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Much ink flows on the subject of "Bush Senior's men," such as James Baker. Bush Senior, of course, is the former President who picked up a cool million for one speech delivered to a grateful Kuwait. (Remember plucky little Kuwait, the country that those awful Iraqis seized, and that it was necessary for the Americans to go to war to oust them, and above all to thereby relieve any worries in Saudi Arabia?) Bush Senior, of course, is the man who send Prince Bandar to teach his son, the current president, all about world affairs (see Woodward's book).
James Baker is a fixer, and friend of Saudi Arabia. His role is to find some face-saving way to get out of Iraq, because the current president is unable to frame things correctly, unable to recognize that he is trying to snatch a prolonged and agonizing defeat from the jaws of victory. He is doing so by staying in Iraq and trying to dampen its ethnic and especially sectarian hostilities, rather than recognizing the "victory" that was assured when Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown. That unrecognized "victory" (but recognized over and over again here) is that which results from what was not a result of American mishaps and misjudgments, but rather the inevitable result of the Shi'a coming into their own once the Sunni despot was removed. For nothing on earth will get the Sunni Arabs of Iraq to acquiesce in their new position, a position that properly reflects their constituting a mere 19% of the population, and having supported, actively or passively, the Sunni Arab discrimination, persecution, and outright mass murder of both Shi'a Arabs and Kurds.
What will the Baker Commission do?
Here are some things it won't do:
1) It won't demonstrate that its members have studied, and thoroughly assimilated, the central role of Jihad in the belief-system of Islam.
2) It won't demonstrate that its members understand that the instruments of Jihad are many, and that the most effective and at this point, therefore, most dangerous, are targeted and well-financed campaigns of Da'wa in the West, and demographic conquest, speeding up, in many of the countries of Western Europe.
3) It won't demonstrate an understanding that it is pointless to believe, or what's worse, to ask Israel to believe, that any treaties arrived at between Israel and Muslim states will ever be kept by the Muslim side. Those treaties are only entered into by Muslims for the sole purpose of buying time. Or, in the case of the "Palestinians" right now, they are entered into in order to start up again the disguised Jizyah payments of European and American foreign aid, when it is clear that the rich Arabs should be the ones supporting fellow members of the Muslim umma, and not Infidels. Those Infidels now incur many tens of billions of dollars in new expenses as a result of the need to monitor Muslim populations, and to guard airports, planes, train stations, trains, buses and bus depots, bridges, government buildings, churches, synagogues, Christian and Jewish schools and other institutions, and so much else all over the Bilad al-kufr, or Land of Infidelity, or better, the Lands of the Infidels.
4) It won't demonstrate any awareness that Syria is not a state run by Muslims, but rather of, by, and for Alawites. The Alawites are a military caste who make up a mere 12% of the Syrian population. Their syncretism – including the cult of Mary – causes Sunni Muslims to regard them not as full-fledged Muslims but rather as people who are dangerously Infidel. The one thing that terrifies the Alawites is fear of the local Muslims, the "real Muslims." To avoid their murderous enmity, which his father dealt with at Hama, Bashir al-Assad has decided to share wealth, and even some power, with Sunnis, and some Alawis have even intermarried with Sunnis. On the other hand, the Syrians have also obtained a fatwa from Shi'a Iran, declaring these Mary-worshippers to be true Muslims, and they have served as a willing conduit both for aid from Sunnis (and volunteers) to fellow Sunnis in Iraq, and for aid from Iranian Shi'a to the Shi'a Hizballah in Iran. Finally, the most recent development is the astonishing and apparently Syrian-government-permitted effort to allow Iranian and other Shi'a missionaries to convert not non-Muslims, but Sunni Muslims in Syria.
None of this will be in the Baker Commission Report, because none of it is grasped correctly at the upper levels of the government. And no one has realized that Bashir al-Assad can be replaced, or can be threatened with being replaced, by Alawite generals unwilling to go along with his dangerous game of placating both Sunnis and Shi'a -- which may in the end destroy forever not merely the Alawite rule, but endanger the lives of all those living in the Alawite neighborhoods and Alawite villages.
5) It won't demonstrate any understanding of the way in which the seemingly innocuous notion of "agreeing to talk" with Iran actually improves the domestic standing of Iran at home and abroad. Even the malevolent Al-Saud, who are trying (and failing) to make their own deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran, understand why in the context of the Middle East such talks would not be taken as demonstrating American sweet reason, but rather as a sign of American pliancy and appeasement. They will be taken as such in Iran and in the Muslim Arab countries.
6) It won't demonstrate an understanding that not Iraq, and not even the Middle East, but rather Western Europe, is now the main battleground of the Jihad. It will not recognize that unless the Infidel public is properly instructed, even minimally, in the tenets of the belief-system of Islam, then it will continue to pursue policies that are suicidal -- for them and for NATO, and for the very existence of the heart of the West and its impossible-but-lovable civilization. That civilization continues to exist despite the radix-malorum-cupiditas-est environment of the E.U., that "big market," and the notion, no longer confined to Marxists but now to be found among all the children of privilege (including the current President and of course devout readers of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page), that "poverty" is the problem in the Islamic countries and among Islamic peoples -- "poverty" and "lack of freedom," and could not possibly actually be located in the ideology of Islam itself.
7) It won't demonstrate an understanding that it would be folly to continue to refuse to exploit the natural fissures -- sectarian and ethnic -- that Iraq presents. Those fissures existed virtually since the first century of Islam. They were not caused and could not conceivably have been caused, by the Americans. The only thing that the Americans did is remove the despot who kept the lid, by mass murder, on the Kurds and on the Shi'a.
8) It will say nothing about the need to put a large tax on gasoline, and to do so right now as the world price of gasoline is falling, even as OPEC tries to bolster it by cutting production. Furthermore, the government should institute taxes on other uses of oil, and to promise to steadily raise those taxes, and to put the revenues thus obtained directly into a fund that will be used to encourage the development of non-oil sources of energy -- nuclear, solar, wind, and coal gasification projects -- and to encourage conservation through subsidies for mass transit. All of this is in order to put unceasing and constantly increasing pressure on demand for OPEC oil and hence on its prices. The government would do this if those who ran it understood the full menace of the worldwide and essentially endless Jihad. (When Tony Blair says it “will take a generation” to bring things under control, he demonstrates his own lack of comprehension: the Jihad will last as long as Islam, and constraining it will take many decades of sustained and systematic effort, by all the Infidel countries working together.)
The price of gasoline and of oil should rise steadily, so that investors in other kinds of energy never have to worry about a price collapse. This can be done by imposing taxes on ourselves, rather than allowing all the money to go to OPEC. A good deal of what OPEC has managed to charge over the past one-third century, when it took in ten trillion dollars, might have been saved had anyone in the American government understood the oil market, or not been among those able to profit so handsomely from the business contracts and other inducements offered by the Saudis and other Arabs.
9) It won’t demonstrate an understanding of the origins of the Sunni-Shi’a rift now exposed, but hardly created by, the situation in Iraq. Nor will it demonstrate a knowledge of Sunni-Shi’a tensions in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, and Lebanon, where Shi’a communities are treated with contempt and suspicion by many (not all) Sunnis, and are likely to be thrown into a state of agitation by the transfer of power to the Shi’a from the Sunnis in Iraq and the subsequent attempts by the Sunnis to regain power (and money) by force. Those attempts are likely in the end to be repelled, but not before a battle at least as long as the Iran-Iraq War breaks out, and has obvious consequences far outside the immediate theatre. Nor will the Baker Commission hint that this might, for Infidels, be a Good Thing, and at the very least serve as a Demonstration Project for Infidels in Europe, who need to view the spectacle of internecine warfare within the Camp of Islam, and to relate it to the attitudes and atmospherics of Islam – the violence, the aggression, the view of the world as one not of parties coming to compromise, but of the victor and the vanquished as the only two conceivable categories worth considering.
10) It won’t demonstrate an understanding of how it is possible to create and support an independent Kurdistan, by guaranteeing to Turkey that there will be no Kurdish claim on present Turkish territory, whatever claims are made on the Kurdish-populated parts of Syria and Iran. This should be done after having extracted a promise from the Kurds – a promise they will have to keep in order to retain the support of the American government that is essential for Kurdistan’s future. It won’t demonstrate that it understands that one of the most vulnerable points in Islam, one that needs to be exploited, is the use of Islam as a vehicle of Arab imperialism, political, cultural, and linguistic – which is exactly what Islam started out as, a belief-system concocted of pre-Islamic Arab pagan lore with bits and pieces of misremembered Judaism and Christianity thrown in. It was useful for persuading peoples conquered that the conquest was justified, and for helping to promote further conquest by Muslims inflamed with the desire to conduct their lives in fulfilling the duty of Jihad, jihad fi sabil allah.
It won’t demonstrate that it understands that 80% of the world’s Muslims are non-Arabs, and more of them can, through the spectacle of Kurds finally throwing off the rule by Arabs, learn to see Islam as that vehicle for the Arab national religion. This notion will reverberate among the Berbers of North Africa, especially in Morocco and Algeria, and also among the Berbers in the immigrant population in France, who may be partly split off from the Arabs and find the appeal of Islam dimmed the more it is seen as a product of, and instrument used by, the o’erweening Arabs. And the same is true for Muslims in East Asia, not all of whom would find themselves on the side of the Arabs in and out of Iraq trying to crush the Kurdish attempts at independence.
In Iran, the anxiety over an independent Kurdistan would be great. Not only would such a state appeal to Kurds inside Iran, and threaten the hold of the Islamic Republic of Iran on that part of the country, but a successful effort by the Kurds to create an independent Kurdistan in Iraq would be seen by Arabs in Khuzistan, and Baluchis, and Azeris (who with the Kurds constitute half of the population of the Islamic Republic of Iran) as a chance to rise up. And if the Islamic Republic is preoccupied with putting down internal uprisings, it is going to be less able to proceed untroubled with its nuclear project, or to be quite so unhindered in its attempts to defend that project from conceivable Western attack.
There are ten things that won’t be part of the Baker Commission Report.
It would be easy to discuss the report once its contents are known. But I know nothing about it. I thought it would be better, therefore, in advance of its release, or even in advance of the famous meeting between Baker’s Commission and Bush, to discuss merely ten of the important things that that Report Will Not Demonstrate, or rather, will demonstrate about the failings of the Commission’s members. They are, after all, Yesterday’s men. They are the very people who presided over the making of policy as OPEC battened and fattened, unconstrained by the slightest intelligent effort by any American government to construct an energy policy designed to limit the revenues of OPEC. Yet OPEC money funds mosques, madrasas, and other instruments of the worldwide Jihad, unhindered by any intelligent energy policy. These men apparently still believe that they are under no obligation to study Islam, as long as they can keep prating about the “need for stability” or about such trivial matters as “finding a solution to the (unsolvable) Israeli-Palestinian” question.
The public, or much of it, whether it is always in a position to speak out or not, is far ahead of these Wise Old Men who showed, in office, just how ignorant and unwise most of them were.
Bush tried messianism, the construction of a Light Unto the Muslim Nations that was based on a refusal to study Islam, and an inability to understand Iraq – but everything that has happened was perfectly predictable. The proof is that it all was predicted, here at Jihad Watch, and one can search in the Archives, and find it all, signed and dated.
The Baker Commission will be valuable only if it persuades the obstinate Bush to get out, as he should and must, of Iraq. Let Iraq be Iraq. Let coreligionists of Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Arabs send volunteers, and money (the more the better) and war materiel (the more expensive the better) into Iraq. And let the war within Iraq cause the Shi’a in eastern Saudi Arabia to become restive, and then to be put down by the Al-Saud. Hope also that Hizballah sends many eager volunteers right through Shi’a-wooing Syria (to the great relief of Christians, Druse, and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon) to help the Shi’a in Iraq.
Pocket the excuse the Baker Commission offers. Ignore all the rest. And hope that among the officers and men who served or are still serving in Iraq, and who were never properly informed about those sectarian and ethnic conflicts, who were never properly informed about Islam or about the various instruments of Jihad, there are those who will either remain and rise high in the army, or enter civilian life and replace the examples of Yesterday’s Men – such as the inimitable James Baker.
Posted by Hugh at November 13, 2006 1:35 PM
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An excerpt from amazing article I came across:
When Rep. Frank R. Wolf conceived of the Iraq Study Group, he chose Baker and Hamilton to lead it in recognition of their extensive diplomatic experience. But it is this experience that may not only condemn the commission's recommendations to failure, but also further inflame Iraq. In the Middle East, Baker's legacy is twofold. As secretary of state, he presided over the 1989 Taif Accords, which ended Lebanon's civil war. By blessing Syrian military occupation, he sacrificed Lebanese independence on the altar of short-term pragmatism. Many Iraqis--Sunni elites and former officers especially--fear Washington may repeat the episode in their country. They fear Baker's cold realist calculations may surrender Iraq to Iranian suzerainty. While Americans may nonetheless welcome short-term calm, in terms of U.S. security, the Taif model failed: Damascus used its free hand to gut civil society and turn Lebanon into a safe haven for terror.
Baker's other legacy may be harder to shake: Iraqis remember him for his role in Operation Desert Storm. On February 15, 1991, President George H.W. Bush called upon Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside." Iraqis did rise up, but Baker counseled U.S. forces to stand aside as Saddam turned his helicopter gunships on the rebellious Kurds and Shiites. Had more commission members exited the Green Zone, they might have found that among the greatest impediments U.S. forces and diplomats face in Iraq is the experience of betrayal that Baker imprinted on their country. Washington's adversaries have capitalized on this legacy. The foolishness of Iraqis' trusting Washington has been a constant theme in Iranian propaganda. Should the Baker-Hamilton Commission also recommend abandoning democracy--which the Shiites understand as their right to power--and urge a political accord with Sunni insurgents, they would push 16 million Iraqi Shiites beyond possibility of accord and into the waiting embrace of an Iranian regime that, paid militias aside, most Iraqis resent.
the rest:
http://www.kerkuk.net/eng/index.asp?s=kose&id=4043&y_id=64
Why we would choose the man who wrought disaster in Iraq 15 years ago to form policy just astounds me! The fact that he is the lawyer representing the Saudis AGAINST the 9-11 families alarms me greatly. How is this possible? Isn't it illegal for a lawyer representing a foreign government to advise the POTUS? This is the kind of idiocy that got the Repubs kicked out.
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at November 13, 2006 2:28 PM
Great list of points, especially on Syria.
Things they may not do. Some of these are more Iran oriented.
1. List the known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Hugh has listed for them some of their unknown unknowns already. But they likely won't pay attention to them.
2. Set up a war/political game. The benefit of this is that you have to list all the things you think are relevant. The military does this. Leaving things out is a big problem. That is why they worry about unknown unknowns. The point of a game or simulation is to analyze the known unknowns.
3. Use Cognitive Psychology methods to analyze their decision making. What are they confident of? What are their biases? Where are they taking shortcuts? How does media coverage bias their thinking? What things do they not emphasize that are important?
4. Use game theory. Who are the players? What are their strategies? How much is known of them?
5. What is unknown now about the past? Participation in 9-11 by Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Did Turki know? Did Bandar?
Following more about Iran.
6. What is not known about the present? How many nuclear sites does Iran have? Do they have a finished bomb design? Have they already committed to a bomb?
7. Table of probabilities and the variables going into them. For example, if there are no meaningful sanctions on Iran, what is the probability they have nukes in 5 years? If sanctions with US and allies but not Russia and China what is the probability in 5 or 10 years? Meaningful sanctions from UN? US naval and air blockade?
8. Add bombing to above.
9. If we bomb Iran, do we have to keep higher force levels in Iraq? Would we have to keep 150,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely?
10. For each decision, write down a list of reasons for and against it. This is simpler than above, but more meaningful to a decider.
Posted by: Old Atlantic at November 13, 2006 2:56 PM
Thanks Hugh. What a downer that was. But all too true.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at November 13, 2006 3:32 PM
In response to a post, above: Who is the decider? That is a most important question.
Posted by: Charles Bogle at November 13, 2006 3:45 PM
Baker is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the monies spent on the Saudi propaganda smoke screen that has been and continues to be very effective in deflecting criticism of the Saudi regime, its tacit support of the Jihad, including funding the violent worldwide Jihadi movements, the Islamization of the West, the overt Da’wa campaigns in western education, the prisons, the military, targeting the vulnerable, the marginal, the cause seekers, the disaffected, the “disaffectable”. Also, Baker and his ilk are always hard at work cleaning up after the bad publicity that the Saudis cannot help generating by the kidnapping of American citizens, women and children, by their male Saudi relatives or spouses and holding them in Saudi Arabia against their well, the enslavement and horrific abuse cases of domestic servants that always follow Saudi families living in the West, and the myriad of dirty laundry the Saudis bring to the Western societies.
There are always going to be greedy, soulless, bluebloods, the Bushs and the Bakers of the world, to wash the dirty laundry of the Saudis. The bluebloods are ably assisted by extremely clever lawyers, public relations experts and assorted highly paid fixers who often disregard their Jewish origins when then they do the bidding of those who are by their very faith regard the Jews as the vilest of beings and eagerly await the fulfillment of Mohamed’s end of days prophecy of the complete slaughter of the Jews.
Bush and many of his Republican friends, the neocons or the so called pragmatists, are simply too corrupt, too inept, too set in their own ways to anything other than facilitators of the Jihad against the West. They refuse to correctly name the enemy or even acknowledge it... Under them unprecedented number of Muslims settled in America, Jihadists and their supporters were promoted to prominent positions and were issued carte blanche to enter the White House. US borders remain undefended. The demographical onslaught brought about my illegal settlers is proceeding with outmost speed which will only bring weakness, 3rd-world-like poverty, disunity, and tear at the fabric of America.
at November 13, 2006 3:50 PM
Have we learned nothing from Vietnam? Never let Politicians control the operations of the military during war! I'm afraid this will lead to even more hand tying and American deaths on the front lines.
http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com
Posted by: Doctor Bulldog at November 13, 2006 4:10 PM
Never let Politicians control the operations of the military during war! Dr. Bulldog...
agreed and also -
don't fight to a stalemate. Fight to win.
at November 13, 2006 4:33 PM
James Baker is the senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts.
The law firm has three clients, Exxon Mobil, The Bush Family and the Saudis..and it is the Saudi lobby in Washington, and has been instruemental in running damage control for the Saudis especially their financing of the 9-11 Jihadis, facts which were revealed and documented in Michael Moores' Farenheit 9-11, a documentary that angered and made fearful the Saudis as well as the Bush family empire.
More On Topic, an idea has been floated, which I think has merit...let Syria and Iran take responsibility for Iraq (carving out as seperate entity, with US forces based there..Kurdistan).
Syria and Iran are natural enemies, but it has been the presence of Saddam and the existence of Iraq that has enabled them to cooperate in the likes of Lebanon..but enemies they are, not only the Shi'a Sunni Divide but the Arab Persian divide as well. With the presence of a Baathist Iraq under Saddam, or the presence of an occupied Iraq..they were able to safely set aside their differences, suspicions and hostilities...but if forced to face off on the ground in Iraq, that would realign the dynamics in the mid east, and Saudi Arabia would get seriously nervous.
Take a look at this map from the Armed Forces Journal
Posted by: Nariz at November 13, 2006 5:35 PM
In reference to #8, while I agree in spirit, I must point out that a tax on gasoline will not go to what you desire. Congress will put it somewhere else as their past history vividly shows. Additionally, many states do not even have dedicated accounts where fuel taxes go to support the roads but instead are thrown into the general fund (e.g. Californai v Colorado). I believe the fundamental question is why aren't we drilling our own oil? Between Canada and the US we have 5 times the know reserves of Saudi Arabia and their reserves are estimated at 55 years giving us over 250 years. Yes we should be finding other fuel sources but until we do why not drill our own oil? Also what would be the economic and political fallout from American voters that won't be able to pay for the higher costs of any currently known alternative fuels? Congress may be on other planet but they aren't suicidal, vote wise, just yet.
Posted by: steve at November 13, 2006 6:21 PM
This could be explosive:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3067906/#
"Saudis hire some of the toniest U.S. law firms to defend them against the landmark $1 trillion lawsuit on behalf of the victims of 9-11."
Every once in a while, Newsweek can get it right, even if only partially. Michael Isikoff is often mainly interested in slandering the Bush Whitehouse, but when it's revealed that Jim Baker owns a law firm which is now actively fighting the 9/11 families on behalf of the Saudis, crazy left wing ideas like impeachment of the President after he hires the selfsame guy to consult on Iraq takes on a whole new cast.
Also take note later in the article of the mention of other Diplomatic Luminaries on the take from the Saudis -- Names like: Cutler, Pickering appear, along with many other legal luminaries. In my opinion, all of these Americans are engaged in some permutation of treason. The list of Ex-Ambassadors is also quite long for those on the take for PR, consultancy, and overall selling out of America in exchange for Saudi Oil for Blood money.
Sickening.
Posted by: jsla at November 13, 2006 8:36 PM
What percentage of its oil does the US get from the Saudis?
the scandal of the US Saudi relations would put that figure at 100% no?
In fact this is an indication that the Oil elites in the US are at play lining their own pockets and misleading the public into believing that they are totally dependant on Saudi Oil.
The relationships between the Bush dynasty, their oil companies, and the Saudi elites are documented and that is why i could never accept that Iraq was attacked simply to bring democracy to their people.
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/995
Posted by: chevalier de st george at November 13, 2006 9:33 PM
Guess I won't be voting for Bush-Republicans ever again. Who should I vote for? I think I missed the JW voter's guide. Mind re-posting it?
On a serious note, I would like take this occasion to thank President Bush for earning more hatred from the Islamists than any other American politician.
Posted by: JaimeZepeda at November 13, 2006 9:55 PM
Never let Politicians control the operations of the military during war!
that has to be priority when dealing with these stupid politicians..
and JaimeZepeda, about Bush earning more hatred.. what about all the attacks on the US before Bush took office? get real.. islam is hatred, just being a Western person, being free, being a free women, being an AMerican, what ever being non-muslim earns hatred from islamist.. so wake up!
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at November 13, 2006 9:59 PM
It was quite interesting - and informative - to get Hugh's take on what the Baker Commission won't do. I am more concerned, however, given the recent election, about what Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their ilk will try to do when they assume in January the power that they have been salivating for ever since Bush was first elected.
Posted by: NHGuy at November 13, 2006 10:16 PM
Okay, I'm awake now. So you are telling me that non-Mulsims are all equally hated by Muslims? Okay, sure. Now what? Who do I vote for?
Posted by: JaimeZepeda at November 13, 2006 10:27 PM
Never let Politicians control the operations of the military during war!
Sure what would have been the result of the cuban crisis if JFK HAD NOT been at the helm?
at November 13, 2006 10:29 PM
American warplanes would have killed a lot of people and that rag tag anti-Castro "army" still would have lost.
Posted by: JaimeZepeda at November 13, 2006 10:45 PM
Hugh insists Muslims cannot be trusted...and then in the next breath bases the entirety of his Iraqi Kurdish policy on "promises" extracted that while they will indeed feel free to make claim to all Kurdish territory in Iraq, Iran and Syria, the Iraqi Kurds will make no such claim on southeastern Turkey, where the largest Kurdish community in the world resides.
And Turkey is to predicate its policies based on such a "promise"...the same Turkey that has publicly vowed to militarily intervene if the Iraqi Kurds declare independence. The Turks are expected to acquiesce in the creation of that independent state, look the other way as that state tries to lop off Kurdish portions of Iran and Syria....and then hope the Kurds betray their brethren in Turkey and keep their vaunted promise.
The entire premise smacks of geo-political naivetay.
But don't let me rain on your Machiavellian parade Hugh.
at November 13, 2006 11:16 PM
The Kurds do not have to be "trusted." As I wrote, repeatedly, they have nowhere else to turn. Not to the Arabs, who persecuted and murdered them. Not to Turkey, that wants to keep its own Kurds within the state whatever their wishes. Not Iran, ditto, and capable of ruthlessly suppressing its own Kurdish population.
That is why guarantees required of the Kurds, and then relayed to the Turkish government, can be relied upon. An independent Kurdistan cannot afford to break promises to the United States. It needs diplomatic support and possibly weaponry, and perhaps a renewal, for some period, of the air cover that was provided for the Kurdish north from 1991 to 2003.
I still do not understand your desire, exhibited so continuously over such a long period at this website, to play the thankless role of Wile E. Coyote.
Posted by: Hugh at November 13, 2006 11:29 PM
If the Kurds manage to secure that oil-rich region that Saddam tried to give to his Sunnis wouldn't they be able to buy weapons and influence from any China, France, or TomHarryDick?
Posted by: JaimeZepeda at November 13, 2006 11:42 PM
Hugh: What's your perception of the Kurds? How anti-Arab are they? I know they're fiercely nationalistic. How Muslim are they? (e.g., fervency, strain of Islam, etc.) Do you have any idea how many are still Yazidi? Not being Arab, have they escaped Pryce-Jones' "Closed Circle"? It certainly appears so.
Posted by: Galloglass Warrior at November 14, 2006 1:14 AM
And so this is what the Republicans learned from the "thumping" in the elections? Do they honestly think our memories are so sluggish? Do they think we don't notice that they are giving the homeland away to the Saudis? It is just so sickening! My blood is just boiling over this James Baker thing!
Posted by: Kay at November 14, 2006 1:48 AM
Although there is some satisfaction in being proved right, I expect Hugh would be happy to be proved wrong, concerning what the baker commission will not do.
What can JW readers do which will ensure Hugh is proved wrong, repeatedly? Anything?
I'll skip the emoticon, to avoid antagonizing Mr. Fizgerald.
Is the Commission's report already in-the-bag, or is it still open to revision? According to the NY Sun,
http://www.nysun.com/article/41371?page_no=1
it would seem baker's commission is leaning toward, " 'Stability First,' [which] argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped."
Dropping the President's messianic democratizing would be realistic, but any political accomodation would require playing patsy with the iranian regime. This would both be: not good of itself, and would concede to Hugh his point 5 above. Hmm.
I have little confidence that baker and his cronies will demonstrate wisdom, so I tend to concede all but several fractions -- perhaps adding to a half point, to Hugh.
Nevertheless, even if the baker commission issues a report full of foolishness, there is a period of time during which its message is discussed, and open to interpetation and understanding by its recipients, members of Congress, and the public. Perhaps some concentrated communication with congresspeople, and newspaper editorial pages would help?
at November 14, 2006 3:07 AM
I realize the absurdity and danger of relying on yesterday's bull-in-a-china-shop, Jim Baker, to resolve any Middle Eastern problems. Especially since Baker seems to be urging "political accomodation with insurgents." "Insurgents" means Sunni mass murderers of Shi`ites. Now, how such a policy can placate the Shi`ites is incomprehensible to me. Of course, baker works for the Saudis, cosectarians of the "insurgents." So maybe he doesn't care, but his policy could hardly produce peace, anymore than pre-Kuwait invasion policy --that was pro-Iraq, anti-Iran-- did not pacify Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, Zbig Brzezinski, instrumental in bringing the ayatollahs to power in Iran, might support Baker this time. The bloodshed will go on in one form or another even if baker's proposals are implemented. Indeed, the bloodshed might increase, especially if baker-bush-bitter rice give encouragement to Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and Bashir Assad. Which also seems to be shaping up.
So much for the US policy. In Britain, Tony Blair seems to have fallen off his toadstool after imbibing magic mushrooms or to have smoked too many joints or opium pipes. He just declared that the so-called "Israeli-palestinian" conflict was "the core" of all Middle Eastern problems. Now, this remark is crazier than Bush's description of Islam as a "religion of peace" a few years ago. That's because he ought to have employed hindsight at the massacres in Thailand, Philippines, Iraq [Sunni vs Shi`a], pakistan [sunni vs shi`a], etc. Might we ask just what Israel had to with the Armenian genocide of WW One or the massacres of Christians in 19th century Lebanon & Syria, when there was no state of Israel?? Or the massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1941? Indeed, Blair seems more unhinged than even Bush, although baker will probably try to blame Israel for all other Islamic related problems, as Blair did. The statement is a transparent effort to blame Israel and whitewash the Arabs, which has long been the practice of the BBC & the Royal Institute of Int'l Affairs.
Maybe we can explain Blair's statement by the large body of public opinion in the UK, especially in the academic and media worlds, that can politely be described as Vichyite or more frankly as Nazi-like. I believe that the movement to boycott Israeli universities was strongest in the UK than elsewhere. Maybe resentment lingers there that Israel was able to hold out against the Arab forces in the 1947-49 war of independence, despite British support for the Arabs. In any event, all this demonstrates that Britain should have no role in any diplomatic efforts to "solve" Middle Eastern problems. Nor should the EU have any role, although the UK seems even more unhinged than the rest.
Blair wants to negotiate with the would-be nuclear ayatollahs of Iran, of course. After the failure of all previous negotiations. Maybe we ought to give Tony an extra-strong dose of magic mushroom so that he will forget the Middle East altogether.
Hugh mentioned the Sunni attitude toward Alawites. Jean-Pierre Peroncel-Hugoz provides an anecdote in this vein in his book, Une Croix sur le Liban. A Damascene Sunni told him that before an Alawite should be allowed to convert to the Sunni sect, he should become a Christian first, and only then could he be accepted as a convert to Sunnism.
On oil and Saudi oil wealth. For many years, starting in 1951 [http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/kindly-making-arabia-rich.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-does-left-really-mean-in-2005.html]
the US Treasury allowed ARAMCO to deduct payments to Saudi Arabia for oil from ARAMCO's corporate income tax under the Foreign Tax Credit. If such favorable tax laws are still in effect, then they must be changed before any lessening in dependence on Saudi oil or any lessening of the cash flow to the Saudis takes place.
at November 14, 2006 5:26 AM
Here we have a blog site which is one of the most important, if not the important, in conveying the warning about Jihad, and in impressing the importance of combatting it.
That is why I, for the life of me, cannot understand that we have a major contributor who advocates running away from an actual case of Jihad on the ground. At best, it's wasting the good opportunity that this site offers. At worst, it is dangerous.
Because it offers unnoficial succour and support to the one sided anti-Bush sniping and defeatism that goes on in the MSM - the place where we expect to find pandering and appeasement and where we expect to be brow beaten into moral equivalence and defeat.
The toppling of Saddam is ok, but still being there is not? Well, there could never be any other reality that what exists at present. We can't have the defeat of Saddam without some reconstruction, because not only would the Moonbats and the Democrats not allow for that, nor would the decent people, would they?
And I find it appaling that we use hindsight to condemn Kuwait. One reacts for the best at the time according to the action, and a sovereign state was being invaded by another. Now it is implied (although it will be refuted, because the guts are not there to stand up and admit it) that we should have left the Human Beings, who happen to live in Kuwait, and who happen to be Muslim, to the same fate that was happening to millions in Iraq. To REAL torture and murder.
All that I have gleaned from reading these posts - because I have to admit, I find them hard to follow because of their convaluted over-wordiness (its called sophistry, folks), is that there is a wish (again which will never be admitted to) to see Human Beings die or be subjected to Tyranny just to give us a cosy trouble free life. I have seen comments to that giove the view that the project in Afghanistan should be abandoned, and this implies that we would rather see millions be persecuted and terrorised than give a little of ourselves in sacrifice for humanity. And this is appallingly wretched, and not a perspective that should be encouraged.
Jihad will keep coming, and it will see the disengagement of American troops from the Jihadists in Iraq as a further sign that the great Satan will be beaten (you gave a damn good sign of that sort when you voted for the Demos last week). It will keep coming. I think that one of the reasons we haven't had another atrocious attack is because brain power, men and materiele are being used against the Americams in Afghanistan and Iraq. When we pull out, we bring the frontline home. And it will be the hardened bastards who will be getting on buses in downtown New York or London.
And if you want any proof of how good the prospects of setting up a democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is, just look at who hard the Jihadists are fighting it. Of course they want us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in my eyes, it doesn't matter how convaluted and calculated the message is so that it appears to be in our interest, I know which side it is from. I am on Israel's side, whose PM said Thank God for George Bush.
Posted by: FREE LEE at November 14, 2006 8:16 AM
"We can't have the defeat of Saddam without some reconstruction, because not only would the Moonbats and the Democrats not allow for that, nor would the decent people, would they?"
--- from a posting above
You would be surprised how popular, among all kinds of "decent people," once the position has been explained to them, is the notion of leaving Iraq right after the country had been scoured for weaponry and the regime toppled. No one I know seems to think that the hideously expensive, dnagouers, corruption-laden "reconstruction" will 1) lessen sectarian or ethnic hostilities which are about who is to have power or self-rule and who is not 2) earn any long-lasting or even short-lasting gratitude for the Americans 3) do anything to lessen the power of Islam, which has grown in Iraq, as it would, just as soon as the dictator who, while Muslim, recognized that his most dangerous political rivals were Shi'a-mosque-based, and who furthermore had to disguise his Sunni despotism as Ba'athist "secularism" open to all (and some Shi'a, and some Kurds, and evensome Christians, especially useful for outward show in the West, were allowed to join the Ba'athist regime).
Unless your definition of "decent people" requies that such people continue to support "reconstruction" in "Iraq" for the non-existent "Iraqi people," there are many "decent people" who want out of Iraq now, though not all of them recognize that such a withdrawal will end the squandering of men, money,and materiel and to much more effectively, and without any effort, divide and demoralize and weaken the Camp of Islam than remaining in Iraq could possibly accomplish.
I'm "decent." I want out of Iraq today. Yesterday.
at November 14, 2006 8:47 AM
HUGH: "I still do not understand your desire, exhibited so continuously over such a long period at this website, to play the thankless role of Wile E. Coyote."
RESPONSE: Well, I certainly am at least one-part Wile E Coyote...and deserve the nicname. The Palestinian debate we had...and the parody you gave on academic-speak that I took for legitimate...were prime examples of Wile E falling off those southwestern cliffs.
But on Iraq, your arguments remain incongruant. I've conceded that you COULD be right that walking away is the logical solution (though I still believe such a plicy will be fraught with repercussions). But it's your prescription for Kurdistan that continues to defy reality.
Regardless of your own projected expectations, the American political-class, media and public will not welcome the prospect of a post-Coalition Iraq that descends into civil war. There will be recriminations galore....and certainly NO APPETITE for re-involving ourselves there in the event of an existential threat to the Kurds.
As for the Kurds themselves, of course they'll offer assurances to the Turks. But why, WHY should the Turks accept those assurances? Why should they cooperate in the creation of their worst nightmare???...which is an independent Kurdish polity in the region.
Why would the Turks further cooperate by helping that polity expand its horizons to encompass Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iran???...so that the last un-incorporated piece of the Kurdish puzzle is southeastern Turkey itself.
You're simply not making sense here.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 14, 2006 11:02 AM
FREE LEE,
A very basic disagreement I have with your post above is that it assumes the current US administration is fighting against muslim jihad in Iraq. Unfortunately it is not. The current US administration is trying its utmost to avoid any acknowledgement that a worldwide jihad is even ongoing. Another commenter here, within the past week or so, argued against redeployment from iraq because he sees Iraq as a free-fire zone or kill-zone for jihadis. If iraq were such, you, and he, would have a point. But the coalition effort and long-term strategy is not killing jihadis as much as building the impossible: democratic institutions in islam.
Unfortunately, the current US administration sincerely believes that islam is a religion of peace, that most muslims oppose this jihad thing of al-qaeda, that most people everywhere want to live in free democratic nations, that poverty and economics are the cause of most every conflict, including this jihad-thing, etc.
Poverty and economics sometimes, or even often, are at the root of conflicts. But not always. Not everywhere. Sometimes "ego" driven behaviors and attitudes beside economic greed are involved. Bin laden and ahmadinejad and jihadis everywhere are not greedy for money. They are greedy for righteousness. But they also recognize that money is a useful tool to spread their ideology, the ideology of islam.
The current US administration, as well as the current UK administration, simply do not, as Hugh pointed out above, have any understanding of islam -- its history and attitudes. They are therefore squandering their, and our, resources on a foolish and unwinnable strategy of implanting stable republican-democracies as the governing polities in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a democratic-republic to be real, it must derive its authority from the people. That is impossible in an islamic society.
I'm not in total agreement with Hugh about the Kurds and Kurdistan. It should really be the responsibility of Kurds to construct their own future, rather than it be chosen by the US, or the UN. At the same time, though, we should not be discouraging their aspirations.
Posted by: del at November 14, 2006 11:58 AM
The advent of Baker-Hamilton-Gates, et al is a reversal of foreign policy to post-WW II. It is a return to Yalta. In place of Stalin we see dictators, thugs and terrorists working in concert. In place of Poland and the Baltic States we see the nascent democratic movements in each of the benighted countries of the Middle East.
By the time of Yalta we had lost 400,000 killed in action and the President was deathly ill, which some observers say led to Roosevelt’s acquiescence to Stalin. At this point we have lost approximately 3,200 killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the President's party was pummeled in a mid-term election,largely because of his failure to foster support for the effort.
The press never believed in the Bush Doctrine. The Republican Party believed in it as long as it was useful. Now the President has become a Neo-Realist, leaving those of us who believed in him with an understanding of how the Eastern Europeans felt in the late forties. I would like to hear the opinions of the Latvians who heard Bush's speech in May 2005.
at November 14, 2006 1:05 PM
CORRECTION: "Why would the Turks further cooperate by helping that polity expand its horizons to encompass Kurdish regions of SYRIA and Iran???...so that the last un-incorporated piece of the Kurdish puzzle is southeastern Turkey itself.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 14, 2006 1:06 PM
Sobieski,
"Nascent democratic movements"???
At most there seem to be a miniscule minority of partially westernized individuals, who desire democracy, as most westerners would define it. Most of the purple-thumb voting in Iraq was done under the direction of group leaders. It was not as individuals, but rather as groups, as their group-leaders ordered, that "Iraqis" voted.
Except for partially secularized Turkey, and not entirely muslim Lebanon, there seems little real desire or understanding of rule by the people, for the people. The entire concept is alien and unislamic.
To whom or what were you referring in your "Nascent democratic movements"?
at November 14, 2006 1:51 PM
"As for the Kurds themselves, of course they'll offer assurances to the Turks. But why, WHY should the Turks accept those assurances? Why should they cooperate in the creation of their worst nightmare???...which is an independent Kurdish polity in the region.
Why would the Turks further cooperate by helping that polity expand its horizons to encompass Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iran???...so that the last un-incorporated piece of the Kurdish puzzle is southeastern Turkey itself."
-- from a postinig above
I repeat: the Kurds will need weapons. They will need support. Who, other than the Americans, will give it to them? Who has stood by them since 1991? Who should, in shitfting its support from "Iraq the Model" to an independent Kurdistan, support them now? That is what should make the Turks cooperate. Turkey is no longer so important to NATO or the United States. Russia is no longer the same kind of threat. Islam, however, is. Either Turkey is our ally, and is useful to us in our campaign to constrain Islam, or it is not. If we deem an independent Kurdistan most useful in weakening the hold of Islam on non-Arab Muslims, and in posing a grave threat to the continued existence, in its present form, of the Islamic Republic of Iran (and of less powerful but not less malevolent Syria), and Turkey, the recipient of American military equipment and training, stands in the way, even if it has received a guarantee from the American government that if Kurdistan were to make any territorial claims on Turkey than all American aid to that country would end, then Turkey is no longer to be regarded as our ally.
The word "ally" is not fixed in amber. A country may be an ally one decade, an enemy or even mortal enemy the next. Think of the Soviet Union in 1942. Then think of the Soviet Union in 1952.
Over time, I have answered again and again your every objection. I have never had to modify one of my proposals, and with each passing day they look even more convincing, even more sensible, though I haven't wavered in nearly three years, and all that has changed is not reality, but the perception of that reality. Yet you keep trying. I wonder at what point you will finally, on this issue of Kurdistan, the last one on which you refuse to concede, concede.
at November 14, 2006 3:11 PM
I'm sorry Hugh, but I just read what you've written and it seems the main point went entirely unanswered. If - as is likely, considered their enunciated policy - the Turks challenge whatever independent Iraqi Kurdish polity that emerges from the ashes of 'Iraq the model,' who is to prevent them from doing so?
Is America going to go to war against moderate and well-equipped Turkey over the fate of the Iraqi Kurds...AFTER having abandoned the rest of Iraq, unable to defeat a rag-tag insurgency? No chance! The American public would never stand for it and our elected officials would not consider it. We will be consumed with hand-wringing over how we got involved with the country in the first place.
We can't walk away from our responsibilities in Iraq and yet continue to effect the fate of the Kurds. Were the geography such that Kurdistan bordered on Kuwait...or even Jordan, the story might be different. But it doesn't.
Your advocacy for disengagement may or may not be the best policy for dealing with the current impasse in Iraq, but even if it is, please stop pretending that it won't end the US ability to effectively determine the fate of the Kurds.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 14, 2006 3:58 PM
It is all too clear what Dubya is planning for Iraq: to cave in to the Damocraps and their insistence on "change", even if it means to have sacrificed almost 3000 of our best and bravest, à la Vietnam. The Baker-Hamilton Commission will simply be greasing the skids for that eventuality, sooner than later, mark my words. Shame on us!
Posted by: NHGuy at November 14, 2006 10:31 PM
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