Lebanon a case study in the Iranian method

The recent events in Lebanon are a perfect example of the Iranian method of revolution. They follow a pretty consistent set of steps.

1. Select or create one or many proxy organization whom they share a common enemy or ideology.
2. Train and resource the proxy.
3. Have the proxy start a fight, large enough to be significant, but short of an all out revolution.
4. Continue the fight until there is a moderate breakdown of order.
5. Appear magnanimous by ending the conflict in the name of saving the country or people. As part of the settlement demand a larger share of the power.
6. Once the fight is over fill the void in civil services left by the breakdown of order with their own services. This includes setting up hospitals, schools, housing assistance, collecting taxes, utilities.
   
7. Use these services as a platform for building popular support for military activities or democratic support.
   
8. Repeat steps 1 though 6 as often as needed to gain regional control and influence.
   

This is the same play book they followed in Lebanon when they picked a fight with Israel, and what they are doing right now, it also worked to gain control of Gaza.

The problem is not just limited to Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. They have been backing all of the prominent Iraqi political parties for years. Members of the current Iraqi government continue to draw a pension from Iran from their time serving as proxies against Saddam, while they complain about Iranian funding for al'Sadr.

You have to give them credit. It is a very effective strategy so long as they don't get themselves into to large of a fight. Even large fights are easy to disengage with when everyone just puts down their gun and takes off a ski mask.

weiging in at 0 foreign policy inteligence....Hillary Clinton

From the campaign trail we get the following gem:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned Tehran on Tuesday that if she were president, the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.

On the day of a crucial vote in her nomination battle against fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the New York senator said she wanted to make clear to Tehran what she was prepared to do as president in hopes that this warning would deter any Iranian nuclear attack against the Jewish state.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel)," Clinton said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.

"That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," Clinton said.

I've previoustly posted about the foolishness of attacking Iran, here. And why I don't think that it would be reasonable or necessary, here. So this one hits me like a brick in the face from the person who claimed she has the experience and knowlege to handle the "3 AM Phone call" (I'll not link to this because I don't want to promte the original and the array of satire is to large).

Regardless, certain presidential canidates don't appear to be reading my humble postings, so I'll instead burden all of you with a couple of quick facts that might show, once again, why the military is not likely the solution to the Iranian problem.

	Iran	Iraq	Difference
Population	65,397,521	27,499,638	37,897,883 more people in Iran
Square KM	1,648,000	437,072	Iran is 1,210,928 Square KM larger

There are more statistics but I think my point is fairly evident. If you think Iraq has been bad, imagine Iran with twice the people and about three times the land area.

Additionally we can feel fairly confident in the statements of former chairman of the joint chiefs Colin Powell when he says that we cannot sustain troop levels in Iraq.

The last argument to make is that Mrs. Clinton is not proposing to invade Iran, only to bomb it or use nuclear weapons. I'll leave the nuclear threat alone. I think there are a myrad or reasons not to. On the conventional side, bombing of Serbia was less than effective (Chapter 16 of "The Use of Force" by Art, Robert J and Waltz, Kenneth N.). Plus the Iranians have learned from Iraq's experience with building nuclear weapons. They have spread their facilities out and placed them deep underground. In all likelyhood the United States would stand a limited chance of dislodging the Iraq.

So in summary:
bombing Iran = unlikely to work
invading Iran = even less likely to work
5 years of threatening iran = no results yet
evidence that "obliterating Iran" won't work = pretty conclusive

Iran again?

I felt a great disturbence in the force when I read this article at Balkanization today. I really hope I'm not the only person who is disturbed by the fact that all of a sudden we are again hinting about invading Iran. I was worried this would happen when it was announced that Adm. Fallon was leaving CENTCOM. Even then I told myself, "Surely the NIEA report will stay their hand." Nope, "Special Groups" have emmerged from obscurity to be the primary problem in Iraq.

It leaves me with one question that I would like you to ask yourself, your Senetors, your House Representatives, friends, neighbors, colleages, random strangers on the street and childern.

If special groups are a problem in Iraq. What sort of problem would they be if they were fully employed in Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Lebenon?

I've posted previously that Iran has on numerous occasions responded to international pressure to change their actions. This is because the leaders of the Iranian state are generally interested in remaining in power. They understand that as part of the international system there are things that they are lines they cannot cross and expect to stay in power.

However, if we invade or intervean in Iran I think it is exreamly likely the controlers of the special groups will want to show the West exactly how much trouble they can cause if they show less restraint.

Since the end of the Iran/Iraq war in 1989 Iran has chosen to fight most of its battles by proxy. Hezbolah, the Mhedi Army, Syria's control of Lebenon and countless others are the mechanism that the Iranians use to advance their ideology around the world. They have been developing the network for almost two decades. If the United States or any state removes their motivations for caution we are going to find out how exactly how far the network reaches and what resources they have at their disposal.

Likely scenarios:

• Unrestrainted rocket and suicide attacks on Israel.
• An end to al-Sadr's ceasefire.
  
• Moderate leaders of the lebanease government being killed wholesale.

So ask yourself in an optamistic manner, if its bad now, how much worse could it get?

On Iraqi indipendence

I'm very disturbed by this set of comments by Gen. Machael Hayden, the director of the CIA, on Meet the Press last Sunday.

MR. RUSSERT: This is an article, Friday's paper: "[Iraqi] Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that, `we can't quite decipher' what is going on. It's a question, he said, of `who's got the best conspiracy' theory about why Maliki decided to act now." The United States was not informed by the Iraqis that we--he was going to do this?

GEN. HAYDEN: I, I don't know what on--what went on on the ground in Baghdad prior to the operation. I do know that this was a decision of the Iraqi government by the prime minister and personally by the prime minister, and that he's relying on Iraqi forces, by and large, to take this action.

MR. RUSSERT: Were you aware of it?

GEN. HAYDEN: I was--in terms of being prebriefed or, or having, you know, the, the normal planning process in which you build up to this days or weeks ahead of time, no. No, I was not.

MR. RUSSERT: You didn't know it was going to happen?

GEN. HAYDEN: No more so than Dave Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker did.

I've written previously on the need to support the Iraqi governments efforts to become the sovereign in their country by gaining a monopoly on violence in their country. I still support that and I think that so long as we have military assets there we should employ them to that end.

However I think we need to draw a clear that the sudden and unannounced efforts like what has occurred in Basra for the past two weeks are not acceptable. It is unacceptable because it was a fight that the Iraqi government should have known that they could not win without the assistance of American forces, including close air support and ground troops. Iraqi troops are yet to go into a fight that they haven't needed American support to function effectively.

We need to make it clear to the Iraqis that we are there to help but they cannot begin operations that are going to put American lives at risk without consulting us first. To do so is an abuse of our friendship and good will.

I'm not sure if the operation as a whole will have net benefit or a loss yet. There are several troubling signs such as a possible improved position for Iran as the peacemaker and the desertion of over 1000 Iraqi soldiers and police during the conflict. On the flip side The Weekly Standard points out several encouraging signs.

Regardless of all of this, American support is not a blank check. If Iraq wants our help they need to keep us in the loop.


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One last important note. Everything I write here are my own opinions gathered from what I read in publicly available news articles. In no way are the opinions expressed official government positions.

Improving the primary system

I think that if this years presidential election has shown us one thing it is that the primary system could use some improvements. As it stands currently the system favors early states, this is the first time I think in anyone's memory that the fight has gotten all the way to Pennsylvania and will likely reach Guam and Puerto Rico. While I'm not an election guru I have been thinking of ways that the system could be better. Here are couple of my ideas.

1. Rotation: The order of the state elections needs to change with every cycle. It needs to change fast engough that it doesn't take the last person in line 100 years to reach the front.
2. Regularity: There should be regular intervals between contests. This will ensure that candidates spend about the same amount of time engaging the voters in each state. I would think that 2 weeks is a good interval. It allows the candidate to spend some good time stumping but does not force them to skew their general message to the extremes of local issues as I think we saw in Ohio, Texas, and Iowa.
3. Grouping: States should be grouped together into contests in some logical manner. I think there are several viable options. The grouping method would allow the parties and the states to allow for thematic sections of the campaign.
   
   • The sum of the populations of the states in each contest should be roughly equivalent throughout the campaign. This has the downside of pairing states like Maine or New Hampshire with states like NY. In this case Maine may be early in the rotation but won't get a lot of attention.
   • Group states regionally. (Has the added advantage of reducing the cost of campaigns by eliminating cross country trips)
   • Group by demographics such as average age, incomes, number of urban/rural residents, issue based (effect of globalization, mortgage foreclosures, growth rates, etc.). I think that race is the only demographic that should be explicitly forbidden from consideration for obvious reasons. That said I'm sure that when you look at things like average income it is going to be instances where that does settle on racial lines but the world is imperfect and I think if that can be brought up as a legitimate campaign issue there is value in it.
4. Non-political organization: The order should be drawn up by a group of people who are outside of the normal ebb and flow of politics. I think that once candidates start thinking about running for president the first thing that they would seek to do is to gain influence with the committee who will selects the order of elections. Perhaps choosing the selectors well in advance would help.
   

I'm sure there are better ways to deal with the situation but I think if these ideas were implemented we would get a much better organized system. Additionally we would have a system that was dynamic from cycle to cycle as candidates are forced to adjust to new themes. Mind you any system in a contest like this can be gamed but that is politics. I think that anything is better than the chaos we have seen this year and the seven weeks of fixation on Pennsylvania that is just starting to occur.

"The Riches"

I just started watching the first season of the FX show "The Riches" and I have to say that I like it very much. The basic premise is a family of American gypsies (who get by as con-men) are forced out of their community and through a series of events end up taking over the lives of a couple who die in a car accident on their way to their new home.

They pick up a theme of "stealing the American Dream" and while that may seem corny the way it develops (at least in the three episodes that I've watched) is one member of the family buying into the American Dream at a time out of spite from people saying they can't have things. And when you think about it, that is what the American dream is built on. People fighting for the things they are told they can't have.

Also it stars Eddie Izzard, Minnie Driver, Shannon Marie Woodward, Noel Fisher, and Aidan Mitchel three good child actors. Izzard brings his usual talent to the screen (although dressed as a man in this production).

Izzard is at his best when he is the con man with no hook on his audience, making up random things as he goes and slowly sucking people into it. Check it out.

Supporting Kosovo

The United States and European Union need to support the newly independent republic of Kosovo. The situation is politically tricky but there are good practical reasons for doing so.

The essential question is not can Kosovo become independent? Instead the question must be, what other options are there. The conflict and war crimes that occurred in Kosovo killed any sense of kinship Kosovar Albanians had with Serbia. Additionally eight years of forced separation by the 15,000 international troops that make up NATO's Kosovo Force make reintegration to Serbia unlikely.

In order for Kosovo to return to Serbian control the Serbian governement would have to reenter the region and assert sovereignty. Sovereignty is the monopolization of legitimate force within a geographical region. I can see no conditions where the Serbian assertion of force to legitimize political control is going to be well or peacefully accepted. Allowing it to happen would be inviting further violence in a region that has a history of ethnic and religious tension dating back centuries.

When you consider these facts I feel that it is clear that independence in Kosovo is in the best interests of both parties. However the resistance to Kosovar independence is not just about Kosovo. The countries in Europe withholding their support of independence are Russia, Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania and obviously Serbia.

Russia, Cyprus, Romania and Spain are hesitant or outright refusing to recognize independence in Kosovo because they have ongoing problems with nationalist secessionist movements in their own country (Chechnya, Cypriot Turks, Hungarian and Basque respectively). Greece is tightly bound into the problems in Cyprus.

Bulgaria is withholding support because they just signed a deal with Russia to build an oil pipeline and do not wish to anger a country with a history of turning off the flow of energy to Russia.

Slovakia is in the awkward position of being a main supply route for NATO equipment into Kosovo. Additionally Slovakia has national elections scheduled for 21 April in which their support of NATO is already an issue that threatens to unseat the current government.

With all of these facts considered there are several steps that can be taken to ensure that the situation comes to a positive outcome for all parties. Primarily western governments need to provide justification based on human rights and the unique historical conditions. Secondly they need to continue to ensure the security situation which includes protection for Serbia as well as protection of Serbians living in Kosovo.

The primary justification for the recognition of Kosovo needs to be the promotion of human rights and the prevention of the human rights abuses that are bound to occur on both sides of the conflict if Serbia reasserts their sovereignty in Kosovo. This is something well within the capacity of the NATO force already in place.

Additionally the EU and U.S. should work with the UN, Serbia and Kosovo to provides money and assistance with the voluntary resettlement of people to either side of the border. This is a show of good faith and would be a trust building exercise for both countries. Additionally it is a gesture that extends the principles of self determination and personal freedom to the lowest levels.

Most importantly the U.S. and EU must emphasize that support of Kosovo is not a precedent for other nationalist separatist movements around the world. This needs to be stated vocally and likely included in any Security Council resolution in order to gain the support of Russia.

Kosovo is a special case for several reasons. First there are unique historical conditions of conflict and separation in the past eight years. Second Kosovo has formed an orderly, civil government that has seats reserved in their assembly for ethnic Serbians and another block of seats for other ethnic minorities. Third they have trained a police force under international supervision to keep the peace while ensuring that they remain professional in respecting minority rights. Additionally the two years of talks that have ended in frustration should be shown as clear signs that a reunified state is unlikely.

To my knowledge no other separatist group can claim this set of conditions. With that considered hopefully support can be gained by enough key players that the situation is peacefully and prosperously resolved.