BLUF (bottom-line up-front): any prescribed policy in a conflict zone is nothing more than a smartly presented best-case scenario.
A (LAST) Chance Meeting. We had known each other for a few weeks from the common tent out behind the Embassy. But Antony was a great guy. Former red-coat on special duty in Ireland, he had a far better idea than I about these types of situations, in places like Belfast or Baghdad. What I also enjoyed was his intellect. Long before, various Brits had taught me that one need not go to college to be an incisive thinker.
Much like activated National Guardsmen from across ‘the pond’; Antony was more than a citizen-soldier: he was a thinking soldier. Two things I lamented in my friendship with him: that Lieutenant Cunningham – a brave and fair young lass in the U.S. Army – never reciprocated his fancy for her and, far worse, the day he told me that, after just six weeks in-country, he was fed up and heading home to England.
“Why, Antony?” I asked already ruing the loss of a brief but meaningful acquaintance.
“Because, Ned, the way this is going, there will be regional war before it’s over…”
Marshalling up my splendidly articulate ignorance, I said rather flippantly, “Lighten up! It’s only Iraq…”
Antony winced and shook his head, not so much dismissively but in an unspoken message, “Trust me, you’ll get it soon enough…” And I did. Antony’s dark message has not come to pass, yet. Nevertheless, we have seen the emergence of the ‘Shi´ite crescent’ and the anxiety raised by Sunnis across the Middle East as President Bush’s surge narrowly averted a sectarian genocide…once.
Antony's Enduring Whisper. In recalling that conversation of eight and a half years ago, I am reminded again of why the hardest thing to do at times is nothing. We read every day that thousands upon thousands of Syrians have died at the hands of a dictator not yet gone but definitely gone rogue. This slow-motion slaughter has been unfolding for a year or more; chemical weapons (probably taken in from Saddam before his régime collapsed in 2003) may be next. We have done very little during this violence; there probably is not much we can do.
What the West is failing to understand is that the Arab Spring will have a violent dimension to it. Most revolutionary contagions do. Though I fear for the safety of Israël and, with her, democracy no matter how flawed, there are also so violent sectarian upheavals shaking the foundations of Islam itself. Truth is, from the standpoint of theology, Judaism and Islam are closer together than either is with Christianity.
The emergence of Shi´ism and its veneration of certain prophets or great imams as Christ-like as well as its mythology of the hidden imam certain to return in glory to judge the quick and the dead, has catalyzed a centuries-long conflict. This religious persecution and in-fighting has played out on the extremes of both theological dialects.
Most Muslims, Sunni or Shi´ite, follow the prophet’s guidance of clean living, clear devotion and prayerful peace. Unfortunately, part of the Arab Spring is our having to watch, with pained passivity, a dangerously bloody revulsion on two levels:
Who the hell invited N.A.T.O.? From the parochially American point of view, what we are seeing is the fall-out from the intervention in Libya. The N.A.T.O. mission was to take out the weapons of slaughter at a dictator’s disposal. That noble end quickly morphed into an assassination campaign of that dictator himself. Now that ugly Qaddafi was one nasty dude, no doubt. Nevertheless, he had tried to clean up his act, at least to the world outside.
The crazy Colonel had not sponsored terrorism for two decades and foresworn development of weapons of mass-destruction seven years ago. In Libya, N.A.T.O. sent the wrong signal to other dictators, like the one in Syria: “You might as well fight it out to the death because we will kill you when we want to kill you whether you have ‘gone civilized’ or not…"
The European Hangover. Much of the current turmoil probably goes back for more than a millennium. Nonetheless, a lot of the problems into which N.A.T.O. currently inserts itself are forcing (more likely inviting) a traditionally anti-imperialist country, the United States, into participating in the clean-up of past European colonialism.
Kiss the hard earned the U.S. reputation for credibility and fairness good-bye. If France and Italy or even the United Kingdom feel compelled to do something about Syria, Libya, Egypt etc., then let NATO intervene. As we did under President Eisenhower in 1956 with respect to Britain, France and Israël ganging up on Egypt, the U.S. should stake out an unambiguous position that it will not participate in military attacks in the case of Syria.
The United States should signal clearly that it is ready to use its assets only for humanitarian missions. In the interim, U.S. diplomats publicly lobby Islamic nations in more peaceful parts to supply peace-keepers. That will force the ex-colonialists to live with the choices they make today and resolve their miscues of yesterday.
Timing is everything. The late hour of all of this diplomatic dithering, curiously furious within weeks following the U.S. elections, casts the sincerity of U.S. intentions into doubt. Twice the number Mexicans have died due to drug wars – behind which the U.S.-based demand and the failed policy of the ‘War on Drugs’ remain the big drivers – than in Syria. No response to the 85,000 dead in Mexico.
Our soldiers have been exploited shamelessly for eleven years, often to cover for failed policies. Many of our citizen soldiers have fought twice or thrice as long as did those of the greatest generation. Whoops. There is no direct and compelling national interest for the U.S. in attacking Syria. It poses no existential threat to the U.S. or, probably, to Israël.
The blood-drunk anarchy that will engulf the land after a hopelessly under-resourced intervention will be far more ominous to the region’s only democracy, Israël. Details, details; sniff, sniff. These general critiques are damning enough to argue against the threatened intervention by invasion rumoured as being discussed in Paris and Washington.
The ‘Antony’ factor is the one that worries me most. It became obvious that the Iraqi Ministry of Interior was fast becoming the “Ministry of Death” in 2005 as Shi´ite militias thoroughly compromised the police force. Then along came the idea of partitioning Iraq into ethno-sectarian super-regions a year later with the constitution.
The worst case scenario emerged of a general Persian-Arab conflict fought out on Iraqi soil. That scenario leads me to say that I may well burn in Hell for supporting the invasion of Iraq, which I did and, on balance, still do. Now to explain the logic, that scenario assumed that Iraq would split up into regions and a sectarian civil war would break out.
As the Sunnis would likely be slaughtered by the Shi´ite militias supported by Iran, Sunni-Arab neighbors – like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey as well as, perhaps, more distant lands like Egypt and the Emirates – would intervene to aid the Iraqi Sunnis and to hip-check Iran. That would lead to an Iranian invasion of Southern Iraq to protect Shi’ites and, more importantly, to grab the oil so plentiful in that part of a great and beleaguered land.
The majority of Shi’ites not involved with the militias would side eventually with the Sunni countries as fellow Arabs. What would really happen is anybody’s guess. It would be ugly. The analysis here may have many flaws; at least, it is based on one irrefutable premise: that the Middle East and Persian Gulf is taut with tension where a miscalculation can occur and cascade.
Now we come back to Syria. While that initial scenario did not involve Syria directly (presuming its neutrality until the minority régime would get a bloody boot from the majority Sunni Arabs), the current situation and a push toward an overtly American role in trying to 'fix' it, could easily spiral out of control.
In 2005, such a scenario with Syria seemed less likely, even with the Lebanese uprising. Yet in 2012, we are at the end-point of years of demonizing Iran, making the country’s twice-elected president some type of satanic monster. We willfully overlook the presence of a strong middle class and a long tradition of a cosmopolitan culture.
These forgotten or overlooked Iranians will eventually undo the theocratic tyranny that rules the country now. Like it or not, the issue about a nuclear Iran is a red herring meant to obscure the perceived U.S. interest in preventing Iran’s ascent as a regional hegemon. Iran has largely remained peaceful; it is we who have been aggressive.
Iran may well instigate Southern Iraq into establishing itself as a super-region under the country's American-crafted and stunningly out-of-touch 'Constitution'. Then Iran will try to seduce that region into becoming a subtle satellite flying an Iraqi flag that flutters toward Teheran. That translates into different tariffs and border policies favouring Iran over Iraq.
Relative to Syria, that is to say: in the wider context of the unrelenting, albeit largely non-lethal, aggression shown toward Iran for years, a U.S. intervention in Syria (and that is how Teheran would likely view a N.A.T.O. military action without an explicit and demonstrable U.S. absence) would entail relentless bombing, perhaps an invasion, followed by the likely assassination of a pro-Persian dictator.
That train of events could threaten Iran (from her perspective, not ours). The leadership in Teheran, increasingly insecure in Iran, could think that we are intent on breaking up what is a mythic crescent in the first place. That perception by Iran would elicit strong, though likely covert, responses. With the U.S. seen to be leading the charge, Israël would likely be blamed also for instigating the overthrow and the bloody civil war that has engulfed Syria.
The two allies would be viewed as trying to destroy Islam, whether or not that sentiment were true. And that idea is probably not true. With small miscalculations, that could lead to a muscular Iranian response, through Iraq or Kurdistan, enough to precipitate a much larger conflict in which nobody wins but many, many lose their lives.
A (LAST) Chance Meeting. We had known each other for a few weeks from the common tent out behind the Embassy. But Antony was a great guy. Former red-coat on special duty in Ireland, he had a far better idea than I about these types of situations, in places like Belfast or Baghdad. What I also enjoyed was his intellect. Long before, various Brits had taught me that one need not go to college to be an incisive thinker.
Much like activated National Guardsmen from across ‘the pond’; Antony was more than a citizen-soldier: he was a thinking soldier. Two things I lamented in my friendship with him: that Lieutenant Cunningham – a brave and fair young lass in the U.S. Army – never reciprocated his fancy for her and, far worse, the day he told me that, after just six weeks in-country, he was fed up and heading home to England.
“Why, Antony?” I asked already ruing the loss of a brief but meaningful acquaintance.
“Because, Ned, the way this is going, there will be regional war before it’s over…”
Marshalling up my splendidly articulate ignorance, I said rather flippantly, “Lighten up! It’s only Iraq…”
Antony winced and shook his head, not so much dismissively but in an unspoken message, “Trust me, you’ll get it soon enough…” And I did. Antony’s dark message has not come to pass, yet. Nevertheless, we have seen the emergence of the ‘Shi´ite crescent’ and the anxiety raised by Sunnis across the Middle East as President Bush’s surge narrowly averted a sectarian genocide…once.
Antony's Enduring Whisper. In recalling that conversation of eight and a half years ago, I am reminded again of why the hardest thing to do at times is nothing. We read every day that thousands upon thousands of Syrians have died at the hands of a dictator not yet gone but definitely gone rogue. This slow-motion slaughter has been unfolding for a year or more; chemical weapons (probably taken in from Saddam before his régime collapsed in 2003) may be next. We have done very little during this violence; there probably is not much we can do.
What the West is failing to understand is that the Arab Spring will have a violent dimension to it. Most revolutionary contagions do. Though I fear for the safety of Israël and, with her, democracy no matter how flawed, there are also so violent sectarian upheavals shaking the foundations of Islam itself. Truth is, from the standpoint of theology, Judaism and Islam are closer together than either is with Christianity.
The emergence of Shi´ism and its veneration of certain prophets or great imams as Christ-like as well as its mythology of the hidden imam certain to return in glory to judge the quick and the dead, has catalyzed a centuries-long conflict. This religious persecution and in-fighting has played out on the extremes of both theological dialects.
Most Muslims, Sunni or Shi´ite, follow the prophet’s guidance of clean living, clear devotion and prayerful peace. Unfortunately, part of the Arab Spring is our having to watch, with pained passivity, a dangerously bloody revulsion on two levels:
- the over-reach and ultimate repudiation (probably violent) of extremist movements that tend to fare better in the shadows of secular totalitarianism than in the new light of freedom; as well as,
- the popular, probably violent, overthrow of secular dictators using brutality to keep their money coming and their countries quiet.
Who the hell invited N.A.T.O.? From the parochially American point of view, what we are seeing is the fall-out from the intervention in Libya. The N.A.T.O. mission was to take out the weapons of slaughter at a dictator’s disposal. That noble end quickly morphed into an assassination campaign of that dictator himself. Now that ugly Qaddafi was one nasty dude, no doubt. Nevertheless, he had tried to clean up his act, at least to the world outside.
The crazy Colonel had not sponsored terrorism for two decades and foresworn development of weapons of mass-destruction seven years ago. In Libya, N.A.T.O. sent the wrong signal to other dictators, like the one in Syria: “You might as well fight it out to the death because we will kill you when we want to kill you whether you have ‘gone civilized’ or not…"
The European Hangover. Much of the current turmoil probably goes back for more than a millennium. Nonetheless, a lot of the problems into which N.A.T.O. currently inserts itself are forcing (more likely inviting) a traditionally anti-imperialist country, the United States, into participating in the clean-up of past European colonialism.
Kiss the hard earned the U.S. reputation for credibility and fairness good-bye. If France and Italy or even the United Kingdom feel compelled to do something about Syria, Libya, Egypt etc., then let NATO intervene. As we did under President Eisenhower in 1956 with respect to Britain, France and Israël ganging up on Egypt, the U.S. should stake out an unambiguous position that it will not participate in military attacks in the case of Syria.
The United States should signal clearly that it is ready to use its assets only for humanitarian missions. In the interim, U.S. diplomats publicly lobby Islamic nations in more peaceful parts to supply peace-keepers. That will force the ex-colonialists to live with the choices they make today and resolve their miscues of yesterday.
Timing is everything. The late hour of all of this diplomatic dithering, curiously furious within weeks following the U.S. elections, casts the sincerity of U.S. intentions into doubt. Twice the number Mexicans have died due to drug wars – behind which the U.S.-based demand and the failed policy of the ‘War on Drugs’ remain the big drivers – than in Syria. No response to the 85,000 dead in Mexico.
Our soldiers have been exploited shamelessly for eleven years, often to cover for failed policies. Many of our citizen soldiers have fought twice or thrice as long as did those of the greatest generation. Whoops. There is no direct and compelling national interest for the U.S. in attacking Syria. It poses no existential threat to the U.S. or, probably, to Israël.
The blood-drunk anarchy that will engulf the land after a hopelessly under-resourced intervention will be far more ominous to the region’s only democracy, Israël. Details, details; sniff, sniff. These general critiques are damning enough to argue against the threatened intervention by invasion rumoured as being discussed in Paris and Washington.
The ‘Antony’ factor is the one that worries me most. It became obvious that the Iraqi Ministry of Interior was fast becoming the “Ministry of Death” in 2005 as Shi´ite militias thoroughly compromised the police force. Then along came the idea of partitioning Iraq into ethno-sectarian super-regions a year later with the constitution.
The worst case scenario emerged of a general Persian-Arab conflict fought out on Iraqi soil. That scenario leads me to say that I may well burn in Hell for supporting the invasion of Iraq, which I did and, on balance, still do. Now to explain the logic, that scenario assumed that Iraq would split up into regions and a sectarian civil war would break out.
As the Sunnis would likely be slaughtered by the Shi´ite militias supported by Iran, Sunni-Arab neighbors – like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey as well as, perhaps, more distant lands like Egypt and the Emirates – would intervene to aid the Iraqi Sunnis and to hip-check Iran. That would lead to an Iranian invasion of Southern Iraq to protect Shi’ites and, more importantly, to grab the oil so plentiful in that part of a great and beleaguered land.
The majority of Shi’ites not involved with the militias would side eventually with the Sunni countries as fellow Arabs. What would really happen is anybody’s guess. It would be ugly. The analysis here may have many flaws; at least, it is based on one irrefutable premise: that the Middle East and Persian Gulf is taut with tension where a miscalculation can occur and cascade.
Now we come back to Syria. While that initial scenario did not involve Syria directly (presuming its neutrality until the minority régime would get a bloody boot from the majority Sunni Arabs), the current situation and a push toward an overtly American role in trying to 'fix' it, could easily spiral out of control.
In 2005, such a scenario with Syria seemed less likely, even with the Lebanese uprising. Yet in 2012, we are at the end-point of years of demonizing Iran, making the country’s twice-elected president some type of satanic monster. We willfully overlook the presence of a strong middle class and a long tradition of a cosmopolitan culture.
These forgotten or overlooked Iranians will eventually undo the theocratic tyranny that rules the country now. Like it or not, the issue about a nuclear Iran is a red herring meant to obscure the perceived U.S. interest in preventing Iran’s ascent as a regional hegemon. Iran has largely remained peaceful; it is we who have been aggressive.
Iran may well instigate Southern Iraq into establishing itself as a super-region under the country's American-crafted and stunningly out-of-touch 'Constitution'. Then Iran will try to seduce that region into becoming a subtle satellite flying an Iraqi flag that flutters toward Teheran. That translates into different tariffs and border policies favouring Iran over Iraq.
Relative to Syria, that is to say: in the wider context of the unrelenting, albeit largely non-lethal, aggression shown toward Iran for years, a U.S. intervention in Syria (and that is how Teheran would likely view a N.A.T.O. military action without an explicit and demonstrable U.S. absence) would entail relentless bombing, perhaps an invasion, followed by the likely assassination of a pro-Persian dictator.
That train of events could threaten Iran (from her perspective, not ours). The leadership in Teheran, increasingly insecure in Iran, could think that we are intent on breaking up what is a mythic crescent in the first place. That perception by Iran would elicit strong, though likely covert, responses. With the U.S. seen to be leading the charge, Israël would likely be blamed also for instigating the overthrow and the bloody civil war that has engulfed Syria.
The two allies would be viewed as trying to destroy Islam, whether or not that sentiment were true. And that idea is probably not true. With small miscalculations, that could lead to a muscular Iranian response, through Iraq or Kurdistan, enough to precipitate a much larger conflict in which nobody wins but many, many lose their lives.
