All It Takes Is The Will!

The last two days of WSJ editorials validate so much of what I have been stating and what any casual observer of the scene, domestic and foreign, should have noticed as well - eerie. For example:

I believe Sec. Rice is a pacifist at heart and though her piano playing may be superb and on key, her diplomatic decisions ring a sour note with me. The WSJ's Monday Editorial, entitled The New Middle East, reviews how we have gotten to where we are in Lebanon and beyond and how we have copped out on our own decisions vis a vis the Hariri investigation and how the Gemayel assassination is the fruit of our misbegotten labor. (Also see Ne'eman's article below.)

Then, I have been a continued critic of GW's eyesight and have stated that before he looks into another world leader's eyes he should go to an optometrist and get his own checked. Lo and behold David Satter's op ed piece, "Who Killed Litvinenko?" appeared in the same WSJ. Satter makes the case that we continue to give Putin a pass and overlook the constant number of assassinations and "blindly" persist in treating Putin as a friend.

No sooner had I written a piece questioning whether we had become too PC to ever win, Tuesday's Editorial "NATO and the Taliban" highlights how various NATO countries send troops to Afghanistan but prevent them from engaging the enemy. The editorial ends by asking;"...If NATO can't muster the forces to defeat the remnants of al Qaeda's original state sponsor, what is it good for?"

I have consistently railed against pork and political prostitution by another name, ie. "earmarks." Up comes a WSJ editorial entitled Republican Rehab in Tuesday's WSJ. The editorial lays out how two Republican Senators, DeMint and Coburn, have rallied enough members of their party to block any omnibus bill containing earmarks. The Republicans seemingly refuse to get the message the voters sent them and have stuffed current legislation with 12,000 earmarks totaling some $17 billion according to The Journal.

Finally, only yesterday I printed the article by Prof Sowell who reviewed Arthur Brook's book on charitable giving broken down along political lines, ie conservatives versus liberals. In today's Journal, Brooks op eds his own review of his finding.

I am troubled constantly by:

The decline in our family structure and family values.

The decline in our education system and its unwillingness to insist on a rigorous core of studies. We are failing to teach our young to reason.

I Pods and listening to stupifying music takes precedence over reading great books. How can a society continue to compete in an increasingly technological world if our idols are air heads and boorish athletes?

As we shrink our minds we expand our waistlines. Are our brains falling into our stomachs?

It is appropriate that a blow hard like Rep. Rangel would call for the draft. The biggest draft is between his ears.

Finally, "our something for nothing society" has turned class action law suits into the legal profession full employment act. Specious science has become the basis for billion dollar recoveries. It is little wonder more and more corporations have decided to go private in order to escape the onus of legal attacks and over-reaching federal regulation.

Where does all of this lead?

Ne'eman a partner of my friend, Ellot Chodoff, writes what I have been saying for months. Chodoff has agreed to come and speak at the JEA lecture forum next year. (see 1 below.)

If you believe GW he is standing firm as a result of comments made at the NATO meeting vis a vis our talking with Iraq. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Abbas has given up on a unity government because of Hamas' Meshaal's continued insistence on unacceptable terms and demands. So we are back to square one where I though we would be. Bring Arabs together for unity and create dis-unity. Qassam rockets continue to fall on Sderot and launchings probably will intensify.

Finally, Jonathan Ariel has written what I have been advocating all along. Ariel does not mention anything about a naval blockade of Iran which, if effective, would cripple the nation's economy and should it not produce the desired economic angst the next step could be as Ariel has suggested. (see 4 below.)

Dick

1) Dismembering Iraq
By Yisrael Ne’eman

Over the past month both Iraq and Lebanon moved closer to disintegration. In Lebanon the situation is more complex and has not yet reached the boiling point while in Iraq it is a straight forward civil conflict moving into a civil war. The Sunni – Shi’ite slaughter continues and can be expected to grow worse. Neither the Anglo-American presence nor attempts by PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and the Iraqi security forces will glue that country back together. Both Syria and Iran intend to be part of the “solution” in the post Anglo-American era. As far as they are concerned, the more violent the conflict, the better, as Washington and London are the big losers groping for a way out while the Damascus-Tehran axis waits for a invitation to take their place.

The newly established “Iraq Study Group” led by former Sec. of State James Baker (under Pres. George Bush Sr.) is expected to recommend engaging in a dialogue with the Syrians and Iranians to reduce tensions in the Middle East. Both will make demands of the US; Syria will expect American pressure on Israel to relinquish the Golan and Iran will make it clear that its nuclear program will continue. The two can also be expected to line up to demand a Syrian influenced, Shi’ite – Hezbollah dominated Lebanon. As for Iraq, the Iranian dream of unifying a revolutionary Shi’ite empire certainly begins with the annexation or at least the recognition of its manifest rights to overall influence in eastern, Shi’ite dominated Iraq. Syria would certainly like to follow suit by dominating western Sunni Iraq in one form or another. It will make little difference whether America negotiates or not, since Washington wants “out” while Assad and Ahmedinejad want “in”. It is here that the “sacred” borders of the Iraqi nation state will collapse under Middle Eastern realities.

It is only a question of time, which is in direct relation to the level of violence. The more violence, the quicker the Allies will be forced to leave. Syria and Iran will support the insurgencies (yes – all of them) to guarantee maximum chaos, until they will be invited in or decide on a pretext to send their armies to “restore law and order”. This can be expected to be done with the maximum of force necessary and all can rest assured that few in the West will have a word of criticism. Hence Iraq may very well be dismembered and quite possibly so to the satisfaction of many in the Arab/Moslem world. Certainly should the violence be snuffed out and some sort of stability restored, the Iranian-Syrian alliance will be hailed by many as the best alternative to both Saddam Hussein and/or the Anglo-American experiment in democracy.

Once digesting their acquisitions, logic dictates that Damascus and Tehran turn to more interesting prey such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in their quest for oil and regional dominance.

2) The New York Times leaks like a sieve but nothing like the Gaza border which Egypt pledged to guard on Israel's behalf after it voluntarily withdrew.

What incentives do Palestinians offer Israel? Land for more land, land for more rocket attacks, land for more lies and unfulfilled promises. Land for continued teaching of Palestinian children to hate. What nonsense!

Palestinian FM enters Gaza Strip carrying case with $20M in cash
By Haaretz Service

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar on Tuesday entered the Gaza Strip carrying a suitcase containing $20 million in cash.

Al-Zahar raised the funds, which he brought in through the border with Egypt, over the past two weeks during a series of visits to several Arab countries.

Various Palestinian officials, using their VIP status, have brought millions in Arab-donated dollars into Gaza in recent months, despite international sanctions against the group. In June, al-Zahar brought 20 million euros across the border, stuffed in 12 suitcases.

Palestinian law permits cash to be carried over the border as long as it is declared.

The international community has said it will not lift the sanctions unless Hamas recognizes Israel, accepts past peace deals and renounces violence, conditions Hamas has rejected.

The sanctions have crippled the government, making it largely unable to pay salaries to its 165,000 employees. The efforts by Hamas to bring cash into Gaza have enabled the government to make small payments periodically, but have done little to ease widespread hardship.

Negotiations between the feuding Fatah and Hamas factions to create a cabinet of technocrats to free the government of the international restrictions placed on it are ongoing.

3) Even Jumblatt comes to the same conclusion about Assad as I did above about the Palestinians.

The following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Druze leader
Walid Jumblatt, which aired on Future TV on November 16, 2006.

Walid Jumblatt: How can you live in peace and stability, when you have a
neighbor... when you have a neighbor like Bashar Al-Assad, who is full of
hatred?

Interviewer: Is the war with Bashar Al-Assad one of life and death?

Walid Jumblatt: He is irresponsible. Yes, it is a battle of life or death.
To be or not to be. Samir Qassir was right to say that Lebanon will have no
peace as long as there is no democracy in Syria. We will have no peace.

[...]

Interviewer: Maybe that's one of the problems. Let's open up the Syrian
issue, if it is a question of existence. It's either you or the Syrian
regime? This is a weighty question.

Walid Jumblatt: The only thing [Bashar] has in store for his own people, and
for the neighboring peoples, is hatred. The arrests of the intellectuals and
the members of civil society... They were arrested, and nobody was left.
Yesterday, they found the body of Ghazi Kanaan's brother, who was killed in
suspicious circumstances. Why?

Interviewer: Maybe he committed suicide, like someone mentally unstable...

Walid Jumblatt: [Bashar] sents to Iraq hundreds and thousands of so-called
martyrdom-seekers, or suicide bombers, in order to kill Shiites and Sunnis.
Most of those killed were Shiites. Why? In order to divide Iraq? And
eventually, according to an Al-Qaeda communiqué, Bashar sent death squads to
us as well. He sent us death squads of the so-called martyrdom-seekers or
suicide bombers.

4) The 'no-military option' fallacy
By JONATHAN ARIEL


Over the past two or three years, as the full scope of Iran's overt and covert nuclear weapons programs has been disclosed, the possibility of preventive military action by either the US, Israel, or both, periodically comes up.

Every time it does, a chorus of naysayers emerges. They tell us that Iran is not Iraq, and that military option to preempt or at least significantly delay Iran's nuclear timetable does not exist, or is too expensive to be viable.

It is true that, unlike Saddam Hussein, the ayatollahs of Teheran have dispersed their nuclear facilities in heavily fortified underground facilities across their nation. This makes the kind of air strike Israel employed in 1981 to take out Saddam's nuclear reactor impractical.

THIS DOES not mean, however, that a military option does not exist. Several possible military viable military options do exist. The problem is not a lack of means or capabilities, but a lack of will and fortitude.

• One option is a sustained assault lasting several days. Iran's air force has been third-rate ever since Khomeini came to power, when it was purged due to the fact that all its pilots had been Western-trained and were considered pro-royalist by the Islamic regime.

Even though Iran has upgraded its air defense systems they are not capable of dealing with state-of-the art Western avionics and would soon collapse under a sustained air assault. Bottom line: A surgical missile strike against Iran's few advanced air defense facilities would dismantle them, neutralizing the country's entire air defense system.

Attacking air forces equipped with the most advanced technological capabilities would enjoy total air superiority, enabling the launching of a sustained prolonged strategic bombing attack.

Such an assault, in addition to causing significant damage to at least some of the facilities, could also jump-start regime change. The sight of US and perhaps also Israeli aircraft flying unopposed over Iran would be highly demoralizing for the regime. Dictatorships, which survive solely on the perception of power and fear, have difficulty surviving such humiliations.

Air strikes could also be used to carry out Israeli-style targeted eliminations, disrupting and destroying the battalions of the Bajilis and other similar groups of pro-government goon squad militias who crushed the student protests a few years ago.

# Another military option would be the targeting of the country's clerical, political and military leadership. The only factor preventing such an attack is the current American doctrine, which prohibits the targeting of an enemy state's political leaders. All that is needed is the political will and wisdom to change the doctrine. Iran's leaders may aid, abet and provide comfort to terrorists, but they do not live and work underground.

An air assault could eliminate most of the political leadership, neutralizing the revolutionary guard's (Pasderan) field officer corps and rank and file, creating a catalyst for anti-government forces to coalesce and hit the streets in force, bringing the government down.

Members of the leadership surviving the initial surprise strikes would be forced to go underground. Leadership has to be visible to be effective, especially dictatorial coercive leadership, which rules by fear. The very fact that the leadership would be known to be cowering underground, cut off and unable to muster or implement any kind of effective command and control would be sufficiently demoralizing for pro-regime forces, encouraging and empowering the legions of disaffected youth to hit the streets and effect regime change.

The biggest obstacle to a military option is not a shortage of capabilities or weapons systems, but a surfeit of conventional and outmoded thinking. This is the same kind of thinking that appeased Hitler from 1936 to 1939.

IRAN HAS been waging an undeclared war against Israel, world Jewry and the US for over 30 years. It has constantly and systematically attacked Israel, world Jewry and the US by proxy, arming, training and financing terrorist operations. In Argentina it went a step further, bribing the then head of state, former president Carlos Menem, to enable and cover up a massive terrorist assault against that country's Jewish community. It is financing Syria's attempt to assassinate the Lebanese leadership out of existence or into submission.

One thing Iran's leadership has shown is an ability to think out of the box and take risks. It's time we did the same. No country can afford to stand by and do nothing when another one wages an undeclared, yet very real and palpable war against it.

Not only are there several viable military options regarding Iran, ultimately they are the only options available, unless we want to see Iran achieve superpower status.

Dick