Proud Of the West
Bush and Blair made me quite proud today. It seems as if they truly are acting upon the strategic vision laid down by the President through successive NSC Strategic Defense Initiatives. You can simply not analyze the current global security condition without understanding the key point: We are in a war with a death cult ideology that is masquerading as the Islam religion. B&B are consistent in seeing opportunity in the overreach of our foe. Wretchard has provided a key analytic contribution by noting that terrorist should never seek to hold territory as a military objective. Yet this is what they are left doing...and getting soundly thrashed. They reality on the ground will drive the political winds. There is no Arab Street, at least since the 6-day war, and there will never be one again. If anything the Arabs are the easiest to predict.
The looming 11-2006 election season will display the advantages B&B’s strategic approach has for the GOP. I am convinced that the American left cannot come to grips with Bush’s key strategic insight, because they are just soooo much smarter then the President. Thus they, and all their really smart friends, will not be able to provide a coherent or efficacious alternative to Bush. In fact their criticisms can lack any argument because it can be assumed that they have really good reasons: the kind that Joe 6 pack, who cares only for his family’s safety, couldn’t begin to fathom. Its Bush’s Fault!!!! Alas it’s not so easy because the current state of affairs is not the result of Bush’s proximate aggressive policies; rather it is the result of the terrorists believing that they might prevail with a tried and tested method that has garnered consistent rewards against a limp wristed diplomatic approach. The very diplomatic heavy approach adverted to by the left over and over again.
In sum, terrorist [T] merely undertakes some violent action against Israel and when the IDF finally responds in force, T simply screams for the inhumanity of their plight and a suspiciously sympathetic world community runs to T’s aid. T then is provided with a “buffer”, some aid, and obeisance showing the sincerity good intentions of their benefactors. T the uses this hiatus to rebuild and retool and enjoy the vast PR advantage they have over Israel. But in a post 9-11 world this re-tooling phase can provide T with extraordinarily powerful weapons. And as the current situation shows, T can obtain and conceal such weapons until the minute they choose to use them. This is an unacceptable risk in post 9-11 WMD world. A strategic assessment understands that a hostile state power may deliver, or rather is highly likely to deliver, WMD into the hands of such undeterable proxies. The US will face this situation if we fail to defeat this enemy now. The left can show no leadership in this regard because it cannot grasp the simple strategic vision that the President has understood 1 minute post 9-11. The elections in 2006 will be fought on the competing visions of how to prevail in the WOT, and frankly the Democrats look weak! Because they lack urgency, nay, lack the will to come to grips that we are in a war. Never forget electing Democrats will GET YOU KILLED!
Birthing Democracy
"The US invasion of Iraq has so shaken and stirred the Middle East [ME] that some exceptionally strange things are happening. More importantly, these things unequivocally favor the US in influencing the outcome of the Israeli-Hezbollah War now taking place in Lebanon."
This is the operational thesis for the day HT to TCS. Through this lens we must view the current ME situation. If a new dynamic is indeed in play, then the precedential value of past approaches; the endless and fruitless diplomacy, the hand wringing, etc... no longer hold the presumptive sway. On a pure speculative and theoretical level we should ponder the initial almost alien thoughts or ratiocinative processes underway in the fresh democratic minds of those unaccustomed to the practice of liberty. Such folk must be reeling under the currents and memes invoked by demagogues of every stripe. Sure, this leaves open the possibility that a Hamas or a Hezbollah is brought to power. But when the policies fail to deliver prosperity, will this be a painful, but necessary, lesson to the voters in a nascent democracy? Or will this be an event that weakens their trust in the democratic process?
Caught off-guard
As I suggested in my earlier post below, Israel's response points to the terrorist's miscalculation. Joel Mowbry, Townhall.com confirms this:
"HaÂaretz today reports that OlmertÂs reaction caught both Hezbollah and its Iranian puppetmasters off-guard. Money quote:
ÂSheikh Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, assumed IsraelÂs response would be of the moderate sort like that following the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May 2000. Soon after the abduction, Hezbollah officers turned to (United Nations agency) UNIFIL and suggested a cease-fire as early as that evening. The Israeli response has come as a surprise to Hezbollah and Iranian advisers.Â
What this shows is that weakness in the face of low intensity aggression is quickly factored into the terrorist's plans for future attacks. This is a war, as the enemy has declared it decades ago, let's begin to treat it as it really is.
Strike Now!!!!
Normally I'm not the one to opt for force, but such hesitancy is taken as weakness by the enemy. In this vein, a full military offensive aimed at removing the Iranian regime will achieve two, perhaps obvious, purposes: 1. Remove the primary source of terrorism on earth, and replace it with a western leaning youthful populace i.e. the Iranian people, 2. Solidify in the minds of even the most benighted terror cells that America will never retreat, and will never allow the blessings of liberty to pass from this earth as if in a dream.
Others across the blogesphere more thoughtful than I regarding military concerns, have convinced me that we now have before us a strategic moment. One provided by this terrorist miscalculation vis-a-via Israel. Let us act now, swiftly, surely so that when the dust clears we have decapitated Iran.
