The Discerning Texan

The majority opinion is that the occupation in Iraq has been so bungled that the blowback has ruined American efforts at promoting positive change throughout the Middle East.

Perhaps. But for all the justifiable criticism of the Iraqi reconstruction, two truths still remain — the United States is taking an enormous toll on jihadists, and despite the terrible cost in blood and treasure, has not given up on a constitutional government in Iraq.

The Sunni front-line states, who subsidized jihadists and still enjoy our misery in Iraq , , but they are now terrified that these killers, in league with the Iranians, will turn on them. The net result is not just that some Sunnis are helping us in Iraq, but that they are being urged to for the first time by those in the Arab world, who would prefer to see the Iraqi government, rather than the terrorists, succeed. And if Iraq is still a terrible disappointment, Kurdistan is emerging as a success few envisioned, refuting some conventional wisdom about the incompatibility of capitalism and constitutional government with Middle Eastern Islam.

Theocratic Iran is not exactly as “empowered” as is generally alleged, but in the greatest crisis of its miserable existence. As the mullahs up the ante in the region, they could very soon not only lose Iraq, but also their own dictatorship. Trying to oppose the West in Iraq, Lebanon, and the West Bank is taking an enormous financial toll, as is the general isolation from the world community.

With oil prices at an all-time high, Iran can't provide gasoline for its own people, who resent the billions spent instead on Arab terrorists abroad. If oil were to dip from near $70 to $50-55 a barrel, the regime would face abject bankruptcy. For all the criticism of the U.S. position, from the left and right, we have now found the right blend of military determination not to let Teheran go nuclear, combined with economic and political efforts at containment. There is an array of future options — stronger embargoes, blockades, and military strikes on infrastructure — still on the table. The social unrest the mullahs desire in Iraq is starting to spill over the border into their own Iran, and its magnitude and final course are still unpredictable.

Labels: Iraq, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, The Long War

Labels: Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, War strategy

Labels: Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran, Lebanon, Middle East

Labels: Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, The Long War, Western Civilization

Labels: Iraq, Middle East, Political Solution

Labels: Democrat Sabotage, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Sedition, War strategy

Labels: Democrat Sabotage, Middle East, Syria

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Media War, Middle East, Victor Davis Hanson

Labels: America War Support, Democrat Sabotage, Justice Department, Middle East, Nancy Pelosi, Syria

Labels: Appeasement, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, UK

The question now, given the de facto prisoner exchange yesterday involving that Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq, is how much Britain — or we — gave up to make this happen.

Update: And right on cue, here’s maybe the beginning of an answer to that question: according to Iranian TV, the U.S. is going to let an Iranian envoy meet with the five Quds Force members captured in Irbil.

James Lewis was spot on: the Euro trumped what once was the mightiest Navy in the world.

But the real question for the UK is: why even have a Navy if you aren't going to fire a shot when under attack by upstart Iranian fanatics. If you are never going to use the damn thing, why even spend the money in the first place. The essence of this tragedy was captured by the Editors of National Review. And it isn't pretty:

The way the crisis played out will have serious consequences in the Middle East. Iran proved that it is the region’s dominant power. Could any other country have attempted this and gotten away with it? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Egypt? Surely not. Britain, meanwhile, reinforced Iran’s view of the West as a decadent society that does not respond effectively to provocations and need not be feared. Perceptions matter: Recall the conclusions Osama bin Laden drew after the American retreat from Somalia. What we can expect now is greater aggression, from both Iran in particular and Islamists in general.
That’s what we can expect, anyway, if Britain does nothing to salvage the situation. It should begin by making sure the captives repudiate their confessions and denounce their captors once they’re back home. We don’t need to hear how nice the food is in Tehran. Next, Britain should have the 15 demand compensation for their illegal capture and treatment. It must send an absolutely unambiguous message that its sailors and marines were never in Iranian waters, and that it has made no concessions concerning the location of the border. (Sending some patrol missions back to the area, backed up by overwhelming firepower, would punctuate the point nicely.) The U.S., for its part, must hold the five Iranian agents it captured in Iraq for a long time, lest it appear that there has been a swap.
If there is a glimmer of hope in this shameful denouement, it is the possibility that the sheer brazenness of the kidnappings will shatter some of the widespread naïveté — particularly in the British and American diplomatic corps — about the nature of the Iranian regime. It has never been reasonable to think that this regime, whose guiding purpose is to export its particular brand of Islamism, could be made to act in accordance with the West’s interests. Its latest exercise in hostage-taking-as-foreign-policy underscores the unreasonableness of that view.
It’s right to be glad that the young Britons are headed home. But into that humanitarian feeling irrupts the darker realization that their good fortune comes at an unacceptable price. Unless Britain and her allies act quickly and cleverly to show that they are, appearances notwithstanding, powers to be reckoned with, a great many lives will be at risk for a long time to come.

Labels: Appeasement, Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, UK, War strategy

Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is president of Iran and bears less ambiguous responsibility for Western hostages. This time round, they're British subjects: 15 sailors and Royal Marines. There are a few differences between this kidnapping and the last: Back in 1979, the Iranians seized their hostages by invading a diplomatic mission -- the sovereign territory of the United States. In 2007, they seized them in international waters. In 1979, two weeks after the embassy crisis began, 13 American hostages who happened to be black were released; the remainder were held for another 14 months. In 2007, the one woman among the hostages is being offered by the regime for early release, invitingly dangled in front of the TV cameras, though with her Royal Navy uniform replaced by Islamic dress; it remains to be seen what will become of the others. On Thursday, a new generation of "student demonstrators" called for the "British aggressors" to be executed.

On this 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, Tony Blair is looking less like Margaret Thatcher and alarmingly like Jimmy Carter, the embodiment of the soi-disant "superpower" as a smiling eunuch.

[...]

The British ambassador to the U.N. had wanted the Security Council to pass a resolution ''deploring'' Iran's conduct. But the Russians objected to all this hotheaded inflammatory lingo about ''deploring,'' and so the Security Council instead expressed its ''grave concern'' about the situation. That and $4.95 will get you a decaf latte. Ask the folks in Darfur what they've got to show for years of the U.N.'s "grave concerns" -- heavy on the graves, less so on the concern.

[...]

So we live today in a world of one-way sovereignty: American, British and Iraqi forces in Iraq respect the Syrian and Iranian borders; the Syrians and Iranians do not respect the Iraqi border. Patrolling the Shatt al-Arab at a time of war, the Royal Navy operates under rules of engagement designed by distant fainthearts with an eye to the polite fictions of "international law": If you're in a ''warship,'' you can't wage war. If you're in a ''destroyer,'' don't destroy anything. If you're in a "frigate," you're frigging done for.

On Sept. 11, a New York skyscraper was brought down by the Egyptian leader of a German cell of an Afghan terror group led by a Saudi. Islamism is only the first of many globalized ideological viruses that will seep undetected across national frontiers in the years ahead. Meanwhile, we put our faith in meetings of foreign ministers.

"It is better to be making the news than taking it," wrote Winston Churchill in 1898. But his successors have gotten used to taking it, and the men who make the news well understand that.

Labels: Appeasement, Iran, Islamic Fascism, Mark Steyn, Middle East, UK

It’s completely outrageous for any nation to go out and arrest the servicemen of another nation in waters that don’t belong to them.” So spoke Admiral Sir Alan West, former First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, concerning the present Anglo-Iranian crisis over captured British soldiers. But if the attack was “outrageous,” it was apparently not quite outrageous enough for anything to have been done about it yet.

Sir Alan elaborated on British rules of engagement by stressing they are “very much de-escalatory, because we don’t want wars starting ... Rather than roaring into action and sinking everything in sight we try to step back and that, of course, is why our chaps were, in effect, able to be captured and taken away.”

One might suggest, not necessarily “sinking everything in sight,” but at least shooting back at a few of the people trying to kidnap Britain’s uniformed soldiers. But the view, apparently, is that stepping back and allowing some chaps to be “captured and taken away” is to be preferred to “roaring into action and sinking everything in sight.” The latter is more or less what Nelson did at the battle of the Nile, when he nearly destroyed the Napoleonic fleet.

Labels: Appeasement, Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, UK

Labels: Democrat Sabotage, Middle East, Syria

Labels: Iran, Middle East, UK, War strategy

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Middle East, UK, US Politics, War strategy

Labels: Iran, Middle East, Military, War strategy

Labels: Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, UK

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, Military, UK, War strategy

Something tells me that Putin's motivation comes from something other than a collections-agency status on the bill. He sank a lot of Russia's international influence into kowtowing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Putin's Great Game aspirations of late seem more important than an unpaid bill or two. He bought real influence in Teheran, or so he thought, with the Bushehr plant.

Some calculations have changed in Moscow. Putin had been almost the only substantive foreign support for Ahmadinejad, besides China, which needs Iranian oil. Some other pressure point must have been hit by the West. Perhaps someone mentioned Russia's G-8 status, or maybe other commercial issues got worked in Putin's favor. What is obvious is that Ahmadinejad placed all his eggs in the Russian nuclear basket, and for the moment he has come up empty.

Its apparent cancellation puts Ahmadinejad in a tough spot. He sold the nuclear-power plant as a major victory against Western opposition, especially the Great Satan itself, the US. He even put a nuclear symbol on the latest currency note to brag about Iran's ascension to the top tier of nations -- at least in the category of offensive weaponry. Now Russia and Putin have pulled the rug out from underneath him, and the entire Iranian nation will witness the pratfall.

Labels: Iran, Islamic Fascism, Middle East, Nuclear, Russia