When this regime took over, most of the senior personnel across the board came from either smokestack industrials such a Alcoa and paper (Paul O'Neill), Haliburton, Searle or from academia/policy wilderness. They missed having to confront the digital era and its impact on governments and States; recall “real men do nation states”, etc.

The first Clinton Administration was not too different. It had to learn the hard way. When Ira Magaziner and others first started looking at the Internet, etc. their response, too, was largely to approach from a State/FCC/regulatory stance. Circumstances forced learning. True, Sandy Berger, the trade lawyer turned national security mandarin, Dick Clarke, Cressey and others by 1999-2000 totally got the networked nature of the world (of which terrorist cells are only one phenomenon). We know this because we had dealings with the Clinton White House. But that knowledge was hard won. And not there inherently — although Clarke took to it with gusto — his energetic flacking of the digital 'Pearl Harbor' fears in the late 1990s bordered on the comical. It will be, however, a valid concern soon, though.

The smokestackers in their twilight still don't get the network concept. Despite their relentless use of the term and related concepts (cells, recruitment, etc.) and even invocations of real world examples. Anyone who understands network behavior (terrorist or otherwise) would know networks by their nature will reconstitute in a sanctuary. Especially given sufficient recruitment impetus — either proactive internal network outreach or a totally extraneous phenomenon such as the abortive U.S. campaign in Iraq.

Who didn't predict that Al Qaeda would take advantage of the Pakistani deal with the tribal chiefs? Who didn't warn that the U.S. kinetic instinct to kill individual men in Al Qaeda fails to realize 100 more will take their place if the ideology is not neutralized?

Americans still largely don't understand force of arms absent extermination can not defeat an ideology. The porn on the History and Military Channels, etc. remind us we defeated fascism and Mikado worship in Japan — although through near genocidal violence. So we are fighting an ideological enemy purely on kinetic grounds with a force too small to accomplish an eliminationist goal (however masked by AgitProp) and geopolitically allowing significant sanctuaries — Pakistan, Iran and Syria, etc.

Why is anyone suprised or indignant that the networks from these sanctuaries will seek our defeat? Of course the Quds Force will network with Shia to destroy and defeat American arms. After all, AEI and others were trying to arm and train the MEK against Iran, etc. Milt Beardon, when he is not hanging with DeNiro, might recall he was doing the same thing in Pakistan in the 1980s and even sent that “We Won!” fax when Gromov left Afghanistan. Of course, the tribal elements in Pakistan will tolerate Al Qaeda. In the ladder of abstraction, tribalism may (or may not) trump religion trumps national identity trumps profession trumps represenations made to Americans on the ground.

The defeat that looms before us is larger than most can anticipate.

George Will was wrong (again) when he claimed that Zarqawi was the most successful terrorist besides Lenin. The Neocons and related Movement strands may have Zarqawi beat. Due to the Warlord's incompetence, we have a gut feeling, much like Chertoff, that they will get their “war of civilizations” eventually.

We are not worried if Eliot Abrams wants to drag Hezbollah into today's press conference via the Warlord, that's expected. The military reality is that the U.S. is a spent force. We can either continue to attrit ourselves into even more dull ineffectivenss or withdraw and begin reconstitution. And cover that military defeat with a strategic political and diplomatic effort. The bolt has been shot for the time being. Civilians and the Tweetysphere often talk of a “broken” Army and Reserve but do not truly understand what these words mean. And Barry McCaffery et al. do say these words but are quick to back track for fear of losing access and contracts. In our opinion, it will take some 8-10 years to rebuild the Force back to effective striking power with a viable strategic reserve — assuming a drawdown in 2008. It is a Human Capital issue as much as a procurement matter.

We also believe the Marine Corps and other wargaming looking at an Iranian campaign in 2015 timeframe should not be dismissed. A failed state in Iraq under Iranian domination fought by Sunni outside forces and perhaps a destablized Pakistan would command attention. It would be in the 2015-2020 time frame that U.S. forces would be reconstituted sufficiently should it be necessary to re-insert ourselves into the littoral once more. Until that time, the U.S largely is left with a Desert Fox multi-day air/naval strike campaign that would offer the Warlord's base and the Likudists pyrotechnics but not solve the immediate nucelar problem re Iran. And be the worst of all choices politically and strategically.

Such a war in the 2015-2020 timeframe will by necessity escalate into the 'war of civilizations' that the Movement, Neocons and Likudists all want. Because the American/Israeli military's refusal to concede they do not understand warfare in the 21st century, we can expect a continued reliance on the false promise of precision fire to deliver “Effects Based Operations”. In the logic of escalation and relying on “the Lessons of Iraq” (and as LeMay's own experience upon taking over the 21st Bomber Command) we should expect near genocidal violence akin to Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And note to Americans, it is not going to be all “over there”. Expect some of that American fondness for violence to land here for the first time as well in one fashion or one another.

Here's how our friend Newt recently wrote about it all:

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA — As I write you this week, I am concluding a fascinating and informative trip to Russia with the American Foreign Policy Council and my friend Herman Pirchner. Last week, I wrote to you from Moscow. This week, we concluded our tour in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Old Russian Empire.

One place we visited in St. Petersburg in particular has got me thinking about the threats we face as a country and as a civilization — and how our leaders and elites have yet to honestly face up to these threats. They are, in significant ways, deluding themselves — and endangering us in the process.

The Dead of the Siege of Leningrad

On Sunday, we visited the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, dedicated to the victims of the siege of Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was called at the time) during World War II. For nearly 900 days, from September 1941 until January 1944, the German Army surrounded and besieged the city. At least 641,000 people died and perhaps as many as a million — the vast majority of them civilians — mostly from starvation and disease. More than 500,000 of these victims are buried in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery.

Newt goes on to say that this is the kind of mass grave the Islamists want to make of America and that the Islamists are akin to Nazis. As usual, Newt is conflating a twentieth century State-on-State war of extermination with an insurgency within Islam itself — i.e., Newt does not understand that the West and the U.S. in particular are not the primary targets of the Islamists, but a means of overthrowing moderate, modernizing Muslim and pro-Western regimes. We are the battery that Al Qaeda relies upon to charge up its ideological capacitors and help them weaken their immediate Near Enemies, the House of Saud, Jordan, etc. In this, Newt and those like him are Al Qaeda's best fellow travellers.

(Newt also doesn't know or understand that the starvation of Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and all the major cities was part of the Wehrmacht's “Hunger Plan” (drawn up by General Thomas) and would have involved the murder of tens upon tens of millions of Russians, far exceeding the racial SS sonderkommando activities — i.e, there is no legitimate basis to claim a moral distinction between the Wehrmacht and the SS.

Note to readers: we too have stood before that grave and understand the scale of suffering in the Eastern campaign, except we stood there when GLCMs and Pershings were going into Europe in 1983 truly global nuclear extermination was on the table. He can be such an idiot).



But this is what we suspect we may end up with if our strategic military withdrawal is not handled with exceptional skill and supplemented by agile and adept diplomatic engagment. A bungled withdrawal will not only fuel stab in the back legends here; the Warlord's incompetence may well be the final step that makes a return and escalation of violence almost a fait accompli. And Newt, Michael Scheuer et al. want the U.S. to be the one creating the mass graves in the Middle East.

So in this regard, the Stiftung differs from our friends who believe we may see irrational, precipitous U.S. military activity during the Warlord's remaining months. The chain of command goes from Dubya to Gates (not Cheney) on down. We would not be surprised should Gates have an understanding with “other” people ala Nixon's final agonies that should a covert presidential military order come down that he might tip them off. An overt campaign to build support for a strike on Iran in the next 18 months now given domestic U.S. politics strikes us as unrealistic.

Moreover, as mentioned, our read on Israeli psychology indicates that they are still digesting the failure of the 2006 campaign. Absent a true AgitProp and demonstrable provocation such as more kidnapping or missile strikes, we also think it unlikely they will seek to re-enter Lebanon in the near future. It will likely happen. Just not on the immediate horizon of the Warlord's tenure, in our opinion. But we are not ME experts, defer to those analysts who are more astute should they make the case this is in error. YMMV as they say.

Our gaze is on the 2015-2020 timeline. And we worry. A great deal.

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Apologies to the book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”

Tags: Iran, Iraq, War, Neocons, Israel, Likudists, Cheney, Hezbollah, strategic withdrawal