the facility only housed a chemical weapons program and the North Koreans were just ordinary construction workers. Yet Syria has extensive experience with chemical weapons and would not need the help of North Koreans to build them. And speaking of chumps, one of Hersh’s original sources is sticking to his story:

David Albright, president of Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and a former U.N. weapons inspector, said the absence of such evidence warrants skepticism that the reactor was part of an active weapons program.

“The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities,” he said. “The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program.”

To Albright, it is not enough to demonstrate that the Syrians are secretly building an unapproved nuclear reactor with a rogue nuclear state. The burden doesn’t even shift back to the Syrians. Does Albright think the Israeli video was obtained with the consent of the Syrians? Does he think the Syrians would have eagerly admitted UN weapons inspectors? Left-wingers decry so-called climate change deniers, but what amount of evidence will it take them to recant their denials of Syria’s nuclear weapons program?

AIPAC has some new competition. It's called J Street and it bills itself as a "pro-peace, pro-Israel political voice," in contrast with AIPAC, which the folks at J Street clearly perceive as a pro-violence, anti-Israel political voice. I took part in a conference call today with J Street's founder and executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and several of its advisers, all of whom made clear their disdain for AIPAC and its "right-wing agenda."

Victor Kovner, former corporation council for the city of New York, had this to say:

For many years, those of us who are active in support of Democratic candidates for office have been frustrated, to say the least, at the presumption held by so many...that we are somehow supportive of initiatives of AIPAC, and those who presume, have presumed basically right-wing agendas. It is embarrassing to have to say, as I've had to say so many times, I'm not with AIPAC, I do not support AIPAC. I support a different vision for the Middle East. And in creating J Street, I think we're going to be able to, working together, make that message clear, so that no longer will that presumption be in place.

The problem with all this is that AIPAC doesn't have a right-wing agenda, it simply has an unabashedly pro-Israel agenda. AIPAC assumes the Israelis are capable of deciding what is in their own best interests as a democratic and sovereign nation. Conversely, the folks at J Street think that they know better than the Israelis what is in Israel's best interests--and they believe a halt to settlement construction, negotiations with Hamas, and the peace process offer the only viable way forward. Ben-Ami said J Street will "advocate that it is always better to find paths to diplomatic engagement with those with whom we have disagreements." They don't care what the question is, talking is the answer, and they will pressure American politicians to rein in the Israelis regardless of popular opinion inside Israel.

Said Ben-Ami, "it can be pro-Israel to hold views that are not necessarily in accordance with the sitting government of either the United States or of Israel. That's a democratic right and part of what this effort is about." No one would dispute that it is a democratic right to hold dissenting views of whatever sort, or to differ from the views of the government of the United States and/or Israel. But those are both democratically elected governments, and the J Street guys are going to have to explain why they know better than both. The truth is they think they know better because they are left-wing ideologues, and want to persuade people that a leftist agenda is in the interest of the U.S. and Israel. Not a promising prospect.

And if you're wondering how they arrived at the name J Street, amusing speculation here.

Have you heard the good news?

US Ambassador Ford Fraker said in Sakaka that his country aims to double the number of student visas issued to Saudis.

“Currently there are 15,000 Saudi students in the US,” he said during an event on Sunday with local business leaders to an audience at the Al-Jouf Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We aim to increase their numbers to 30,000 over the next five years.”

If we're going to role the dice on visas for young Muslim men, shouldn't we be taking in refugees from Iraq who've already proven their loyalty to this country? The U.S. government only plans to admit 12,000 Iraqis in FY2008 and is likely to fall short of that goal with just 2,600 admitted in the first three months of the year. So how about if we cancel the visas for the Saudi student pilots and instead bring in a few thousand more of those Iraqis who can get U.S. soldiers and Marines to vouch for their character and loyalty.

The Economist reports:

In the wake of Condoleezza Rice’s shuttle diplomacy last year, Israeli officials reportedly coined lecondel, meaning to go back and forth repeatedly to no effect.

Rice devoted herself to the peace process and has nothing to show for it. In Iraq, the Pentagon has made more progress in the last year (see Fred Kagan's latest on Iraqi benchmarks for a status report) than the State Department has made in Israel in the last 20. Surely Condi's considerable talents might have been better put to use furthering that mission. And at least nobody's mocking Petraeus for being ineffectual--or they aren't anymore.

Getting my marching orders.

Some of you may have noticed my absence over the last week. I was in Israel with the American Israel Education Fund, an affiliate of AIPAC. A few observations/impressions...

Israeli politics are not polarized, they're paralyzed. We spoke with members of both the governing party, Kadima, and the opposition Likud. They all agree that disengagement has been a failure, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank, yet no one has any real idea about how the country can move forward. The Palestinian Authority is incapable of delivering security, though surprisingly many of the politicians we spoke with think Abbas would if he could.

Iran is the enemy. No matter what question you ask, the answer is the same--Iran is behind all of the current troubles. The Islamic Republic supports Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south. But, the Israelis are somewhat less alarmist about the threat of a nuclear armed Iran than their American counterparts. Why is this? There are a number of reasons, not least of which is polling that indicates a substantial number of Israelis would consider leaving the country if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon. Israeli politicians seem to fear that an Iranian bomb is inevitable, and that it would therefore be a mistake to hype the threat. Apparently the word has come down from the government that the threat is not to be discussed in existential terms. Which isn't to say that the threat isn't existential, just that no one wants to be painted in to a corner. Still, we did hear from at least one intelligence official who thought that a nuclear Iran could be deterred from using the device, even if it would embolden the clerical regime in other areas detrimental to Israeli security. Bottom line, the situation in Israel is bad, and it will be a lot worse if the Iranians succeed in building a bomb.

Israelis don't buy the NIE. This is a fact, and the explanation for it was interesting. Basically, the two countries approach intelligence differently. According to one former intelligence official we spoke with, and I see no reason to doubt his analysis, American assessments of the Iranian program are shaped almost entirely by the intelligence failures of the Iraq war. That is to say, the American intel community was burned by the failure to find WMD in Iraq, and is thus extremely fearful of overhyping the threat from Iran. On the other hand, the assessment of the Israeli intelligence community is shaped by another event, the Yom Kippur War. They fear underestimating the capabilities of their enemies as they did then, and will err on the side of caution in order to avoid a repeat. Still, one got the sense that the Israelis and their American counterparts are not really so far apart on their estimation of Iranian capabilities, at least privately.

The land for peace paradigm is dead. It didn't work. The Israelis gave up southern Lebanon and got a war with Hezbollah. They gave up Gaza and they now have a hot war in the south with rockets hitting Sderot daily. There is no chance that the Israelis give up the West Bank only to see the same thing happen, especially given the West Bank's proximity to the economic heart of Israel. Which only further contributes to the paralysis--the old paradigm is dead, but nothing has yet developed to take its place. Even the country's peaceniks are horrified by the turn of events in Gaza--they are no longer pushing for a similar withdrawal from the West Bank.

The people we spoke with painted a very bleak picture, and yet life goes on in Israel. The economy is booming, the bars and clubs are full, and the country, outside of Sderot at least, is enjoying something resembling peace. We drove around the West Bank and saw almost no evidence of violence. The security fence has had the desired effect, and despite all the talk about checkpoints and their impact on the daily lives of Palestinians, we moved relatively freely from one end of the territory to the other. I was also struck by how empty the West Bank is. Despite the attachment some settlers have to the land, most Israelis seem willing to cede the area in exchange for peace. That just isn't possible given the current fractures in the Palestinian body politic.

On the other hand, the Golan is spectacular. It's also largely empty, but it is stunning terrain. The Israelis we spoke with seemed willing to part with this land as well in exchange for a real and lasting peace with Syria. I'm not sure I would.

Probably not, but it's still an interesting "what-if."

In the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear weapons, defense officials who will visit the US next week plan to ask the Pentagon to reconsider its decision not to sell Israel the F-22 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buhris will visit the US for several days next week to discuss a wide range of security and defense issues, including the continued funding of the Arrow missile defense system as well as the possibility that Israel will receive the F-22.

Israel had asked for the stealth jet - manufactured by Lockheed Martin - last year in an effort to retain its qualitative edge in the region in the face of American plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced JDAM smart bombs. The Israeli request was turned down.

This, coupled with the fact that Israel has been ferociously trying to acquire the F-35 ahead of schedule, makes me wonder if the IAF is second-guessing their ability to knock back Iranian air defenses enough to clear strike lanes to Bushehr and Natanz. Seeing that some sort of Operation Dawn throw-back mission might be needed to guarantee neutralization of the myriad of nuclear-related targets, you can see why the IAF would be interested in an airframe that assures dominance of the skies.

Doubtful that Congress grants Israel's wish, though. Even though the Israelis would be doing us an enormous favor by cratering Iran's budding reactors, the fact that Israel sold advanced radar technology to China some years back still leaves a bitter taste in many a lawmaker and defense official's mouth. That's to say nothing of the fact that selling the Raptor to allied nations is illegal.

Happy compromise? If Lockheed can speed up delivery by a year or two, Israel might go for the STVOL F-35 bravo. While it lacks the range of the alpha variant, the F-35b can sneak into enemy territory (or close to it) and be refueled by a special forces team. No runways necessary, which means you can find a Desert One type location for your fighter jets, and stage your attack from there. Minus the Desert One style fiasco, presumably.

More straight talk from Samantha Power, the now departed foreign policy adviser:

Like Vieira de Mello, Obama is "comfortable crossing boundaries". They also have in common a willingness to talk to dictators; and here Obama needs to be careful. When the former Yugoslavia was disintegrating, Vieira de Mello was so obsequious to the Serb leaders Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic that he was nicknamed "Serbio".

"In his relationship with evil, he almost got a little seduced," she admits. The way to do it, according to Power, is "to be in the room with the bad guys but not to check your principles in at the door". Obama would engage with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn't talk to? "Not among elected heads of state. He won't talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas."

Why draw the line at (democratically elected) Hamas? Obama explained earlier this week while campaigning in Texas:

“You can’t negotiate with somebody who does not recognize the right of a country to exist so I understand why Israel doesn’t meet with Hamas.”

How unbelievably arbitrary. Obama has pledged to negotiate directly with Iran, and yet Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Nor does Syria. Obama famously said that it was a "disgrace" that George W. Bush had not spoken to the (undemocratically installed) leaders of Iran and Syria. Yet even by Obama's own logic such negotiations ought to be precluded. After all, Iran has not only pledged to wipe Israel from the map, but it is building the capacity to do so.

HT: FP Passport

One thought about the Jerusalem massacre: the lack of moral outrage about the fact that the gunman disguised himself as a rabbinical student.

Although the media frequently covers protests by outraged Muslims throwing temper tantrums at any perceived disrespect to their religion, Reuters and other news outlets fail to focus on the transparent hypocrisy when writing about terrorist attacks against Jews and Catholics. Not only do the terrorist sympathizers celebrate attacks against other religions with street-parties, prayers, and sweets, they fail to condemn al Qaeda’s bombing of mosques, which presumably contain an abundant supply of oh so sacred Korans.

On Friday, I noted the open border between Egypt and Gaza threatened not only Israel, but Egypt, allowing Islamists of all stripes to freely enter the country. Yesterday an Egyptian official explained the country's predicament to the Associated Press:

Cairo was now caught between the hammer and the anvil, the officials said. On the one hand, they said, Egypt did not want to use force against the Palestinians for fear of being accused by the Arabs of taking part in the blockade on the Gaza Strip; on the other hand, the Egyptians were very worried that Hamas and its allies would "occupy" the northern Sinai, turning it into a center for Islamist terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.

The Egyptian authorities are now focusing their efforts on preventing Gazans from heading toward Cairo and other cities. Authorities also warned Egyptians not to allow Palestinians to stay with them.

Thirty-eight Egyptian border guards were wounded, several critically, during failed attempts to close the border. And tens of thousands of Palestinians are still pouring into the Sinai.

The breakdown of the Gaza border also exposes the rift between the moderate government in Cairo and the Palestinians. While Arab governments delight in Palestinian attacks on Israel, they are wary of the violence spilling over. The Kuwaitis despise the Palestinians for backing Saddam Hussein during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Palestinians wore out their welcome in Baghdad after some were connected to terror attacks following the U.S. invasion in 2003. And the Palestinians in Lebanon are treated like third class citizens, unable to hold jobs outside the refugee camps. The Fatah al Islam uprising in the Nahr al Bared camp in northern Lebanon claimed the lives of 122 Lebanese troops while the Ein al Hilwah camp is essentially a no-go area for government forces.

Egypt will now need to deal with its own Palestinian problem. It must prevent terrorist groups that run Gaza from spreading within its own borders, and all while not appearing too harsh on the world's most favored victims.

The Hamas regime in Gaza scored a political coup when it destroyed the hated border wall that separated the Palestinian territory from Egypt. Established by the Israelis to halt the flow of weapons into Gaza, the wall stood as a symbol of Israeli occupation. Hamas did what Yasser Arafat, the PLO, and the Palestinian Authority never could, and even Fatah members were quoted praising Hamas for the achievement.

But the destruction of the southern border wall between Egypt and Gaza threatens more than just the security of Israel, says Aaron Mannes at his blog Terror Wonk. While the Israelis have expressed some concern that the opening of the border will open the flow of weapons used against the Israeli state (this concern is tempered by the relative ease with which munitions had already flowed into the strip), the state of Egypt is now open to multiple terror threats:

Now, in Gaza, the enemies of the Egyptian regime finally have the secure base they have long sought. There are reports of Palestinian terror cells affiliating with al-Qaeda as well as international "volunteers" filtering in. However, al-Qaeda is not the gravest Gaza-based threat to Egypt. Hamas itself has proven to be a formidable organization. The destruction of the Gaza barrier was a formidable technical achievement that required months of careful preparation. But the political preparation was also carefully managed. Hamas successfully advanced its story of deprivation at the hands of an Israeli blockade (in fact, Israel consistently allowed necessities through and only cut off fuel in response to a barrage of rocket attacks)...

However, a new base of operations against Egypt could have vast geopolitical implications. Egypt has a fragile economy, frustrated populace with a large Islamist movement, and an aging leadership. There have already been terror attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with Gaza links. Even if the regime is not overthrown, HISH [the Hezbollah-Iran-Syria-Hamas axis] will acquire substantial leverage over Egypt, and further the penetration of radical Islam into the largest Arab state, while acquiring a staging ground into the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond.

Read the entire post at the Terror Wonk for more on the developing threat to Egypt. Egypt appears to be waking up to this reality and has begun to reseal the border. But will the Mubarak regime have the political will to crack down on Hamas and the Palestinians, keep the border closed, and police it as carefully as the Israelis had done?

The Telegraph reports:

Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state.

Government officials have confirmed the landmark decision and plan to issue a decree by the end of the year.

The move is designed to forestall campaigns for greater freedom by women, which have recently included protesters driving cars through the Islamic state in defiance of a threat of detention and loss of livelihoods.

Blake Hounshell notes the creepy logic behind the decision: "Can't have that kind of uppity behavior!" And the snark is also in full effect at Dhimmi Watch, where they post the story under the headline "Saudi Arabia to enter 20th century."

Still, women driving around Saudi Arabia in protest comes as surprising news to me. I'm reminded of a contentious meeting Karen Hughes held with Saudi women during a trip to Saudi Arabia. Back in 2005, when Hughes made the trip, her first to the region, the New York Times reported that "when Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her."

As one Saudi woman told Huges:

"There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country," said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital.

"I don't want to drive a car," she said. "I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver's license?"

"Women have more than equal rights," added her daughter, Dr. Fouzia Pasha, also an obstetrician and gynecologist, asserting that men have obligations accompanying their rights, and that women can go to court to hold them accountable.

The Times reported the event as though this was the one unscripted moment on Hughes's tour through the country. The International Herald Tribune actually ran the story under the headline "Saudi women depart from the script." Worth keeping in mind the next time you read some nonsense about how Muslim women love being legally required to wear burqas and hijabs--they say so themselves.

Haaretz prints an interview today with John Bolton, who was in Israel to attend the Herzliya Conference. Bolton offers this startling glimpse into how U.S. policy shifted during Israel's war with Hezbollah:

the main reason for America's retreat from its initial position was U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who "changed her mind fundamentally" after an Israeli aerial assault killed 28 civilians in Kana on July 30. "Rice exerted enormous pressure on me to reach an agreement already," he said. "Until Kana, the U.S. wasn't interested in another typical Middle Eastern cease-fire. We thought we would exploit the fighting to fundamentally change the situation, especially in Lebanon and Syria. But under the influence of her shock over Kana, the secretary of state changed her mind and only wanted an immediate end to the fire. That was the policy Rice dictated."

Olmert bungled the war, but a few more weeks of fighting might have provided a different result. Instead we got 'another typical Middle Eastern cease-fire.'

Across the Bay, an excellent blog covering events in Syria, points to this report from AFP:

Syrian official media poured scorn late on Tuesday on comments by a visiting US Congressman that he had secured an undertaking from President Bashar al-Assad to free seven jailed dissidents.

Syria "denies the statement by House of Represenatives member Patrick Kennedy that he raised the issue of certain detainees during his meetings with Syrian officials," the state SANA news agency cited an "official source" as saying.

"Syria refuses categorically to discuss its internal affairs with any foreign official. All that a foreign official can do is to be briefed about the situation in Syria in general and to listen to answers.

"No one has the right to interfere in Syria's internal affairs," the official source said.

After talks with Assad on Sunday, Kennedy told a news conference that he had secured an undertaking that Syria would free the seven dissidents, whose arrest last month drew strong criticism from the White House.

"The president said that they would be released," Kennedy told reporters.

It was bad enough when Pelosi went to Syria, but now the Dems have sent Patrick Kennedy? Seriously? Across the Bay headlines the item " Visit Assad, Get Egg on Your Face," but Patrick Kennedy hardly needs help getting egg on his face.

Israeli Air Force to Lockheed: Hurry it up:

Israel plans to keep its aerial domination of the Middle East intact, and that includes buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, accelerating its first deliveries, and deciding whose advanced equipment will be packed into the stealthy strike aircraft.

A senior Israeli air force (IAF) official says those major areas of concern appear to be on the right track because of an "understanding" with the U.S. officials. Washington's representatives are more ambiguous, saying that there has been no official change to Israel's F-35 program.

"The plan is that we will get the F-35 as soon as it's possible," the senior IAF official says. He says the service will end up with more than 100 F-35s, but he would not confirm the size of the purchase or that Israel is asking that the initial delivery date be accelerated by two years to 2012. The IAF wants the JSF "the minute it is available."

"Israel has a unique requirement, it doesn't operate in a coalition, [and it has a] different kind of strategic relationship" with the U.S. than the other F-35 partners," says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager for the F-35. However, he says the overseas release of the first export aircraft will be no sooner than 2014.

Another "unique requirement" is that Israel has to penetrate integrated air defenses without the advantage of stealth technology. Stealth is the primary reason that the USAF has made Russian-built IADs their bit&* these past two decades. The air defenses that the United States overcame in Serbia and Iraq are similar to the ones fielded by Israel's enemies. While the IAF is skilled enough to pull off gee-whiz raids like Operation Orchard with bulky Strike Eagles, they have to beat radar coverage with sophisticated hacks or Wild Weasel missions. The JSF, with its shortcomings noted, fits the IAF's profile perfectly: slip in, break stuff, slip out.

Somewhat surprising though, is how hot the IAF is for these news birds. Israel has always been first in line for the latest American jets, but this time around their rhetoric sounds awfully urgent. The easy answer is that they want a stealth asset capable of sneaking into the hell that is the airspace surrounding Iran's nuclear facilities. But their requested timeline of 2012 for the first deliveries doesn't sync up with Mossad warnings that Iran could have the bomb by 2010. They might be giving Iran some wiggle room on the estimate, they might be worried that Russia closed the radar loophole that they exploited during Orchard, or they may just be sick of their F-15s and F-16s.

Motives aside, it will be most interesting to see what new tricks the always innovative IAF will pull off with the stealth advantage.

The Shrine of the Bab, this Israeli port city’s most distinctive architectural feature, is the final resting place of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, born in Shiraz, Persia, in 1819, one of the two founders of the Baha'i faith, and best known as the Bab, Arabic for "gate." He was the forerunner of the other founder, Mirza Husayn ‘Ali, also an Iranian and known as Baha’ullah, or "Glory of God."

The Bab was persecuted and executed in 1850 for ideas that Persia’s Muslim authorities deemed heretical, and Baha’ullah was chased into exile in the Holy Land. Given that their teachings are still relatively fresh for a part of the world where shepherds have chatted and wrestled with God in the desert for millennia--Baha’ullah only died at the turn of the 19th century--the Bahai faith is often referred to as the most recent of the world’s great religions. Its most famous adherents are the 70s folk-pop duo Seals and Crofts, and University of Michigan professor and blogger Juan Cole, who is apparently a Bahai dissident. "The Bahais are also really big in Hawaii," says my friend Cathay, an American journalist I’m traveling with in a group tour hosted by the Israeli Tourism Ministry. "The Bahais," she says, "are part of the New Age scene on the Island."

In Israel, however, the Bahai are just part of a large mosaic of religious sects that includes Muslims, Christians, and Druze along with the Jewish majority. The varied nature of Israeli society comes as a surprise to most of my traveling companions, all of them Americans. The real composition and texture of Israel is so different from how the country is typically represented as the homeland of European Jewry, that it is easy to forget how much the Ashkennazi establishment here has invested in a Euro-centric narrative that gives room to the country’s critics to label it racist. But, among others, there are the Oriental Jews, the Ethiopians, and the Russians, all of it making even Haifa familiarly multicultural enough for this group of mostly New Yorkers here to see a side of Israel that seldom appears in the international media, like luxury hotels and restaurants, wine tours of the Galilee, treks in the Judean desert, Tel Aviv fashionistas, and, of course, the the Shrine of the Bab.

Elsewhere throughout the Middle East, as in neighboring Egypt, the Bahai are repressed and persecuted, but in Haifa they have pride of place in the middle of town where the shrine’s beautiful hanging gardens, carefully attended by Bahai volunteers from around the world, surround the large pink shrine that is capped by a dome covered with 14,000 golden bricks.

It occurred to me that the shrine must have been a very vulnerable target during Hezbollah’s summer 2006 war against Israel. And had it been destroyed by a katyusha rocket, no doubt there would have been celebrations throughout the strongholds of South Lebanon and Beirut, where the Islamic Republic of Iran has seeded a version of Islamic intolerance and obscurantism that is not exclusive to hatred of Jews. The Israelis traveling with us do not recognize I am only half joking when I suggest that maybe the shrine was the real target of the rocket blasts that kept Haifa underground for a month.

As generous as the Israelis are, it is difficult for them to understand that they are not the only Middle Easterners who have real enemies. Indeed, while this society is various and multiracial, one of the more regrettable, if understandable, aspects of the Israeli mindset is that they see themselves surrounded by enemies without being able to discriminate between their neighbors and discern their real intentions. In this instance at least, the problem with seeing only foes is not that you will be in a constant state of war, but that you will be always seeking peace even if there is none to be had. In the Middle East, this is quite dangerous.

According to this article, posted at the Drudge Report, YouTube suspended the account of an Egyptian "anti-torture" activist whose videos included Egyptian police violence against anti-government protesters:

Wael Abbas said close to 100 images he had sent to YouTube were no longer accessible, including clips depicting purported police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations. YouTube, owned by search engine giant Google Inc , did not respond to a written request for comment. A message on Abbas's YouTube user page read: "This account is suspended."

"They closed it (the account) and they sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content, especially the content of torture," Abbas told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbas, who won an international journalism award for his work this year, said that of the images he had posted to YouTube, 12 or 13 depicted violence in Egyptian police stations.

Abbas was a key player last year in distributing a clip of an Egyptian bus driver, his hands bound, being sodomised with a stick by a police officer -- imagery that sparked an uproar in a country where rights groups say torture is commonplace.

That tape prompted an investigation that led to a rare conviction of two policemen, who were sentenced to three years in prison for torture. Egypt says it opposes torture and prosecutes police against whom it has evidence of misconduct.

I wonder if they'll shut down this video? Or this one? Or this one?

There are hundreds of similar videos now available on YouTube. The ones above include nudity, abuse, and graphic photos of dead people. Are the Egyptian videos really more graphic? Or is there a double-standard?

Albeit 3,300 years ago. The New Scientist asks, Were Cursed Rams the First Biological Weapon?:

Ancient written texts from the Middle East may reveal that the use of biological weapons dates back more than 3300 years, according to a new review.

The historical documents hint that the Hittites – whose empire stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern Syria – sent diseased rams to their enemies to weaken them with tularemia, a devastating bacterial infection that remains a potential bioterror threat even today, says the review.

Experts caution that more evidence is needed to firmly establish that the Hittites intended to spread disease using the animals. But they add that if this proves true, it might represent the earliest known use of biological warfare.

Tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, can pass from animals such as rabbits and sheep to humans through various routes, most commonly through insects such as ticks that hop between species. The bacterium responsible for tularemia, Francisella tularensis, causes symptoms ranging from skin ulcers to respiratory failure.

Interesting bunch, the Hittites. When they weren't busy with their robust bio-weapons program, they developed one of the first constitutional monarchies. In 1550 BC, they successfully sacked Babylon, located in what is now southern Iraq--possibly to prevent the Iraqis Babylonians from developing WMDs of their own.

From the AP, Hailstorm Sets Off Bomblets:

BEIRUT — The season's first hailstorm Tuesday was a blessing in disguise for cluster bomb-infested parts of southern Lebanon, triggering blasts from previously unexploded bomblets. No injuries were reported.

After a long dry spell across Lebanon, hailstones as big as walnuts hit villages and struck undiscovered bomblets scattered across the landscape, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center (MACC), confirmed that many cluster bombs exploded when they were hit by hailstones in villages near the town of Marjayoun.

More than 30 people have been killed by cluster bombs in southern Lebanon since last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel.

That's a wonderful story. Minus the AP's obligatory blame Israel meme.

The United Nations and human rights groups accuse Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during the war. Up to 1 million failed to explode and now endanger civilians in the area.

In lieu of divine intervention, one of the most aggressive efforts to clear southern Lebanon of unexploded ordinance has been conducted by the United States.

HT: Danger Room

Karen Hughes, a longtime friend of the president, has announced her resignation as undersecretary of state, effective at the end of this year. Hughes was supposed to enhance the image of the United States in the greater Middle East, but, in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Stephen Hayes writes that she was never very well suited to the job as she "had never been to the region, had no expertise in the Muslims who largely populate it, and had never shown any real interest in it either." Hayes goes on:

It showed. On her first trip to the Persian Gulf, she approached foreign dignitaries as if they were soccer moms and began with a campaign slogan: "The four E's of diplomacy: Engagement, Exchange, Education and Empowerment." In one meeting, she told her host that the most famous phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance--"One Nation, Under God"--came from the U.S. Constitution.

So why did George W. Bush pick Karen Hughes for such a critical mission? Her words upon emerging from a meeting with an Egyptian sheikh provide one clue: "I think I was able to have a wonderful meeting with His Eminence to talk with him about the common language of the heart."

We don't know what His Eminence thought about his introduction to the common language of the heart. But George W. Bush, who years earlier declared that he had seen into the soul of Vladimir Putin, speaks it fluently. Hughes knows Bush as well as anyone other than his wife. And when Bush needs help on the big issues, he often seeks assistance from those most familiar to him, whatever their qualifications and without regard to what the rest of world might think.

And so it was that, as Hughes finished her trip, a reporter approached her for a comment on Bush's likely Supreme Court nominee: "Harriet would be a wonderful Supreme Court justice!"

This is probably for the best.

What is Condoleezza Rice thinking? Last week, the Secretary of State turned to former President Jimmy Carter for advice on Middle East, which, to put it in terms that Rice, an avid NFL fan might understand, is like asking Rex Grossman how to play quarterback. Or it would be if Grossman had publicly insulted you first.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." That is what Carter said about the Bush Administration less than six months ago. Although he later tried to soften his criticism, the attack was harsh enough that it even provoked a response from the White House press office, which labeled the former president "increasingly irrelevant."

Not any more, apparently.

Carter is the author of Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, a volume so tendentiously anti-Israel that it prompted this response from Dr. Kenneth W. Stein:

President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary.

Stein speaks with authority on the subject. He co-authored a book with Carter and served as the Middle East Fellow at the Carter Center of Emory University. Stein leveled this criticism in his resignation letter, leading a widespread condemnation of the book and its author.

Then, just three weeks ago, Carter was at it again. This time, he attacked Vice President Dick Cheney. "He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," Carter said in an interview with the BBC.
"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."

So, Jimmy Carter attacks the vice president as a disaster, writes a deeply flawed book on the Middle East, and claims that the Bush Administration is the worst in U.S. history. Why does he deserve an audience with the Secretary of State?

It’s a good question.

Oh, by the way, here is what Carter said about Rice in his interview with the BBC:

"I'm filled with admiration for Condoleezza Rice in standing up to (Cheney) which she did even when she was in the White House under President George W. Bush," Carter said. "Now secretary of state, her influence is obviously greater than it was then and I hope she prevails."

That's the report from the Guardian:

Talks due to start this week on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been postponed, it was announced today.

The six-party talks between Russia, China, the US, Japan and North and South Korea were aimed at setting a timetable for final decommissioning of the state's nuclear capabilities. They were arranged after experts from the US, China and Russia visited North Korea's nuclear facilities and reportedly reached a deal on how to dismantle them.

No reason was given, but might it have something to do with the mysterious Israeli air strike in Syria? There is increasing suspicion that the facility the Israelis struck was in some way connected to North Korea. Administration officials have confirmed a relationship between North Korea and Syria, but we already knew that--Syria has long been a customer for North Korean arms. The Israeli press has been prevented from reporting on this story by the country's military censors, but Haaretz has reported that a North Korean flagged ship had docked in Syria three days before the strike following the release of similar information in the Washington Post. And the North Korean Press Agency did lash out over Israel's violation of Syrian airspace. A lot of coincidences.

Is it possible that the North Koreans were selling nuclear material to Syria as some reports would have it? Joseph Cirincione at the left-wing Center for American Progress calls such reports "nonsense," claiming that this story is being pushed by the White House for purely political reasons. As evidence, Cirincione states that "if North Korea gave them anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence. Syria does not have the financial, technical or industrial base to develop a serious nuclear program anytime in the foreseeable future."

That's one way of looking at it (and perhaps a preview of a Hillary administration counter-proliferation policy?), but such a statement assumes that Syria isn't also acting as a conduit for the shipment of material from North Korea to Iran--just as it acts as a conduit for the transfer of Iranian weaponry to the Lebanese Hezbollah. Or perhaps the Syrians were warehousing North Korean nuclear material in advance of new international inspections that are to be reinstated as a result of the Six Party talks.

If the Israelis merely struck a depot containing weapons destined for Lebanon, why so much secrecy? And why did the North Koreans postpone the six party talks? It's hardly clear that hardline administration officials would have been able to foresee this sequence of events: Israel bombs Syrian desert and rumors of North Korean involvement lead to collapse of talks? If, as Cirincione says, this is all part of some neoconservative ploy to derail the talks--well that's a pretty big conspiracy, but apparently very well played.

On Tuesday this week, Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet voted to extend for another year what has arguably been Germany’s most controversial military operation since the end of WWII, namely the 2006 deployment of Bundeswehr naval forces off the Lebanese coast to interdict arms shipments to Hezbollah forces as part of the UNIFIL mission. In October 2006, the German contingent, which currently consists of about 1,000 soldiers and eight ships, took the lead in UNIFIL’s maritime mission, which counts a total of 2,000 forces and is also supported by Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

Chancellor Merkel visited UNIFIL military personnel
aboard the Brandenburg earlier this year.

In August last year, UN Security Council resolution 1701 had authorized up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers (about 13,000 troops were subsequently deployed) to help keep the shaky ceasefire in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon War--the bloody, destructive, and ultimately inconclusive 34-day proxy war between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.

In a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD published almost exactly a year ago, titled "Germany Goes to the Middle East," I analyzed why the Bundeswehr’s naval deployment in Lebanon proved to be so divisive for Chancellor Merkel's Grand Coalition government, the three opposition parties, and German public opinion:

Ironically, both supporters and opponents of Germany's military engagement in Lebanon have made veiled references to the Holocaust in support of their positions. Those in favor of sending troops argue that Germany has a moral obligation to do everything in its power to help guarantee the existence of the Jewish state. […]

In contrast, Germans opposed to sending soldiers to police the ceasefire argue that this would have the potential of setting Bundeswehr against Israeli soldiers. […]

And still others argue that precisely because of Germany's pro-Israel stance, it cannot be part of a neutral U.N. force in Lebanon which, by definition, would have to respond equally to ceasefire violations by either party.

On Tuesday, the German government portrayed the Lebanese naval mission as a success story. According to German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung, Bundeswehr forces checked more than 8,500 ships via radio, 35 of which were subsequently searched by the Lebanese in their ports. According to official statistics, none of these searches yielded any weapons. It should be noted that no ship was ever searched by force.

Under German law, the Lebanon mission’s 12-month extension (like all Bundeswehr deployments abroad for that matter) has to be approved by the Bundestag in a parliamentary vote, which is now scheduled for mid-September. It is widely expected that the governing CDU/CSU-SPD Grand Coalition parties and the Greens will provide overwhelming support for the naval operation. In contrast, the pacifist-populist post-Communist Left Party and parts of the pro-market Free Democratic Party (FDP) are still adamantly opposed to the Bundeswehr mission. The Left Party opposes any Bundeswehr mission abroad and wants to strictly limit the military to Germany’s territorial defense. The FDP is particularly concerned about the potential for German-Israeli military clashes and demands more assurances from Chancellor Merkel’s government that those issues have been addressed.

In fact, in October last year, several incidents involving German UNIFIL ships/helicopters and Israeli fighters took place off the Lebanese coast. While the Israeli government denied reports that its jets had fired two shots at an unarmed German reconnaissance vessel, Prime Minister Olmert had a 40-minute conference call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel a few days later to apologize for the unspecified incident and to assure her government that these things would not happen again.

I guess this is the Palestinian version of the Disney Channel. The irony of those Marines singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song as they walked the ruins of Hue City in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket must not have translated well in Arabic.

(HT KMW)

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas declared last Tuesday that the West Bank city of Ramallah would soon rename one of its biggest thoroughfares after Jacques Chirac, the incumbent French President. Mahmoud Abbas called his French counterpart a “grand homme” on this solemn occasion of their farewell meeting, and Chirac replied by reiterating his support for restarting the flow of European aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Ramallah’s inhabitants should be pleased by their street's new name, given the cheerful way they welcomed Jacques Chirac in 1996, when the French president snapped at Israeli security personnel, famously threatening that he was “going back to his plane.” Watch the video here.

This report from Lebanon's Daily Star:

"The road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus," Pelosi told reporters after meeting with Lebanese parliamentary leader Saad Hariri at Qoreitem.

Steve Schippert writes at ThreatsWatch.org:

That she believes “the road to solving Lebanon’s problems” passes anywhere near Damascus is troubling enough, as ‘solving’ has nothing to do with it.

But that a major US political figure uttered such after speaking with the son of a man assassinated at the command of Bashar Assad - who happens to live in Damascus, coincidentally - is simply stunning.

Schippert's right...pretty galling that Pelosi would say such a thing after speaking with Hariri. But Pelosi's statement is not false. Syria will need to play a constructive role in Lebanon for any progress to be made there, but Pelosi can't seriously believe that the Assad regime will ever answer that call.

From the MEMRI Blog:

Ibrahim Karagul, a columnist with strong anti-U.S. views who writes for the Islamic Turkish daily Yeni Safak, which is the unofficial mouthpiece of Turkey's AKP government, has stated that since the disappearance of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asghari, two more Iranian commanders have been "kidnapped." He added that the espionage games being played by the U.S. and Israel, with Istanbul as their playground, are making Turkey look suspicious.

In his column, Karagul wrote that while the mystery of Asghari's disappearance is still unsolved, Iranian Col. Amir Muhammad Shirazi and Gen. Muhammad Sultani are missing.

He added that fingers in Iran are pointing at U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, and wrote, "It is said that five Iranians left Iran on Friday, March 16, and entered Turkey at midnight on March 17, and that they were handed over to CIA and Mossad agents on March 18. Whether Col. Shirazi and Gen. Sultani were among these five is not clear."

He warned, "If the U.S. keeps kidnapping Iranian officials, a big storm will erupt, because Iranian circles are warning that they have the capability and manpower to kidnap or strike at any U.S. or Israeli target, any time and anywhere in the world."

Yesterday Powerline linked to this op-ed by Sergeant David Thul in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Thul, now serving in Iraq as a member of the Minnesota National Guard, argues "that a majority of U.S. troops want to stay in Iraq and finish the mission." How does he know that? "Two ways," he says.

The first is anecdotally, from the men and women I work with and talk to every day. I have yet to meet someone who thinks the long-term good of the United States and the Middle East would be served by an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Many of us are tired and frustrated and miss our families and just want to go home. But we want to go home after transferring our area of responsibility to another unit, whether it is U.S. or Iraqi. We don't want to abandon our posts.

The second way I know that my fellow soldiers want to stay is that they have been saying so in a petition to Congress. At the AppealForCourage.org website, more than 1,500 service members in less than a month have signed an appeal for redress, the officially authorized method for the military to ask Congress to right a wrong, asking Congress to stop calling for retreat and to support our mission.

Day after day we see and hear our elected leaders in Washington telling us that the war is already lost or that it is not winnable. Nothing could be further from the truth. The essence of the military mission here is really quite simple. Train the Iraqi army and police to do the job that we are currently doing, give them the reins, and then take our leave. It is a slow job, but steady progress is being made. Already entire provinces of Iraq are under Iraqi military control. In more than 70 percent of the country, the Iraqi army and police are in the lead.

The petition can be found here, and here is the wording:

As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.

From Haaretz:

The London-based Arabic language newspaper A-Sharq al-Awsat reported Wednesday that the Iranian army has lost contact with one of its high-ranking officers based in Iraq.

The report states that the officer, Mohammed Muhsayin Shiradi, from a unit in the Jerusalem Brigade, has not been in touch with his commanders for three weeks.

A senior source in the Iranian military told the newspaper that it is possible that Shiradi has been arrested by American forces.

Here's an interesting story from today's Telegraph:

The disappearance of a former Iranian spy chief has raised speculation he has been kidnapped by Mossad or the CIA.

Ali Reza Azkari, 63, who headed Iran’s intelligence operation in Lebanon in the 1990s liaising with the local Shia militia, Hizbollah, went missing last month during a routine visit to Istanbul.

One report said after leaving Teheran he never made it to the Istanbul hotel where a room had been reserved in his name. Another account said he arrived in Istanbul but then disappeared, leaving luggage still in his hotel room.

You can read the rest here.

Just when you thought the "Zionist entity" couldn't stoop any lower, we now have word of a new conspiracy . . . to desecrate synagogues. According to Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza included plans to leave two large synagogues intact "so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them." Here's the quote from the New York Sun:

"We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Mr. Abir said.

Mr. Abir blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy.

Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said.

(HT KMW)

Over the weekend, Coalition forces were tipped off to a major weapons cache in the turbulent province of Diyala. According to Capt. Clayton Combs, who commands the 1st Cavalry unit which raided what he called "an IED factory," the cache included 15 122-mm rockets, two dozen 120-mm mortar rounds, mines, anti-aircraft ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. Combs also reported the discovery of some 150 machine-milled copper plates that are necessary to build the explosively formed projectiles (EFPs)--the most deadly form of IED--that have killed so many U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

The copper plates, Combs said, we're of Iranian origin, as were the rockets and mortars, which were dated to 2002 and 2006. Though the Captain was careful not to point the finger directly at the Iranian government, as the Los Angeles Times reported, the press briefing was "the latest attempt to link the deadliest form of roadside bombs in Iraq to components manufactured in Iran."

A U.S. soldier sets up a display of seized bomb components.
U.S. military officials said the components were clearly Iranian-made. (Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images)

Starting this week, Bill Roggio, who edits the excellent milblog The Fourth Rail, will be contributing daily updates on Iraq to the WORLDWIDE STANDARD. Also, each week Roggio will provide a longer synopsis of security developments in Iraq to THE DAILY STANDARD. The first of those is now posted here.

Roggio is one of the best writers and reporters on military affairs and we're thrilled to have him on board.

The Jawa Report has the scoop:

Fahd al-Utaibi a/k/a Naif Fahd Al Aseemi Al Utaibi arrived in Saudi Arabia May 18, 2006 from Guantanamo, along with 14 others released by the US. He is currently on trial in Yemen for forging travel documents in order to join the jihad in Iraq.

And Armies of Liberation provides a link to this Human Rights Watch report warning that Fahd and the other 14 detainees had been "deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, [and] they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia." If only.

After all the Democratic pressure for a new National Intelligence Estimate of the situation in Iraq, the Democrats themselves seem to be the most shaken by the report's conclusion--that withdrawal "of coalition forces from Iraq would 'almost certainly' increase sectarian violence, intensify Sunni resistance, possibly cause the Iraqi Security Forces to dissolve and allow al-Qaeda to seek a sanctuary to plan attacks inside and outside the country."

Senator Russel Feingold, who has been at the forefront of the push to withdraw American troops, complained that the NIE was "Setting up a false choice between indefinite military involvement and a rapid, unplanned withdrawal . . ."

Feingold's alternative to rapid a rapid withdrawal of American troops: "Framing the analysis in terms of 'rapid withdrawal, presented an oversimplified assessment of one course of action without considering any elements of a redeployment strategy, including shifts in mission, stay-behind counterterrorism or training capabilities or regional diplomatic initiatives."

That sounds an awful lot like rapid withdrawal, and this despite the fact that Bush's new strategy appears to be having some effect on the violence in Iraq. From the AP:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad's sectarian violence fell drastically overnight, an Iraqi military official said Friday, crediting the joint U.S.-Iraqi security operation that began in force just days ago.

Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the Baghdad commander, said only 10 bodies had been reported by the morgue in the capital, compared to an average of 40 to 50 per day.

"This shows a big reduction in terror and killing operations in Baghdad," he said on Iraqi state television.

And from Reuters:

U.S. Major Steven Lamb, a spokesman for U.S. forces stationed in Baghdad, said the offensive was meeting little resistance from militias and insurgents.

"I wouldn't say there has been a high level of resistance. I mean if you take a look at the stuff that was going on yesterday, we had relatively few incidents, but that may change today," Lamb said.

"It's really too early to say if this is going to be a success or ... failure. But so far everyone is very pleased."

But the Democrats are doing everything they can to hamstring the troops. An editorial in today's Washington Times quotes Rep. John Murtha on the Democrat's plan "to effectively stop the troops in their tracks."

"They won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work. There's no question in my mind," Mr. Murtha said.

Thomas Joscelyn has an excellent write up of the latest video from al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahiri. The key points:

Zawahiri [is] seeking a solution in a profound call to all Muslims for unity, “even if be they Afghans, Persians, Turks or Kurds”, to heed Islamic doctrine and fight together to make “Allah’s word” supreme. . . .

Returning to the ideal of Muslim unity, Zawahiri affirms that he and al-Qaeda have pledged loyalty to the Emir of the Believers, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and encourages all Mujahideen to align themselves beneath one banner. He adds: “I ask my Muslim brothers in general and the callers and Mujahideen and their media organizations in particular to highlight the concept of Islamic brotherhood and disown all partisanship, loyalties and animosities based on nationalism, and I ask them not to allow the wrongdoing of a faction or entity motivate them to speak evil of that party's entire people or race.” Within this call, Zawahiri charges that the leaders of Fatah are apostates, and encourages its members to “return to Islam” and fight, but not necessarily join Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, or al-Qaeda.

Concluding the speech, Zawahiri instructs Muslims to serve in jihad in Mauritania, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, and Somalia, either by bearing arms, monies, or words. He sends greetings to the “fledging” Islamic State of Iraq and members of its leadership, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, and the Mujahideen in both Algeria and Somalia.

Says Joscelyn, "But, I thought--according to so many 'experts'--al Qaeda could never cooperate with those who weren't members of their exclusive Sunni Wahhabist club."

Gary Schmitt and Reuel Marc Gerecht, both frequent contributors to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, have a piece in today's Financial Times on how war with Iran might be averted.

Do the Europeans really want to prevent a war between the US or Israel and Iran? If they had to choose between curtailing trade with the Islamic republic, or seeing either America or Israel preventatively strike Iran's nuclear facilities, which would London, Paris and Berlin prefer? These are not unfair questions: at no time since the European Union started the "EU3" negotiations with Iran's clerical regime in 2004 have the Europeans probably had more leverage over Tehran's actions. At no time since 2002, when it became clear that the mullahs were conducting a clandestine nuclear research programme, has there been a more critical moment for determining which path - diplomatic or military - the US and Israel will choose to try to stop Iran's pursuit of the bomb.

Washington and Jerusalem clearly have no desire to attack Iran. But if the Europeans close down the option of boosting the soft-power of sanctions, the odds on military strikes will increase significantly. Most in Europe's political elite may well agree with President Jacques Chirac of France when he recently revealed he had no problem with Iran having "one or two" nuclear weapons. Embracing the theory of deterrence, Mr Chirac apparently envisioned the Israelis or the Americans threatening annihilation of Iran as a means of escaping from the international contretemps provoked by the mullahs' nuclear aspirations. The European hope is that the Americans and the Israelis will realise that an attack on Iran's nuclear sites is unthinkable.

But what if the Americans or the Israelis do not see it that way?

You can read the rest here.

From AFP:

Eleven people have been killed when a car bomb ripped through a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in a sensitive southeastern border province.

The bus was taking the Guards from their housing compound in the city of Zahedan to a military base just after daybreak when gunfire forced it to stop in front of the booby-trapped car, which then exploded.

An attack of this size and nature--a bomb strike on an elite force in broad daylight in an open street--is unprecedented in Iran.

According to unconfirmed website reports, the attack was claimed by a shadowy Sunni militant group, Jundallah, which has been blamed for a string of armed incidents in the volatile Sistan-Baluchestan province.

It's true that this is unprecedented. But broad daylight attacks on members of the regime are not without precedent, there was the assassination in 2003 of a prominent Iranian judge, Hassan Moghaddas. And the Revolutionary Guards has seen a number of their aircraft crash under rather suspicious circumstances. In January of last year, eleven commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were killed when their plane went down, and a number of analysts questioned whether the accident was actually an act of sabotage. And in 2003, the Guards saw 276 killed in another plane crash blamed on poor weather.

It's only speculation, but it seems reasonable to question whether these incidents might not be the result of some factional fighting within the regime, rather than rogue Sunni extremists--an easy scapegoat for the Iranian press.

Lee Smith, a Hudson Institute visiting fellow, contributes frequently to THE DAILY STANDARD. He writes in here with a few thoughts on Iran, oil, and the New Yorker magazine.

My old friend James Surowiecki has an interesting column in the latest issue of the New Yorker that explains how tough talk from the government sometimes aids our enemies, specifically the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose war chest gets fuller every time the risk premium on oil increases.

Surowiecki explains:

When buying and selling oil, traders don't just look at today's supply and demand. They also try to forecast the future. And if buyers think there's a chance that supply is going to be lower down the line--because, say, Iranian old fields will be shut down--they will be willing to pay a higher price today in order to guarantee that they will have the oil they need. . . . [W]henever the US says things that make a military conflict with Iran seem more likely, the price of oil rises, strengthening Iran's regime rather than weakening it.

Surowiecki has hit on one of the key dilemmas the White House faces in dealing with Tehran: How to let an ideological regime that does not recognize American red-lines know that Washington does not intend to abandon its position in the Persian Gulf or forsake its regional allies. After all, many of those regional allies, like Iran, depend almost exclusively on oil revenues, and any sign of American disengagement from the region would, just as surely as any escaltion, result in shockwaves of panic through financial markets across the globe.

And now that Surowiecki has laid out some of the geopolitical dangers of rhetorical over-reach, one wonders if that will affect the status of his New Yorker colleague, crack reporter Seymour Hersh. Intentionally or not, Hersh has contributed as much as anyone in Washington to the idea that Washington is planning a preemptive strike on Tehran. When Hersh reported that the "neocons" were mulling over plans of a nuclear first strike against Iran in the magazine's April 17, 2006 issue, newsstand sales likely soared, but what about the price of oil? In characteristic Hersh fashion, the story was based largely on anonymous quotes from unnamed officials--the claim was just a sensationalist peg for one in a series of overheated Hersh articles about Washington's Iran plans. But if Hersh's employers insist on taking seriously his feverish and un-sourced description of the White House's decision-making process, at least their financial columnist has explained some of the stakes involved in doing so--if that matters.

Whatever happens in Iraq, the initial invasion of that country was an unqualified success. American armor was sweeping through Baghdad only weeks after the first bombs were dropped on the city. And while the Taliban still pose a formidable challenge to American efforts in Afghanistan, the swift response of the American military in the weeks after 9/11 was devastating to that regime. Any enemy of the United States, or any rational enemy, should by now realize that American military action is to be feared. So why then does Ahmadinejad insist that Iran has nothing to fear from an American attack.

Sawyer: Do you personally fear an attack by us? And air strikes against Iran by the U.S.?

Ahmadinejad: Fear? Why should we be afraid? First the possibility is very low, and we think that there are wise people in the U.S. that would stop such illegal actions but our position is clear. Our nation has made it clear that anyone who wants to attack our country will be severely punished.

Matthias Küntzel, writing in THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week, offers this quote from Ayatollah Khomeini to shed some light on the problems of deterring Iran's revolutionary regime:

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

And yet some continue to persist with the notion that Iran, when push comes to shove, will behave like any other state. That Iran sued for peace in its war with Iraq in the 1980s is taken as evidence of rational behavior.

In fact, the diplomatic trajectory of the Islamic republic, under its current leadership and that of Khamenei's predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, is quite rational. As Israeli strategist Reuven Pedatzur has observed, "Past experience shows that the radical Iranian regime, headed by the most extreme of them all, Ayatollah Khomeini, behaved with absolute rationality at the moment of truth."

Consider the Iran-Iraq war. Smoldering with radicalism from the Islamic revolution, Iran's early rhetoric was uncompromising, and in November 1981, it issued clear proclamations that it had no intention of stopping the war as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. As the conflict wore on, Iranian propaganda grew ever more eerie. The Islamic government built an infamous fountain of fake blood in Tehran, to indicate Iran's supposed willingness for martyrdom.

However, the Iraqis began to make clear and decisive advances in the conflict, partly due to Western governments' support for and arms sales to Saddam Hussein. By 1988, a long string of devastating tactical routs had made clear that outright strategic defeat was possible, so the Iranian leadership changed course. They sued for peace, jettisoning their original objective of deposing Saddam, and taking a deal that left Iran on the light side of the postwar balance of power.

But the Iranians only did so only after losing more than a million men. Of course, it is possible that bloodshed on such a scale would deter Iran from pursuing further confrontation with the United States. But that isn't deterrence at all.

No, not by UNIFIL. It would be too much to expect the United Nations to take any action against Hezbollah. But the BBC reports that a truck carrying AK-47s and other small arms--including rockets--destined for Hezbollah fighters was seized by the Lebanese government in Beirut. The Lebanese government also claims that the truck did not cross the border from Syria, which would indicate that Hezbollah was trying to move weaponry from the countryside into the capital.

Why would Hezbollah do such a thing? Olivier Guitta, writing at Counterterrorism Blog, speculates that Hezbollah is gearing up for a full on civil war. And over at Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed says that the seizure can be interpreted as a response by the Siniora government to Hezbollah's demands for a new cabinet and veto power over the government:

This comes amid tumult and portents of a new civil war. Nasrallah has demanded a new Cabinet and veto powers for Hezbollah over any government action, a demand that Siniora has rejected. The impasse resulted in massive demonstrations that attempted to shut down Beirut, which started to turn into a riot. Nasrallah ended it to avoid an all-out war that he cannot win, at least not at this time.

Seizing and holding the weapons appears to be Siniora's answer to Nasrallah. He will instead redirect the arms to the Lebanese Army, underresourced in comparison to Hezbollah anyway, using the recent border skirmish with Israel as an excuse. Siniora knows that Hezbollah's arms could soon be turned against the government, and he'd be a fool to release them to Nasrallah now.

Probably not a major setback for Hezbollah, which has a substantial arsenal at its disposal, but as good an indication of the group's intentions as we are likely to get.

Max Boot has an interesting post on the Commentary blog about "Iran's long war" with the United States. Boot writes that "in the view of some analysts, the fanatics are in Washington not Tehran. Some of our most eminent foreign-policy thinkers seem to think that supposedly trigger-happy hawks in America are a bigger threat to world peace than terrorism-sponsoring mullahs in Iran."

Boot then quotes eminent foreign-policy thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski:

“A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

Boot goes on,

But I take exception to the premise of their argument and of Brzezinski’s, which is that if the U.S. were to bomb Iran, this would amount to starting a war out of the blue. In reality, Iran has been waging war on the U.S. for a quarter century, from the 1979 hostage crisis to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut to its present policy of supplying Explosively Formed Projectiles--i.e., highly potent landmines--to Shiite and possibly even Sunni insurgents in Iraq who use them to blow up American armored vehicles, killing or injuring the occupants. A U.S. attack on Iran would not represent the beginning of a war; it would merely represent belated recognition on our part that a war is going on.

That isn’t to say that military action is the right course. For the time being, I would prefer more political, economic, and diplomatic pressure, which already seems to be taking a toll on President Ahmadinejad’s popularity with the Iranian political class. But my fear is not that we will respond too belligerently but that, as in years past (including during the first six years of the Bush administration), we will respond too supinely--that we will continue to do nothing, beyond a few tartly worded statements, about the growing Iranian threat. That really will make war more likely.

David Bosco at FP Passport offers another interesting take on the "legality of attacking Iran."

The use and abuse of the legitimate doctrine of preemptive self-defense has been well documented. In light of Iraq, the United States would have a very hard time making such a claim stick. But Israel, interestingly, has a stronger case (what with Iran's military support for Hezbollah and the threats to wipe Israel off the face of the map). Could the United States legitimately piggyback on Israel's claim to preemptive self defense--making it collective preemptive self defense?

Over the last 18 days, five American helicopters have gone down in the areas in and around Baghdad. What first appeared to be an unfortunate coincidence, has now started to fuel speculation of a new dimension to the insurgency in Iraq.

On January 30, Defense Tech asked a former Kiowa Warrior pilot who had served in Iraq, identified only as "ME", for his thoughts on the string of crashes:

I haven't heard of any reason as to why we're losing more lately, but we also haven't lost any in a long time prior to this--I think it's reflective of somewhat of the odds catching up to us and an increased combat operations tempo.

Now that two more choppers have gone down, ME is "having second thoughts." When witnesses described an Apache helicopter bursting into flames in midair last Friday, ME had the following to say:

That's unlikely to happen due to small arms fire and the odds of hitting an Apache heads on with an unguided RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] are pretty slim. The fuel cells are crashworthy, and unless they are hit by something like an API (armor piercing incendiary--like a .50 cal or higher) shell, I don't think they are going to explode. Hitting munitions onboard isn't likely to make a fireball either. But the explosion of a SAM hitting it might look like a fireball.

I just got off the phone with Bill Roggio, who was also beginning to worry about the implications of so many choppers going down in such a short time period (56 have gone down since the war began). Roggio said it "appears one or more antiaircraft cells with Strela missiles are now operating in the area just north of Baghdad." Roggio added that he was "surprised it took this long" for the insurgents to start targeting rotorcraft more aggressively. He speculated that the delay might be a result of Sunni insurgents holding such missiles in reserve "to protect leaders," like Zarqawi. The string of crashes then might be related to a new effort by American forces to target al Qaeda leaders, said Roggio.

American pilots, however, have the equipment and training to effectively reduce their vulnerability to the threat posed by surface-to-air missiles. "We do have countermeasures," Roggio says, but if more missiles are finding their way into the hands of insurgents, the number of successful attacks is bound to increase.

So where might these missiles be coming from? It's true that Iraq was awash in heavy weapons in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, but MANPADS--man-portable air defense systems--are notoriously delicate weapons, with a relatively short shelf-life due to their reliance on military-grade batteries. Though a proficient terrorist might be able to replace those batteries by improvising an off-the-shelf solution, it is more likely that a surge in MANPAD attacks would be the result of an influx of the devices from neighboring countries. Said Roggio, "they might be getting run from Saudi Arabia, but I would think it's Iran." Iran supplying al Qaeda? Shiites working together with Sunnis to kill Americans? Anyone who still finds the idea of such cooperation far-fetched hasn't been paying close attention.

Roggio said we can expect more analysis of this development at his blog, The Fourth Rail, sometime in the next 24 hours.

Thomas Millington has a piece up today at National Interest Online about how to tame Tehran. Democrats, echoing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, have been pushing for engagement with Tehran, with the aim of convincing that regime to use its influence in Iraq in a more constructive way. Millington's recommendations seem to go far beyond anything the Baker commission, or Congressional Democrats, have so far supported. Among them, Millington says:

With the British preparing to evacuate their troops from the four southern Iraqi provinces where they are currently stationed, the United States should open talks with Tehran about the Iranian military taking over security responsibilities in the Iraqi Shi‘a southeast, as well as the Sadr City quadrant of Baghdad.

I'm hard pressed to think of a more counterproductive approach either to quelling the violence in Iraq or "taming Tehran." Invite Iranian troops into Iraq? And when would they leave? And how long until Iranian and American soldiers end up squaring off over some minor disagreement? It seems inevitable that such an arrangement would lead to a shooting war between American and Iranian soldiers in Iraq, which would quickly spread across the border. This is a spectacularly bad idea . . . or maybe not.

In Afghanistan, a NATO counteroffensive to retake the town of Musa Qala from Taliban militants resulted in the death of a high-ranking Taliban commander, Mullah Ghafour. A NATO airstrike was said to be the cause of death. The Taliban had overrun the town last week, despite an agreement with local officials who pledged to keep the Taliban out in exchange for a withdrawal of NATO forces.

In Somalia, the ICU is regrouping with the aim of fighting a prolonged insurgency against the internationally recognized Interim Government. Bill Roggio reports on a wave of militant attacks against the Interim Government and its Ethiopian allies. In a bid to enlist the participation of moderate Islamists in the new government, the State Department has pushed for the release from Kenyan custody of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is now heading to Yemen. Roggio notes "Sharif's deep ties to radical Islam in Somalia and al-Qaeda. The U.S. State Department advocates promoting Sharif as a moderate, despite all evidence to the contrary."

Over at Counterterrorism Blog, frequent WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Olivier Guitta reports on the latest provocation from Hezbollah. According to Guitta, the terrorist group has raised its flag along the length of Israel's northern border. Guitta speculates that the move may be intended to spark an Israeli response with the hope of reinvigorating Hezbollah's dwindling support among Lebanon's Shiite community, or to embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who recently expressed his satisfaction with the UNIFIL operation in Lebanon and Hezbollah's alleged withdrawal from the border.

As Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, push to condemn the president's new Iraq strategy, the release last week of a new National Intelligence Estimate was said to "strengthen their hand." The reports conclusions, mainly that the violence in Iraq is "self-sustaining," and that the involvement of Iran and Syria was "not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability,” were said to buoy Democratic arguments for a diplomatic and political approach to both the insurgency and the nascent civil war.

Said Senator Rockefeller, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The steps identified by the intelligence community as having the best chance of reversing the chaos and bloodshed in Iraq are all political developments, not military.”

Of course, a political solution would require the United States to engage Iran, Syria, and Moqtada al-Sadr in some type of dialogue, despite the fact that the report also stated that some 70 fighters were crossing into Iraq from Syria every month and that Iran was providing “lethal support” for groups such as Sadr's Mahdi army.

Would such a dialogue also extend to Al Qaeda in Iraq? It might have to. Of the 16 intelligence agencies that contribute to the National Intelligence Estimate, four dissented from the report's conclusion that the Sunni insurgency was mainly comprised of former Baathists. Eli Lake, writing in the New York Sun, reports today on the existence of an official dissent by "Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the military intelligence bureaus of the Army and Marines."

Those agencies have concluded that "the Baathist wing of the umbrella Sunni terrorist group has ceded authority to Abu Ayoub al-Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq who replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Lake says the majority view gives cover to those who would say that Iraq is not a central front in the war on terror. But what if the dissenters, including the Marines who surely have the most intimate knowledge of the situation in Anbar, are right? Then any negotiations would require engaging with al Qaeda, and any retreat would leave al Qaeda in Iraq free to its own devices in much of the country.

Defense Tech reports on new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office on the actual number of troops that will be deployed to tamp down the violence in Iraq. According to the document, the addition of 20,000 combat troops will require a corresponding influx of approximately 28,000 support troops. That number would reflect the same proportion of combat troops to support troops that currently exists in Iraq. The CBO also offers an alternate scenario in which the number of support troops might be as few as 15,000, and, in fact, states that such a number would be "both possible and desirable." The document does not give any indication of which number the president or his commanders would prefer.

The upshot: the surge will cost significantly more than the $5.6 billion the White House first estimated. CBO puts the number somewhere between $20 billion and $27 billion if the surge were to last for a full 12 moths. The debate surrounding the precise number of troops to be deployed as part of the surge has consistently referred to the president's plan as involving 20,000 "combat troops." Presumably close observers were aware that those troops would require a significant number of support personnel to affect their mission.

The former secretary-general of Hezbollah, Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili, gave an interview to the Kuwaiti daily Al Siyassa in December of last year. MEMRI posted the translation nearly a week ago, but it hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves.

The most relevant excerpts follow, but it's worth reading the whole thing.

Question: "Does this mean that Hizbullah does not make its own decisions, and that its orders come from outside [Lebanon]?"

Al-Tufeili: "Yes, Hizbullah is a tool, and it is an integral part of the Iranian intelligence apparatus. Unfortunately, all the elements in the [Lebanese] arena have become tools, and take orders from outside [Lebanon] . . . "

Question: "Can you see any justification for the July [2006] war after southern Lebanon was liberated in 2000?"

Al-Tufeili: . . . "When we look at the causes of the war, there is no choice but to [admit] this. If [the war] had gotten worse, it could have led to the loss of the [entire] country . . . Are we allowed to destroy our country [just] so we can say that we abducted two soldiers - when we all knew what the magnitude of the Israeli response [would be]? What happened was an unsuccessful adventure, and there is no escaping the fact that those who carried it out will bear the responsibility for it . . . "

In the coverage of last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, two themes came to dominate the narrative. First, every major news outlet estimated Lebanese casualties at around 1,200, "mostly civilians." Just search Google News for "Lebanon" and "mostly civilians" and you'll see the oft repeated numbers--at least 44 current news stories echo the claim, which was a staple of international reporting on the conflict in the months after the war. (As far as Israeli casualties, those numbers are uniformly, and accurately, given as 157 killed, "mostly soldiers," though not for lack of effort by Hezbollah to kill civilians.)

Only that isn't the case at all. To my mind it is impossible that the Lebanese government and human rights organizations didn't err in favor of a higher body count, but let's say that 1,200 is an accurate number. The Lebanese government draws no distinction between dead civilians and Hezbollah fighters, but during the war Hezbollah claimed only 70 of its men had been killed, and later revised that number upward to 250. The AP's estimate for Hezbollah casualties is, suprise!, 250. That the AP, and every other mainstream media outlet, unquestioningly accepted Hezbollah's count is laughable. Israeli estimates of dead Hezbollah fighters initially stood at 800. Those numbers were subsequently revised down to 532 confirmed dead, of which the IDF claims it can verify individual names and addresses, and a further 200 which cannot be confirmed. So that means approximately 732 Hezbollah fighters were killed out of 1,200. Even if one assumes the Israelis fudged their numbers, one must certainly assume the same of the Lebanese. By any measure then, Lebanese losses were not comprised of "mostly civilians."

The other dominating theme of press coverage last summer was that the IDF's bombing campaign risked driving the Lebanese public into the arms of Hezbollah. As John O'Sullivan put it, "Instead of destroying Hezbollah and strengthening Lebanon as a democratic state, it [the bombing campaign] destroyed much of Lebanon physically, weakened its new democratic government, and strengthened Hezbollah."

That even National Review bought into the "Israel lost" narrative is telling. Sure, Israel didn't win a decisive victory, but as healthy as Hezbollah appeared late last summer, it is now clear that the movement was suffering from the equivalent of severe internal injuries. As the violence in Lebanon spins out of control, Hezbollah looks less and less like the winner of last summer's war. Blogging from Beirut, Christopher Allbritton, a former reporter for the AP and the New York Daily News, writes that Hezbollah has, in fact, alienated its countrymen.

Today’s violence shows that Hezbollah no longer controls the opposition movement it created. Months of animosity over the war, the parliamentary paralysis and calls for changing the government has hardened positions among the Sunni, who increasingly see the Shi’a as responsible for last summer’s war and more loyal to Iran than to Lebanon. In short, the Shi’ite militant group has pushed its political opponents too far.

Whatever the outcome in Lebanon, it is a mistake to believe that Israel's campaign was entirely ineffective, or that Hezbollah was strengthened by the conflict. Certainly it was a mistake to believe that Lebanon's minorities were pushed into the waiting arms of Hezbollah. Sunnis are chanting pro-American slogans in the streets of Beirut. Lebanon is probably the only place outside of Iraqi Kurdistan where such a thing would be possible.

Michael Oren's op-ed in yesterday's New York Times comes in for some tough criticism at the Commentary blog, where Hillel Halkin chides the usually hawkish Oren for his willingness to "give up the unchanging for the contingent and the certain for the unpredictable."

Rumors of talks between Syria and Israel over the Golan are flying, and Oren says that such negotiations are taking place without American approval. Oren's analysis is that a peace treaty between Syria and Israel would allow "Israel . . . to address the Iranian nuclear threat--perhaps by military means--without fear of retribution from Syrian ground forces and missiles."

Halkin has a different take. While Halkin is less concerned with American opinion (Oren writes that "the potentially disparate positions of Israel and the United States on the question of peace with Syria could trigger a significant crisis between the two countries"), he counsels against trading away the Golan for so little--"land is an unchanging asset; it never loses its value." Hezbollah, he says, would still be free to retaliate against any Israeli strike on Iran, while political changes in Syria a few years down the road might leave Israel vulnerable to a more determined enemy on the high ground of the Golan. I find Halkin's argument much more persuasive.

On Tuesday, Commandant Gen. James Conway, ranking officer of the Marine Corps, told the House Armed Services Committee that surging U.S. Marines into Al Anbar beyond six or seven months would diminish the Corps's ability to respond to other potential hot spots.

We feel like we would be able to respond with those forces that are not committed to Iraq or Afghanistan, but the response would be slower than we might like, would not have all the equipment sets that [would] ordinarily be the case, and there’s certainly risk associated with that.

We already knew the Marine Corps was too small to carry out all the missions that are asked of it, and an increased deployment to Iraq will have an effect on readiness, but one wonders if Conway isn't exaggerating just a little bit in order to create a more favorable environment for increased funding. Still, the commandant made clear that the Corps was prepared for a long-term commitment to stabilizing Iraq:

I have seen it [the surge] characterized as a ‘hail Mary’ and that’s the last play of the game. I don’t necessarily see it that way. I think this is the latest in a series of operations to attempt to stabilize Baghdad and the Al Anbar province. And I’m not sure it will be the last.

As Iranian proxy Hezbollah works to destabilize Lebanon's pro-Western government through violence and intimidation, another Shiite group is emulating that strategy in Yemen. According to the World Tribune, the radical Shiite Believing Youth has, with Iranian support, been waging an off-and-on insurgency against the government of Yemen for the past 3 years. Now this latests report has the group driving a small community of Jews from their village in the north of the country. The group's ultimatum read, "it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion." The Jews were given 10 days to leave the country.

Yemen is no democracy, but writing in THE DAILY STANDARD in October of last year, Abigail Lavin described that country's first tentative steps towards elected government. It seems wherever there is progress in the Middle East--Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen--there is also the malign influence of Iran in the form of terrorism and insurgency.

ABC News anchor Chris Cuomo was in an up-armored Humvee on the streets of Baghdad this morning when the convoy he was traveling in was hit with small arms fire and two IEDs. Cuomo escaped unharmed, and the soldiers he was with had only "minor injuries." According to Cuomo, each IED was concealed beneath a corpse.

Cuomo had nothing but praise for the troops of the 410th MP Company. In an interview with ABC shortly after the attack, Cuomo was effusive in describing their performance under fire: "They are saving me, they are perfect, they are beyond expectation, they are supermen in green outfits."

A couple of journalists from the Detroit Free Press wrote a column earlier this month that conveyed their similarly overwhelming gratitude to the Reserve Marines of the 1st Battalion of the 24th Marine Regiment. You should definitely take the time to read their story.

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the "scant evidence" of an Iran-Iraq arms link. And what evidence does the Times offer to back up this claim?

During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered.

No surprise there, Iran is unlikely to funnel weapons and cash to Sunni insurgents (though it shouldn't be ruled out). Still, the Times concedes "that U.S. forces have picked up specially shaped charges used to make roadside bombs capable of penetrating advanced armor . . . with markings that could be traced to Iran and dates that were recent."

"Two years ago we were debating whether this was really happening," the [high-ranking intelligence] official said. "Now the debate is over."

So, "the debate is over," and every serious discussion of the IEDs focuses on the increased lethality of the devices owing to the influence of Iran--and the Times admits as much:

A second high-ranking U.S. intelligence official in Washington acknowledged that only a "small percentage" of explosions in Iraq could be linked to shaped charges coming from Iran.

"But in terms of American casualties, they are significant," he said, because they are much more lethal than standard roadside bombs.

How on earth, then, does the Times run a story under the headline "Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link"?

During this morning's Armed Services confirmation hearing, Sen. McCain asked Lt. Gen. Petraeus is if he can implement his new plan in Iraq without more troops?

Petraeus answered: “No sir.”

McCain also asked if it would be helpful to the general for the Senate to pass an anti-surge resolution. Petraeus responded that it would not be "beneficial.”

Sen. Lieberman asked Petraeus what impact he believed such a Senate resolution would have on our enemies in Iraq. The general said that we are engaged in a “test of wills” with out enemies and that he’d like “the enemy to feel there’s no hope.” Lieberman went on to ask Petraeus whether he believes passage of an anti-surge resolution would convey to our enemy a lack of unity here in Washington. “That’s correct, sir,” said Petraeus.

Lieberman continued:

I fear that a resolution of disapproval will send you over there with us saying you’re a good and great General but we don’t agree with what you believe we need to do in Iraq. And so, I want to appeal to my colleagues and consider with regard to the resolution of disapproval or the caps on troops or the cut off of funds to step back for a moment and give you a chance and the 160,000 American soldiers you will be commanding, a chance, perhaps a last chance, to succeed in Iraq. If, God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval, or the other alternatives that have been contemplated.

Sen. Kennedy told Petraeus he had “every intention of voting” for the general’s confirmation. But the senator also plans to lead the charge on the Senate floor in passing resolutions against deploying the troops the general says he needs to accomplish his mission – something I discussed here a few days ago.

Just a thought, but Sen. Lieberman and his colleagues should consider introducing a resolution citing many of the remarks of Lt. Gen. Petraeus and comparing his remarks to the language in the anti-surge resolutions pinging around the Senate.

In the past, President Bush has expressed his concern about releasing the body count of enemy fighters killed or captured in Iraq. Late last year, the president sat down with a number of conservative journalists and talked about the absence of daily body counts in the Iraq war. “We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team . . . [which] gives you the impression that [U.S. troops] are just there--kind of moving around, directing traffic, and somebody takes a shot at them and they’re down.”

In fact, that is exactly the impression one gets watching the evening news. But that might be starting to change. On a day when twin car bombs killed more than a hundred people on the streets of Baghdad, and after a weekend that saw 27 American servicemen killed (13 of them in a helicopter crash and another five when gunmen posing as American soldiers slipped through security and attacked a provincial headquarters in Karbala), the U.S. military looks set, at long last, to report the number of enemy fighters killed. From Reuters:

The U.S. military said on Monday 93 rebels were killed and 57 captured in a 10-day operation against al Qaeda-linked insurgents northeast of Baghdad.

I've never understood the government's resistance to reporting numbers of enemy dead. Sure, there are all types of problems with putting an emphasis on body counts, not least of which is a tendency to overestimate the number killed and create a false sense of progress. Still, every day Americans turn on their TVs and see the number of Americans killed that day, the number of Iraqis slaughtered by terrorist attacks, and not a single bit of evidence that American troops and Iraqi forces are getting the bad guys, too. It won't change the facts on the ground, but the American people deserve to know what they're getting for more than $4 billion a month. Last week they got close to 100 dead insurgents and 57 captured.

Today's New York Sun editorial:

"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

—The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, November 10, 2006.

Not since Dean Acheson helped provoke a North Korean invasion of the south on January 12, 1950, by stating publicly that Seoul was not part of America's defense perimeter has a Democrat so blundered. That's the appropriate way to describe Senator Reid's remarks Friday at the National Press Club.

"The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," the Senate majority leader said, standing next to Speaker Pelosi.

The present situation differs from the one 57 years ago in that the enemy, in this case Iran, is already in Iraq. The Iranians are manning outposts our GIs are raiding. The Iranians are infiltrating the Iraqi government and interior ministry. But the stakes for the American interest are similarly high. And there is enough ambiguity about America's intentions in Iraq in light of the Democratic victory in November that Mr. Reid's remarks could have the same devastating effects as Mr. Acheson's.

Prime Minister Maliki and his government are faced with navigating a dangerous relationship with Iran. If Mr. Maliki believes America will leave the Iraqi theater too soon or that we will not be a ferocious enemy of Iran, he will be forced closer into an embrace of Iran, a country that has clearly shown its interest is not in a free and prosperous neighbor, but a chaotic one at war with itself.

The test of Mr. Maliki's mettle, in these critical weeks, will also test the stakes of whether America can leave Iraq better than we found it, a painful proposition made so by the sabotage of Iran, Syria, Al Qaeda and other foreign powers seeking to turn this country into Lebanon of the 1980s.

President Bush has authorized a new strategy to confront head on the foreign agents seeking to destroy Iraq. Last week, for example, American soldiers raided a Sudanese mission in Baghdad. More than 400 members of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have been rounded up, and reports from Baghdad and al-Anbar province suggest that Al Qaeda is on the run. It is long overdue, and every American politician is within his rights to say so.

But to criticize these necessary steps as an escalation, to rule out the prospect that our fighting men can chase these terror masters into their safe havens in Iran, is to give the Iranians a powerful talking point the next time they strong-arm Prime Minister Maliki….

There's an excellent article in Salon today on the IED problem in Iraq. With the aid of a source at the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Task Force, Robert Bryce does an excellent job of capturing the scope of the problem--from the history of the devices, to the Pentagon's inept attempts at finding a technological solution, and finally to Iran's role in providing the insurgency with more lethal IEDs.

In May of last year, I was contacted by an officer serving in a counter-IED role with Multi-National Force-Iraq. He painted a similar picture of a military command that had thrown billions of dollars at the problem with little to show for it. My source emphasized the need for a tactical, rather than technological, solution, but his point was the same--were it not for the Pentagon's inability to counter the IED, U.S. casualties in Iraq would be far more tolerable, and the insurgents would be without any real means of attacking U.S. forces.

Below is a chart from Bryce's piece illustrating the devastating impact the IED has had on American forces. Bryce's source recommends the use of aerial surveillance to target insurgents setting the devices. The military is also sending more mine resistant vehicles and going after the Iranian networks that arm the insurgents.

Courtesy of Salon.com

From the Weekly Standard's Scrapbook:

Count us underwhelmed by the logic of the ballyhooed Joe Biden/Carl Levin/Chuck Hagel resolution attacking Bush's Iraq policy. It all sounds eerily familiar: "accelerate training of Iraqi troops"; keep a small U.S. footprint; the problem isn't military, instead "Iraqis must reach a political settlement." Yes, it's almost as if Biden had plagiarized the mantra we've been hearing for the last two years from the departing commanders, Generals Casey and Abizaid. The only thing missing is a call for U.S. forces to stand down as the Iraqi forces stand up. If you can figure out why a senator would embrace a strategy that (a) he has been consistently condemning and (b) has already failed, then you, too, may be qualified to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On Thursday, Barry McCaffrey told the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs that the president's plan to surge troops into Iraq was "a fool’s errand." He went on, “Our allies are leaving us. Make no mistake about that. Most will be gone by this summer.”

Well it turns out it was McCaffrey who was mistaken. From Defense News:

Britain’s senior representative in Iraq on Jan. 19 said British forces will remain in Iraq through 2007 and perhaps into 2008 if the Baghdad government asks for continued help.

"Do I see ourselves being here throughout 2007? Yes," said British Army Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq.

"Do I see that commitment being carried on to 2008? That will be for discussion among this sovereign government, my government, our part in the coalition and the like," he told reporters at the Pentagon in a teleconference from Iraq. "But if we’re asked to stay here then I don’t see any reason, although it’s a political one, that we would not continue to remain committed to the Iraqis."

Australian troops are also unlikely to withdraw any time soon, and Howard has vigorously supported the president's new strategy.

Other coalition members have expressed support for the new strategy as well, including Japan and South Korea, though the South Koreans will draw down the size of their contingent by 900 troops in April, leaving a total of 1,200.

So to which allies was the retired general referring? Looking down the list of coalition members it's difficult to tell. The Czechs might pull out, but that seems unlikely given Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek electoral victory this week. Poland, unlikely. Mongolia, unlikely. Who then?

The incoming commander for Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, January 23. He’s expected to make the case for the “surge” and presumably explain why he needs the additional brigades to implement the new strategy. This will put surge opponents like Sen. Clinton, who serves on the committee, in a tight spot. They want to oppose the policy but support the troops on the ground in Iraq.

Sen. Obama framed it this way on Face the Nation: “We need to look at what options do we have available to constrain the president, to hopefully right the course that we're on right now, but to do so in a way that makes sure that the troops that are on the ground have all the equipment and the resource they need to fulfill their mission and to come home safely.” The problem is that Petraeus reportedly wants the additional forces, so the Illinois senator is also seeking to “constrain” the new ground commander in Iraq.

Petraeus is well respected across the political divide. Top Democrats praised the job he did in Iraq in earlier deployments. He’s considered the Army’s top counterinsurgency expert, knows Iraq well, and has stated many times that a military solution alone won’t solve Iraq’s problems. He also served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia.

Yet, Petraeus’ support for the surge isn’t just a case of following orders from the commander in chief. The NYT’S Michael Gordon has reported that behind the scenes Petraeus (and Lt. Gen. Odierno) have advocated a rapid surge “in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr.” And I’m sure the general came to his conclusion after examining all the options on the table to reverse the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

So, during the hearing, Sen. Clinton and her colleagues will speak on the virtue of “capping” our troop level in Iraq and then cast two votes -- in committee and on the Senate floor -- in favor of the nomination of Lt. Gen. Petraeus to be General and Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq.

Will the surge work? Will we surge enough forces and for how long? Should we pursue a different course of action? All these are critical questions and will be batted around during the Armed Services hearing. But it will be a bit of a spectacle for the full Senate to approve the general’s nomination (most likely unanimously) and then have Majority Leader Reid & company turnaround to devote their energy to passing a non-binding (for now at least), anti-surge resolution. Somehow I'm not surprised.

According to U.S. News, sometime late last year the military launched a new special operations task force with the goal of disrupting the Iranian networks that are funding, equipping, and training Iraq's Shiite militias.

From a tactical perspective, the most devastating consequence of Iranian influence in Iraq has been the increased lethality of IEDs. The U.S military had made significant progress in reducing the IED threat with up-armored Humvees, but Iranian explosives and know-how allowed insurgents to plant more powerful bombs. The crude explosive devices favored by insurgents at the start of the war had given way to shaped-charges packed with military grade explosives by mid-2005. And, according to U.S. News, the guys on the ground have no question about who is supplying the insurgents:

U.S. military officials have been tracing the growth of Iranian influence through the increased use of Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles (or EFPs) as roadside bombs. When this particularly deadly and distinct variation on the improvised explosive device detonates, it melts and reshapes metal, turning it into what is essentially a deadly dart that punches through a humvee's armor plates.

"When the EFPs start popping up, we know, oh, that's Iran, that's Shia," says one U.S. special operations officer who served in Iraq. A senior American commander in Baghdad adds that the military has been able to trace numbers and manufacture dates back to Iran.

The news of this new task force and the arrest of five Iranian "diplomats" in Irbil both indicate that the president is committed to "interrupting the flow of support from Iran and Syria," as he stated when he set out his new strategy for Iraq. Success would mean stopping the flow of Iranian IEDs and a corresponding reduction in the number of American casualties in Iraq. If these efforts fail, the recent deployment of an additional carrier strike force to the Gulf offers the president another option for confronting Iran.

Back from Iraq, Sen. Clinton said on the morning talk show circuit that she opposes efforts to cut off troop funding (for now at least) and opposes Lt. Gen. Petraeus’ request for more brigades in Iraq. Hillary now says that she supports capping the number of troops in Iraq to around 135,000. But the only way for Congress to enforce such a cap is somehow to prohibit the president from using appropriated funds for his recently announced troop surge. Sen. Obama also opposes the surge but won’t back the cutting off of funds. That leaves onetime "centrist" and Iraq War supporter John Edwards room to demand that Hillary and Obama lead the funding cut-off charge in the Senate to prove their anti-war bona fides. How ironic.

Over at National Review Online, Rich Lowry takes on a phony charge peddled by the NYT’s Rich and others. He writes:

Is kagan playing fast and loose with his numbers?

Frank Rich made this (sub. req’d) charge yesterday. It's amplified here. The charge is that Kagan first said it would take 80,000 troops to secure Baghdad, then 50,000, then at least 30,000, and now is supportive of a Bush surge of less than 20,000. This is basically a smear. Let's walk through it.

The 80,000 and 50,000 figures come from this TWS piece. 80,000 is clearly what he thinks it would take to secure Baghdad all at once: "Conducting Tal Afar-type operations across the entire capital region all at once would require concentrating all available forces in the area and a 'surge' of about 80,000 U.S. soldiers." 50,000 is his ballpark figure for what it would take to do it in phases:

There is every reason to believe that a reformulated operation, proceeding in phases to clear Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood, but with sufficient force levels to leave significant American troops behind in the cleared areas, would be much more successful. It is impossible to estimate precisely how many more U.S. troops would be needed in the capital area, or in Iraq, without proposing a detailed military plan. But since the high end of estimates for doing the whole area at once produced the requirement for a surge of 80,000 or so, it is very likely that a surge of 50,000 American troops would be sufficient to stabilize the capital.

And 50,000 is not that different from what Kagan and Keane came up with when they sat down and did a more detailed military plan for securing Baghdad in phases (a huge part of the city, Sadr City, was left off the table in their plan). They called for five brigades and two regiments to Baghdad and Anbar, more than 30,000 combat troops (but even more troops than that if you count logistics, etc. to support the combat troops). Bush has proposed sending five brigades and a regiment to Baghdad and Anbar, almost precisely what Kagan/Keane proposed. The difference comes in the way the brigades are being counted. The Bush administration is low-balling them as 3,500 troops each, so it comes up with a lower total number.

None of this is to suggest that all is well with the Bush surge plan or that it exactly mimics Kagan/Keane, but it is unfair to charge Kagan with inconsistency on the numbers.

Lowry has more here.

By way of Blackfive, a medic in the 1st Cavalry Division gives his thoughts on Sadr and the surge:

The insurgents who battle the Coalition Forces are from outside the country. And the biggest problem down here isn't the insurgents. Its the politicians. The local politicians. Even though the country is controlled by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, downtown Baghdad is controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Shiites follow al-Sadr and thus the Prime Minister does what al-Sadr says. Think of it as if a warlord controlled New York and blackmailed the President into diplomatic immunity

When 1st Cav (mainly 2/5 Cav) came here in 2004, they took downtown Baghdad (known as Sadr City ) by force. It cost many lives, but after a year, we held an iron grip on the largest insurgent breeding ground in Iraq . The insurgents were afraid of the Horse People, and rightfully so. But when 1st Cav left, al-Sadr influenced the Prime Minister to kick out the Coalition forces from that area of Baghdad . He said the Iraqi military forces could hold the city. But all that happened was al-Sadr regained control of his cty, and it is now a heavily guarded fortress. A place where insurgents and terrorists can train and stockpile arms. And we cannot go back in becuase the Prime Minister won't let us. Our hands are tied. . . .

What appears to have happened within our diplomatic community, is that Prime Minister finally realizes that his days are numbered. If al-Sadr remains, [the prime minister] will be kicked to the curb. So hopefully he is about to allow us to reenter Sadr City , root out and destroy the enemy. A dramatic troop increase will allow us to do this. And the Horse People are back and ready to finish what they started over 2 years ago.

On Sunday, the Boston Globe reported that U.S. military commanders had been given new authority to pursue Sadr and other militia leaders:

US military officials say the Bush administration has given them new authority to target leaders of political and religious militias in Iraq who are implicated in sectarian violence, including the powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Such a showdown, key to Bush's plan to increase the number of US troops in Baghdad, could spark a deadly confrontation with Shi'ite militias, which enjoy widespread popularity in Shi'ite neighborhoods. It could also erode support for the fragile government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has agreed to the plan.

Senior US and Iraqi officials said last week that Maliki has pledged to confront the militias with the help of additional US troops. But many analysts doubt that Maliki has the will or the firepower to take on Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is blamed for much of the tit-for-tat violence in the capital.

In recent months, Maliki and other top Iraqi officials routinely vetoed US raids on Sadr's operations, fearing the reaction of his legion of followers. Maliki's government kept a list of militia leaders who were off-limits to US troops, a senior Pentagon official told reporters in a background briefing in Washington, but now Maliki has agreed that the list would no longer be used.

If the specialist is right, going after Sadr may be Maliki's only option.

The Illinois senator had this to say on Face the Nation on Sunday.

One of the things that I strongly disagree with ... is this notion that we have future catastrophe to look forward to if we start phasing down troops. We are in the catastrophe ... right now.

Well, a short time ago, the Weekly Standard's Frederick Kagan sketched out what an Obama-like withdrawal would look like. He wrote:

Advocates of withdrawal, either gradual or complete, rarely consider in any detail what that action would look like. It is worth painting a few mental images. First, U.S. troops would pull back to their forward operating bases, ending patrols in Iraq's towns and cities. In places like Ramadi, this would mean abandoning the city completely, since the coalition forces there cannot be secure without continual raids and other combat operations. American units in towns like Tal Afar, where a precarious peace still holds more than a year after the last major clear-and-hold operation, would also pull out, abandoning the Iraqis, who put their faith in us, to fend for themselves. Before long, the only American troops in Iraq outside of the FOBs would be the small teams embedded in Iraqi units. The enemy would then return and brutalize the decent Iraqis who pressed for reconciliation and peace, as has occurred following previous coalition withdrawals from cleared areas.

The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate. It will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent "collaborators," with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the FOBs themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs. Again, endless photographs and video footage of all this will play constantly. Before long, it will probably prove necessary to remove the embedded U.S. troops from the Iraqi military units. The situation will become too dangerous; the Iraqis will increasingly resent the restraint the embeds place on their actions; and the U.S. military will become fearful of being implicated in death-squad activity. It is a matter of chance whether the embedded troops are pulled before any are kidnapped or taken prisoner by Iraqi military units turning bad or being infiltrated by radicals.

What will be the effect of all this on American soldiers? The result could be worse than what we suffered in Vietnam. There will be no "decent interval" here during which we withdraw in reasonably good order--the withdrawal itself is likely to occur in the midst of rising violence. Instead of pictures of Americans on the embassy roof in Saigon, we will see images of Iraqi death squads at work with U.S. troops staying on their bases nearby. And let us not forget that in the world of Al Jazeera, we will be accused of encouraging those death squads. The overall result will be searing and scarring. The damage to the morale of the military could be far greater than what will result from burdening soldiers with longer or more frequent tours of duty in a stepped-up effort to achieve victory. Those who are concerned about the well-being of the Army should fear defeat of this type more than anything.

According to USA Today,

the U.S. military is reporting a dramatic and unexpected increase in the number of police recruits in Anbar province, the center of Sunni insurgent activity in Iraq.

In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 applicants have sought police jobs in Ramadi, the provincial capital. Eight hundred signed up last month in Ramadi, said Army Maj. Thomas Shoffner, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

Those figures compare with only "a few dozen" recruits in September, the U.S. military said.

In announcing his new Iraq strategy last week, President Bush said previous efforts to establish security in the country failed partly because there weren't enough Iraqi and American security forces.

U.S. commanders attribute the sudden increase in police applicants to the support of local tribal leaders and a deepening rift between Sunni tribesmen and extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"They've seen enough of the murder and intimidation," Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander of U.S. forces in Anbar, said of tribes in the Ramadi area.

One catalyst: the murder of a popular sheik in August. Tribal leaders blamed the death on al-Qaeda and formed a force to battle the terrorist network.

The force's leaders agreed to have their fighters join the ranks of local police under a deal U.S. commanders helped broker, said Lt. Col. James Lechner, deputy commander of the 1st Brigade.

The U.S. military said Sunday that it had secured the support of four tribes in Ramadi after a month-long security operation there. In western Anbar, police ranks grew from zero a year ago to more than 3,000 today, said Col. William Crowe, the U.S. commander there.

Local tribes came to recognize that al-Qaeda's message was just "anarchy and chaos," Zilmer said. "It just took some time to settle in."

Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane worries that Lt. Gen. Petraeus may be assuming command in Iraq without adequate forces. From today's Sunday Telegraph:

THE MILITARY mastermind of President George W. Bush's new troop "surge'' strategy for Iraq has hit out at signs that the Pentagon is watering down the proposal for political reasons.

"You cannot try and do this piecemeal. We have to implement the whole package,'' retired Gen Jack Keane, the former army vice-chief of staff who co-wrote the "Choosing Victory'' strategy paper, told The Sunday Telegraph.

He expressed alarm after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, told congressmen the troop build-up was expected to last "a matter of months'' - rather than the 18 months proposed by Gen Keane.

Mr Gates also said full deployment of the 21,500 extra troops announced by Mr Bush might not be implemented. He suggested that only two or three of the five brigades proposed for Baghdad might initially be deployed, while the rest were held in reserve.

"That makes no military sense, although it might seem to make political sense,'' said Gen Keane. "We need all five brigades in Baghdad as soon as possible. It will take three to four months to clear neighbourhoods of death squads and insurgents, and at least the rest of the year to establish proper security for the population. If you only wanted to stage a clearance operation, you could do that in a few months. But if we left then, the militia would just return as they have in the past.''

The incoming commander of U.S. forces in Iraq is considered the Army’s top expert on counterinsurgency. He recently authored the Army’s field manual on conducting counterinsurgency operations. He served in Iraq as commander of the 101st. Lt. Gen. Petraeus also believes that he needs more forces if he is to implement his strategy as the new commander in Iraq.

The New York Times reported that during internal deliberations on the size of the surge Petraeus “wanted to ensure that he had enough troops to carry out what by all accounts will be an extremely challenging mission. He sought a commitment that all five combat brigades would be sent.” Obviously, the general would be the best person to go before Congress sooner rather than later to explain why he believes he needs more forces to reinforce our soldiers and to increase the prospect of success.

Instead, I’m told that the administration has informed the Senate Armed Services Committee not expect Petraeus’ nominating papers for 2 to 3 weeks. That means his hearing could be up to a month or so away. In the meantime, the Senate could very well pass a resolution opposing the surge with some Republican support. And the fact that it would be a non-binding resolution wouldn’t limit the political damage to the president’s new Iraq policy.

The White House should consider speeding up the process and have Lt. Gen. Petraeus testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee before any “surge” votes, if possible. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and other Democrats and Republicans may be less inclined to support Sen. Reid’s “no surge” resolution after the new ground commander says he needs a surge to do his job.

(Rich Lowry makes a good point on the administration's surge verbiage here.)

This is from page 73 of the Iraq Study Group report:

We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

Well, the incoming U.S. commander, the soon to be Gen. Petraeus, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Odierno, reportedly believe more forces “would be effective” and are necessary to implement their new ground strategy. So I assume Chuck Robb, William Perry, Vernon Jordan and Clinton COS Leon Panetta will support the judgment of the new commanders and at least give them a chance to turn things around in Iraq.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Sen. Joe Biden believes Congress should “demonstrate to the president [that] he’s on his own” on the troop surge. Well, it’s good to see that our allies aren’t listening to the Delaware senator:

From the Associated Press:

President Bush's decision to boost American troops in Iraq won support Thursday from U.S. allies as a step toward stabilizing the country, but the move was angrily condemned by opponents of the war.

The leaders of South Korea, Australia and Japan — all longtime supporters of the U.S.-led mission in Iraq — pledged continued political backing and material help to the beleaguered war effort.

"If America retreats in Iraq, then that has enormous consequences for the stability of the Middle East and it will also be an enormous boost to terrorism in our part of the world," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in Sydney.

Senator Lieberman on the president's Iraq speech tonight:

I applaud the President for rejecting the fatalism of failure and pursuing a new course to achieve success in Iraq. There is no more difficult decision that a President can make than to send our nation’s bravest soldiers and patriots into harm’s way. Yet, no objective is more worthy in defending America’s vital national security interests than aiding a struggling democracy and supporting brave moderates who are in a life and death struggle against totalitarian extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran.

Our troops have sacrificed much and now more will be asked of them to defend our nation. They fight in a just, noble and moral cause against the forces of terrorism, and their sacrifices will make America and the world more secure. I want our troops to return home as soon as possible – after we allow, enable and support them in accomplishing their mission in Iraq in finishing this fight.

I know there are deep differences of opinion about what the President has proposed tonight. In the coming days and weeks, we should undertake respectful debate and deliberation over this new plan. But, let us also remember that excessive partisan division and rancor at home only weakens our will to prevail in this war. I am particularly pleased that the President has taken the important and necessary step of creating a bi-partisan Consultative Group consisting of representatives and leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches to address issues related to the war against global terrorism.

At the moment, we and our Iraqi allies are not winning in Iraq and the American people are understandably frustrated by the miscalculations, the lack of progress, and the daily scenes of violence and casualties. But, make no mistake - defeat in Iraq would result in a moral and strategic setback in our global struggle against Islamist extremists who seek to strike our interests and our homeland.

Success is attainable in Iraq, and tonight the President has offered a comprehensive program to chart a new course in both winning the military struggle to establish order and in achieving the political and economic objectives to build a more promising future for Iraqis. However, no progress is possible unless we restore order, particularly in Baghdad.

Tonight, the President did not take the easy path, but he took the correct and courageous course. We are engaged in a world-wide struggle against Islamist extremism, and Iraq is now the central front. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that we can depart Iraq and the inevitable killing fields and terrorist violence will not follow us in retreat - even to our own shores. That is why it is right and imperative that we recommit ourselves to success in Iraq. Weakness only emboldens our enemy, but united resolution will make our nation safer for generations to come.L

Via Hotline blog::

Success or failure in Iraq is not a matter of partisan politics but a matter of national security. All Americans should be hoping, praying and offering constructive advice for the success of our troops in Iraq and for those Iraqis seeking to create a stable and decent government. In that spirit, I support the President’s increase in troops. Even more importantly – I support the change in strategy – the focus on security and the emphasis on a political and economic solution as being even more important than a military solution.

I would add to it a heavy emphasis on measuring results and having the flexibility of adapting our strategy to make certain we restore security as quickly as possible.

We must not wait for a year or more to measure the success of our strategy but must develop a system to do so monthly weekly even daily so we give our troops the necessary support to succeed.

In 1999, Democrats, liberal pundits and some Republicans slammed Tom Delay’s comment that Kosovo was “Clinton’s War.” They were right to do so. At the same time, Sen. Joe Biden co-sponsored a resolution authorizing the commander in chief to use “all necessary force and other means necessary” to achieve victory in Kosovo.

Eight years later, the Delaware senator is hardly showing the courage of his convictions. He’s now leading the charge for “symbolic votes” against the expected troop surge. Biden explained his position this way in today’s New York Times:

“If you really want to change the situation on the ground, demonstrate to the president he’s on his own,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “That will spark real change.”

But why have only symbolic votes? How come Democratic leaders aren’t pushing for real votes on troop funding and Boland-type restrictions to “spark real change”? Are they only out to embarrass the president and score points with the base of their party?

At least anti-war Senators Feingold and Kennedy have the courage of their convictions to call for binding votes rather than the transparently political charade Pelosi, Reid and Biden are about to engage in.

The governor released the following statement today:

I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change. Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.

In consultation with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq, I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.

This effort should be combined with clear objectives and milestones for U.S. and Iraqi leaders.

The road ahead will be difficult but success is still possible in Iraq. I believe it is in America's national security interest to achieve it.

Today's New York Times reports that Democratic leaders are exploring “ways to block financing for a military expansion without being accused of abandoning American forces already in Iraq." But Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are going to have to seek such a funding cut off over the likely objection of Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno, the new senior ground commanders in Iraq.

John Burns of the New York Times has done first-rate reporting from Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Here’s what he had to say on the surge issue the other day on CNN’s Late Edition:

A group of us went out to the American military headquarters today to speak to Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, the new operational commander of U.S. troops here -- tough guy; in fact, the guy whose forces captured Saddam back in December '03.

He believes, and I think a lot of people do, that those additional American troops on the street will make a difference in the neighborhoods of Baghdad, and they may very well be able to inhibit, certainly not stop, but seriously inhibit the cycle of Sunni bombing attacks and sectarian death squad revenge.

We're talking about a very large increase in U.S. troop presence here, and everybody agrees this war is lost if you cannot regain control of Baghdad.

I have to say that General Odierno, on his second tour here, seems confident, but at the same time, we've heard that, of course, from previous American commanders.

We know that Lieutenant General Petraeus -- shortly, we believe, to be General Petraeus -- coming back for his third tour to take over from General Casey, strongly believes from his own experience in Mosul as the 101st Airborne commander in the first year after the American invasion, that having American troops in the neighborhoods makes an enormous difference.

And we've seen -- I've seen with my own eyes -- that when American humvees pull into a neighborhood, it quiets down. The bad guys don't want to stand and fight. They want the other guy to die for his country. They don't intend to do that for themselves.

So I think we can't dismiss the possibility that, over the time frame that they are talking about, and General Odierno, today, talked about three or four months after those troops are available to him in the spring, running through until the late summer -- that's the critical period, he thinks, whether they can control Baghdad and then bring the American troops, put them out on the periphery of Baghdad and go from there.

Certainly, one thing is true, and that is, if they don't do that, the war is lost. If they do it and they fail, the war is lost. The hopes may be 50-50 or less, but, you know, I think they feel that they don't have any other alternative than to do that or, as Dennis Kucinich was saying a few minutes ago, get out.

Burns’ blunt assessment is consistent with that made by his colleague, Michael Gordon, on Meet the Press two days ago – see here. Also, National Review’s Rich Lowry makes some good points -- here and here.

Mounir el Motassadeq was a member of the Hamburg sleeper cell that “planned and carried out” the September 11 attacks. A “close friend of 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah,” reports the McClatchy News, el Motassadeq “had signed wills, taken over power of attorney for the hijackers and wired money for logistical support, including flight training.”

Yesterday, he was sentenced to 15 years for his conviction as an “accessory to murder for the 246 people who died on the four airliners,” but not for the thousands murdered in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. His 15-year sentence, the maximum allowable under German law, means el Motassadeq will serve (assuming he’s not eligible for parole) a little over 22 days for each murder.

Here's the text of the letter Senators Lieberman and Lindsey Graham sent to the White House today:

January 8, 2007

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

For the sake of our own national security we must have a successful outcome to our commitments in Iraq. The choices facing the United States in devising a new strategy for victory are difficult but necessary. We hope that of all the options available, the option of losing will betaken off the table by all concerned.

That is why we will continue to push for and support policies to achieve a stable and free Iraq at peace with its neighbors and the international community.

One proposal that we are convinced will not achieve a successful outcome in Iraq is withdrawing American troops. We will vigorously oppose any plans to do this.

If the United States were to withdraw or redeploy from the battle, we would leave Iraq in shambles. A misguided and short-sighted withdrawal or redeployment plan would in all probability trigger a full-blown civil war encompassing the large parts of Iraq that are currently stable. In contrast, seeing our mission through to success would strengthen moderate forces in both Iraq and the region.

A withdrawal or redeployment could lead to a wider regional conflict involving neighboring nations including Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey. It could create a new safe haven for terrorist groups capable of striking the United States and our allies. It could embolden extremists in the region who view the United States as a paper tiger unwilling to make the necessary and worthwhile efforts to help the Iraqis secure a peaceful, free and productive nation.

Our strategy in Iraq is not working. We recognize that fact.

However, withdrawing from the fight is not a sound, long-term policy for the national security of the United States. Withdrawing from the fight is a recipe for defeat. It should not be adopted.

Now is the time for bold and decisive leadership to chart a new course forward in Iraq. It should be a course that leads toward a stable, secure Iraq which is at peace with its neighbors, an ally in the war against extremists, respectful of the lives and rights of all of its citizens, and with security forces for defending the independence of Iraq.

Some of the necessary changes, including new leadership in both the civilian and military leadership, have already been made. We applaud your efforts to strengthen our leadership team in Iraq. We also strongly encourage you to send additional American troops to Iraq to improve the security situation on the ground. For far too long we have not had enough troops in Iraq to provide security. It is time to correct this mistake.

A comprehensive new policy must also include clearly defining the mission of our troops and increasing the political and economic aid to and pressure on the Iraqi government to make the necessary political and economic changes. We firmly believe we and the Iraqi people can succeed if we adopt the right policy.

Over the coming weeks, Democrats and Republicans should be united around the fact that what happens in Iraq is directly tied to the future security of our nation. We should all strive to achieve a successful outcome which protects our national security for years to come.


Sincerely,

Joe Lieberman
United States Senator

Lindsey O. Graham
United States Senator

From today's editorial:

...If the stakes in Iraq are as great as Mr. Bush says--and we believe they are--then he should commit whatever forces are needed to achieve success. The public's support for the Iraq campaign is waning, in major part because the casualties and expense have been producing no visible progress. Even with Democrats running Congress, Mr. Bush has a political window to pursue a more robust security strategy. The paradox is that the fastest way home from Iraq is a bolder commitment now….Beginning in 2005, Mr. Bush began talking of a counterinsurgency strategy modeled on the successful "clear, hold and build" operation that drove insurgents from the northern city of Tal Afar.

However, it is now clear his two most important generals failed to muster the forces to make it work. The final straw was the failure of Operation Forward Together to secure Baghdad last year. Although many neighborhoods did improve during the "clear" phase, there were too few troops deployed for the "hold" process to work….

In appointing David Petraeus, who will replace General Casey, Mr. Bush has chosen a general with impeccable credentials in this theater. He governed Mosul in 2003 with enlightened engagement, marred by a Baathist spy who somehow managed to become police chief. He also built, essentially from scratch, the current Iraqi Army starting in 2004. One of his chief virtues is that he is a good listener who works well with Iraqis, which is crucial to implementing any new plan. Along with Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who will be General Petraeus's chief deputy, the President will have generals who understand the priority of security….

What is sure to radicalize the Shiites is an early U.S. departure. They would then have little choice but to call on Iran and Hezbollah and anyone else for the military aid to defeat the Sunni terrorists. The forces of Shiite democracy, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, would be swamped. Then there really could be a Shiite dictatorship in Iraq, along with ethnic cleansing on a scale unseen since the India-Pakistan diaspora.

For all of these reasons, we hope Mr. Bush also refrains from using the words "surge" or "temporary" to describe his plans this week. A better message is that he will do whatever it takes to reinforce the forces of moderation and democracy in Iraq to prevent a defeat that would empower American enemies in Iraq and in the war on terror. And his strategy is best framed as providing the forces necessary to protect the population that most military experts believe is the key to successful counterinsurgency.

The tragedy nearly four years after the fall of Saddam is that such a strategy has never been tried. The consequences of failure in Iraq are too great not to try it now, before it really is too late.

Democrats and others have been pushing the line that military commanders really don’t want a troop surge in Iraq. Consider today’s Washington Post editorial:

[The president] will face a formidable task in convincing Congress and the public that such a "surge" makes sense. It's well known that many senior American generals, including the outgoing commanders of American forces in Iraq and the Middle East, have resisted a troop increase.

Actually, quite a few senior U.S. officers have been pushing for more troops, including the new senior commander in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus, and Lt. Gen. Odierno. From Michael Gordon's piece in yesterday's New York Times:

As a supporter of increased forces in Iraq, General Petraeus is expected to back a rapid five-brigade expansion, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who has been openly skeptical that additional troops would help stabilize the country….

Since his appointment was disclosed Thursday, General Petraeus has not spoken publicly about his plans for Iraq. But the doctrine he has advocated suggests that he will want all five of the combat brigades slated to go to Iraq as quickly as possible instead of waiting for them to be phased in….

At one end of the spectrum have been General Casey, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

They have advocated plans to hand over security responsibilities to the Iraqis while gradually reducing American forces and shrinking the number of American bases in Iraq, as conditions permit. Their argument has been that a lengthy expansion of American forces in Iraq will simply put off the day when Iraqis take more responsibility for their security.

Taking a different view, other officers have argued for sending more troops while stepping up economic efforts, the better to apply the military’s new counterinsurgency doctrine. Progress in stabilizing Iraq, they argue, will come only when the Iraqi public does not feel that it needs militias or insurgent groups to ensure its security, and when it concludes that its basic economic needs are being met….

General Petraeus has been squarely in this camp, as was reflected in the military’s new counterinsurgency field manual…. As the senior American officer in Iraq, General Petraeus will work with Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, a subordinate who has day-to-day command of the forces and who also supports a troop increase.

It’s entirely reasonable to oppose a troop surge, but it is simply not accurate to pretend ground commanders in Iraq are against it.

Over at The Corner, Stanley Kurtz makes a good point regarding the Washington Post’s coverage of the Iraq “surge” debate.

There is something awfully odd about today’s big Washington Post story on the proposed troop surge. The headline reads, “Critics Say ‘Surge’ Is More of The Same,” and the article hammers that point home: “A sense that the White House is preparing more of the same is generating deep skepticism among Democrats in Congress.” The problem is that the article fails to report on the genuine tactical changes being proposed by the chief advocates of the surge….

[T]he Post reinforces the arguments of the surge’s critics, without giving a fair shot to its advocates. In fact, the whole article, from the headline to the chart, is an effort to back up Democratic critics, without even conveying the key argument of proponents of the surge.

Kurtz also rightly notes that there are "plenty of ways in which a surge might fail. But the Kagan-Keane plan has at least a prospect of success, and that’s more than we can say for the battle plan we’ve been relying on up to now."

From the current Weekly Standard editorial:

The task in these [upcoming congressional] hearings, then, is not just to explain and defend the president's plan, but to make the point that it is better than any plausible alternative, especially withdrawal. Committee members should not be allowed to get away with simply criticizing the president's plan. They must also explain what they would propose instead.

And if what they propose is withdrawal, then they must be asked to explain how that would work. And they should be asked to answer a few basic questions about how they would deal with the consequences of withdrawal.

How would they respond to the eruption of full-blown civil war in Iraq and the massive ethnic cleansing it would produce?

How would they respond to the intervention of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, Syria, and Turkey?

And most important, what would they propose to do if, as a result of our withdrawal and the collapse of Iraq, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups managed to establish a safe haven from which to launch attacks against the United States and its allies?

Would they favor another invasion of Iraq to root out these terrorist bases?

Or would they tolerate the establishment of another terror base, bigger and better funded than the one that developed in Afghanistan?

William Kristol offers his thoughts in the latest issue of Time:

There has been some sniping at the Keane-Kagan plan. But what is striking is that so few of the critics actually go to the trouble of analyzing it--or proposing a substitute. Instead, Keane and Kagan are treated with annoyance and disdain. Don't they know that we're losing in Iraq and that it's time to leave? What's all this talk about staying and fighting and winning? Didn't anyone tell them that the Bush Administration's errors have been so grievous that success is hopeless?

The Bush Administration's errors in the execution of the war have, in fact, been grievous. But George W. Bush seems to believe this: If we make serious mistakes in executing a worthwhile task, then we should try to repair those mistakes (even if belatedly) and correct course rather than abandon our friends and desert the battlefield.

In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, columnist Caroline Glick writes on the role of Yasir Arafat in the murder of top American diplomats in Sudan in 1973.

ON MARCH 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Charges d'Affaires George Curtis Moore. The terrorists took Moore, US ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Charges d'Affairs Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.

The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.

Arafat denied any involvement in the attack. The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an analyst at the National Security Agency, intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack….

So it was that for 33 years, under seven consecutive presidential administrations, the State Department denied any knowledge of involvement by Arafat or Fatah in the execution of its own people.

Until last week.

THE CABLE released by the State Department's historian states, "The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy."

… The cable concludes, "The Khartoum operation again demonstrated the ability of the BSO to strike where least expected. The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship. The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum."

From ABC's This Week yesterday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: [Do] you actually fear this idea that there's going to be a splitting of the difference. That the president will send 10,000 or 20,000 troops temporarily to Baghdad rather than the 20,000 to 30,000 or 40,000 that General Jack Keane and others have called for, for 18 to 24 months.

DAN SENOR (FORMER BUSH FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR): Right. So the plan that Keane, General Keane, retired General Keane has been advocating is about 32,000 troops which will get you four brigades in Baghdad, one brigade on reserve, and two marine regimens in the al-Anbar province. And if you do that you bring the ratio of Iraqi civilians to American soldiers 50-1 which is pretty consistent to the ratios in successful occupations throughout the 20th century. If you go for a smaller number than that, you can still get the ratio down in Baghdad but what's happened in past operations when we've increased our numbers in Baghdad, all the insurgency does is leave Baghdad and go back to the Anbar province so if you go for a smaller troop increase you have no capacity to deal with the insurgency once it moves back to Anbar.

My view is this, whatever troop increase the president goes for is going to be controversial. He's going to score no political points at home by going for a smaller increase. If he announces 10,000 or 15,000 or he announces 30,000 or 40,000 troops, those who are against the surge are going to say it's a disaster. And those who are for it are going to welcome it. So go for the number that maximizes the chances of success.

Senor is right. Too light a footprint has been a big problem going back to 2003.

Onetime hawk John Edwards ran away from his pro-war Iraq vote long ago. At the time of his vote, the politics were good for the then senator from North Carolina. Saddam would be deposed and his wmd uncovered. Edwards, like Kerry, could then claim credit for being a tough Democrat on national security but progressive on economic and social issues to gain favor with Democratic primary voters. Today, of course, his vote is an impediment to the nomination, so he’s now running as an anti-war candidate. CNBC’s Larry Kudlow summed up Edwards’ appearance on ABC’s This Week this morning this way:

[I]f John Edwards somehow managed to reverse this tide and win his party's nomination, he would lead his party to a crushing defeat in 2008.

For starters, he wants to cut and run from Iraq. Such an ill-conceived policy would leave this budding nation in shambles, with terrorists following us back to the United States. It would extinguish the candle of Iraq's democracy experiment -- an experiment that could still pay enormous dividends if the United States follows through with a bold, new troop surge strategy and a refurbished plan of economic reconstruction. These are the actions that will stabilize Baghdad and their democratically elected government, not cutting and running.

Will Hillary Clinton follow the "no surge" parade? Probably.

In case you missed it, Gen. Jack Keane and Fred Kagan wrote the following in Wednesday’s Washington Post:

Reports on the Bush administration's efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term "surge" but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000. Some "surges" would last a few months, others a few years.

We need to cut through the confusion. Bringing security to Baghdad -- the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development -- is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.

They continued:

It is tempting to imagine that greater use of Iraqi forces could reduce the number of U.S. troops needed for this operation. The temptation must be resisted. We should of course work with the Iraqi government to get as many trained and reliable Iraqi troops as possible into Baghdad, and we should pair our soldiers and Marines with Iraqis as much as we can. But reducing the violence in the Sunni and mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad is the most critical military task the U.S. armed forces face anywhere in the world. We cannot allow that mission to fail simply because some Iraqi units don't show up, aren't at full strength or are less reliable than we had hoped.

The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. We have always sent "just enough" force to succeed if everything went according to plan. So far nothing has, and there's no reason to believe that it will. Sound military planning doesn't work this way. The only "surge" option that makes sense is both long and large.

Details of the Keane-Kagan “surge and stay” plan may found here.

John Kerry has an op-ed in today's Washington Post pushing for a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq. Fred Kagan, coauthor of this Iraq report, explains in today’s Sunday Times why the policy pushed by Kerry and others would lead to defeat. He writes:

A decisive moment in world history is at hand. If the United States, Britain and their allies fail in Iraq the result will almost certainly be a regional maelstrom. If the coalition succeeds, then the West will regain the initiative against radical Islam in Iran and throughout the Muslim world.

The current trajectory in Iraq is poor: rising sectarian violence threatens to rend Iraqi society and destroy America’s will to continue the struggle.

The choices are bleak: nobody has yet developed a convincing plan to resolve this conflict through diplomacy, politics or any other form of soft power. Hopes for success now rest on the coalition’s willingness to adopt a strategy of bringing security to the Iraqi population and confronting the sectarian violence directly as the prerequisite for subsequent political, economic and social development.

Embracing such a strategy would mark a dramatic change from the approach that the US military has pursued since April 2003. Since the beginning of the counter-insurgency effort US central command has focused on training Iraqi soldiers and police to establish and maintain security on their own. America’s own military efforts to establish security have been reactive, sporadic, under-resourced and ephemeral….

In the past, central command generated surges in security in parts of Iraq by drawing forces from elsewhere. This approach created opportunities for the insurgents in the denuded areas. It would be wiser instead to couple a surge in Baghdad with an increase of troops in the other key hotbed of the insurgency, Anbar province….

The increase in US troops cannot be short-term. Clearing and holding the critical areas of Baghdad will require all of 2007. Expanding the secured areas into Anbar, up the Diyala River valley, north to Mosul and beyond will take part of 2008….

Defeat will break the American army and marines more surely and more disastrously than extending combat tours. And the price of defeat for Iraq, the region and the world in any case is far too high to bear.

(Russian obstructionism at the UN has strengthened the hardliners in Tehran, argue the editors of the Washington Post today. So far, it’s win-win for Moscow and Tehran. Russia, a G-8 member, abets Iran’s nuclear program, rakes in lots of cash doing so, and yet remains on a path to gain membership in the World Trade Organization. Tehran defies the Security Council, moves forward with its nuclear program, and yet there are boisterous calls for “hardliners” in Washington to be more reasonable.)

Posted December 10, 2006:

That was the date the UN Security Council gave Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities or else. But it’s been nearly 4 months, and there’s little evidence the “or else” will amount to much anytime soon. And with the release of the Iraq Survey Group’s report, Tehran has dug in its nuclear heels even more. The ISG report cites Iran dozens of times, but you won’t find a single reference to the “August 31” deadline. Holding Iran accountable for thumbing its nose at the international community would get in the way of dialogue. Iran has learned that deadlines don’t have consequences and that, so far, it can have its nuclear cake and eat it too. From the AP:

Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear program.

"Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue," the semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Prior to any talks, a serious Security Council would come down hard on Iran (and Syria for that matter), though it’s hard to see that happening. So as it now stands, Ahmadinejad and Assad believe they are dealing with the world from a position of strength and they’re probably right.

Weekly Standard contributor Max Boot goes at it with British journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the topic of U.S. foreign policy on the New York Times web site. You may find the lengthy discussion here. One thing Max Boot addresses is the rampant historical amnesia on who supported the invasion of Iraq. The support was broad and bipartisan.

Although you've [the moderator] asked me to reply to Geoffrey's claim that "the whole 'democratization project' is a fantasy," I'd like to begin by responding to the sentence in Geoffrey's posting that immediately follows: "Nor does it seem to have occurred to the zealots who dreamt up the war that, even were forcible democratization feasible, it might not actually be desirable in terms of the American national interest, and that genuinely democratic elections in Iraq -- or Iran or the Palestinian territories -- would be likely to have outcomes highly unpalatable to Washington."

Since you want a clash, I'll oblige by taking exception to Geoffrey's casual slur: to wit, that this war was "dreamt up" by "zealots." I know this has become part of the accepted mythology, but is this really a helpful way to characterize such disparate and distinguished supporters of the invasion as Fouad Ajami, Peter Beinart, Paul Berman, David Brooks, Eliot Cohen, Ivo Daalder, Les Gelb, Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ignatieff, Martin Indyk, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Bernard Lewis, Michael O'Hanlon, Ken Pollack, Dennis Ross, Natan Sharansky, Tom Friedman, George Will, Fareed Zakaria, and the editors of the Washington Post, Daily Telegraph, and Wall Street Journal? To say nothing of politicians like Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jose Maria Aznar, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Michael Howard, William Hague, and John Howard. Are they all "zealots"? What about the overwhelming majority of Americans who supported the war when it began? More zealots? Or were the zealots only those people within the U.S. government who supported the war: the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, George Tenet, Steve Hadley, and Tommy Franks?

I can't speak for my fellow "zealots" but as someone who supported the invasion—and who, unlike some others, is still willing to admit it—I have always assumed that "genuine democratic elections" in Iraq or anywhere else might well produce outcomes that were "highly unpalatable to Washington." After all, I'm far from happy with many of the actions taken by freely elected governments in Paris, Berlin, Ankara—and, for that matter, Washington D.C. Why should Baghdad be any different? The point that Geoffrey elides is: Was the pre-2003 status quo in the Middle East a palatable one? Obviously not, since it was this status quo that produced the 9/11 hijackers and numerous other terrorists and tyrants. And despite the terrible time we've had in Iraq in the past four years, I am still convinced that in the long run greater liberalization and democratization will change the region for the better. And I'm not the only one. Let me quote an article from the current issue of Newsweek:

"For all his intellectual shortcomings, Bush recognized that the roots of Islamic terror lie in the dysfunctions of the Arab world. Over the last 40 years, as the rest of the globe progressed economically and politically, the Arabs moved backward. Decades of tyranny and stagnation—mostly under the auspices of secular, Westernized regimes like those in Egypt and Syria—have produced an opposition that is extreme, religiously oriented and, in some cases, violent. Its ideology is now global, and it has small bands of recruits from London to Jakarta. But at its heart it is an Arab phenomenon, born in the failures of that region. And it is likely only to be cured by a more open and liberal Arab culture that has made its peace with modernity. Look for example at two non-Arab countries, Malaysia and Turkey, whose people are conservative and religious Muslims. Both places are also reasonably successful economies, open societies and functioning democracies. As a result, they don't produce swarms of suicide bombers. Iraq after Saddam presented a unique opportunity to steer history on a new course."

Boot points out that the author of the above wasn’t a “neocon.” It was the “realist” Fareed Zakaria.

From an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow:

KUDLOW: General Haig, … Can we do this troop surge, and will a heavier footprint in Iraq work in your judgment?

HAIG (Former Secretary of State Under President Reagan): Well, I think the consequence of not having it has got to be considered. And, you know, I can understand people arguing both sides of this, because they have no confidence that either our country or our leadership seems unwilling to make the sacrifices that have to be made in order to prevail in this conflict. Don't tell me a nation of … 300 million people can't handle 25 million people and a bunch of bandits moving in from across borders, including Iran especially, and, of course, Syria as well. So, we just haven't done it right. We're going to have to pull up our socks. I do think a near-term infusion is the right thing to do. I think the secretary of defense will conclude that when he--when he adds that up against the calamity that our pullout prematurely, as recommended by the Baker Commission or study group, if that's what it is, I don't find it a very logical set of recommendations, although there are some good elements in it as well….

Well, first thing we have to recognize, Larry, this is not just Iraq and the Iraqi problem. It's a major war with none other than Iran. Iran is the centerpiece of all of this, and the way we've been acting is very pusillanimously, sometimes condemning them and sometimes sucking up to them, as the Baker Commission recommended. Now, all of these things are wrong-headed. We should be mobilizing a great number of new ground troops for both the Marines and the United States Army, and both leaders of both services have so recommended.

"A close aide to the British commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan has been accused of passing secrets about activities there to Iran,” reports AFP.

Thursday's reports come as British-led forces struggle against fiercer than expected Taliban insurgents in the south of the country, invaded by US-led forces following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Corporal Daniel James, an interpreter to Lieutenant General David Richards, the head of NATO's more than 30,000-strong force in Afghanistan, has been charged under the Official Secrets Act with "prejudicing the safety of the state."

Specifically he is accused of passing information "calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy" by communicating with a "foreign power", believed to be Iran, said The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers….

The Telegraph reported that James, who lived in the southern English resort town of Brighton, was of Iranian descent and spoke fluent Pashtun, the main language in Afghanistan.

The specific charge against him alleges that on November 2, for a purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state, he "communicated to another person information calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy".

From the AP:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the rest of the Bush administration may be undecided on whether to send more troops to Iraq, but several soldiers he met with at Camp Victory here on Thursday morning here said extra forces would help.

"Sir I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing," Spc. Jason T. Green, with the 101st Military Intelligence Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, told Gates during a breakfast session with about 15 U.S. soldiers.

"I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi Army trained up."

… Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and one of several generals who met with Gates, said he supports boosting troop levels only when there is a specific purpose for their deployment.
"I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is when, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress to our strategic objectives," Casey told reporters during a news conference with Gates and military leaders.

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and military strategist Frederick Kagan explain their plan to reverse the tide in Iraq here and here.

From the Hartford Courant:

"After speaking with our military commanders on the ground," he said Wednesday in an email, "I strongly believe that additional U.S. troops must be deployed to Baghdad."

Lieberman, D-Conn., visited Iraq last week with a Senate delegation. He also traveled to Kuwait and Israel….

Adding more American forces "will at least allow us to establish security throughout the Iraqi capital, train the Iraqi army, hold critical central neighborhoods there and clamp down on the insurgency," the senator said.

"We must provide vital breathing space for moderate Shiites and Sunnis who are now attempting to turn back the radicals in their communities," he added….

Lieberman got support from at least two of his trip companions, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C.

Lieberman said he understood the public's anxiety about the war. "The American people are justifiably frustrated about the lack of progress in the war, and the price paid by our heroic troops and their families has been heavy," he said.

"But what is needed now, especially in Washington, is not despair but decisive action, and immediately."

It certainly sounds like ground commanders told the senators during their talks in Baghdad that they could use more U.S. forces.

The International Herald Tribune reports on a bit of good news:

In the three and a half years since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has been the spiritual custodian of Shiite political dominance here, corralling Iraq's fractious Shiite political parties into a single alliance to rule the country after centuries of oppression

But the ayatollah has grown increasingly distressed as the Shiite-led government has proven incapable of taming the violence and improving public services, and he now appears to be backing away from his insistence that the Shiite bloc be the dominant political player here and hold together at all costs, Iraqi and Western officials say.

In recent days, he has given his tentative approval to a proposed American- backed coalition of powerful Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties, the officials say. If it succeeds in becoming the main political force in government, the coalition could dilute Shiite power and ultimately lead to the rupture of the ruling Shiite bloc.

The leaders of the multisectarian coalition say they are seeking to chart a moderate political course by isolating extremist parties and politicians, particularly the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose loyalists comprise a major part of the Shiite bloc.

The aging and reclusive Sistani is considered the final arbiter of Shiite participation in the new coalition, and his willingness to approve it adds greater momentum to the Iraqi and U.S. efforts. So much so that leaders of the Iraqi parties trying to form the new coalition felt confident enough to announce their intentions at a televised news conference last weekend.

Still, there are many roadblocks to pulling this off. My guess is that any change in the goverment will also be accompanied by a change in military strategy in and around Baghdad. Reestablishing confidence in the government has to be a top priority.

"Pentagon Cites Success Of Anti-U.S. Forces in Iraq" reads a front-page headline in today’s Washington Post. “The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record,” the Post reports, “and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a ‘strategic success’ by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq's political institutions.” The Post continued:

In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and "little progress" toward political reconciliation.

"The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence. . . . That is the premier challenge facing us now."

The rapid spread of violence this year has thrown the government's future into jeopardy, Pentagon officials said….

Sattler implied that no number of U.S. or Iraqi troops would be great enough to quash the revenge killings. "I don't know how many forces you could push into a country, either U.S. or coalition or Iraqi forces, that could cover the entire country, where these death squads wouldn't find somebody," he said.

Indeed, the report documented that major U.S. and Iraqi military operations in the fall did not quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. Attacks dipped in August, but rebounded strongly in September after death squads adapted to the increased U.S. and Iraqi presence.

So, the present Pentagon strategy is failing. Violence is up, and confidence in the government is dropping. What to do? Former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. Jack Keane, explains his plan here – a surge and stay plan very different from the current Pentagon strategy, including the one employed in and around Baghdad.

The other day Sen. Harry Reid said he could support a short-term surge, which brought this response from fellow Democrat Sen. Jack Reed: ''Won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this.'' Reed has a point, one that Keane also addressed in answering a question on whether a short-term troop surge would work:

No, it's impossible. It would take us a couple months just to get the forces in. What we have to do is clear the insurgents and the Shia death squads out of the area and then bring back the protection force. And then the protection force stays in the neighborhood, does not go back to the bases. And that takes time for the people to realize that this really is a secure situation. And bring the economic packages in and they begin to isolate the insurgents who are trying to sneak back in. Our problem in the past in Fallujah, in Samara, twice in Baghdad, has always been the same problem, we ran the insurgents out and we never put the protection force in to secure the people.

The "scary" theme of today's piece by Richard Cohen is an old one for the Washington Post columnist. Cohen, who supported the invasion of Iraq, penned many columns on the “militant mood” that ushered Reagan into power and the “scary” policies the president pursued with the Soviets, on nuclear weapons and SDI, and in Central America. Here’s a taste from a March 23, 1982 column, “The Bomb”:

In the car the other day, my son started to talk about nuclear war. He thinks it's a possibility, and since he is young and does not want to die young he considers nuclear war "unfair." It is his favorite word, but there is for the moment, none better….

Ronald Reagan and Alexander Haig and Caspar Weinberger, with their talk of limited nuclear war and firing nuclear warning shots, their tough rhetoric and their incessant military posturing, have given the whole country the willies. They seem to have doused hope, made you wonder why you thought in the first place that things were getting better -- that nuclear war could not happen….

All this has revived and exacerbated fears about Ronald Reagan that came out during the presidential campaign. Now, suddenly, little kids talk of nuclear war in their own way and lawyers in theirs. Mothers organize and the New England towns meet and the reason is that something has gone dreadfully wrong. Ronald Reagan set out to scare the Russians, but he's scared us instead.

Some things never change.

The governor made some good points on the report in this interview last week with National Review online:

The members of the Iraq Study Group deserve credit for their hard work. But their recommendations read like the product of a flawed process — one more focused on reaching consensus for the sake of reaching consensus. There were a few recommendations that I found especially striking: Suggesting that somehow the Israel-Palestine conflict is a root of sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq is just wrong. Sunnis are killing Shia and vice versa. Pressuring Israel won’t change that.

Proposing that we negotiate with terrorist regimes like Syria and Iran — without a rigorous analysis of how our incentives could ever be aligned — is just counter-productive. I have no quarrel with talking, especially if it yields valuable intelligence and insight about an adversary. But that’s a far cry from actually negotiating with Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah, has nuclear ambitions, and has been clear in its intention to wipe our ally Israel off the map. And Syria is systematically undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon and funding and arming terrorists. Any suggestion that we might trade something for their help or forbearance is out of the question. When considering a negotiation, one must ask what kind of leverage we have, and recognize that there are situations where we have more to lose than gain by negotiating.

Finally, inferring that our troops may be withdrawn from combat positions before Iraq is secure runs counter to my view and to the views I have heard from some of America’s most accomplished military leaders. I am not suggesting that there are simple solutions for Iraq. But it is clear to me that some of these recommendations will not meet our objectives in Iraq, or in the broader long war America is fighting today.

Yesterday, on ABC's This Week, Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, discussed "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success" in Iraq. Video of the exchange Keane had with the newly elected Cong. Joe Sestak, a retired vice admiral who advocates troop withdrawals, may be found here.

Gen. Keane on…

How the plan would work:

“Well, first of all, security is the dominating issue in Iraq. I mean, it is the necessary precondition to have political and economic success and it subsumes all the other issues. Now what we're talking about here is the security plan being part of a comprehensive strategy that uses all the other elements of national power, political, economic and diplomatic, but we want to talk about military here, we will. In terms of the strategy itself, it's a fundamental change in the mission. The mission, people are focusing on the surge of the troops, but the essence of it is we changed the mission to the security of the people in Baghdad. We've never taken that on as a military mission before. Our mission has been transition to the Iraqi security forces and we made some inadequate attempts to secure Baghdad twice in the past.”

How the plan is different from past Baghdad operations:

“But when you look at what we did on the ground, we didn't do it that way. We cleared out the insurgents and the Shia death squads from the areas but never committed ourselves to phase two of the operation, which is significant, and that is to put a 24/7 force in the neighborhoods to protect the people and they do not go back to their bases at night. It is a security of the people that's the key to success….”

How many troops would be needed:

“It's about 25,000. And then in al-Anbar, the mission would not be the security of the people, it would be to keep the insurgents and the al Qaeda base off of Baghdad so they're not going to do a sideshow out there. And we would still focus on the enemy, not on the people. That would take an additional two Marine regiments out there, another 8,000 to 10,000.”

How long it would take:

“Baghdad would probably take, to complete the mission militarily, to secure the people, would take well into the fall of the year. And then we would turn to al-Anbar with a different mission. We'd change the mission in al-Anbar then, for no longer as a supporting mission, it would be the main effort. That's probably the place we really probably wanted to start a couple of years ago but were never able to do it. The enemy made Baghdad the center of gravity, so we have no choice, we have to deal with that. And that would take another six to seven months, and that would probably go into '08, as well.”

Why the plan would make a difference in Iraq:

“Listen, that argument we … [have] heard many times in this town is actually a choice to lose. Time is against us so our choice is, can we do something about this in the intervening year and make a difference and buy some time so that a political and diplomatic and economic strategy will work or do we just cut our losses as you say and walk away from it? … Of course it's going to make a difference if you go about it right. Most people don't realize what we didn't do militarily in the past. And what I was trying to explain to you, is this would be a security mission that we have never done. And you would go to the Shia neighborhoods and the Sunni mixed neighborhoods, there's 23 districts there, and you would secure those people, the Sunnis and the Shias. It gives Maliki then an opportunity to go to the Shia militias, to the Badacor, to Sadr and use that leverage that we are protecting the people here and get his people to stop their offensive operations and to turn defensive in Sadr City. And then we have a basis also, certainly we see the value of making this a regional issue. It has always been and getting other nations involved. The economic package to this is very important. It has two phases to it. The first one would be basic services while we're protecting the people. And then another economic package for enhanced quality of life services that would be tied to an incentive package in terms of their cooperation and their willingness to help us in turning over who the death squad members are and who the insurgents are.”

On the heels of Sen. Reid's support for a short-term surge in U.S. forces in Iraq, Sen. Clinton said this morning that she could support a surge if it’s tied to a different strategy.

I am not in favor of doing that unless it's part of a larger plan…. I am not in favor of sending more troops to continue what our men and women have been told to do with the government of Iraq pulling the rug out from under them when they actually go after some of the bad guys.

To her credit, Clinton could have easily said “no surge” under any circumstances. She may in the end oppose a troop increase. But, if some reports are accurate, she may have to explain her opposition in the face of a new military strategy in Iraq – a new strategy endorsed and implemented by generals never happy with the old strategy employed by Sec. Rumsfeld and others.

Democratic primary voters want out of Iraq soon. So in the next few weeks the presidential hopeful will again be walking a tightrope between primary politics and projecting a Thatcher-like image of resolve in time of crisis.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told an audience in New Hampshire today that the “only realistic choice” we have in Iraq is to withdraw our troops. An American withdrawal won’t be “pretty,” he says, but fewer people will die if we “get out of the way.”

The only realistic choice we have is to stand down militarily and let the Iraqis stand up and face the political crisis which only they can resolve.

I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I worked in this region...we should harbor no illusions. This withdrawal will not be pretty. People will die. But fewer will die than if we stay. There are no guarantees that our departure will end the civil war, but it is sure to continue so long as we stay. The Iraqis might, or might not, resolve their political crisis. It is up to them. They distrust and fear one another, and this makes it very tough. But they share one goal – they don’t want to destroy their own country. To save it, they need to stop killing each other and start compromising. And we need to get out of the way.

Richardson didn’t directly say so, but he obviously believes America has lost the war in Iraq and we should get out sooner rather than later. He said nothing about what will happen to those Iraqis who helped us. He said nothing about the refugee flows that will likely occur. He said nothing about the intensified proxy war that could increase the chance of a broader war erupting. He said nothing about the consequences stemming from the enormous victory al Qaeda will claim. He said nothing about how our other enemies will react. He said nothing about the impact such a withdrawal would have on our military and American credibility.

A short time ago, Fred Kagan wrote in the pages of the Weekly Standard:

Advocates of withdrawal, either gradual or complete, rarely consider in any detail what that action would look like. It is worth painting a few mental images. First, U.S. troops would pull back to their forward operating bases, ending patrols in Iraq's towns and cities. In places like Ramadi, this would mean abandoning the city completely, since the coalition forces there cannot be secure without continual raids and other combat operations. American units in towns like Tal Afar, where a precarious peace still holds more than a year after the last major clear-and-hold operation, would also pull out, abandoning the Iraqis, who put their faith in us, to fend for themselves. Before long, the only American troops in Iraq outside of the FOBs would be the small teams embedded in Iraqi units. The enemy would then return and brutalize the decent Iraqis who pressed for reconciliation and peace, as has occurred following previous coalition withdrawals from cleared areas.

The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate. It will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent "collaborators," with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the FOBs themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs. Again, endless photographs and video footage of all this will play constantly. Before long, it will probably prove necessary to remove the embedded U.S. troops from the Iraqi military units. The situation will become too dangerous; the Iraqis will increasingly resent the restraint the embeds place on their actions; and the U.S. military will become fearful of being implicated in death-squad activity. It is a matter of chance whether the embedded troops are pulled before any are kidnapped or taken prisoner by Iraqi military units turning bad or being infiltrated by radicals.

What will be the effect of all this on American soldiers? The result could be worse than what we suffered in Vietnam. There will be no "decent interval" here during which we withdraw in reasonably good order--the withdrawal itself is likely to occur in the midst of rising violence. Instead of pictures of Americans on the embassy roof in Saigon, we will see images of Iraqi death squads at work with U.S. troops staying on their bases nearby. And let us not forget that in the world of Al Jazeera, we will be accused of encouraging those death squads. The overall result will be searing and scarring. The damage to the morale of the military could be far greater than what will result from burdening soldiers with longer or more frequent tours of duty in a stepped-up effort to achieve victory. Those who are concerned about the well-being of the Army should fear defeat of this type more than anything.

I admire many things about Gov. Richardson and hope he decides to join the presidential race. But if he believes we should withdraw quickly from Iraq, we should also be “realistic” about what that would look like.

(From today's New York Times: "Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more. The request indicates that the option of a major “surge” in troop strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review, senior administration officials said Friday.”)

Posted on December 14, 2006:

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, former Afghanistan coalition commander Lt. Gen. David Barno, officers involved with the “successful operations of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar” under the command of Col. H.R. McMaster, and Frederick Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, have produced a new Iraq study that “calls for a sustained surge of U.S. forces to secure and protect critical areas of Baghdad.”

“Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success” executive summary:

Victory is still an option in Iraq. America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than one million soldiers and marines can regain control of Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion.

Victory in Iraq is vital to America’s security. Defeat will lead to regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophe, and increased global terrorism.

Iraq has reached a critical point. The strategy of relying on a political process to eliminate the insurgency has failed. Rising sectarian violence threatens to break America’s will to fight. This violence will destroy the Iraqi government, armed forces, and people if it is not rapidly controlled.

Victory in Iraq is still possible at an acceptable level of effort. We must adopt a new approach to the war and implement it quickly and decisively.

Three courses of action have been proposed. All will fail.

The Connecticut senator "spoke strongly in favor of a substantial troop increase, saying 'a failed state in Iraq will be a disaster for the region and the world,'" reports the NY Times news wire from Baghdad.

(Eli Lake of the NY Sun has an interesting piece today on how a surge of U.S. troops in Baghdad would play in the 2008 presidential race. McCain’s been calling for more forces in Iraq since 2003. Today, he supports a surge in Baghdad. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the National Review, the Washington Times editorial page, and the Weekly Standard have all taken a position on the question of troop levels in Iraq. But what about Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Romney? Do they support a surge? What’s their position on troop levels?)

The Iraq War is the biggest challenge facing America. Most agree the stakes couldn’t be higher. Most agree that a totally collapsed Iraq will harm American security for years, perhaps decades, to come. We are at a crossroads. What should we do next in Iraq?

On the campaign trail and pre-campaign trail for some, we hear a lot of talk about leadership, the war on terror, and the need to be prepared for over-the-horizon threats. But on the substance of the Iraq War, many likely '08 candidates have little to say, beyond the usual bromides, on what they would do if they were president today. Do they believe success in Iraq is still possible and, if so, what concrete steps would they take to achieve that objective?

Also, the big issue of the day is the size of our military presence in Iraq. Do we have too many troops there, just enough, or do we need to surge more forces into Iraq? That’s a major question President Bush must decide as part of his strategic reassessment.

Shouldn't politicians who aspire to be commander in chief tell us where they stand on the troop strength issue now and not wait a few months to see how things are going in Iraq before taking a firm position?

The test of leadership is now.

Dodging the above questions would be nothing more than a cop-out, pure and simple. Reporters should start asking for answers to get everyone on record before the ’08 campaign really heats up.

Gen. Jack Keane, former acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, former Afghanistan coalition commander Lt. Gen. David Barno, officers involved with the “successful operations of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar” under the command of Col. H.R. McMaster, and Frederick Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, have produced a new Iraq study that “calls for a sustained surge of U.S. forces to secure and protect critical areas of Baghdad.”

“Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success” executive summary:

Victory is still an option in Iraq. America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than one million soldiers and marines can regain control of Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion.

Victory in Iraq is vital to America’s security. Defeat will lead to regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophe, and increased global terrorism.

Iraq has reached a critical point. The strategy of relying on a political process to eliminate the insurgency has failed. Rising sectarian violence threatens to break America’s will to fight. This violence will destroy the Iraqi government, armed forces, and people if it is not rapidly controlled.

Victory in Iraq is still possible at an acceptable level of effort. We must adopt a new approach to the war and implement it quickly and decisively.

Three courses of action have been proposed. All will fail.

* Withdraw immediately. This approach will lead to immediate defeat. The Iraqi Security Forces are entirely dependent upon American support to survive and function. If U.S. forces withdraw now, they will collapse and Iraq will descend into total civil war that will rapidly spread throughout the region.

* Engage Iraq’s neighbors. This approach will fail. The basic causes of violence and sources of manpower and resources for the warring sides come from within Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors are encouraging the violence, but they cannot stop it.

* Increase embedded trainers dramatically. This approach cannot succeed rapidly enough to prevent defeat. Removing U.S. forces from patrolling neighborhoods to embed them as trainers will lead to an immediate rise in violence. This rise in violence will destroy America’s remaining will to fight, and escalate the cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq beyond anything an Iraqi army could bring under control.

We must act now to restore security and stability to Baghdad. We and the enemy have identified it as the decisive point.

There is a way to do this.

From the AP:

In a direct affront to the Bush administration, a Democratic senator spent an hour Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, emerging from the meeting to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border….

"Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution" in Iraq, Nelson told reporters in a conference call following the meeting…. Nelson said he viewed Assad's remarks as "a crack in the door for discussions to continue. I approach this with realism not optimism."

Nelson said he reported the information to embassy officials and will brief his congressional committees on the trip. Also expected to visit Syria is Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa….

No word from Nelson on whether Damascus will stop resupplying Hezbollah with weapons and assassinating government officials in Beirut.

The Washington Times columnist has an excellent piece in today’s paper. He writes:

[Bush’s] political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many -- if not most -- of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.

James Baker … has delivered a cynical document intended to build a political consensus for "honorable" surrender. Richard Haass (head of the Council on Foreign Relations) spoke approvingly of the Baker report on "Meet the Press," saying: "It's incredibly important... that the principle lesson [of our intervention Iraq] not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power... to me it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq's failure, not as America's failure."

That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism, only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his quest for a workable solution to the current danger….

Or do you suppose they would have said, let's send in as many troops as we can assemble to hold on, while we raise more troops to finish the job. If the victory is that important -- and it is -- then failure must be unthinkable, even if it takes another five or 10 years.

Lincoln was alone in the self-same rooms now occupied by George W. Bush. All his cabinet and all his military advisers had counseled a path Lincoln thought would lead to disaster. He was only a month in office and judged by most of Washington -- including much of his cabinet -- to be a country bumpkin who was out of his league, an accidental president. Alone, and against all advice he made the right decision -- as he would do constantly until victory.

From the American Forces Press Service:

AL ASAD, Iraq – Even with all the debate in the U.S. over Iraq strategy, morale on the ground here is good, the commander of Multinational Force West said today.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer said that retention among Marines based in Iraq is more than 140 percent of the goal. "If they didn't think what they were doing was important, then they wouldn't reenlist," he said during an interview. He said the situation in Anbar province is difficult, but progress is being made. "It's going to be slow," Zilmer said. "We will be at this for a long time."

The general said he is encouraged by cooperation tribal sheikhs are providing the coalition in the province. Local leaders in and around Ramadi finally had enough of al Qaeda in Iraq violence and intimidation and began cooperating with the U.S. forces in the area. "The sheikhs have a lot of power," Zilmer said. "As soon as they put it out that people should cooperate, we started getting volunteers."

The Iraqi police in Anbar are fairly well-manned, but there are problems recruiting soldiers, Zilmer said. Part of that is because police remain local, while soldiers can get assigned anywhere in the country. Another problem is a requirement that Iraqi soldiers know how to read and write. Many men in Anbar province do not have those skills. "Al Qaeda doesn't have that same requirement," Zilmer said.

The help the sheikhs provide also means more tips coming in to the Iraqi authorities and more cooperation when forces go to neighborhoods, he said. It has also had an effect on the number of attacks in the city. "We hope this cooperation spreads beyond Ramadi," he said. "Success breeds success."

Another bright spot in Anbar is in and around Al Qaim, on the Syrian border. "Last year there were pitched battles in the city," he said. "Now the tribal leaders are cooperating, and the police and army units cooperate with each other and with us." The people of Al Qaim are giving the Iraqi government a chance to establish order, Zilmer said.

That's right. You don't need glasses. Gary Schmitt and Reuel Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute argue:

Since the suburban riots last August, the perception that France is in decline has become de rigueur in French, European, and American circles. Economically, culturally, educationally, militarily, diplomatically, and even gastronomically, France seems to have significantly diminished. But French foreign policy--which has become noticeably less anti-American since the Iraq war and tougher toward Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons--suggests that France may already be recovering from its déclinisme. A more pro-American France--a surreal idea for many foreign-affairs practitioners in Washington--may not be that far off….

France may well already be on the cusp of a major, positive transformation, at least in foreign affairs. Although it has been little remarked in both the American and British presses, France under Jacques Chirac has apparently broken with French practice in its diplomacy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Understood in a French context, Paris’s Iran policy within the European Union’s (EU) efforts to halt the growth of Tehran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs has verged on the revolutionary, threatening to downgrade, if not discard, anti-Americanism, tiers-mondisme, and commercial self-interest as France’s guiding lights in the Middle East. If the French continue their hard-line policy toward clerical Iran--and again, it is important to note that France’s approach within the context of the EU-3 negotiations merits the description “hard-line”--it could quite conceivably convulse the way France conducts its foreign policy everywhere. France’s “pro-American” Iran policy is a potentially landmark turn.

Let's hope. Read more here.

On April 12, 1945, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton entered Ohrdruf, a subcamp in the Buchenwald concentration camp system.

(Eisenhower at Ohrdruf, courtesy of ushmm.org)

Eisenhower then cabled Gen. George C. Marshall:

The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick…. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

A few days later, he sent another message to Marshall urging media coverage on the camps:

We continue to uncover German concentration camps for political prisoners in which conditions of indescribable horror prevail. I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been understatement. If you could see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54's, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps.

In 1948, Gen. Eisenhower became president of Columbia University. Nearly 60 years later, the same university, which banned ROTC from its campus 37 years ago, hosted an ambassador from a regime whose leader in Tehran has called the Holocaust “a myth.” Last month, this regime held an “art” exhibition in Tehran questioning the Holocaust, and yesterday it kicked-off an international Holocaust “conference” with David Duke among the speakers.

Because of Eisenhower’s foresight, the strongest antidote to the Ahmadinejads of today’s world who spin the Holocaust as “propaganda” -- even those who ply their trade at the same place the general once headed -- remains the photographs and film of the atrocities taken in 1945.

From NY1 News:

McCain Assails Iran's Nuclear Aspirations In Yeshiva Address

During his address, McCain called Iran "the chief state sponsor of international terrorism."

"There's only one thing worse that a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear-armed Iran," McCain said. "The regime must understand that they cannot win a showdown with the world, and as Americans we also need to reassure the millions of Iranians who aspire to self determination that we support their longing for freedom and democracy."

That was the date the UN Security Council gave Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activities or else. But it’s been nearly 4 months, and there’s little evidence the “or else” will amount to much anytime soon. And with the release of the Iraq Survey Group’s report, Tehran has dug in its nuclear heels even more. The ISG report cites Iran dozens of times, but you won’t find a single reference to the “August 31” deadline. Holding Iran accountable for thumbing its nose at the international community would get in the way of dialogue. Iran has learned that deadlines don’t have consequences and that, so far, it can have its nuclear cake and eat it too. From the AP:

Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear program.

"Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue," the semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Prior to any talks, a serious Security Council would come down hard on Iran (and Syria for that matter), though it’s hard to see that happening. So as it now stands, Ahmadinejad and Assad believe they are dealing with the world from a position of strength and they’re probably right.

From the current Weekly Standard:

"Among the many intelligent and forceful criticisms of the meretricious Baker-Hamilton report, THE SCRAPBOOK's favorites have been from soldiers, ranging from lieutenant colonels to sergeants….

First, listen to T.F. Boggs (check out his blog), a 24-year-old sergeant in the Army Reserves, back home from his second deployment to Iraq:

After watching the Iraq Study Group press conference today, I am a firm believer that all politicians are idiots. Okay well not all of them but they all have a problem understanding reality. . . .

The Iraq Study Group's findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant 'Death to America' and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorist-supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism! If I am the only one who finds something wrong with that, then please let me know because right now I feel like I am the only person who feels this way.

Not only are the findings of the ISG a joke but the people who led the group (Baker and Hamilton) treat soldiers like they are a joke. One of the main recommendations of the ISG is to send more troops to Iraq in order to train Iraqis so they can secure their own country. But they don't feel that we are doing a good job of that right now because training Iraqis isn't an attractive job for soldiers to do because it isn't a 'career advancing' job. As someone who trained Iraqis from time to time I take personal offense to this remark. In my experience soldiers clamored for the chance to train Iraqis. . . .

I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24-year-old, but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn't fast food--you can't have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in its entire history takes time, and when I say time I don't mean four years.

Talking doesn't solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do, and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofascists sucks more.

Then there were these thoughts emailed to a friend from an active-duty Marine lieutenant colonel now serving in Iraq:

From what I see here in Iraq, the rats are abandoning a sinking ship. Rummy has cut/run, and us slobs out here are on our own. Saw the Iraq Group's recommendations. Sure would hate to be one of these 'embedded' trainers in an Iraqi unit when the support of U.S. forces leave. Can you say POW???

These clowns, especially Hamilton, are clueless. Either we stay and fight, or we leave with everyone. We lose Marines everyday. It sucks. But we're kicking the sh-- out of the Muj when it comes to combat. They don't have a chance if they stand and fight. IED's are their only real hope. I see only a small slice of the war, but for my money, more troops is the answer.

It's a shame to think that after all the blood and effort here, we're going to walk away with our tails between our legs, just so that the Dems can say 'I told you so,' and get their man/woman in the White House in '08.

True, they don't offer 79 recommendations, but we'll stack the wisdom of these two up against any number of Washington eminences."

Gen. Zinni, Gen. Keane, Sen. McCain and many others want to surge forces in the Baghdad area, preferably by increasing overall troop levels in Iraq, not by pulling forces out of Anbar. One reason may be reports like this this from the AP:

But as the White House faces calls to revisit its Iraq policy, U.S. forces in Ramadi insist their strategy here — taking ground and holding it — is proving effective.

"You have to occupy ground and stay there," said Capt. Greg Pavlichko, commander of a company involved in "Squeeze Play." "You have to live where you're fighting and let the people see you're committed to an area."

Commanders also say that any progress in Ramadi will evaporate almost overnight if U.S. forces pull out of the city. There is speculation the U.S. may scale back its operations here and throughout Anbar to focus on the violence and chaos in Baghdad.

"I think to give up on Anbar would be to give up on Iraq," Hart said. "It would be giving up all that we've worked very hard, sacrificed a lot of lives, to gain."

In its report, the ISG concludes:

The ability of the United States to shape outcomes is diminishing. Time is running out.

But as Frederick Kagan explains in today’s New York Daily News, the ISG’s plan is based on time “we don’t have.” He writes:

Yet the Baker Report devotes scant space (8 pages out of 56 in the proposals section) to the security problem and its recommendations are unoriginal: Increase the number of American soldiers embedded in Iraqi units as trainers by stripping them out of the combat brigades now working to fight insurgents….

But it will almost certainly lead us to disaster.

Here's why. It takes time to train military forces to be effective in counterinsurgency operations. It takes months to train American units--which, from the start, are stocked with experienced volunteer soldiers. In the violent situation in Iraq today, with the fledgling Iraqi forces, it takes more time. And right now, time is the one thing we don't have.

If we pull American units out of their combat missions and focus them on training, the security situation in Iraq in the short-term is very likely to deteriorate. There will be a gap between our abandonment of the security mission and the point at which the Iraqis can undertake it themselves. Will the Iraqi government survive such a collapse? Will the American people have still more patience?

The Baker report blithely accepts these dangers without even considering them.

The group also ignores another inconvenient fact. Some of the most important training Iraqi Army units get today comes from operating side-by-side with American combat units in clear-and-hold missions, searches and raids. It is one thing to have trainers tell you what to do and watch you do it. It is another to participate in well-planned and skillfully-executed operations.

Ironically, pulling American forces back from combat missions will actually remove one of the most important elements of training Iraqi forces.

A serious strategy to help the Iraqis establish security now would not only embed more American troops with Iraqi forces but increase the number of U.S. combat troops in Baghdad--and work with the Iraqis not just to clear insurgent areas, but to hold them once they've been cleared.

There was a lot of backslapping and talk of "consensus" yesterday when the ISG members held their press conference. But evidently some of the retired military officers who advised the panel disagree with the report’s primary security recommendation. The NYT’s Michael Gordon reports:

By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq,” the study group says.

Jack Keane, the retired acting Army chief of staff who served on the group’s panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. “Based on where we are now we can’t get there,” General Keane said in an interview, adding that the report’s conclusions say more about “the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”

The group’s final military recommendations were not discussed with the retired officers who serve on the group’s Military Senior Adviser Panel before publication, several of those officers said.

Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general, said in an interview that the overall concept of withdrawing American forces as the Iraqis built up their military capability was sound. But he argued that the specific recommendations by the panel raised a second problem: if American combat brigades were withdrawn from Iraq, the thousands of American advisers who remained might find themselves dangerously exposed, particularly if the fighting in Iraq grew into a full-scale civil war. The advisers could be killed or taken hostage.

“They came up with a political thought but then got to tinkering with tactical ideas that in my view don’t make any sense,” General McCaffrey said. “This is a recipe for national humiliation.”

On page 1, the report states:

The Iraqi people have a democratically elected government that is broadly representative of Iraq’s population, yet the government is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services. The level of violence is high and growing. There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive.

So one question to consider is whether the ISG recommendation on military trainers would decrease or increase the level violence in the short term. On this point, a military analyst emails:

This business about increasing the number of embedded trainers (which the report explicitly suggests we do without increasing forces in Iraq in one sentence, even though it then tepidly endorses a brief surge in another), is extremely dangerous and seductive. The trainers will be advising Iraqis on combat missions. But 20,000 trainers means 4-5 brigades of our troops not conducting security operations on their own (out of 15 in country). That will be a big hit on security, since the Iraqi troops will not replace them on the streets quickly or with any degree of efficiency. This likely means a short-term surge in violence…. So I think that the report is in some respects more dangerous for being less bad than it might have been.

On page 37-38:

Because of the importance of Iraq, the potential for catastrophe, and the role and commitments of the United States in initiating events that have led to the current situation, we believe it would be wrong for the United States to abandon the country through a precipitate withdrawal of troops and support. A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions, leading to a number of the adverse consequences outlined above. The near-term results would be a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy. Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory.

It continues:

If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

(A reader emails: "on the military front, they looked at an increase of 100K to 200K and - surprise! - found that it would be hard to sustain. By inflating the numbers they took it off the board.)

From page 73:

Because of the importance of Iraq to our regional security goals and to our ongoing fight against al Qaeda, we considered proposals to make a substantial increase (100,000 to 200,000) in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. We rejected this course because we do not believe that the needed levels are available for a sustained deployment. Further, adding more American troops could conceivably worsen those aspects of the security problem that are fed by the view that the U.S. presence is intended to be a long-term “occupation.”

We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

We also rejected the immediate withdrawal of our troops, because we believe that so much is at stake.

Of course, since 2003 we’ve been following the failed “light footprint” strategy and signaling withdrawal and the result has been a downward spiral and the rise of the militias. The ISG could support a “short-term” surge in Baghdad. I assume they’d support such a surge – which I predicted here -- because they believe it may improve security. What they don’t say is how long is “short-term” – 3 months, a year – and how many troops – 10,000, 20,000, 50,000? Perhaps the media will get around to asking them at some point.

Newsweek reports:

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

Like Reyes, McCain also has called for an increase in U.S. troop strength. When asked how many additional troops he envisioned sending to Iraq, Reyes replied: “I would say 20,000 to 30,000, for the specific purpose of making sure those militias are dismantled, working in concert with the Iraqi military.”

When a reporter suggested that was not a position that was likely to be popular with many House Democrats, Reyes replied: „Well again, I differ in that I don‚t want Iraq to become the next Afghanistan. We could not allow Iraq to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, for Hamas, for Hizbullah, or anybody else. We cannot allow Iran or Syria to have a free hand in there to further destabilize the Middle East.”

Is 20,000-30,000 enough and for how long? As Tom Donnelly of the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, “a troop surge is necessary to stave off defeat; a larger surge is better than a small one; a long surge is better than a short one. It's hard to win a long war with a small force.”

Mort Zuckerman of US News asks, "What's the most dangerous geopolitical development in the 21st century?" The answer: "Iran's emergence as the Middle East regional superpower. Why? Because it places the center of the world's increasingly stretched energy resources more and more under the influence of an oil-rich, fundamentalist, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic regime that has not only nuclear ambitions but the means to realize them."

And he's not optimistic about where all this is headed, given the obstruction of Russia and China on the Security Council.

All the West's diplomatic efforts have failed to induce Iran to refrain from developing nuclear weapons, which it contends–utterly unconvincingly–that it is not doing. Europe has been supportive, but Russia and China are playing both sides at the United Nations. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, gleefully heaps scorn on the world body: "We are guided by what the Hidden Imam tells us, not by what you dictate in your resolutions."

Yesterday on Fox News, the president said he’d review the Baker-Hamilton recommendations on Iraq but he also added: “More importantly, when it comes to military matters, I want to listen to the military, to come up with a way of achieving our objective quicker. And so this is an important period." But with Rumsfeld, Abizaid and Casey on the way out, what will the military be saying to Bush on Iraq? Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal offered a hint:

As demands mount to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a growing number of senior military officials are arguing that the only way to salvage the situation is to add more U.S. forces and more U.S. money.

Outside the military, most of the debate is focused on a U.S. troop withdrawal. But inside the Pentagon, the recent dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given some new life to arguments by military officers who say the U.S. must pour more troops and money into the country to expand the Iraqi army -- the one institution in Iraq that has shown some promise -- and stabilize the capital.

Right now there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Though there are no firm plans for an increase, some military officials said that as many as 30,000 more troops could be needed. Most of the U.S. troops would be focused on patrolling Baghdad and training the Iraqi Army….

Senior military officials seeking to make one last push to stabilize Baghdad might find a receptive ear with President Bush….

Most military officers, however, seem to believe that a pullback of U.S. forces would only trigger more violence and make political compromise in the country impossible. These officers argue that 20,000 U.S. troops are needed to bring order to Baghdad. Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers would also be needed to work as advisers with the Iraqi Army, which currently numbers about 134,000 troops and might need to double in size.

Military officials who advocate such an approach warn that it could take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. But many of these officers bristle at the idea that it is too hard or impossible.

"The notion that we can't provide protection for people in one of the capital cities of this world [Baghdad] is just rubbish," says retired Gen. Jack Keane [former Army vice chief of staff], who has made trips to Iraq to meet with commanders and provide recommendations to senior military officials. Gen. Keane, who advocates sending more U.S. forces into Baghdad neighborhoods and bolstering the Iraq Army, says he is speaking for himself….

Some have suggested that US forces should basically vacant Baghdad and focus on the Anbar province. Let the militias run wild in the capital. Somehow I doubt letting Iraq's captital slide into a full-scale, 1970s Beirut makes much overall military sense.

Two pieces worth a read: Jeff Jacoby's “Fighting to win in Iraq” and Mark Steyn’s “Iraq is just test of will for America.”

Syria keeps arming Hezbollah. From Reuters:

The United Nations has documented 13 incidents of illegal weapons in southern Lebanon since early September, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday, calling Beirut's border monitoring deficient.

U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Lebanon to disarm all militias on its soil, including Hezbollah guerrillas, and banned all unauthorized arms in Lebanon….

The secretary-general said that he continued to receive reports of illegal arms smuggling across the Lebanese-Syrian border but has been unable to verify them.

Still, his envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said earlier this month he had evidence of the smuggling but was unable to reveal his sources. Syria dismissed the charge as untrue.

(Andrew Sullivan reacts to my Rumsfeld post. He writes: “The president refused. Where we are is not Rumsfeld's responsibility. It's Bush's. He's the president. It's been his non-strategy all along. And yet the WS did nothing but back him, lionize him and enable him.” Come again. From an April 26, 2004 WS editorial: “Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld famously talks about preparing for the ‘unknown unknowns.’ Yet the present crisis was hardly unforeseeable, and Rumsfeld did not ensure that the military was prepared to deal with it. He failed to put in place in Iraq a force big enough to handle the challenges at hand. That is a significant failure, and we do not yet know the price that will be paid for it. The question is whether Rumsfeld and his generals have learned from past mistakes. Or rather, perhaps, the question is whether George W. Bush has learned from Rumsfeld's past mistakes. After all, at the end of the day, it is up to the president to ensure that the success he demands in Iraq will in fact be accomplished. If his current secretary of defense cannot make the adjustments that are necessary, the president should find one who will.”)

The New York Times notes this from the Rumsfeld memo on what to do in Iraq:

The list of favored options notably does not mention the ‘clear, hold and build’ approach that the White House has touted as its strategy for waging counterinsurgency. That is a troop-intensive approach that calls for clearing contested areas with American and Iraqi troops, holding them with American and Iraqi forces and then carrying out reconstruction programs to win popular support.

But the “clear, hold and build” approach is not an “option.” It's the president’s stated war strategy, and the defense secretary never implemented it. Secretary Rice outlined the strategy in Senate testimony in October 2005, and around the same time the White House chief of staff had to remind the secretary about the president's “clear, hold and build” counterinsurgency strategy. George Will noted this nugget from Bob Woodward’s State of Denial:

The book actually includes one heartening story that should enhance Rumsfeld's reputation. On Veterans Day, 2005, the president traveled to a Pennsylvania Army depot to deliver a speech announcing the new military policy for Iraq, the policy of "clear, hold and build.'' Woodward says Rumsfeld, having read the speech, called Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, a half-hour before Bush was to deliver it, and said, "Take that out.'' Card replied that the three words were the centerpiece of the speech, not to mention the war strategy. Rumsfeld replied, "Clear, we're doing. It's up to the Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to work with somebody on the build.''

So the commander in chief announces a new war strategy and his defense secretary stonewalls it. If Rumsfeld didn’t agree with the “clear, hold and build” strategy, fine. He should have stepped aside and handed over the keys to the Pentagon to someone who supported the new strategy. Instead, the new strategy was pursued with insufficient forces, a critical problem going back to 2003 (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

For years, Rumsfeld pursued his own agenda in Iraq. He denied things were getting worse. He ignored calls for more troops and dismissed those critical of his conduct of the war. Rumsfeld now suggests that the US “go minimalist” in Iraq. Unfortunately for the president, his defense secretary has followed a “minimalist” approach in Iraq since March 2003. And here we are.

From the New York Times:

Senator John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee from Texas, said he believed that it would be necessary to send tens of thousands more troops to Iraq in the short term to stabilize Baghdad and control the sectarian militias that were killing one another and Americans.

He said he was gratified to hear Mr. Maliki’s claim that his forces would be adequate to the task by the middle of next year, but said he did not think the Iraqi prime minister was being realistic.

“I would love to believe it,” Mr. Cornyn said in a telephone interview from Texas. “Perhaps it’s useful for him to set goals for his own security forces. But it’s pretty clear to me that, at least from a logistical standpoint, Iraqi troops will need to receive support from the United States for quite a long time.”

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Many Republicans are shifting into defensive mode as they give up control of oversight committees. GOP Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) of Georgia said this week that they are backing Sen. John McCain's plan to boost troop levels by as much as 20,000 in Iraq.

Democrats ran under the "Bring the Troops Home" banner, but they now expect Republicans to concede defeat along with them. According to today’s Christian Science Monitor,

After winning back control of the House and Senate largely on the basis of opposition to the war in Iraq, Democrats are ramping up to find a bipartisan way out of it.

So far, the leading exit strategies on Capitol Hill - more troops, fewer troops, partition of Iraq, and timetables for phased or immediate withdrawal - are tied to individual sponsors. Disagreements cross party lines.

But leading Democrats now say that any exit strategy must be bipartisan. While eager to respect commitments to voters, Democrats don't want to own a war that many believe is already beyond winning - or to be tagged with the consequences of a botched exit.

Secretary Baker’s “bipartisan” plan is going nowhere fast, so Democrats will have to accomplish their objective the old fashioned way – seek to legislatively cut off funding for combat operations in Iraq and force a ”redeployment” of U.S. forces. I’m sure John Kerry is ready to take the lead in the Senate.

It's worth remembering as we consider the consequences of exiting Iraq along the lines advocated by some Washington politicians.

“The first stage," Zawahiri wrote in his July 2005 letter to Zarqawi, is to “expel the Americans from Iraq.” He also counseled Zarqawi to be prepared:

[T]hings may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative and impose a fait accompli upon our enemies, instead of the enemy imposing one on us, wherein our lot would be to merely resist their schemes.

Such an outcome will be anything but “peace with honor.”

(The assassin speaks. From the AP: "Syrian President Bashar Assad said Wednesday his country will continue to challenge U.S. efforts to exert control over the Middle East, sounding a defiant tone ahead of President Bush's arrival in the region for talks on Iraq. 'Colonialism has not ended. In the past they used to call it colonialism, today it is called liberation of people. ... Names differ but the essence is the same. As colonialism continues, revolution and resistance continue.... '")

From Reuters:

France and the United States agree there is no point in talking to Syria because the conditions for an honest dialogue do not exist, President Jacques Chirac said on Wednesday.

His comment came as President Bush is under strong domestic pressure to talk to Syria and Iran in an effort to reduce sectarian violence and avert civil war in Iraq.

Speaking after a NATO summit in Latvia, Chirac said he was always in favor of dialogue in principle provided it led to results and was based on honesty and a commitment to carry out what was agreed.

"In the current state of affairs, this is not exactly the characteristic of the dialogue which some European countries have started with Syria. I deplore that," Chirac said.

"I understand that the American president's position is exactly the same as France's," Chirac said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem accused Paris on Tuesday of trying to destabilize his country.

France took the lead with Washington last year in a United Nations resolution to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a close friend of Chirac.

CNN reports today:

Pelosi 'sad' over Bush's Iraq representation

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Tuesday she feels "sad" President Bush blamed insurgent violence on al Qaeda while he dismissed notions Iraq is in a civil war.

"My thoughts on the president's representations are well-known," Pelosi told reporters while meeting with Deputy Italian Minister Francesco Rutelli. "The 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again."

But in her recent 60 Minutes profile the incoming speaker conceded that non-Iraqi terrorists are NOW in Iraq.

STAHL: Do you not think that the war in Iraq now, today, is the war on terror?

Rep. PELOSI: No. The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan. That is what...

STAHL: But you don't think that the terrorists have moved into Iraq now?

Rep. PELOSI: (Unintelligible). They have.

STAHL: Well...

Rep. PELOSI: The jihadists in Iraq. But that doesn't mean we stay there. That means--they'll stay there as long as we're there. They're there because we're there.

Guess Pelosi was referring to the non-al Qaeda foreign terrorists operating in Iraq.

Will the Baker-Hamilton Commission endorse the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq on a hard timetable? That’s highly unlikely. The president has flatly rejected withdrawal timetables, so it’s hard to believe Sec. Baker would go along with such a recommendation for this reason alone. What about tweaking the current strategy? That's also unlikely. The Commission isn’t going to release a report endorsing the same basic policies that brought about the Commission in the first place. So what then?

The two most revealing public comments about where it may be headed came from defense secretary nominee Bob Gates and Iraq War opponent Gen. Anthony Zinni. After his nomination was announced, a news story surfaced noting that, after a Baghdad visit, Gates was astonished that his soon-to-be predecessor had let the security situation deteriorate so badly. Thus, it’s a good bet Gates doesn’t believe things will getter better in Baghdad in the short term with fewer troops, especially given the conclusions on troop levels contained in this intelligence assessment published in today’s Washington Post. A bit after the Gates piece appeared, there was another news story in which Zinni publicly called for more forces in the Baghdad area to stabilize the downward spiral. I’ve also learned that at least one senior member of the first Bush administration not named Baker has been telling folks that we cannot leave Iraq in its current state and that a precondition for any U.S. drawdown must be a relatively stable Baghdad, which, this person believes, will require a surge in forces.

Merits aside, I suspect we may be looking at a call for more forces in the short term, combined with a regional conference (and possibly an Iraq-only one also) and an economic aid package of some sort aimed at the Sunnis, followed by a recommendation for a significant drawdown or redeployment thereafter, and the transformation of the remaining force to a