ZenPundit
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
MICRO ROUND-UP ON THE CIA'S IG REPORT
Here's the news story.
The SWJ Blog links to the IG Report executive summary. (PDF)
Here are a few reactions ( originally, I planned a wide spectrum of blogospheric opinion but found too much of it to be simpleminded, partisan, blather, so I stuck with the available informed commentary):
Haft of the Spear:
"They are basically saying that not only were parts of the system broken, anyone with half a wit should have been able to see that and take action (or at least raise an alarm). That no one bothered says that either leadership was not all it was cracked up to be, or that the way the system treats squeaky wheels is such that no one - witless or not - thought raising a stink was worth the risk. Stupidity and fear, fortunately, are not excuses."
Sic Semper Tyrannis:
" The CIA like the DIA failed miserably to penetrate the apparatus of the takfiri jihadi networks. Such penetrations would have enabled the US to anticipate coming jihadi actions.
Once again it will be said that penetrating these groups is "too hard to do." Rubbish. I know better. Why were these groups not penetrated?
Timidity. Fear of Risks, Bureaucratic inertia. Poor leadership at the top in all the significant organizations. Has anything changed? I doubt it. If it had, bin Laden would be dead by now."
When a system is fundamentally broken you do not need to simply look for loose bolts or missing parts or even a new mechanic ( though firing an old one might be a useful message to send to their replacement) - what you do is find some engineers and a drawing board.
Here's the news story.
The SWJ Blog links to the IG Report executive summary. (PDF)
Here are a few reactions ( originally, I planned a wide spectrum of blogospheric opinion but found too much of it to be simpleminded, partisan, blather, so I stuck with the available informed commentary):
Haft of the Spear:
"They are basically saying that not only were parts of the system broken, anyone with half a wit should have been able to see that and take action (or at least raise an alarm). That no one bothered says that either leadership was not all it was cracked up to be, or that the way the system treats squeaky wheels is such that no one - witless or not - thought raising a stink was worth the risk. Stupidity and fear, fortunately, are not excuses."
Sic Semper Tyrannis:
" The CIA like the DIA failed miserably to penetrate the apparatus of the takfiri jihadi networks. Such penetrations would have enabled the US to anticipate coming jihadi actions.
Once again it will be said that penetrating these groups is "too hard to do." Rubbish. I know better. Why were these groups not penetrated?
Timidity. Fear of Risks, Bureaucratic inertia. Poor leadership at the top in all the significant organizations. Has anything changed? I doubt it. If it had, bin Laden would be dead by now."
When a system is fundamentally broken you do not need to simply look for loose bolts or missing parts or even a new mechanic ( though firing an old one might be a useful message to send to their replacement) - what you do is find some engineers and a drawing board.
Labels: al qaida, CIA, defense, foreign policy, IC, intelligence, national security, terrorism
¶ 8:19 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
BRIEF MUSINGS
I'm preparing to leave town on another trip and find myself overstretched in terms of time but I have to note that Kent's Imperative had some intriguing posts up ( hat tip to Michael Tanji) , about which I'd like to offer a few comments:
"Life at Google from an outside perspective"
Aside from seeing how uber-techies live and making me nostalgic about past years of reading defector-dissident Soviet bloc lit, I'd like to highlight this passage regarding a KI suggestion to the IC for personnel reform:
"A chance for line level workers to do the kind of intel they want to do (versus the latest crisis they have been thrown into), at least part of the time? Or to contribute to the literature of intelligence? (Modeled along Google’s 20% time.)"
My unqualified guess is that this would increase the productivity and prescience of the IC by roughly the same proportion that expanding private farming helped the Chinese economy under Deng Xiaoping. People typically generate their most valuable insights about those subjects which they are both curious as well as passionate - i.e. earlier in the learning curve than the status of graybeard authority ( once you think you know everything, you tend to stop learning).
The bar to doing this is not a manpower shortage but a middle-management fear of subordinate autonomy. Forcing a talented subordinate to do irrelevant busywork confirms a manager's authority and power. Autonomous subordinates who do self-directed productive work tend to confirm the irrelevance of middle-management. Few managers have the psychological wherewithal to be adept facilitators, mentors or coaches of gifted employees as an efficient "management" outlook is an inimical perspective to generating creativity and sustaining " unproductive" exploration.
"Regional versus functional issue accounts"
From a historian's perspective, a cool post ( perhaps less interesting to others). Some historiography, lots of methodology. Money quote/conclusion:
"As for our opinions on the great divide between the two kinds of houses, we find ourselves veterans of uniquely transnational issues, having been subject to every manner of surge and task force and working group and crisis cell, in the most unusual of niches. We prefer to see small, aggressive, ad-hoc structures comprised of both analysts and operators from a wide range of issues and regional desks with interests and equities in the same target which overlaps their accounts. Only then, by throwing everything against the wall in a structure short lived enough to avoid its own bureaucracy, and disconnected enough to be (at least partially) immune from the day to day politics within a given agency or office, have we found the kind of answers we sought regarding the great questions of process.
We strongly believe such radically unstable and short lived environments are most effective because they are the very manifestation of Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction. It is certainly no way to create a sinecure, nor even to build a long term career path – but it is the best way we have found to generate new and innovative approaches and answers to hard target problems, and to the problems others have not yet begun to identify let alone address."
Hear, Hear! Very strong agreement in a John Arqilla-esque vein.
It will happen but not until after several more disasters force that kind of transformation or an unusually bold and subtle visionary implements it on the quiet. There is far too much bureaucratic inertia because the vested interests prefer paralysis in which they hold the reins to successful action where they become recognized for the marginalized support staff they really are.
In my turn, if any KI gents happen upon this post, I suggest they look here. From this acorn of an idea, an oak will grow. Mark my words.
I'm preparing to leave town on another trip and find myself overstretched in terms of time but I have to note that Kent's Imperative had some intriguing posts up ( hat tip to Michael Tanji) , about which I'd like to offer a few comments:
"Life at Google from an outside perspective"
Aside from seeing how uber-techies live and making me nostalgic about past years of reading defector-dissident Soviet bloc lit, I'd like to highlight this passage regarding a KI suggestion to the IC for personnel reform:
"A chance for line level workers to do the kind of intel they want to do (versus the latest crisis they have been thrown into), at least part of the time? Or to contribute to the literature of intelligence? (Modeled along Google’s 20% time.)"
My unqualified guess is that this would increase the productivity and prescience of the IC by roughly the same proportion that expanding private farming helped the Chinese economy under Deng Xiaoping. People typically generate their most valuable insights about those subjects which they are both curious as well as passionate - i.e. earlier in the learning curve than the status of graybeard authority ( once you think you know everything, you tend to stop learning).
The bar to doing this is not a manpower shortage but a middle-management fear of subordinate autonomy. Forcing a talented subordinate to do irrelevant busywork confirms a manager's authority and power. Autonomous subordinates who do self-directed productive work tend to confirm the irrelevance of middle-management. Few managers have the psychological wherewithal to be adept facilitators, mentors or coaches of gifted employees as an efficient "management" outlook is an inimical perspective to generating creativity and sustaining " unproductive" exploration.
"Regional versus functional issue accounts"
From a historian's perspective, a cool post ( perhaps less interesting to others). Some historiography, lots of methodology. Money quote/conclusion:
"As for our opinions on the great divide between the two kinds of houses, we find ourselves veterans of uniquely transnational issues, having been subject to every manner of surge and task force and working group and crisis cell, in the most unusual of niches. We prefer to see small, aggressive, ad-hoc structures comprised of both analysts and operators from a wide range of issues and regional desks with interests and equities in the same target which overlaps their accounts. Only then, by throwing everything against the wall in a structure short lived enough to avoid its own bureaucracy, and disconnected enough to be (at least partially) immune from the day to day politics within a given agency or office, have we found the kind of answers we sought regarding the great questions of process.
We strongly believe such radically unstable and short lived environments are most effective because they are the very manifestation of Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction. It is certainly no way to create a sinecure, nor even to build a long term career path – but it is the best way we have found to generate new and innovative approaches and answers to hard target problems, and to the problems others have not yet begun to identify let alone address."
Hear, Hear! Very strong agreement in a John Arqilla-esque vein.
It will happen but not until after several more disasters force that kind of transformation or an unusually bold and subtle visionary implements it on the quiet. There is far too much bureaucratic inertia because the vested interests prefer paralysis in which they hold the reins to successful action where they become recognized for the marginalized support staff they really are.
In my turn, if any KI gents happen upon this post, I suggest they look here. From this acorn of an idea, an oak will grow. Mark my words.
Labels: analytic, CIA, haft of the spear, IC, ideas, innovation, insight, intelligence, kent's imperative, networks, social networks, synthesis, tanji, theory, visualization
¶ 8:25 PM 3 comments
Friday, May 04, 2007
DOES THE IC NEED TO FIND THE "TEACHABLE MOMENTS"?
From Kent's Imperative:
" The potential implications of this study are of interest not only to those that must manage the effective instruction and mentoring of the next generation of analysts and officers, but there are tantalizing suggestions that similar dynamics may be at work when finding a successful briefer. Given that most decision-makers tend to be more extroverted, and outcomes oriented, the tendency of these individuals to rely more heavily on rapid conclusions drawn from initial thin slice impressions weighed against their own knowledge and experiences, is likely to be even more pronounced than the average student."
Educators have a concept among themselves, known as " the teachable moment" that is somewhat difficult for most outsiders to grasp (though sucessful salesmen, preachers, orators and litigators may recognize it). There is a particular place in time when a presenter of memes and the entirety of the audience to which they speak can meet and, for an instant, merge. Perhaps an accurate descriptor might be " synchronized cognition". In any event, like a wave, where there had once been darkness there is light; where ignorance had ruled, suddenly, insight reigns transcendent.
These moments are rare though accomplished instructors have a record of igniting them. Some became legendary life-influencers. Carroll Quiqley's lectures at Georgetown on the nature and historical legacy of Platonic philosophy, the classroom antics of uber-physicist Richard Feynman , Chicago philosopher Allan Bloom's master-mentoring of his students all were directed to a larger point and yielded ripples of effect far beyond their classrooms that have outlived these scholars themselves.
The IC is of course, not quite the same thing as an academic setting but the cognitive aspect is not unrelated and the stakes are far higher as briefers deal with top level policy maker "customers" who themselves, often, have an impressive store of experience and analytical capabilities of their own ( and very little time available to engage with the briefer). It was probably a fairly nerve-wracking experience for a CIA analyst to have to brief Secretary of State George Schultz with unwelcome news. Or a Zbigniew Brzezinski or any number the more formidible personalities of the Cold War era. Yet at times, briefs created historical tipping points such as the NIE that predicted a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, IMINT analysis of U-2's flying over Cuba and most famously, George Kennan's "Long Telegram" which was less a diplomatic cable than an analytical tour de force by the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service.
Briefing has it's teaching aspects and if briefs of unimpeachably solid intelligence are not creating the impact that the substance merits, then it might be time to study techniques of delivery instead of writing off poor results and a lack of influence to "politics" alone.
From Kent's Imperative:
" The potential implications of this study are of interest not only to those that must manage the effective instruction and mentoring of the next generation of analysts and officers, but there are tantalizing suggestions that similar dynamics may be at work when finding a successful briefer. Given that most decision-makers tend to be more extroverted, and outcomes oriented, the tendency of these individuals to rely more heavily on rapid conclusions drawn from initial thin slice impressions weighed against their own knowledge and experiences, is likely to be even more pronounced than the average student."
Educators have a concept among themselves, known as " the teachable moment" that is somewhat difficult for most outsiders to grasp (though sucessful salesmen, preachers, orators and litigators may recognize it). There is a particular place in time when a presenter of memes and the entirety of the audience to which they speak can meet and, for an instant, merge. Perhaps an accurate descriptor might be " synchronized cognition". In any event, like a wave, where there had once been darkness there is light; where ignorance had ruled, suddenly, insight reigns transcendent.
These moments are rare though accomplished instructors have a record of igniting them. Some became legendary life-influencers. Carroll Quiqley's lectures at Georgetown on the nature and historical legacy of Platonic philosophy, the classroom antics of uber-physicist Richard Feynman , Chicago philosopher Allan Bloom's master-mentoring of his students all were directed to a larger point and yielded ripples of effect far beyond their classrooms that have outlived these scholars themselves.
The IC is of course, not quite the same thing as an academic setting but the cognitive aspect is not unrelated and the stakes are far higher as briefers deal with top level policy maker "customers" who themselves, often, have an impressive store of experience and analytical capabilities of their own ( and very little time available to engage with the briefer). It was probably a fairly nerve-wracking experience for a CIA analyst to have to brief Secretary of State George Schultz with unwelcome news. Or a Zbigniew Brzezinski or any number the more formidible personalities of the Cold War era. Yet at times, briefs created historical tipping points such as the NIE that predicted a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, IMINT analysis of U-2's flying over Cuba and most famously, George Kennan's "Long Telegram" which was less a diplomatic cable than an analytical tour de force by the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service.
Briefing has it's teaching aspects and if briefs of unimpeachably solid intelligence are not creating the impact that the substance merits, then it might be time to study techniques of delivery instead of writing off poor results and a lack of influence to "politics" alone.
Labels: academia, analytic, CIA, cognition, cold war, consilience, history, IC, intelligence, kent's imperative, teaching
¶ 7:47 PM 0 comments
Monday, March 19, 2007
A KING AMONG MERCENARIES?
Former CIA clandestine operative Robert Baer, author of See No Evil and a loose model for the George Clooney character in "Syriana" has an article up in Vanity Fair profiling Tim Spicer, the CEO of a British PMC called Aegis Defence Services. A sample.
"Iraq's Mercenary King"
"No one planned for a private army of this size. Like most things in the Iraq war, it just happened. After the Iraq National Museum was looted, in April of 2003, and even four months later, after the U.N. headquarters was destroyed by a car bomb, the Pentagon assumed it was dealing with garden-variety crime and terrorism—nothing a good whiff of grapeshot couldn't quell. With U.S. forces stretched thin, why not let private military contractors deal with routine security? They could protect the coalition offices, the supply shipments, the embassies, and also the reconstruction teams, the journalists, the U.N. workers, and the aid organizations. After all, guns for hire in Afghanistan had been keeping Hamid Karzai alive.
As the security situation deteriorated and the insurgency became more sophisticated, the contractors were forced to adapt, operating as small military units, carrying automatic weapons and rocket launchers, and traveling in convoys of heavily armored S.U.V.'s. Their tactics included driving at 90 miles an hour or more and shooting at any vehicle that appeared to be a threat. In some cases, military contractors fought pitched battles. Today, when they get in trouble, contractors can call on help in the form of military air support or a quick-reaction force.
Who are these contractors? Watch the passengers in Dubai waiting for flights to Kabul and Baghdad and you'll get an idea. Half of them are fortysomething, a little paunchy, their hair thinning. They haven't done a pull-up or run an obstacle course in 20 years. You have to suspect that many are divorced and paying alimony, child support, and mortgages on houses they don't live in. The other half, in their late 20s and early 30s, have been enticed into leaving the military early, quadrupling their salaries by entering the private sector. They bulge out of their T-shirts, bang knuckles, shoulder-bump. They can't wait to get into the action.
The mercenaries crowd the duty-free counters buying boxes of Cuban Cohiba cigars and bottles of Jack Daniel's—nights on mortar watch can be very long. There's no doubt they can afford it. Men with service in an elite military unit have been known to make up to $1,500 a day. More typically a Western military contractor will earn $180,000 a year. Depending on the contract, benefits can include a hundred days of leave, kidnapping insurance, health insurance, and life insurance."
Hmmm. I know a couple of people who've done that kind of work, I wonder if they'll chime in on that assessment. It is worth noting that Baer himself has had an exceptionally colorful career with the CIA; so much so that you could easily imagine him sitting in a bar with Robert Young Pelton or Robert Kaplan, comparing scars like Captain Quint and Sheriff Brody aboard the Orca.
PMC/MERCENARY RELATED POSTS, THREADS, BOOKS AND LINKS:
Corporate Warriors
MountainRunner
"WILL SOLDIERING HEAD BACK TO THE FUTURE?"
"WHEN THE EL SALVADOR OPTION IN IRAQ INVOLVES ACTUAL SALVADORANS"
Global Guerillas
Thomas P.M. Barnett
The Small Wars Council
Neither Shall The Sword
Intel Dump
Foreign Policy In Focus
Coming Anarchy
The Nation ( hat tip to Patrick Squire via Tom)
Former CIA clandestine operative Robert Baer, author of See No Evil and a loose model for the George Clooney character in "Syriana" has an article up in Vanity Fair profiling Tim Spicer, the CEO of a British PMC called Aegis Defence Services. A sample.
"Iraq's Mercenary King"
"No one planned for a private army of this size. Like most things in the Iraq war, it just happened. After the Iraq National Museum was looted, in April of 2003, and even four months later, after the U.N. headquarters was destroyed by a car bomb, the Pentagon assumed it was dealing with garden-variety crime and terrorism—nothing a good whiff of grapeshot couldn't quell. With U.S. forces stretched thin, why not let private military contractors deal with routine security? They could protect the coalition offices, the supply shipments, the embassies, and also the reconstruction teams, the journalists, the U.N. workers, and the aid organizations. After all, guns for hire in Afghanistan had been keeping Hamid Karzai alive.
As the security situation deteriorated and the insurgency became more sophisticated, the contractors were forced to adapt, operating as small military units, carrying automatic weapons and rocket launchers, and traveling in convoys of heavily armored S.U.V.'s. Their tactics included driving at 90 miles an hour or more and shooting at any vehicle that appeared to be a threat. In some cases, military contractors fought pitched battles. Today, when they get in trouble, contractors can call on help in the form of military air support or a quick-reaction force.
Who are these contractors? Watch the passengers in Dubai waiting for flights to Kabul and Baghdad and you'll get an idea. Half of them are fortysomething, a little paunchy, their hair thinning. They haven't done a pull-up or run an obstacle course in 20 years. You have to suspect that many are divorced and paying alimony, child support, and mortgages on houses they don't live in. The other half, in their late 20s and early 30s, have been enticed into leaving the military early, quadrupling their salaries by entering the private sector. They bulge out of their T-shirts, bang knuckles, shoulder-bump. They can't wait to get into the action.
The mercenaries crowd the duty-free counters buying boxes of Cuban Cohiba cigars and bottles of Jack Daniel's—nights on mortar watch can be very long. There's no doubt they can afford it. Men with service in an elite military unit have been known to make up to $1,500 a day. More typically a Western military contractor will earn $180,000 a year. Depending on the contract, benefits can include a hundred days of leave, kidnapping insurance, health insurance, and life insurance."
Hmmm. I know a couple of people who've done that kind of work, I wonder if they'll chime in on that assessment. It is worth noting that Baer himself has had an exceptionally colorful career with the CIA; so much so that you could easily imagine him sitting in a bar with Robert Young Pelton or Robert Kaplan, comparing scars like Captain Quint and Sheriff Brody aboard the Orca.
PMC/MERCENARY RELATED POSTS, THREADS, BOOKS AND LINKS:
Corporate Warriors
MountainRunner
"WILL SOLDIERING HEAD BACK TO THE FUTURE?"
"WHEN THE EL SALVADOR OPTION IN IRAQ INVOLVES ACTUAL SALVADORANS"
Global Guerillas
Thomas P.M. Barnett
The Small Wars Council
Neither Shall The Sword
Intel Dump
Foreign Policy In Focus
Coming Anarchy
The Nation ( hat tip to Patrick Squire via Tom)
Labels: CIA, mercenary, military, military contractor, pmc, robert baer, vanity fair
¶ 6:15 PM 3 comments
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
IMPERIAL CONSPIRATORS
“Tsuji is the type of man who, given the chance, would start World War III without any misgivings."
CIA file on Class A war criminal and G-2 agent Colonel Masanobu Tsuji
Declassified intelligence papers reveal that Japanese agents of SCAP's G-2 military intelligence plotted a postwar coup to bring an ultranationist government to power in Japan. Key figures included the Yakuza boss Yoshio Kodama who had deep ties with the most pro-Nazi faction of wartime Naimusho bureaucrats, Colonel Takushiro Hattori, once Tojo's private secretary and the infamous Colonel Masanobu Tsuji.
Deeply involved in pre-war Army political intrigue and known to his troops as " the god of operations", Tsuji was a fanatical ultranationalist with backing from members of Japan's imperial family who did not shy from bullying senior generals. One of the authors of the Bataan Death March, Tsuji had also been implicated in the death of the King of Thailand in 1946 ( Tsuji had planned the invasion of that country during WWII) yet escaped prosecution as a war criminal, being elected to the Diet before disappearing mysteriously in Laos in 1961.
Evidently, the CIA regarded Tsuji, who had pulled the plug on the coup, as completely useless as an intelligence asset.
“Tsuji is the type of man who, given the chance, would start World War III without any misgivings."
CIA file on Class A war criminal and G-2 agent Colonel Masanobu Tsuji
Declassified intelligence papers reveal that Japanese agents of SCAP's G-2 military intelligence plotted a postwar coup to bring an ultranationist government to power in Japan. Key figures included the Yakuza boss Yoshio Kodama who had deep ties with the most pro-Nazi faction of wartime Naimusho bureaucrats, Colonel Takushiro Hattori, once Tojo's private secretary and the infamous Colonel Masanobu Tsuji.
Deeply involved in pre-war Army political intrigue and known to his troops as " the god of operations", Tsuji was a fanatical ultranationalist with backing from members of Japan's imperial family who did not shy from bullying senior generals. One of the authors of the Bataan Death March, Tsuji had also been implicated in the death of the King of Thailand in 1946 ( Tsuji had planned the invasion of that country during WWII) yet escaped prosecution as a war criminal, being elected to the Diet before disappearing mysteriously in Laos in 1961.
Evidently, the CIA regarded Tsuji, who had pulled the plug on the coup, as completely useless as an intelligence asset.
Labels: CIA, conspiracy, diplomatic history, japan, military intelligence, tsuji, wwii
¶ 4:37 PM 1 comments
Monday, February 12, 2007
BEARDEN ON IRAN
Milt Bearden, the highly respected CIA operative who managed American covert operations to aid the Afghan mujahedin during the Soviet War, has strong cautions in an op-ed on a possible war with Iran in the International Herald Tribune. An excerpt:
"The Bush administration might dismiss the need to negotiate with Iran's blustering president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over Tehran's nuclear aspirations and the proxy wars it is accused of waging in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. But Washington should nevertheless remember that the modern nation of Iran traces its roots back to ancient Persia and that beneath every Iranian lies a Persian who views his country in the context of "Greater Iran." Even before Rome conquered the Western world, the lands controlled by a series of Persian empires stretched from the Caucasus to the Indus River, a cultural and sometimes political arc that not so long ago contained Iraq and Afghanistan and much, much more."
It is almost certainly true that the Pasdaran is providing military aid to Shiite militias inside Iraq and possible to likely that Hezbollah operatives are present as well. Where this leads to deaths or injury of American troops, it is perfectly appropriate for U.S. forces to retaliate or even initiate lethal operations if that is what is required to "send a message" to indicate the kinds of conduct that will not be tolerated. Trying to root out Iranian personnel "fish" from the Iraqi Shiite population "sea" is a hopeless task for U.S. troops. Applying pressure to Iranian interests inside Iraq, or even across the Iranian border, on the other hand, is more easily done. At times, it can be stealthily done, depending on the message CENTCOM or Washington would care to send Teheran.
Moreover, there is no reason, to cite the Afghan War example, that we cannot bleed Iranian special operatives on Iraqi streets even as we talk to Iranian diplomatic plenipotentiaries across polished conference tables. We did it with the Soviets to good effect in the 1980's and the former activity seemed to reinforce the seriousness of the latter. The Iranian regime has many dangerous, hostile and fanatical elements but it is also riven with corruption, stultifying authoritarianism and looming economic problems. Teheran is not ten feet tall by any means nor is that factionalized, clerical, government as wholly irrational or erratic as is Pyongyang, to whom we do talk.
Diplomacy may fail but we shouldn't fail to try diplomacy before rolling the dice on a major war.
Hat tip to Colonel Lang.
Milt Bearden, the highly respected CIA operative who managed American covert operations to aid the Afghan mujahedin during the Soviet War, has strong cautions in an op-ed on a possible war with Iran in the International Herald Tribune. An excerpt:
"The Bush administration might dismiss the need to negotiate with Iran's blustering president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over Tehran's nuclear aspirations and the proxy wars it is accused of waging in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. But Washington should nevertheless remember that the modern nation of Iran traces its roots back to ancient Persia and that beneath every Iranian lies a Persian who views his country in the context of "Greater Iran." Even before Rome conquered the Western world, the lands controlled by a series of Persian empires stretched from the Caucasus to the Indus River, a cultural and sometimes political arc that not so long ago contained Iraq and Afghanistan and much, much more."
It is almost certainly true that the Pasdaran is providing military aid to Shiite militias inside Iraq and possible to likely that Hezbollah operatives are present as well. Where this leads to deaths or injury of American troops, it is perfectly appropriate for U.S. forces to retaliate or even initiate lethal operations if that is what is required to "send a message" to indicate the kinds of conduct that will not be tolerated. Trying to root out Iranian personnel "fish" from the Iraqi Shiite population "sea" is a hopeless task for U.S. troops. Applying pressure to Iranian interests inside Iraq, or even across the Iranian border, on the other hand, is more easily done. At times, it can be stealthily done, depending on the message CENTCOM or Washington would care to send Teheran.
Moreover, there is no reason, to cite the Afghan War example, that we cannot bleed Iranian special operatives on Iraqi streets even as we talk to Iranian diplomatic plenipotentiaries across polished conference tables. We did it with the Soviets to good effect in the 1980's and the former activity seemed to reinforce the seriousness of the latter. The Iranian regime has many dangerous, hostile and fanatical elements but it is also riven with corruption, stultifying authoritarianism and looming economic problems. Teheran is not ten feet tall by any means nor is that factionalized, clerical, government as wholly irrational or erratic as is Pyongyang, to whom we do talk.
Diplomacy may fail but we shouldn't fail to try diplomacy before rolling the dice on a major war.
Hat tip to Colonel Lang.
Labels: bearden, CIA, iran, sic semper tyrannis
¶ 6:33 PM 2 comments
