Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
A general in Iran claims Iran has been preparing for all-out war on the US and its allies for years.
No doubt the Obama administration is pondering this message for subtle clues. What could it mean? Is it a plea for carbon credits? Living-wage jobs? What do Iranians really want?
Joe Doakes
It’s something about launching nukes if any state implements Voter ID, I think.
Our engagement with Islamic extremism in the Middle East has become increasingly complex and involves an ever-increasing number of players and interests. Start with ISIL. The fighting against ISIL has become at least three different and interrelated conflicts:
1.a fight against ISIL, a low-level sectarian and ethnic civil conflict in Iraq, and
2.an intense civil war in Syria. It also, however, is
3.part of a far broader regional and global conflict with subparts:
·a global against terrorism and extremism,
·part of the competition between the United States and Russia,
·part of the competition between the Sunni majority of the Arab world and Shia Iran, and
·part of an emerging struggle for a Kurdish identify and some form of “federalism” and/or independence that further divides into
1.A Turkish-Kurdish component
2.An Iraqi-Kurdish component
3.An Iranian-Kurdish component
4.an ISIL/Daesh-Kurdish component
One can go one and add more to this list of sub-conflicts and cross-cutting conflicts. Which of our “allies” are with us in which of these conflicts? Against us? Agnostic? Playing both sides against the middle? How many ways does the Palestinian issue crosscut these conflicts. How many simultaneous games is Israel playing with the various groups, ethnicities and interests?
Whose interests align with whom? Crosscut whom? Are opposite whom?
Do most players have both shared interests and opposing interests with most other players? Even the US and Iran pose this question.
Suffice it to say that neither Trump, Hillary, Ted Cruz nor Bernie have evinced evidence that they comprehend the complexity and multidimensionality of the this complex set of national security challenges.
Actually, liberals as a group are totally ignorant on foreign policy. This proves that Iran knows when they are dealing with buffoons. To them, our current occupier of the White House, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, must look like the three stooges.
Ahh, first ISIL instead of ISIS. Then “How many ways does the Palestinian issue crosscut these conflicts. How many simultaneous games is Israel playing with the various groups, ethnicities and interests?” Nothing less of a Final Solution will ever satisfy eTASS, an anti-Semitic sack of shit.
The Obama administration has more important things to deal with like putting out guidelines on promoting gender neutral toys. Seriously.
bosshoss, but at least the gals are getting their free birth control pills.
JPA: it doesn’t matter the issue, all problems are because of the Jooooooooooooooos, at least to some.
Real world alliances are not built upon nicely matching shared interests among many players. They are built, delicately, upon those tiny bits of the Venn diagram where small aspects of interests among the many players overlap.
The sum of the space in the diagram occupied by non-shared interests is always far larger than the overlap. Add to this the dynamic nature of interests. The Venn diagram is not a set of static overlapping circles, It is a set of ever-changing, ever moving circles where today’s overlap is tomorrows empty space. The worst thing a strategist can do under these circumstances is to conceive of an alliance in terms of “friends” or “the good players”.
“Here today and gone tomorrow” should be the Realist’s watchword in strategic alliance.
Emery, I’m going to make this a little bit simpler on you. Iranian government and religious leaders have been calling us the “Great Satan” for closing in on 40 years. They have been funding terrorism for about the same period of time. Same basic principle with ISIS, Hamas, and the like for different periods of time.
I think that given history, it’s safe to assume they’re serious, and hence our options are a mix of defunding them, killing them, persuading them that they’re bat-paska crazy, and setting them against each other so they destroy each other. Bad choices include giving them billions of dollars, military assistance, and diplomatic recognition.
Haven’t you seen the other thread, BB? eTASS solution is to ignore them and they will go away. Simple as that. Oh, and get rid of Joooooos.
What a great idea, JPA. Ignoring the possibility that the author of Mein Kampf might have been serious worked out so well, as well as ignoring the possibility that Marx, Engels, and Lenin might have been serious. What’s a couple hundred million graves filled too early between friends?
Sigh.
I like to think of ISIL, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and all the rest of these crazies as clouds floating across the sky. And we are like great anti-aircraft guns accurately shooting holes in those clouds. The clouds continue on their happy way and we continue to congratulate ourselves for what great shots we are. In the meantime the low pressure from whence the clouds come from continues to build.
Clouds floating across the sky don’t lop the heads off innocents, Emery. Everybody knows that fighting a guerrilla war is difficult, but asinine word pictures don’t help at all.
Quite frankly, that is the best metaphor for our “War on Terror” that I have ever used.
It captures so many elements:
ephemeral
Sisyphean
Doomed
Sophoclean tragedy intertwined with modern existential tragedy.
That thought came to mind while reading Martin Gilbert’s massive biography of Churchill. Churchill ordered the commander of London’s anti-aircraft defenses during the nighttime blitz of London in the winter of 1940-41 to fire even if the clouds made the exercise futile and wasted ammunition.Winston’s view was the sound of the guns firing back would buck up the civilians who must endure the bombing.