A Jacksonian on Luttwak

Luttwak makes the common mistake of assuming that once the oil slows from the ME, the power will wane. Terrorism now uses multiple sources for funding: narcotrafficking, bank fraud, grey market goods sales, theft, kidnap for ransom, and the ever popular murder for hire.

Petrodollars make it worse, yes, but the present idea that free markets and cheap goods are making things safer and the world freer is misguided and no place more so than the Middle East. Trade does not get freedom. International insitutions do not get freedom.

If either of those were true then after 90 years of having it go on in the Middle East, it should be the freest place on the planet.

I do not see that for some very strange reason.This is primarily not a money flow question as that area has been a haven for tyrants, thugs and Empires for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Of freedom and liberty based upon the rights of man, there has been scant evidence of it.
In fact the drying up of money will make things more restive, more tense and those new sources, like Canada with the tar sands and the US with its oil shales, even more hated for 'taking such riches away'. That is, of course, irrational. Perhaps Mr. Luttwak has not noticed the lack of rational actors in the region?

Mussolini still managed to get a lot of folks killed, threaten the vital supply link of the Suez and had an outside chance, with Germany, of cutting off Gibraltar if Germany had held to its original War Plan. Thankfully that was not done.

This enemy has no Nation and wishes all Nations overturned. It can get cheap arms anywhere because we do not do a thing about going after trade with our enemies. There are a number of vital supply and transport links that can be targeted with some ease and if any non-conventional weapon is used possibly removed from the global economy on a long-term basis. I suggest that the economic argument is trivial compared to the long-term survival argument. If we do not put an end to terrorism and dreams of Empire we and our children *will live* to regret our effete attitudes towards civilization and how to hold it.

The fighting would have been bad, but manageable in 1917 and given basis for the US to help bring about more Nations aligned with their Peoples. We did not do that.

The US could have done a bit more after WW II beyond mere anti-colonial support and put in some actual help to the region in the way of schools and building a good base for decent jobs. We did not do that, either.

We could have stopped supporting tyrants or actually overthrown those not in the direct control of the USSR. We did not do that.

Now we pay for the inaction of parents and grand-parents who could have helped other Peoples find a route to freedom by expending blood and money to fight a hard, nasty war that had no good end because it was not fought to completion anywhere. That is still left undone in the Balkans and Middle East. And the price of that is held by a butcher that has decided we need to pay with our lives and freedom.

Time to put fancy ideas of economic reality away and start to deal with this other, actual, real sort of reality, where there are non-rational actors in the world.

Because if we do not put an end to them, then they shall do so to us.

A Jacksonian is brilliant, as always. I would also add a few lines from a recent interview with Amir Taheri by the JP:

There are three ways of dealing with this: You can surrender to Iran - by saying, "We'll give you the Middle East and then we'll go away." (Some Americans want to do this, because they don't have the stomach for anything else.) Or you can make a deal with it, like Clinton wanted to, by giving some zones of influence to Iran, and some zones of influence to the United States and then wait until Allah decides what happens (Highly likely that this is what we will get if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008) - like a mini-Cold War. Or you can resist it - by saying, "You want to create Khamenei's Middle East; we want to create Bush's Middle East" -

And NO, that doesn't mean War with Iran. Michael Rubin explains exactly how I feel:

The idea that there is a preventive war strategy to change the regime is at best a straw-man argument and at worst a conspiracy theory.Criticism regarding carrier group dispatch is misplaced. First, it is important that Arab states in the Persian Gulf recognize that the United States is going to defend its interests and protect our allies. Second, while Washington assumes events revolve around our decisions, the danger is Iranian overconfidence. Decision-makers in Iran, those in the office of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard, may confuse democratic debate with weakness and inadvertently cross a red line. We know from their statements that they do not take U.S. diplomatic demarches seriously. That the United States is willing to demonstrate red lines aids transparency and reduces the risk of accidental conflict.

With regard to engagement, we need to abandon the notion that long-term strategies to encourage the accountability of the Iranian government to its citizenry and short-term diplomacy are mutually exclusive. Providing moral support for the Vahed transportation workers’ ongoing attempts to form the Islamic Republic’s first independent trade union will not bring instant change. That does not mean it is wise to ignore them or to collude with the regime that seeks to crush them.

Even as Iran’s nuclear program has developed, the Bush administration has lacked a cohesive policy toward Tehran. An artificial dichotomy between engagement and regime change has polarized debate. Too often, proponents of engagement construct a straw-man argument about regime change to equate it with military action.

No serious policymaker seeks military action against Iran. Iranians are nationalistic. Any military strike would enable the regime to rally Iranians around the flag. Nor would even targeted strikes against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities end its program; at best, military strikes would only delay it. Nothing would be more irresponsible than the White House using the military to buy time because policymakers have not had the discipline to formulate a strategy.

This does not mean unrestrained engagement is a better option. Between 2000 and 2005, the apex of both European engagement and the Khatami presidency, EU trade with Tehran almost tripled. During that same period, Iranian leaders pumped hard currency into their weapons program and, at the time, still-covert nuclear program. Either Khatami’s rhetoric was insincere or he, like the many diplomats under him, had no insight into or control over the actions of other power centers.

If engagement is to be successful, it must include the sincere involvement of the people who control those aspects of regime behavior which Washington finds most objectionable—this means the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards. This is an unlikely prospect.

Everyone who has been to Iran is aware of the sophistication of Iranian intellectuals and much of the public. Many Iranians resent the corruption and adventurism of their leadership. The reformers are largely discredited. They are new paint on a rotten house. No Iranian inside Iran wants regime change from abroad, but they do embrace the ideas of popular sovereignty and democracy. Here, interests converge. Should the Iranian leadership become more accountable to its citizenry, then they will emphasize what most Iranians want—better schools, medical care, and employment prospects rather than expensive adventurism.

What policymakers should support are Iranian efforts to democratize and force accountability upon their leadership. This is what independent unions inside Iran struggle for. Democracy is just peaceful regime change. I agree with Robert that we should rely on internal forces as the agents of change. Unfortunately, regime engagement will both undercut those forces and enable the Iranian leadership to run down the clock on its nuclear program.

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Sociopaths Say the Darndest Things!

Iran's top clerical hyper-neo-liberal , fascist oligarch, so-called supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has warned that the IRI will use all its capabilities to defend itself against an attack. one might read into the language a certain bravado...

The self-proclaimed Supreme Leader, Khamenei, said in a national address Wednesday that if the United States and others want to threaten Iran and enforce coercion and violence, then Iran will respond to an attack by enemies.

The turbaned tyrant also is quoted as saying that Iran's nuclear activities have been in accordance with international regulations, and that Tehran will continue those actions, despite any action by the United Nations Security Council.

Shortly after the speech of Mr Khamenei , 15 British sailors were taken hostage by the IRGC.

Sayeed Laylaz compares Iran to a cornered cat that has no option but to strike back.

Khamenei's comments were accompanied by an Iranian naval commander's statement that the Revolutionary Guards had test fired missiles that could sink "big warships" in the Persian Gulf, where a second American aircraft carrier is now heading.

This is not the first time Islamic Republic's Leader has threatened the US. Last April, he vowed his country would "harm American interests" all over the world if an attack was launched against its nuclear installations, according to Iranian state television."The Americans should know that if they attack Iran, their interests will be harmed around the world," Khamenei reportedly said, adding: "The Iranian nation will respond to any attack twice as strongly."

As I've been saying all along, there are influential members of the hardliners and the IRGC Junta, and its coterie of like-minded ideologues (Mesbah Yazdi et al), that have an unhealthy belief in the efficacy of Imam Mahdi solutions to solving their interanl unrest and domestic economic woes brought on by their ineptitude and mismangement. To such an extent that negotiated settlements are viewed as born out of weakness, equivalent to appeasement and as inevitably leading to unnecessarily costly compromises at bargaining tables shared with adversaries that would be better dealt with suicide bombing, hostage taking, training Iraqi shi'ite militas and Hamas in Iran, fometing civil war in Iraq, Sudan and even in chechnya (see A Jacksonian analysis in the comment section of this post).

At the very least, there is an overriding desire to use terrorism and hostage taking to weaken the opponents until an eventual "negotiated" settlement accepted under extreme duress is sufficiently skewed as to be made more palatable. So far, this strategy has worked like a charm, the British have decided not to esclate the conflict and are groveling in the background while the poor sailors face being charged for espinoge punishable by death according to the Iranian penal code.

Khamenei has pools of blood on his hands. As I have posted in my earlier entries (November and December archives), the "leader" is the Commander-in-chief and nothing gets done without his approval. He must have personally approved the June 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers military residence in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US servicemen. US courts blame Iran for backing the group that carried out the attack. Argentinian intelligence says Khamenei also approved the decision to attack Argentina's Jewish community center at a meeting in August 1993 that he chaired. Participants included Iran's president at that time, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who is a 'wanted man' by the Interpole along with his other accomplices. This latest incident just adds to the litany of their egregious acts of terrorism undoubtedly approved by the furehr. International criminals supported and funded by the Islamic Republic have been given a free reign to engage in acts of war with impunity since 1979 across the globe including assassination of dissidents in Europe.

The West so far by its utter inaction (since 1979) has displayed its implicit surrender to Islamic Republic of Extortionsts and Pirates. The West (Mostly the EU) has been committing suicide since 1979 for their centuries of empire and the coup of 1953 by the CIA. When is the West going to ask for apologies and atonment from the Islamic Republic?

No wonder, Ahamdinejad keeps repeating to his audience of zombified Jihadist these words , " 'The world without America' is not only possible but near".

Update: Blair Convenes Cobra Team as Crisis in Iran Escalates
COBRA is an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where its meetings are held.

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International Gangsterism yet the Mullahs still Secure and more Emboldened than Ever!!

Yahoo News: Britain demands Iran free seized sailors

Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards captured 15 British sailors and marines at gunpoint Friday in the Persian Gulf — a provocative move coming during heightened tensions between the West and Iran.
Iran's Foreign Ministry insisted the Britons were operating in Iranian waters and would be held "for further investigation," Iranian state television said.
A U.S. Navy official in Bahrain, Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, said Iran's Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible and had broadcast a brief radio message saying the British party was not harmed...
The incident occurred as the U.N. Security Council debates expanding sanctions against Iran seeking to force Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and insists it won't halt the program.
Iran's leaders also have denied allegations by the U.S., Britain and others that Iranians are arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.
Hours before the seizure of the Royal Navy team, British Lt. Col. Justin Maciejewski told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program from the Iraqi city of Basra that Iranians provided weapons and money to militants who are attacking British troops in southern Iraq.
The U.S. military has leveled similar charges, saying Iranians send arms to Iraqi extremists, including sophisticated roadside bombs.

This week, two commanders of an Iraqi Shiite militia told The Associated Press in Baghdad that hundreds of Iraqi Shiites had crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Why is Iran apparently less troubled vis-à-vis giving the US/UK Casus belli than the leftists/islamists/communists who accuse those who condemn Iran on egregious violation of human rights basis?

Whenever anyone displays the slightest of objection in regards to, a woman being stoned to death in Iran, a scholar jailed , a teacher or a worker tortured and has his tongue cut out (Ossanlou, the head of the Bus Workers Union) and summarily hanged or executed, people on the left censure those raising objections with the stale response that this is helping Neocons and “the Zionists” by providing them more red herring to go to war with Iran. The dispute is that this type of condemnation helps to "vilify" Iran in laying the groundwork for war.

Doesn't it seem that the "leader" and his errand boy,Ahmadinejad,want a war in order to maintain their increasing volatile and eroding hold on power. Either war or a long stand off with a humiliated US and Britain will strengthen their position and shore up more support at home. After all, the errand boy, Ahmadinejad, was one of the Revolutionary Guards who might have been involved (directly or indirectly) in holding the US Embassy staff hostage. He remembers how that incident was responsible for the jihadist (khomeinists junata) ascendany to grab the power and hijack the revolution.

If objecting the stoning to death of women and other horrendous human rights violations in Iran are "providing an excuse", what the hell is taking British sailors prisoner and training Iraqi militias then?

BREAKING: The Mighty Mouse Is not Coming to the UN after all.

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