My grandfather told a story about his step-father, Bill Wilcox. Wilcox “shot” oil wells (the fracking of its day) in West Virginia and southeastern Ohio. He lived in very rough coal mining country, and newspapers were something of a rarity.
My grandfather related how one day in what would have been around 1910-1915, Wilcox brought a newspaper from the general store in Glouster, OH to his home in Burr Oak (now submerged under Burr Oak Lake). The headline was about a massive flood in China which killed many and threatened millions with starvation. Wilcox put down the paper, and said: “There’s too much damn information in the world. Now I have to worry about 5o million starving Chinese.”
Fast forward a century or more. At a fundraiser in New York, Obama blamed his current travails on too much information:
No, actually. Obama is apparently trying to rebut claims that he bears some responsibility for the fraught state of the world, and to resist pressures that he needs to act more decisively against Putin, and ISIS, and Assad, and . . . by claiming that the current world isn’t really that much different than it’s ever been. It’s just that we notice it more because of Twitter and the nightly news. (Aside: who under age 70 watches the nightly news?)
Hardly. At least for the last century, and perhaps more, people even in remote rural areas have had access to world news, and could understand what was going on. Even though if-it-bleeds-it-leads has always been the motto of the media, people could distinguish between the normal mayhem, and truly exceptional times.
Obama is under attack because current circumstances are far more dire than in recent memory-including during the Twitter era; because Obama bears considerable responsibility for some of the chaos (especially ISIS); and because he seems totally overmatched in dealing with the situation (and indeed seems rather disinterested). It is not a matter of perceptions distorted because people are aware of things they wouldn’t have known about before because of new information technology. The perceptions are well-grounded.
Would that Obama deal forthrightly with the reality, rather than suggest that people are overreacting due to information overload. But this is a man who can’t even tolerate criticism of his choice in suits.
One other note about the fundraiser. Obama threw red meat about Republicans to the partisan-and very, very .1 percent-crowd. As described by Mark Knoller of CBS: “Pres again slammed GOP as ‘captured by an ideological, rigid, uncompromising core that won’t compromise & always wants its own way.'” His attacks on Republicans are far more pointed, and far more strident, than his criticism of Putin. He delivers his domestic partisan attacks with zeal and real intensity. His disparaging remarks about Putin are perfunctory and delivered without any passion whatsoever. Attacking Republicans, he speaks from his core: criticizing Putin, he reads from the Teleprompter. In contrast, Putin vents about the US with an intensity similar to Obama’s when he goes after Republicans.
It’s clear what rouses Obama’s passion. And it ain’t world affairs, even when the world is careening towards disaster. This isn’t a Twitter-driven perception. It’s a reality.
Today Obama shared with the world his deep insights on ISIS and Ukraine.
The gobsmacking revelation: “We don’t have a strategy yet” on ISIS. (Precisely because he calls it ISIL, I will refer to it by ISIS.)
This brings to mind the old Lone Ranger joke, with the punchline: “What do you mean we, paleface?” (Don’t go there.)
I am sure that the Pentagon presented Obama with multiple strategies, and that he found none of them to his liking.
No doubt none of the options were all that palatable. Primarily because his previous decisions have left the United States with a set of choices that range between bad and terrible. But there are certainly several that would be better than nothing, which is what he is choosing to do. I would surmise that part of the reason that Obama is refusing to choose any of them, which would involve getting more deeply involved in Iraq and bombing Syria, is that by choosing them, he would be drawing attention to his own blunders.
So it’s not that “we” don’t have a strategy: it’s that Obama doesn’t. I am sure that people in the DoD are simply beside themselves.
Obama did indicate that whatever his strategy ends up being, it will start with John Kerry going to the Middle East to build a coalition. You know, the John Kerry that is a laughingstock in the region. The John Kerry who is pretty much despised by everyone that matters: I am sure that even the nations he has sucked up to, namely Qatar and Turkey, have zero respect for him. The John Kerry that hasn’t negotiated anything lasting and serious. The John Kerry who routinely travels to Geneva to be humiliated by Lavrov and the Iranians.
Kerry’s one-one-claim to accomplishment as Secretary of State is negotiating a deal among the Afghan presidential candidates for an audit of the country’s disputed election. No sooner did he get on the plane than the principals to the agreement started arguing. The audit has not taken place, and is not likely to take place anytime soon.
But Kerry will put that robust coalition together, have no fear.
“I consider the actions that we’ve seen in the last week a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now,” Obama said, noting Russian President Vladimir Putin has ignored opportunities to find a diplomatic end to the dispute.
This is true. Russia has been invading for months, so its reinforcement of the invasion is just a continuation. Obama’s bloodless indifference and inaction are also just a continuation. He is just waving Putin on, and Putin will just step on the accelerator.
For his part, Putin delivered a truculent statement that can be viewed as a victory speech, and as a signal of his intention to expand the conflict. He praised the rebels in Donbas for “intercepting Kiev’s military operation,” and called on them to mercifully let surrounded Ukrainian forces to retreat to avoid a “needless loss of life.” He demanded Ukraine cease military actions, declare a cease fire, and negotiate with the rebels.
The title of the talk was ominous: “An address to the militia of Novorossiya.” You know, of course, that Novorossiya encompasses far more than the Donbas.
Facing no real resistance from Merkel and Obama, Putin is going to push forward.
Back to Obama. Other than the “I don’t need no steenkin’ strategy” line, what drew the most comment was his tan suit.
His sartorial choice is easily explained. He would much rather have people obsessing about the color of his suit, than noticing the fact that it is empty.
Note that this has occurred after Merkel pressured Poroshenko to give Putin a face-saving out, and the very day after Putin and Poroshenko met. A meeting during which Putin said that the conflict was purely an internal Ukrainian matter to be worked out between the Kiev government and the rebels.
Angela Merkel told President Vladimir Putin by phone on Wednesday that reports of a new Russian military incursion into Ukrainian territory had to be cleared up, a spokesman for the chancellor said in a statement.
“The latest reports of the presence of Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory must be explained,” said Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert. “She emphasised Russia’s major responsibility for de-escalation and watching over its own frontiers.”
Yeah. Tell Putin to de-escalate right after he’s escalated. That’s telling him.
Explain the reports? Clear things up? The level of unseriousness here is off the charts.
So what is this, the 35th Merkel to Putin call? These calls have accomplished what, exactly?
The most plausible hypothesis is that what they’ve accomplished is to convince Putin that he can do as he wills, without fearing any German response worth mentioning. (As for Obama, start printing the milk cartons with his picture. He’s been missing on this for weeks. The US response has been limited to unleashing the #hashtagteam of Psaki and Harf. Gawd. Speaking of the fearsome hashtags, has Nigeria gotten its girls back yet? No? So how come nobody’s hash tagging it any more?)
But this call to “explain” is a new low. Is Merkel a slow learner? Has she considered the possibility that the explanation for “reports” of Russian tanks in Novoazovsk is that there are Russian tanks in Novoazovsk? Does she expect Putin will all of a sudden cop to this after denying Russian involvement for six months (going back to Crimea)?
I see that the Germans do not say what Putin’s explanation was. Presumably because it was impossible to hear through the guffaws.
To compound Merkel’s obsequiousness to Putin, and her pushing Ukraine into his embrace, she broadly hinted that Ukraine should join Putin’s pet project, The Eurasian Union. Since Putin has made it clear that membership in the Eurasian Union and the Real EU are mutually exclusive, this is tantamount to turning Europe’s back on Ukraine and leaving it to Putin’s tender mercies.
Merkel’s remarks make it clear that her primary motive for abandoning Ukraine to Putin is to keep good relations with Russia, and to avoid riling Vlad:
“And if Ukraine says we are going to the Eurasian Union now, the European Union would never make a big conflict out of it, but would insist on a voluntary decision,” Merkel added.
“I want to find a way, as many others do, which does not damage Russia. We [Germany] want to have good trade relations with Russia as well. We want reasonable relations with Russia. We are depending on one another and there are so many other conflicts in the world where we should work together, so I hope we can make progress”
Nauseating. Like my grandfather said about a hostess trying to hint to a guest who had overstayed his welcome that he leave: “Here’s your hat, Bob. Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”
In his public comments, Mr. Putin highlighted the dangers he said Russia faces if Ukraine pursues closer ties to the West. Since the onset of the crisis, Mr. Putin has accused the West of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs and trying to spoil its relations with Moscow.
Mr. Putin said that a trade agreement between Kiev and Europe will flood the Ukrainian market with European goods, which may then find their way into Russia. “In this situation Russia cannot stand idle. And we will be prompted…to take retaliatory measures, to protect our market,” Mr. Putin said.
The interesting thing about this is just what it betrays about what Putin thinks about Russian competitiveness. Yes, Russia is so great. Russia is so strong. Russia is a beacon to the world. But it can’t produce things its own people and businesses want.
Note the phrase: “take retaliatory measures, to protect our market.” Remind me again: didn’t Russia join the WTO? Apparently Putin is unclear on the concept.
Further note whom Putin is protecting Russian markets against: Europe. Apparently Angela is unclear on some concepts too.
Putin and many (most?) other Russians inveigh about Russophobia. When he says things like that, it’s hard to think of a bigger Russophobe than Putin. He evidently does believe that Russians are inferior, and in need of protection.
If you just fell off the cabbage truck, you might be stunned to learn that a couple of days after Merkel visited Ukraine to deliver Poroshenko the message that Ukraine needed to back down from its attack on Russian forces in Donbas in order to save Putin’s face, that Putin opened a new front in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Time and again, the hand-wringers in the west, Obama, Cameron, and especially Merkel, have desperately offered Putin ways out of Donbas. And time and again, Putin has taken these offers as a sign of weakness, and an invitation to escalate. The more aggressive he is, the more assiduously the hand-wringers try to appease him. The equilibrium in this game isn’t hard to figure out.
Merkel’s appeasing stance is overdetermined, but one of the contributing causes is her economic anxiety, and the wails of pain from German business. Today Merkel whinged about the economic costs of the Ukrainian crisis: the German economy contracted by .2 percent! Oh! The humanity!
Tell it to the Ukrainians, who are looking at a decline of about 50 times as big.
Merkel just wants the Ukraine crisis to go away. She knows that just washing her hands, Pilot-like, would look bad. So she mouths a few platitudes, and goes through the motion of playing bad cop with Putin, but does nothing serious to aid Ukraine (a piddling 500 mm Euros to support reconstruction of Donbas is a joke, especially when unaccompanied by military support), and through word and deed undermines Poroshenko and gives aid and comfort to Putin.
Putin knows this, which is why he continues to escalate, especially right after Merkel weighs in on Ukraine. She makes it clear to him that he will pay no real price.
Anybody heard anything about MH17 lately? No? Huh.
I’ve said this before. Ukraine, you are on your own, and your ostensible friends are no friends at all.
Although I could, on a very narrow margin, rationalize using force aggressively against Assad to achieve strategic and humanitarian objectives, I cannot abide any military operation in Syria undertaken by this administration. Its painfully obvious lack of any strategic sense and utter incomprehension of the way that people like Assad and the mullahs think means that any military action that this administration devises will be entirely counterproductive.
I am by nature a pugnacious person. (Who knew?) It takes quite something to turn me into a pacifist. But Obama has turned the trick. Quite an achievement.
The need for military action against ISIS is compelling, but I still have grave reservations about any military operations under this commander in chief. In my opinion, he is unsuited for command by his ideology, his lack of any grounding in military or strategic subjects, but most importantly, his temperament.
He is ideologically opposed to the use of force, for any strategic purpose, anyways. He is somewhat comfortable with limited, but strategically barren, military operations such as drone strikes and one-off commando raids.
For President Barack Obama the decision to send in the Night Stalkers was an agonising one. The audacious bin Laden raid in Pakistan had been a success but also preying on his mind was the failed 1980 Delta Force operation to rescue American hostages in Tehran.
Sandstorms and mechanical troubles led the mission to be abandoned and eight American troops were killed when two aircraft collided. The debacle cast a shadow over Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
Pentagon sources said Foley and the others might well have been rescued but Obama, concerned about the ramifications of US troops being killed or captured in Syria, took too long to authorise the mission.
Anthony Shaffer, a former lieutenant-colonel in US military intelligence who worked on covert operations, said: “I’m told it was almost a 30-day delay from when they said they wanted to go to when he finally gave the green light. They were ready to go in June to grab the guy [Foley] and they weren’t permitted.”
Another US defence source said: “The White House constantly goes back and forth on these things. These people are a bunch of academics who endlessly analyse stuff and ordering up another deep-thinking paper but can’t decide what to order for lunch.”
Touche re the academics jibe.
Military operations are inherently risky. Things go wrong. But nothing risked, nothing gained.
No doubt Obama was also wanting better intelligence. Who doesn’t? But someone who is fit for command realizes that intelligence will never be perfect, and waiting for perfect intelligence will often result in the loss of an opportunity. Which was evidently the case here.
So Obama chose the worst option. He could have taken the risk when the intelligence was fresh, and when there was therefore a decent chance of succeeding in snatching Foley away from the head choppers. But he waited, thereby increasing the odds that ISIS would get wise to the operation, or move Foley as an ordinary operational precaution; the risks were as great, and likely greater, as a result of the wait. So by playing General Hamlet, but eventually saying “Go” he reduced the odds of success, without reducing and likely increasing the risks.
Someone fit for command must evaluate risks, but cannot take counsel of his fears, let alone become consumed like them as Obama quite clearly is predisposed to do.
Put differently, Obama says that his foreign policy credo is “don’t do stupid shit.” Sometimes not doing something is the stupidest shit of all.
…I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida, some twenty-five miles south of where we then were.
…Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris’ camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.
A man with Obama’s extremely risk averse temperament is extremely ill-suited to be commander-in-chief. This is extremely distressing, as the threat of ISIS requires a robust, sustained, strategically sensible response. All the leaks, as well as the public statements from the Pentagon, indicate that the military is rather frantic to act. But Obama continues to equivocate. He will continue to do so, because of his character and his ideology.
The White House is struggling to deliver a clear message on the threat posed by radical Islamist group ISIS and what the administration might do to counteract it.
Here’s a thought. Get a f*cking strategy, and the message will be self-evident.
The U.S. government has no evidence of a current plot by fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS, to attack the U.S. homeland, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
Not to go all Rumsfeld on you (and believe me, I have deeply personal reasons not to do anything that would give credit to the man), but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We don’t know what we don’t know. Given ISIS’s capabilities (“a plane ticket away from the US” and a large roster of individuals with European and likely US passports) and obviously malign intent, the prudent thing to do is to take precautions, and certainly not say stupid things (or would that be stupid shit?) like “there currently is not an active plot underway.”
You’d think that after the “ISIS is the JV” fiasco they’d know better. You’d think wrong.
Obama and his toadies are obsessed with the message and the next news cycle, rather than operational and intelligence imperatives, and designing and implementing an effective strategy.
Talk about cognitive dissonance. I am convinced of the need for military action, but totally distrustful of the competence of the man to carry it out. Very difficult choice. In the end, I guess I have confidence in the ability of the armed military to overcome the grave handicaps imposed by an intellectually, temperamentally, and ideologically unsuitable commander in chief. The strategic threat is great enough that doing something far less effective than would be possible under different leadership is better than doing nothing at all.
Filed under: Uncategorized — The Professor @ 9:30 pm
Merkel visited Ukraine yesterday, on the 75th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact. She did not quite play the role of Frau Ribbentrop, but she, and the German government, are greatly assisting Putin.
Yes, she said that Germany cannot accept Russian control over Crimea. But this is cheap posturing, because, in fact, it does. Germany refuses to accept the seizure de jure, but it does accept it, through its deeds, de facto.
Beyond those words, Merkel and the German government say things that Putin finds very congenial. She called for an unconditional cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. So has Putin. He wants this to give his battered forces in Ukraine relief so that he can regroup, reinforce, and adjust his tactics. Merkel wants to oblige him, even though her ostensible subjective reasons are different: but objectively, she is pro-Putin. Then, her Vice Chancellor (of the SPD) Sigmar Gabriel said that the only solution to the conflict in Ukraine was federalization. That’s the Russian line. (Merkel quickly said he had misspoke, and meant “decentralization”, but it is clear that he committed a Kinseyesque gaffe: he had spoken the truth.)
So the top two officials in the German government have endorsed the measures called for by the Russian government, and opposed by the Ukrainian government.
After months of ratcheting up pressure on Vladimir Putin, concern is mounting in Berlin and other European capitals that an emboldened Ukraine’s military successes in the east are reducing the chances of a face-saving way out of the crisis for the Russian leader.
As a result, the focus of German-led diplomatic efforts has shifted, according to senior officials, towards urging restraint from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and averting a humiliating defeat for pro-Russian rebels, a development that Berlin fears could elicit a strong response from Putin.
If followed, this advice will create another frozen conflict that Putin will use to eat away at Ukraine, to continue to bleed it and prevent it from reforming, and growing, and most importantly (from Putin’s perspective) keep it from moving closer to Europe. A persistent conflict in the region will also result in mounting civilian casualties and misery, things that Merkel claims to want to stop.
Frau Merkel gives the impression of someone who is willing to consign Ukraine to purgatory, to avoid dealing with Putin today. This is foolish, because it’s not as if Putin is going to go away satisfied. He will continue to pressure Ukraine, perhaps attempting to expand his covert and ambiguous military operations to other parts of the country. He will turn his attention to the Baltics. Merkel is just delaying the inevitable, and there is little certainty that the west will be in better shape to confront Putin later than now.
Merkel went to Ukraine proclaiming friendship. With friends like her, Ukraine-and the rest of Eastern Europe-don’t have to go looking for enemies.
Obama’s formulaic remarks, dispassionately delivered, on the death of James Foley were both disturbing and revealing. Disturbing precisely because they were revealing.
So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.
People like this ultimately fail. They fail because the future is won by those who build and not destroy. The world is shaped by people like Jim Foley and the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed him. The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done and we act against ISIL, standing alongside others. The people of Iraq, who with our support are taking the fight to ISIL must continue coming together to expel these terrorists from their community. The people of Syria, whose story Jim Foley told, do not deserve to live under the shadow of a tyrant or terrorists. They have our support in their pursuit of a future rooted in dignity.
From governments and peoples across the Middle East, there has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so that it does not spread. There has to be a clear rejection of this kind of nihilistic ideologies. One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century. Friends and allies around the world, we share a common security and a common set of values that are rooted in the opposite of what we saw yesterday. And we will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and civility.
A few quick comments.
Obama’s progressivism, in many senses of the word, shines through here. According to Obama, ISIS is an atavism that is destined for extinction, because it does not fit into the 21st century. Through some sort of (unstated) dialectical process, such people “ultimately fail.” Humanitarians prevail, as the world progresses to higher and higher states of development and consciousness. This is profoundly ahistorical. Atavistic forces have repeatedly toppled far superior civilizations. The barbarian invasions of Rome. The Mongols in China and the Middle East (Tamerlane, anyone?) The Arab/Muslim onslaught in the Middle East and North Africa. I could go on. The very single-minded primitiveness of these peoples allows them to triumph over far more civilized and productive cultures that have lost the will to defend themselves, or whose societies are suffering from internal division and political disarray. Dark Ages have occurred throughout history precisely because of the triumphs of nihilistic but highly motivated peoples. The bankruptcy of ISIS’s ideology is rather beside the point: eye-rolling in the faculty lounge won’t defeat it. If it is sufficiently motivational to lead people to overthrow more constructive and creative ideologies, it can do incredible harm. Yes, such peoples “fail” in the sense that they are incapable of creating anything. But the problem is that their failure occurs only after they’ve destroyed societies that can create. Their ultimate barrenness is cold comfort to the lives and societies that they destroy. Which is why they must be confronted and defeated.
Note that this atavism trope is one of Obama’s favorites. He says the same about Putin and Russia. The message implicit in this trope is that since these atavistic forces are doomed to extinction, we don’t need to do anything. Again, given the profound damage that these people can do before they collapse, this is a dangerous, destructive illusion.
Whether it is Tony Blair, George Bush, or Barack Obama, few things are more grating than western leaders presuming to say what is, and what isn’t Islam. There isn’t an Islamic Pope, and if there was, his name wouldn’t be Tony, George, or even Barack Hussein, born in Hawaii. Islam isn’t any one thing, any more than Christianity is. There is no official scorecard. People energized by their visions of the teachings of Mohammed are wreaking havoc, especially in the Middle East. I can only imagine the snorts of derision among the adherents of ISIS, or other Salafists, at the presumption of kaffirs like Tony, George, or Barry to pontificate on what “true” Islam is. One can imagine them saying: tell it to the knife.
The insistence on collective action (“standing alongside others”-note the passivity of “standing alongside”). The implied deference to others-in Obama’s remarks here, as elsewhere-suggests that if others don’t rally to the cause, the US will not act unilaterally. This betrays a complete ignorance of the frailties of collective action-notably, the incentive to free ride. The failure of others to pull their weight provides a justification for American inaction.
The return of the law enforcement model: ” When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.” ISIS is a military organization that poses a military threat to American interests. Confronting ISIS is not a matter of serving a warrant and putting those who hacked off Foley’s head on trial. It is a matter of destroying its military capacity with military means.
All in all, there is an odd passivity: ISIS will fall either due to the Progress of History, or the collective disapproval of outraged humanity. The only American action even suggested is a law enforcement action, or at most a punitive expedition mounted against a few brigands. At most something along the lines of “Pedicaris alive, or Rasuli dead.”
In this vein, consider related news: that the US attempted a rescue operation by Special Forces that overpowered the ISIS forces at the target, but which failed because Foley had been moved before the raid.* Yes, it is good that Obama is not entirely allergic to the use of military force, but the type of military force he is willing to use (evidently after some hesitation) is also disturbing for what it reveals. One-off Special Forces raids of this type are inherently limited in their objective and duration. They are totally tactical, with no strategic purpose or effect. Yet this raid was mounted at a time when it had become evident beyond cavil that ISIS was a serious threat to strategic American interests, and when Obama stubbornly refused to acknowledge, let alone address, that threat. The most charitable thing that could be said is that by freeing Foley Obama would have eliminated an obstacle that limited American freedom of action. But this too would be disturbing, as it would imply that taking a single hostage can forestall American action. We may not pay cash ransom (most of the time anyways, with Bergdahl and Iran-Contra being prominent counterexamples), but such knowledge is priceless to a terrorist-and very ominous for any American in their reach.
Obama’s cramped and bloodless remarks are all the more striking, when contrasted with the alarms his own administration is raising. Today, Hagel-Chuck Hagel!-stated that ISIS is “beyond anything we’ve ever seen” and is “imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else.” That would seem to call for something more than waiting for history, or the collective disapproval of civilized humanity, to consign ISIS to oblivion.
What’s more, it’s not like this should be news. It should have been known in June, when ISIS irrupted into central Iraq and advanced to the gates of Baghdad. It should have been known in January and February, when it conquered Fallujah and Ramadi-precisely when Obama dismissed it as the junior varsity. It should have been known earlier, when ISIS was battering other opposition forces in Syria (though perhaps I should not say “other” because it is not clear that ISIS was in opposition to Assad: more likely, he facilitated its growth).
Even if the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a necessary condition for the emergence of ISIS, this was not a sufficient condition. ISIS’s predecessor had been thoroughly beaten down, but for a variety of reasons, Obama created the conditions in which it metastasized to the threat it has become, a threat his own military and diplomatic officials recognize. Yet he still resists doing anything beyond the most limited air strikes.
Obama’s post-statement rush to the links, complete with big smiles and fist-bumps with his buds was also very disturbing. Given all the criticism of his golfing-while-the-world-burns, he had to have known that this would attract attention. But he did it anyways. I get the impression that this was a big FU: “Yeah, I know my golf gets criticism. Well, you know what, I don’t give a damn what you think. And just to show you, I’ll pivot from giving a statement about the slaughter of an American to yukking it up on the links.”
*Such a failure is not unprecedented. In 1970, the US mounted a raid to free prisoners at the Son Tay prison in North Viet Nam. The special forces troops succeeded in securing the camp, and killing 200 NVA, all the while suffering a single casualty: a helo pilot who suffered a broken ankle. But the prisoners had been moved prior to the raid, so it failed in its object. Intelligence is extremely hard to come by in these circumstances, and hence it is very difficult to know that the would-be rescue-es are at the target.
Back when I started to blog about Russia in 2006-2007, I often pointed out that Russia under Putin was an archaic “natural state” rather than a modern one. The idea of the natural state was set out in work by North, Wallis and Weingast. In essence, it is a state with a distributed and diffuse potential for violence that is prone to break down into internecine conflict between armed factions. The only way this is avoided is to bribe the various factions with rents and privileges granted by the state (to give them a stake in maintaining the status quo rather than grasping for total control), and to keep them in an unsteady equipoise by pitting each against the other.
An article in the Moscow Times provides a very good description that brings home that point. This description of Putin’s version of the natural state cannot be bettered:
Putin’s staffing policies are based on the principle of “loyalty in return for corruption.” Bureaucrats in the government, law enforcement and military are practically granted the right to steal and forbidden just one thing: criticism of the president.
The greatest enabler of Putin’s natural state is Germany, and most notably its appalling foreign minister, Steinmeier.
This piece by Dustin Duhez lays out in detail the intellectual underpinnings of Steinmeir’s beliefs and strategy. It is a very disturbing, but worthwhile read. In a nutshell: Steinmeier’s overriding objective is to maintain strong relations (especially commercial relations) with Russia, and is willing to sacrifice everyone between the Oder and the Don to do so. In other words, he is willing to sell eastern Europe down the river: the Don River, specifically.
Keep this in mind when watching Merkel’s visit to Kiev. At best she is equivocal and conflicted. At worst she is objectively pro-Putin.
Neither of these articles should be missed. One gives a good analysis of what makes Putinism tick. The other shows how the most powerful state in Europe works overtime to keep it oiled and wound.
Back in January, on a TV interview, naturally, Obama denigrated ISIS as the junior varsity. Even after ISIS ran amok in Iraq and Syria in June, the administration (or I should say Obama, because we know from many sources that he often completely disregards the recommendations of the Pentagon, intelligence community, and State Department) decided to abjure from taking action against the terrorist group, apparently out of pique at Maliki and the dysfunctions of the Iraqi government. That’ll learn ’em, Barry apparently believed.
So here we are. ISIS has secured a foothold over an area the size of Jordan. What’s more, although its brutality (more on this below) is extreme, it has apparently enough sense and state building capacity to “combine the fighting capabilities of al Qaeda with the administrative capabilities of Hezbollah.” Thus, the hopes that its extreme brutality would lead to its overthrow are likely to be just another self-delusion by the Smart People in High Places.
Great. I hope they keep the varsity on the bench. Otherwise we’d really be screwed. (Or more accurately, everyone in Iraq, Syria, and bordering states would be truly screwed.)
Recall that the administration mulishly held to the position that it had correctly prioritized Islamist groups, and in particular held out Al Qaeda on the Arab Peninsula as far more of a threat to the US than ISIS. And actions spoke louder than words. Obama has been droning the crap out of AQAP for years, while he has held aloof from doing anything against ISIS.
Many observers note that AQAP and ISIL are using similar tactics and are exchanging strategy and advice.
Which would seem to totally smash to pieces Obama’s justification for drawing a distinction between the two groups.
As if to emphasize its bestiality and opposition to the US, today ISIS slaughtered an American reporter, James Foley. Per usual jihadi fashion, they filmed the heinous act, and distributed via social media along with a declaration that this was revenge for the US attacks on the group in Iraq.
This is the kind of evil bastards we are dealing with. The kind of evil bastards that our inattention permitted to flourish. Which makes it our responsibility to extirpate them.
Note that the voice on the video of Foley’s ritual killing has been identified as a Londoner. There are clearly many others in the group that hail from England and other western countries, including almost certainly Americans. The most serious fear since 9/12/2001 has been terrorists with western passports who can commit terrorism more readily than Middle Eastern natives.
But I am sure this is just the JV. So what, me worry?
To give some credit, Obama has loosened the leash on American airpower against ISIS. I deliberately didn’t say “unleashed”, because the air strikes have been extremely limited.
But even given the limited nature of the attacks, they have had an effect on the battlefield. So why not crank it up to 11? Moderation in war is idiocy, especially when fighting the extreme of the extreme, like ISIS. They have demonstrated that their ambitions are anything but regional, and that it is foolish (not to mention callous and amoral) to rely on their self-destruction and being thrown back by those whom they oppress.
The butchering of Foley should only demonstrate the folly of exquisitely calibrated (in Obama’s mind, anyways) use of force. They’ll kill for a ha’penny, never mind a pound. The price (in life, anyways) that Americans pay is unlikely to depend, in the slightest on the number of bombs we drop: nothing short of abject surrender will satisfy ISIS (and even that is unlikely to sate their blood lust). So since they’ve decided to go all medieval on us, and anyone less extreme than they, let’s go all modern on them and see how that works out for them.
ISIS is already whining about the unfairness of our air campaign. We should show them what unfair is really all about. Hit hard, hit fast, hit often (to quote Halsey), and get it over with quickly. I really cannot fathom why Obama would, at this juncture, consider any other alternative.
