Archive for March, 2007
BEAZLEY’S CONTENTION NO “GLOBAL JIHAD” IN IRAQ IS BRUISED LOGIC AND NO IMAGINATION
BEAZLEY’S CONTENTION NO “GLOBAL JIHAD” IN IRAQ
IS BRUISED LOGIC AND NO IMAGINATION
Con George-Kotzabasis
In the wake of Cheney’s visit and comments on the Australian alliance, the former leader of the Opposition argues in his piece in The Australian, Reports of the apocalypse have been greatly exaggerated, March 8, 2007, that “After all, there is plenty of room in the alliance for disagreement on actions and objectives”… and “Howard’s ‘constant refrain’ of redeployment of forces would be a victory for terrorists”, is completely wrong, as al Qaeda are not “at the cutting edge of global jihad” in Iraq. Furthermore, he amusingly contends, a “gradual redeployment and exit” from Iraq, “would be the choices made by the Iraqi people”, which presumably according to this artifact of Beazley would render the US led-coalition a cover that the withdrawal was not according to the volition of the latter but according the ‘wish’ of the Iraqi people. Finally he caps his contention with his incipient–must I say insipid–position that only in Afghanistan one can fight al Qaeda, hence attempting to justify his long held initial stand that the terrain of battle against cutting edge global jihad is Afghanistan and not Iraq and that is where Australian forces should be deployed.
Only someone cognitively maladjusted or militarily and strategically a dilettante would continue to adhere to the wrongness of his premise that currently Afghanistan and not Iraq is the front of global terror, and to shrug the reality that the latter by its nature cannot be “compartmentalized” geographically and is and will remain borderless. And what is rather amusing for a Rhodes scholar is that he cannot perceive the logical fallacy that while he accepts the obvious, that the war is a global war on terror, whose constant is that it has a fluid geographic location–as the Somalian Islamist attempt to take over the country and turn it into a launching pad of terrorism on the horn of Africa has shown lately–he nonetheless wants to fight it on a regional basis.
But let us deal with the points of his argument. He contends that within the alliance one could disagree on actions and objectives. While this is true on secondary issues of the alliance, it’s not true about primal issues such as war, when nations deploy the flower of their youth to fight it. It would be a debauchery of political responsibility to disagree with one’s allies on the primal and dangerous issues concerning them. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “the greater the danger is, the greater is the need to reach agreement quickly and easily about what must be done; not misunderstanding in times of danger is what human beings simply cannot do without in their relations”. And indubitably, fanatic Islam poses the greatest danger to Western civilization in the twenty-first century.
The other point Beazley makes, is that Howard’s “refrain” of an early withdrawal and “redeployment of forces” from Iraq “would be a victory for the terrorist”, and would bring forth the “apocalypse” is “a greatly exaggerated” claim, according to Beazley. But this counter claim of the latter is based on the presupposition that al Qaeda is not the cutting edge of global jihad in Iraq. Even if this happens to be true–which is not–it would not prevent al Qaeda’s twin the Iranian jihad to replace it. The Islamist jihad is like the Hydra of Lerna, the many-headed monster whose slaying is a Herculean task and has to be chased all over the globe. Moreover, Beazley’s assertion that a gradual exit of the American-led coalition would be the choice of the Iraqi people in this decisive conflict between the former and the insurgents is vaudevillian farce. No great power, least of all a superpower, in such a conflict of historical meaning can leave its reputation and destiny to be determined by the volatile and fickle choice of any people. A great nation does not win a war or save its renown as an invincible power on the energy of the wind that moves the weathervane of the choices of the masses. Furthermore, Beazley is completely wrong about the real choice of the Iraqi people. The paramount choice of the latter, in the conflagrating circumstances of their everyday existence, is security. The majority of Iraqis, unlike Beazley, are aware that their security and future economic prosperity depends on the American presence in Iraq. And on the ability of US troops in conjunction with Iraqi forces to defeat the insurgency, while at the same time American know how and economic help is necessary to built the infrastructure of the country that will lead it to its future prosperity.
Hence, the wish of the majority of Iraqis to build their nation on a democratic basis–who in many instances during the election had risked their lives to elect the al Maliki government–that the Bush administration had sparked, makes the latter morally and politically responsible to the people of Iraq that their vote is not going to be squandered. This wish of Iraqis is demonstrated by the biggest poll ever conducted since the invasion by the Opinion Research Business, published in The Australian on March 19, 2007. The poll found out that Iraqis by 2/1 preferred the present regime of al Maliki than Saddam’s. Also, 73% of Iraqis believed that the country was not in a civil war, against 27% who believed the opposite. And many residents of Baghdad since the “surge” and the continuous presence of US and Iraqi troops in the cleared areas from insurgents, felt more secure.
All the above facts have gone over the head of the former Opposition leader. Nor does he recognize that in the fog of this global confrontation between the West and the Islamist fanatics, as in any war, perception and reality commingle, and it’s impossible to tell which is which. Hence any premature US withdrawal from Iraq, whether it would have been instigated by the choice of the Iraqi people or by the political arrivistes and spineless opportunistic populists of the Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who are pushing their irresolute resolutions in both houses of Congress, will be perceived by most people of the world, and especially by the jihadists, as an irremediable and devastating defeat of the American hegemon. American prestige as an invincible superpower being in tatters will inflame the global jihadists to perpetrate in the near future their most extreme, and indeed, apocalyptic actions, against the US and the West.
Kim Beazley’s call for the withdrawal of the Australian troops from Iraq rests on bruised logic and lack of imagination, and cannot be taken seriously. John Howard, in contrast, by his steadfast stand on Iraq is admirable for his realism about the catastrophic consequences of an ill considerate, slapdash exit from Iraq, before the latter is ready to take full responsibility for its own security. The defeat of the insurgents is both a prerequisite for the stabilization of Iraq as well as for the irreversible enervation of the global holy warriors of fanatic Islam, that will lead slowly but surely to their inexorable rout.
No commentsBLUEPRINT FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ
BLUEPRINT FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ
Con George-Kotzabasis
The ideas behind most of these proposals were conceived at the beginning of December 2006, but the paper was not published for obvious reasons as it was sent both to President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, on January 2, 2007. Now, however, that the new US strategy under the command of general Petraeus has been implemented in Iraq, I think the paper can be published without any detriment to the US strategy. As events have shown, the US military is taking hard measures against Iran by arresting some of its citizens in Iraq suspected of supplying weapons and roadside bombs to the insurgents, as well as US commandos crossing the border of Iraq into Iran in search and destroy operations of caches of munitions–of which we don’t hear about–that are earmarked to be supplied to the insurgents. Also, some of the “Surge” of US forces have been deployed in the province of al Anbar where many of the insurgents, in anticipation of the Surge have abandoned Baghdad, are now heavily concentrated. And last, but not least, the US has a secret plan to attack Iran within twenty-four hours on the orders of the President.
Background: The Current Situation
A constellation of the “best and the brightest” stars of American foreign policy-makers and diplomats are presently attempting to prevent the “penumbra of defeat” from casting its ominous shadow over Iraq. Ominous, from the standpoint that the Administration’s war against Iraq was and is an essential part of the war against global terror, as the cause of the war was the reasonable alarm and concern of the Bush administration – in the aftermath of 9/11 – that the Saddam regime could potentially be in the immediate future a supplier of weapons of mass destruction to the global terrorists. Hence, a real or seeming defeat of the US forces in Iraq would have portentous ramifications on its war against the global jihadist fanatics and its state sponsors, such as Syria, and to a greater extent, Iran. So the stakes for the US are strategically high, as the outcome of an even apparent defeat by the Americans in Iraq would make the holy warriors of Islam stronger, more brazen and more deadly. In the eyes of these fanatics they will see in this “defeat” and in all of their future and impending actions, the imprimatur of Allah.
A premature withdrawal of American forces from Iraq before the consolidation of its government and the latter’s ability to quell the insurgency by its own military would be an irremediable strategic error. It would surpass by a greater order of magnitude all the other errors committed by the US in the aftermath of the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, if the rationale for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq was the war against global terror -as President Bush pointed out and as both houses of Congress accepted and voted for overwhelmingly – no responsible and historically astute political leadership would withdraw from this war just because of the difficulties that have arisen, as a result of the past mistakes of the war-makers. War by definition is difficult and is far from being error-free. But no strategist of Napoleonic dimensions abandons the field of battle because of difficulties. The military vocation and responsibility of a good strategist is to promptly overcome these difficulties by a new adroit and unconventional strategy that will address these difficulties, while at the same time plan to deal such a surprising and lethal blow to the enemy, that within a short time will disable him and make him powerless to continue his fighting.
The Baker-Hamilton Commission, formally known as the Iraq Study Group, (ISG) rules out a victory in Iraq. Henry Kissinger also believes that victory is no longer possible. It has been reported, that the ISG will recommend to the President next month to seek political accommodation with the insurgents, and to open a diplomatic avenue of negotiations with Syria and Iran and entice the latter to involve themselves toward a peaceful outcome in Iraq. Such a proposition issuing from such a high-powered group, in the face of statements by American commanders on the ground that both Syria, and especially Iran are providing arms and funds to the insurgency reveals that the ISG has hoisted its cognitive anchor from the moorings of realpolitik. One has to remind the Baker-Hamilton Commission that whomever one seeks to negotiate with, one acknowledges as master of the situation, to paraphrase Karl Marx. To go to the negotiating table, cap in hand, when your implacable enemy perceives himself to be at the threshold of military victory, is to make a parody of realist diplomacy, as well as doing this at the expense of US strategic interests.
However, not to be unjust to the Baker panel, if the latter is prepared to enforce its demands upon Syria and Iran through diplomacy – backed by an explicit threat of a military attack by the US if they don’t comply – then such a move on the chessboard of diplomacy might checkmate the menacing and nefarious role of Syria and Iran in their support of the Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the event these demands are rejected by Syria and Iran then the US will have no other option but to unleash its mighty arsenal against them with no quarter given. Only by such diplomacy backed by the clear and unrelenting use of one’s military power against one’s inexorable enemies can one subdue the latter and achieve one’s strategically uncompromising demands. Moreover–and this is the ultimate issue that cannot be resolved by any kind of diplomatic discourse—even if an accommodation is reached by this US power-implemented diplomacy with Syria and Iran in regards to Iraq, the “narrative” of the war against global terror will not change. The war of Western democracies, and especially of the US – being the only nation that can comprehensively defeat it – against this infamy of international terror will continue. But a vital modification in this narrative will be that the jihadists will have a weaker base from which they can launch their attacks against the West once they lose the overt and covert support of Syria and Iran, and more generally of other states that covertly and financially support terrorists. So, the positive repercussions emanating from such a military-backed diplomacy by the US will be an enormous strategic fillip for the latter in its war against global terror, and especially against the insurgency in Iraq.
NEW STRATEGY MUST SECURE BAGHDAD
“Flipping the bird”, to use a Brooklyn term, of gradual withdrawal in whatever form before the job is done, as presumably is going to be suggested to the President by the Iraq Study Group – according to leaked reports – is not a step toward victory but a step toward defeat. But for the job to be done either by Americans or Iraqis, or in combination, the strategic and tactical “steps” on the ground against the insurgents will have to change radically. Also, for this new strategy to be successful, it will be necessary to inject a dose of ruthlessness into the coalition forces’ operations that is commensurate to the ruthlessness of the insurgents. The spread of fear by the insurgents must be countermanded by the greater fear of what will happen to them and to their sundry political supporters within Iraq by the might of US military power used against them sans civilized compunctions. The rules of engagement of US troops and the use of the means of war against the insurgents must change seminally in this new strategy. Only by doing so will the latter ensure the defeat of this irreconcilable and bloodthirsty enemy.
Campaign Tactics
Securing Baghdad will be the point d’ appui of this new campaign against the insurgents–with whose military tactics for the achievement of this goal we will deal with further down. Hence, a concentration of US coalition forces will be needed to clear up or eliminate the insurgents from the areas where they are hiding, and restore security under the continuing presence of the coalition forces.
The following tactics are crucial for securing Baghdad:
1. An important element in this new strategy will be degrading the ability of the insurgents to use car bombs, both against civilians, as well as Iraqi security forces. To accomplish this task, the Iraqi government must pass a law that will prescribe that no vehicle within the commercial and servicing areas of Baghdad will be allowed to park without at least one passenger being in it. In case a car has no one in it or is seen to be abandoned by its driver, that will immediately send a warning to commuters close to it that it’s more likely than not a car bomb. To prevent the insurgents from using dummies or kidnapped passengers tied to the vehicle, the latter must have its passenger side-window open so nearby commuters will be able to see whether it is a dummy or a kidnapped person. Hence an important corollary of this law will be the willy-nilly change of Iraqi civilians into commuter vigilantes who will promptly identify a terrorist whom they themselves could arrest when he takes leave of his vehicle, if no security personnel are in the vicinity. This law of course will not prevent the detonation of a car bomb by a suicide bomber who will not abandon his vehicle. But it will diminish in substantial numbers the car bombs by taking out of the equation all those vehicles that are exploded by remote control without suicide bombers in them. Hence, the Iraqi Government, by the passing of this law, not only will diminish the number of car bombs, but it will also actively “mobilise” all civilian commuters against this murderous weapon of the insurgents.
2. Securing Baghdad will require an increased number of US troops, as has already been adumbrated by the Bush administration. The troops will be deployed both within the environs of the city and beyond for the double purpose of clearing areas where the insurgents are hiding and receiving financial support and nourishment from local leaders as well as placing a stranglehold upon them. Bearing also in mind that because the modality of the insurgency is “anarchic” - since its operations are not directed by a central command post, as each group of insurgents is doing its own thing – the coalition forces can only decapitate the insurgency by destroying the supply lines and logistics of each group. Hence, only by destroying the caches of munitions of the insurgents will the Americans be able to enervate the insurgency.
3. At the start of the military campaign of cleansing Baghdad of insurgents, the al Maliki government must make the announcement that all entrance and exit points of Baghdad will be closed and no one will be allowed to enter or leave the city. More specifically, unbeknown to the insurgents, Baghdad will be encircled by US troops, so if any of the insurgents embedded within Baghdad attempt to escape the coalition forces’ attack within the capital will be killed by the encircling US troops. (This tactic of encirclement can also apply on a mini-scale, such as Sadr city or any other areas within Baghdad. The commanders on the ground will decide on the scale of its use.) Certainly this closure of the city will cause some inconvenience to the civilians, but this “naval blockade on land” is absolutely necessary for the defeat of the insurgents within Baghdad. This will lock the new American strategy like a vise around them, for if any try to enter or leave the city they will be killed without question. And once Baghdad falls from the hold of the insurgents and the security of the city is accomplished by the continued presence of US troops, Baghdad again will be an open city.
4. However, the consolidation of the security of Baghdad in the long term can only be accomplished if this security is expanded and achieved in other towns that are in the vicinity of Baghdad. Therefore the towns that are situated in the province of al Anbar, and which are Sunni strongholds of the Iraqi insurgency, will also have to be cleared from the menace of the insurgents. To be successful in this task US strategists will have to pick an appropriate town from this province and resort to unique strategic tactics in the form of “a prototype of destruction” that will serve as a deadly example to the insurgents and to their clan and Sheikh leaders of what awaits them in other towns of Iraq, if they do not surrender. US forces will blockade the town and announce to its residents that if they want to save themselves from a devastating attack they will have to take immediate leave of their town. Once civilians exit their town –and quite possibly some insurgents will be amongst them but they will be unarmed, otherwise they will not be able to pass through the American checkpoints — US commanders will ruthlessly use the appropriate lethal ordnance and bombs that will destroy the town and along with it all the insurgents in their bunkers who choose to be martyrs or consider the US warning to be merely a bluff. As for those insurgents who escaped with the egress of civilians from the town, the chances that they will be rearmed and recycled back to the insurgency will considerably diminish with the security of Baghdad and the borders of Syria and Iran from which the insurgency receives its arms and munitions.
Beyond any doubt, some civilians who stayed behind because they were either relatives or supporters of the insurgents, will be killed in this remorseless destruction, and there will be a tidal wave of protest, censure, and purgatorial blame against the US military action. But one must be reminded, that throughout history all protests and censures dissolve in the cup of victory. Providing this new strategy and tactics will be victorious against the Iraqi insurgency and its foreign jihadists – and the chances are that they will be – the exponents and the practitioners of this unconventional strategy will neither be accountable to man or God, but only to history. In all great crises of mankind, morality is superseded by Realpolitik and the reality of war.
5. The defeat of the insurgency also entails its covert allies, Syria and Iran, who are supplying the insurgents with armaments and whose porous borders are conduits for foreign jihadists to enter Iraq, are going to be dealt with. The US must exercise a strategy of
CONCLUSION
The means of war were invented not for the purpose of lying idle in their “silos”, but to be used as a last resort against an implacable and mortal foe. If President Truman’s rationale for using the atomic bomb against Japan was the saving of American lives that an invasion of that country would inevitably entail, then President Bush has a stronger rationale of using the current lethal weapons -although not nuclear ones- that the US possesses against the bloodthirsty insurgency in Iraq. This is not only for the purpose of saving American lives but also of defeating an enemy who, in the event of taking over Iraq, would turn the latter – both physically and psychologically – into a haven and launching pad for global terror, whose jihadists would threaten the viability, and, indeed, the survival of Western civilization, as we know it.
In order to defeat global terror one must place terror in the hearts of the terrorists. Islamofanatics believe in toto that they have Allah on their side and while they even think they are winning will become an even more implacable foe. Fanatics only understand the language of force and respect only the currency of strength. It is this harsh fact which must drive the rules of engagement, replacing the hitherto “nice guy” military approach of the Americans, with some notable exceptions.
This new strategy of staying the course – but with the commanders on the ground having all the appropriate means of war at their disposal to be used remorselessly against the insurgents – has a great chance of being successful. And unlike all the pessimistic pundits who have “cashiered” victory in Iraq—but pessimists cannot win wars that is the vocation of optimists—2007 could be the Annus Mirabilis for President Bush, if he has the mettle and sagacity to adopt the above strategy that could indeed be the blueprint for victory.
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4 commentsDELEGITIMIZE STATES THAT SPONSOR TERROR
DELEGITIMIZE STATES THAT SPONSOR TERROR
Con George-Kotzabasis
The following paper was written on September 20, 2006, and was sent to President Bush on the same date. The reason why it’s republished here is that the Pentagon has now a secret plan to attack Iran within twenty four hours, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine.
Distinguished former diplomats, like Warren Christopher, Clinton’s Secretary of State, remain at their “postless”, no new messages on diplomacy, posts, and continue to argue on the virtues of old diplomacy. In his piece on the Washington Post, July 28, 2006, he calls for “negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the warring parties” in Lebanon, and asserts that a “permanent” and “sustainable” solution to the root causes of the conflict—which is the goal of the Bush administration—“is achievable, if at all, by protracted negotiations.” As an example of such successful diplomacy that occurred under his tenure as Secretary, he refers to the rocket attacks by Hezbollah in April 1996 against Israel and the countering of the latter with Operation Grapes of Wrath, that the Cagliostro like arts of diplomacy successfully stymied this confrontation and ushered a truce between the parties that lasted for ten years. He claims, that only by such broad-minded diplomacy that involves all the players in the region could America stop its “tattered reputation.” But he is completely mindless of the fact that this long Truce was neither permanent nor sustainable, but, merely, a respite for the Hezbollah during which the latter would militarily train and proselytize its militia with its fanatic deadly ideology and arm it with Katyusha rockets for a deadlier future confrontation with its mortal enemy, the Jewish State, as we now see. To repeat therefore the diplomacy of the past in the present context in the face of these lessons given by this flauntingly failed diplomacy, is not only to repeat the mistakes of the past, but more grievously still, to weaken Israel and its Western allies against greater impending dangers in the future. As the upshot of another long Truce between the belligerents now would only benefit Hezbollaf by making it politically, ideologically, and militarily even stronger, and loading this time the tips of its rockets with weapons of mass destruction, including tactical nuclear weapons, thus fulfilling President Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic foreboding of wiping Israel off the map. And needless to say, such an outcome would be a tremendous victory for global terror and a serious strategic reversal of the West’s war against it.
Furthermore, it would set in concrete the ambition of Iran to become the dominant power of the region, whose present trailblazing two-pronged strategy to forge an axis between Shi’ites and Sunnis, as the present pact between Iran and Syria illustrates against their arch enemy Israel and to paralyze the EU and the US as a condominium to formulate an ironclad policy that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are the means by which it will achieve its aim. Since, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, the grand diversion that Lebanon has provided will ease its task to acquire a nuclear arsenal, as the divisions that would be spawned by the Lebanon crisis among the Western countries and within the UN about how to handle the situation on the ground, would be of such a nature that would completely enervate the US and EU condominium from casting a position that would stop Iran from joining the nuclear club.
Hence, the war in Lebanon may initially appear to be a local conflict between Israel and Hezbollah but in reality is a geopolitical conflict between Iran and the Western powers since the former will be using the conflagration of Lebanon as a fulcrum to achieve its strategic goals (a) to acquire nuclear weapons, (b) to emerge as the predominant power in the region, (c) to become the leader of the Muslim world, and (d) to establish in the world the millenarian regime of the twelfth imam Mahdi. As the respected Middle East analyst Amir Taheri wrote in The Australian, on August 7, 06, “to Ahmadinejad to wipe off Israel is the first step toward defeating the ‘infidel’ West”. He furthermore quotes Iran’s state controlled media as saying “that Lebanon would become the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East”. And Tehran believes, “that a victory by Hezbollah…will strengthen Ahmadinejad’s bid for the leadership of radical Islam”. And Taheri comes to the conclusion “all the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulation may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict”.
Will the “new” diplomacy, as embodied in the unanimously approved resolution by the UN Security Council, in its stylishly dashing French clothes, but worn, by the old decrepit body of diplomatic thinking, bring the long desired, but up till now evanescent, permanent and sustainable solution to the region that so many attempts in the past failed to do? The auguries for such an outcome however, are far from favorable. The Council’s resolution calls for a halt to the fighting and Israel’s withdrawal “in parallel” with the deployment of UN peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese troops who will attempt to create a buffer zone in South Lebanon free of the Hezbollah militia. However, the resolution vaguely refers to the disarmament and dismantling of the latter, that is pivotal to a permanent and sustainable peace between Israel and Lebanon and whether such international force and the Lebanese army–which is riddled with Hezbollah sympathizers–even if they had a clear mandate to disarm Hezbollah, would have been able to accomplish this task, given the unambiguous statements of Hezbollah that it will not disarm. Nor does the resolution take a firm and implacable stand in stopping the supply of weapons to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.
Hence, the dragon teeth of Hezbollal are still planted deep in Lebanon’s soil, presaging an even greater and more dangerous conflagration in the future between the warring parties, especially if Iran stealthily slips into the nuclear club. The UN resolution therefore is merely a soporific. It will provide a couch to Israel and Hezbollah so they can lay down in a temporary state of dormancy until Hezbollah feels strong enough, in its never ending act, to wipe Israel off the map. Thus, the future confrontation will be by far more deadly than the present one, as hundreds of thousands will lose their lives.
AMERICA’S NEW STRATEGIC DIPLOMACY
Surely the American leadership must be aware of this lugubrious scenario that has been staged by this toothless resolution of the Security Council. Unless they have in mind a second stronger swift resolution that will be addressing the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hezbollah and irrevocably stopping Syria and Iran from supplying weapons to its proxy, they will entangle and compromise their up to now clear strategic position in the strategically myopic, unimaginative, fickle, and flabby diplomatic stance of their allies in continental Europe. It will be the ultimate folly, post 9/11, once you have identified your irreconcilable, implacable, and mortal enemy, as the Bush administration has done, to render the enemy and its proxies respites that will strengthen their military capability and make them even more dangerous as well as more difficult to defeat in the future, instead of destroying them at their weakest moment, as no kind of diplomacy ante 9/11, no matter how brilliantly conceived, can achieve the complete destruction of this infernal enemy.
The Bush administration being presumably aware of this fact, i.e., of the complete inadequacy of the old diplomacy, of which so many of its “encoreists”, such as Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright, are continuing to give it “standing ovations”, does seem to be willing–despite its tactical errors in Iraq that have given rise to a rampant insurgency making the war more difficult to win and as a result of this making some members of the Administration more circumspect to launch another attack, this time on Iran–to take leave of its circumspection and embrace a more hawkish diplomacy that would be much more successful than the effete and barren diplomacy of the past. Such robust diplomacy will not be draped in the smooth velvety apparels of “old” Europe or in the tattered garments of the United Nations, but will be draped in the bristling carapace of a porcupine. While there will not be a scarcity of carrots in the exercise of this armed diplomacy, the sticks will be deadly in their threatening application against those intransigent nations that continue overtly or covertly to sponsor terrorists and use them as proxies to achieve their geopolitical and millenarian goals. The axis of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah will have the kiss of death planted on its forehead by this no “frills” American diplomacy. But the angel of death in this new diplomacy will be last in the queue. Before the US deploys as a last resort its lethal arsenal against the axis, it will in the incipient stages of this diplomacy call for the de-legitimatization of Iran and Syria as states that sponsor terror. Iran and Syria will become pariah states and will be isolated from the rest of the world. The only avenues that will remain open between the former and the latter will be the economic ones. But the economic transactions between de-legitimate states and the rest of the world will proceed not through individual states but through an intermediary channel, an international consortium whose representatives will be enlisted from the de jure states of the world who will deal with the economic representatives of the outlaw states. Such procedure will place the free world in a powerful negotiating position to impose its own economic regime on the outlaw states. Needless to say, some nations will not accept, and will not abide, this “outlawing” of Iran and Syria and will continue to have their relations with the latter unchanged. But as long as the major nations of the world hold the line, this recalcitrance of the minor nations will in no way loosen the tightness of the noose around the throats of the outlaws, as the latter will be banned from attending all international forums where the important decisions in the affairs of the world are made.
The chances that the call for the de-legitimatization of states that sponsor terror, as a diplomatic move to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are quite high that it will rally many nations to support such a call as the best alternative to an American military attack against Iran, particularly, when such an attack would result in a great loss of lives as well as have the potential to throw the world’s economy into the doldrums, as it’s the latter as well as their electoral base that many European nations are mainly concerned with in the advent of an American attack on Iran. The exercise of this new adroit American diplomacy will address therefore both the concerns of the Europeans and the fears of Iran. It will have, on the one hand, enough carrots in its diplomatic basket to feed the Europeans and to entice them to the idea that the outlawing of Iran is the better option for all concerned than a devastating military confrontation with the latter, and on the other, it will have enough sticks to coerce Iran to abandon its goal to acquire nuclear weapons. In the intense pressure of the vice that the Ahmadinejad regime will find itself both as a possibly ostracized de-legitimate state or as a military target of the Americans, the odds are that the regime will succumb to this pressure. In the event that it sticks to its guns, then it will play Russian roulette with its own people, as such a stand will strengthen the internal opposition against the “mullahcratic” regime. And as the majority of Iranians shift behind the Opposition parties this could lead to the fall of the theocratic regime of Ahmadinejad by an army revolt that would act in the name of such strong opposition from the people.
The success of this diplomacy will depend entirely on the Bush administration making it unambiguously clear to its European allies, as well as Russia and China, of its utter determination that in the event the proposal to de-legitimatize states that sponsor terror is not adopted by the major nations of the world, then the US will have no other option but to attack militarily the rogue states that sponsor terror, and Iran will be the first one and more likely than not the only one, as the other ones will follow the example of Libya and cave in. It’s inconceivable to imagine, that the European nations, as well as China, for which the sine qua non for its present stratospheric economic development is the economic stability of the world, will be so dim-witted not to accept the American proposal and risk the chance that the Bush administration will not deliver on its threat.
Hence, this hawkish US diplomacy is far from being a long shot in persuading the major nations of the world to outlaw states that sponsor terror. Moreover, it has the great potential as a dual realizable threat to outlaw Iran or attack it militarily, to coerce the latter to unequivocally abide by the demands of the international community. In the event that the Ahmadinejad regime remains unwilling to discard its obsession to possess nuclear weapons and continues to defy the European Union and the United States in their demand to stop supplying its terrorist proxies, such as Hezbollah, with weapons, then the call will be on “the angel of death”, draped in stars and stripes, to jump the queue and put an end to this apocalyptic threat that stems from the regime of the mullahs.
Hic Rhodus Hic Salta
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