The Alliance

Reader DM notes Jacques Chirac's objections to using the NATO Response Force (NRF) in Afghanistan. The NRF is a quick response unit consisting of rotating contributions from different national elements designed to provide a force projection capability for NATO, which it currently lacks.

The French president also resisted US pressure to deploy Nato units to boost security in Afghanistan. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, warned that opposition to deploying the NATO response force (NRF) could be circumvented by taking a decision in a forum which excludes France. But Mr Chirac, unhappy about deploying the alliance outside its cold war era European area of operations, made clear he thought the force should not be used to help secure the Afghan elections in September.

One of the reasons that the NRF was created was to provide "global reach" to enable the alliance to operate out of the traditional European area. Although its mission is "yet to be determined" officially, Chirac has determined it for himself, at least in the negative when he said, "The NRF is not designed for this. It shouldn't be used just for any old matter." The Afghan elections are arguably the most important milestone since the campaign to topple the Taliban, in which NATO was also absent. What then would constitute sufficient matter to engage Chirac? Patrick Belton of Oxblog argues that if NATO's role in Afghanistan got any lighter, it would evaporate.

'ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force) however, was never resourced to move outside of Kabul in a more than symbolic way, and when it finally did, has focused more on its own security than that of Afghans. Despite Afghanistan being widely proclaimed as Nato's highest priority, the unwillingness of Nato member states to adequately resource ISAF with troops and equipment has seriously undermined the ability of ISAF commanders to do their job effectively.'

'Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2003 declaration that the international community 'will not walk away from' Afghanistan missed the real question: When will the international community really walk into Afghanistan, and make the necessary commitments and investments that will give the Afghan people a reasonable chance at building a peaceful and stable country?'

This goes to the real heart of the alliance problem in War on Terror. France and its allies must convert every campaign against terrorists into a diplomatic demarche because such solutions are the only ones available to them, absent a credible military capability. If American power consists of "hard" and "soft" components, France's claim to great nation status relies almost entirely on its membership in "soft" institutions of diplomacy which compels it to torture problems into these venues even when confronted by situations like providing security in the lofty Central Asian mountains. Yet far from welcoming an effort to provide Europe with a nascent expeditionary capability, Chirac may misgive it. For if once the NRF, with an eventual projected size at divisional strength exists, it may be used by a  America to suck Europe into overseas commitments. After all, the only sure way to avoid drawing a sword is to cast it away.

Yet Afghanistan, is if anything, the best indicator of what those who feel so deeply about Iraq may think two years hence: a place that has outworn its anti-American propaganda value and returned to its seat in the forgotten places of the world. For now there is enough of an American presence there to prevent the Taliban from returning but not enough to allow Washington to shape events decisively. Critics of the war who say Washington hasn't put enough "boots on the ground" are strangely silent about where such boots are to come from. Certainly Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 isn't designed to boost enlistment nor will the Europeans -- if Chirac has his way -- be forthcoming. The Pentagon has tried to generate forces by reorganizing existing divisions into smaller brigades, a process explained in this TRADOC article, spreading out American blood a little thinner, for which they will get no thanks.

Nor is the problem confined to land. The Economist talks about the challenges of combating seaborne terrorism which is threatening something more immediately valuable than Afghanistan: world trade.

A quarter of the world’s entire maritime trade, including about half of all seaborne oil shipments, passes through the Malacca strait in South-East Asia, which at one point narrows to as little as one-and-a-half nautical miles. The strait and the seas around it are infested with well-organised, armed and ruthless pirates (see map) who hijack ships and kill or maroon their crews before repainting the vessels at sea and sailing into port under a new, “phantom” identity. If pirates can do this so easily, why not terrorists? Imagine the devastation to world trade if one or more giant tankers were captured and used to block the straits. Or the possible casualties if a hijacked phantom ship were used to carry a nuclear “dirty bomb” into one of the world’s main ports or to launch missiles at a coastal city? These are nightmare scenarios worthy of a Hollywood disaster movie. But they are also the sort of threats that are being taken seriously by the world’s governments. On Monday June 28th, leaders of the NATO military alliance, meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, agreed a package of anti-terrorism measures including new defences against attacks on ports and shipping.

The United States Coast Guard says it intends to board every ship that does not comply with the rules on its first entry to an American port from July 1st. This will be quite some task, given that there are 60,000 calls at American ports each year by ocean-going ships. Nevertheless, the American authorities are confident that this will not cause serious hold-ups to trade.

Well and good, but here again the question of bearing the cost enters the picture.

However, those elsewhere are not so confident. Christoph Brockmann, an official of Germany’s main maritime agency, told Reuters news agency last week that, if European Union countries insisted on strict compliance, there would be disruption to trade. Mr Brockmann said only 60% of the roughly 200 ships that call at German ports each day have the International Ship Security Certificate that will be compulsory from July 1st.

The Americans too may experience a disruption to trade but are committed to enduring it. The question will be whether Europe is prepared to accept the cost and inconvenience as part of the price of meeting the terrorist threat. The debate over the War on Terror has been grotesquely distorted to focus on Iraq; on Abu Ghraib; on President Bush's underwear, creating a mutant public policy map drawn according to some lunatic projection. The real major fronts on the War on Terror are generational problems: nuclear containment, homeland security, dealing with failed states, combating terrorist organizations and their state sponsors and providing maritime security. In Afghanistan, France has basically told America to go it alone. As Chirac said, "We are friends and allies but we are not servants." Perhaps France will help in the Straits of Malacca.

Correction

I'd like to take this opportunity to correct certain factual errors in past posts. The worst offender was Zarqawi's Oath. Reader SN corrects on the relationship between Zaraqawi and the Ba'ath.

Your June 24 posting, to which there was a link in a forum I frequent, seems to imply that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is leading the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. I am unaware of any evidence to back this assertion. The Falluja insurgents, who are mostly Iraqi but have a strong Syrian contingent, mostly profess loyalty to the Islamic Scholars' Front, an overt organization based in western Baghdad, although the ISF almost certainly has no operational control of their actions. There is also an element, mostly former Republican Guard officers, claiming to be loyal to a reconstituted Baath party. I have heard this from colleagues who regularly travel to Falluja, but you should also be able to find it in any number of reports from the town, of which there are now a fair number. Most observers of the insurgency believe its leadership to be fairly decentralized. Zarqawi's operation may be tolerated by the Iraqi insurgents, but most disavow its actions and certainly do not submit to its authority. Also, I am unaware of any connection between al-Qaeda and Hizbullah, the Shia militia normally credited with having "harried" the Israelis out of Lebanon. While it's certainly possible that they talked, I would be very surprised, given Zarqawi's professed views on the Shia, that they had much of a connection.

This paints a much more detailed picture, with more actors than my bumbling charcterization. I sincerely regret the error and will be more careful with my research next time.

Email Answering Break

Posting will be light over the next few days as I try to catch up on emails from readers. Meanwhile check out this link at Michael Tucker's Gunner's Palace.

"The war in Iraq is far from WWII or even Vietnam. A tiny sliver of society is fighting a war while the rest of the country watches. We are not all "in this together". We live in two separate realities. I began to see that this film was more than just a snapshot of a place and time -- it could bring the war home. For me, it wasn't about being 'for the war' or 'against the war,' it was about the people in the war. They needed to have a voice.

Tucker came back again and again to Iraq for reasons he himself doesn't quite explain, at least, not in one sentence. The closest he comes to an explanation is when he wears a personal medallion with the likeness of a soldier who had died after hearing someone Stateside remark that at least the dead were volunteers. Well some people rap and some write poetry in between raiding enemy safehouses and Michael Tucker will certainly tell us the words but he may have a hard time with the voice. There are some things you have to know before you can know them; and some voices you have to hear before you can hear them.

"I asked soldiers what they thought and their answers were surprisingly simple. After nearly a year, it wasn't about Iraq, the Iraqis, democracy, Donald Rumsfeld or oil. It was about them. Simple. They just wanted to finish the job they were sent to do so they could go home. As a soldier/poet says in the film 'You may not like this, but please respect it.'"

Tucker describes himself as being left of center, but that is irrelevant to his central question. Have we given the troops a job they can finish and the means to finish it? Or do we send them out again, on another day, with divided orders from a divided nation?

Taps

Patrick Belton at Oxblog has a long post on the issues NATO will examine in Istanbul. The US wants the alliance to face problems outside of Europe, notably in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. But it is largely locked in place, a hostage to Continental politics and a lack of means.

the basic problem of the alliance ... is cash. While the US contributes 3.3% of its GDP to national defence, 12 of the 19 pre-2004 Nato allies contribute less than 2% of theirs. To look at it another way, the US picks up the tab for 64% of Nato military expenditures ($348.5 million, 2002), while all other allies together contribute only 36% ($196.0 million). For their part, European governments are facing budget shortfalls and budget pressure from ballooning pension costs.

What comes out of this is a capabilities gap. Of 1.4 million soldiers under NATO arms in October 2003, allies other than the US contributed all of 55,000. Nearly all allies lack forces which can be projected away from the European theatre. SACEUR General James Jones testified before Congress in March 2004 that only 3-4% of European forces were deployable for expeditions. ... Allies other than the U.S. have next to no precision strike capabilities, although these are slowly improving. The US is generally the sole provider of electronic warfare (jamming and electronic intelligence) aircraft, as well as aircraft for surveillance and C3 (command, control, and communications). The US is also capable of much greater sortie rates than its allies.

The other problem is political will, which is most in evidence on the issue of terrorism. There's been progress (beginning with the 2002 Prague Summit) toward the creation of a NATO Response Force capable of sophisticated counterterror missions. There's also been progress toward the drafting (which has been done) and implementation (which hasn't) of a military concept for counterterrorism. But allies still strongly disagree about whether counterterrorism should even be one of NATO 's primary missions - so the principal task of the US at the moment lies in the area of creating political will among allies to adopt counterterrorism as a NATO  responsibility. That we have not done so is at least in part our fault - Allies felt rebuffed after they gave the US unprecedented political support through invoking Article 5, and then were not consulted in the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. For their part, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon believed Kosovo had been an unacceptable example of 'war by committee', and political interference from allies would prevent a quick and decisive Afghanistan campaign. Perhaps it might have, but now at NATO the United States is facing the consequences in the form of less enthusiasm for counterterror missions.

It's hard to say which expectation is more unrealistic: the American hope that Europe will reverse decades of military atrophy or the European idea that America will share command with a Continent that can project only two battalion's worth of troops. Thomas Barnett of the Naval War College in his article The Pentagon's New Map believes that most future terrorist threats will spring from "areas of disconnectness" -- chaotic parts of the Third World, the very places where Europe's forces cannot or refuse to go. Meanwhile, the US has been moving its forces steadily south and east, into Central and SouthWest Asia as well as the Middle East. Perhaps more tellingly, US forces are being restructured from divisional-sized building blocks to independent commands can centered around brigades. The breakup of the old triangular divisions (each division traditionally consists of three brigades) into notional units containing four smaller brigades each will increase the number of usable units by a third. This is in part based on the perception that US units have become so powerful in conventional warfare that they can safely be used in smaller packages. But it also arises from the need to use the Army in more places throughout the troubled and chaotic world. A TRADOC article says:

"We’re making the brigades the Army’s units of action because the divisions are, like the chief (Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker) said, $100 bills," Mixon explained. "If you want the capabilities that are resident in land forces for the Army piece of it, you have to break a $100 bill. “(The chief) wants $20 bills, where you can get what you need without breaking a $100," he added. "The modular BUAs will give you that $20-bill capability. You have all the resident capabilities that are in a division inside the brigade. In a smaller package, but you’ve still got it so you can spend that $20 bill when you need it."

"It starts this year with the 3rd Infantry Division, 101st, 10th Mountain," Mixon said. "It continues with the whole Army in the next three years, and probably a little bit beyond, to get all the Guard and Reserve units done, but it’s underway, it’s happening. “Reorganizing the brigade combat teams in each of the divisions to BUAs is a critical and key step in making the Army more modular, flexible and relevant to the combatant commander," Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston said. "The BUAs will be smaller but more capable than their predecessors, the BCTs. The plan now is to grow the active Army from 33 BCTs to initially 43 BUAs, and then potentially to 48 BUAs."

The mission has left Europe: US forces which were designed to fulfill a NATO role -- destroy Russian tank armies crossing the inner German border -- are being re-engineered for intervention in "areas of disconnectness" where European NATO members cannot or will not go in large numbers. Thus, while Europe will continue to remain important, the value of Israel and Turkey, by virtue of their proximity and engagement with the terrorist foe, will rise relative to traditional Western European allies like Belgium, France and Germany. Threatening to further downgrade the importance of the old Atlantic alliance is the rapid rise of two new major powers in the East. James Hoge writes in Foreign Affairs:

The transfer of power from West to East is gathering pace and soon will dramatically change the context for dealing with international challenges -- as well as the challenges themselves. ... Today, China is the most obvious power on the rise. But it is not alone: India and other Asian states now boast growth rates that could outstrip those of major Western countries for decades to come. China's economy is growing at more than nine percent annually, India's at eight percent, and the Southeast Asian "tigers" have recovered from the 1997 financial crisis and resumed their march forward. China's economy is expected to be double the size of Germany's by 2010 and to overtake Japan's, currently the world's second largest, by 2020. If India sustains a six percent growth rate for 50 years, as some financial analysts think possible, it will equal or overtake China in that time.

But if the game, not only against terror, has moved East and European NATO has dealt itself out of it, America is still in. Hoge continues:

Militarily, the United States is hedging its bets with the most extensive realignment of U.S. power in half a century. Part of this realignment is the opening of a second front in Asia. No longer is the United States poised with several large, toehold bases on the Pacific rim of the Asian continent; today, it has made significant moves into the heart of Asia itself, building a network of smaller, jumping-off bases in Central Asia. The ostensible rationale for these bases is the war on terrorism. But Chinese analysts suspect that the unannounced intention behind these new U.S. positions, particularly when coupled with Washington's newly intensified military cooperation with India, is the soft containment of China.

The crux of the problem, of course, is that the immediate post-World War 2 world and its associated institutions has faded into history. Yet many politicians, perhaps misled by their own youthful memories, continue to act and behave on subconscious assumptions half a century old. The accusation that President Bush was guilty of willful dereliction by not making the United Nations, France and Germany equal partners in the War on Terror is rooted in an inflated conception of their actual importance. Whatever these prestige these hoary old names may conjure, in practical terms their cooperation is probably less vital than that of Pakistan or Israel. The Foreign Affairs article notes how the temples of international diplomacy are infested with discredited gods:

At the international level, Asia's rising powers must be given more representation in key institutions, starting with the UN Security Council. This important body should reflect the emerging configuration of global power, not just the victors of World War II. The same can be said of other key international bodies. A recent Brookings Institution study observed, "There is a fundamental asymmetry between today's global reality and the existing mechanisms of global governance, with the G-7/8 -- an exclusive club of industrialized countries that primarily represents Western culture -- the prime expression of this anachronism."

Some have derided the US coalition against terror, comprised of nontraditional names like Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Kazakhstan as a kind of pickup team fielded by a desperate America only because it couldn't get first-string Germany, France and Belgium to play. But this is unjust; it is not a temporary condition but a harbinger of a new state of the world.  It's not that NATO has gotten smaller, just that the world has gotten bigger.

The Price of Newsprint

The Washington Post has an account of the victory -- yes the victory -- that the First Armored Division won over Moqtada Al-Sadr's militia. Scott Wilson describes how US Forces fought around politically constituted sanctuaries, an admission of how the mighty US Army might rule the battlefield, yet bow to the almighty media.

Over the next 60 days, more than 5,000 troops from the division engaged in the most sustained urban combat operation of the now 15-month occupation. In desert cities that once welcomed American troops, they battled a Shiite uprising that threatened to upset the June 30 transition to an Iraqi interim government. Their orders were stark: Smash the uprising, and capture or kill its leader, the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.

By the time the uprising was over, silenced in a cease-fire June 4, the U.S. military success appeared decisive. While 19 U.S. soldiers had been killed in combat and scores wounded, military officials estimate that 1,500 insurgents were killed. Sadr's militiamen had been driven from positions many had died defending.

At Karbala, for example, Americans fought to retake positions from Sadr simply because rules of engagement governing other Coalition Partners prohibited them from participating in their own designated areas of operation. "Karbala had been the responsibility of a brigade of Polish soldiers. Like Spain, Ukraine and other U.S. partners responsible for security in the Shiite south, the Polish government had prohibited its soldiers from conducting offensive operations. The rules rendered them useless when Sadr's militia rose up." At Najaf Americans took hundreds of mortar rounds and thousands in small arms from two sites without being able to fire a shot in retaliation.

For weeks, Sadr's foot soldiers had used the impenetrable acres of Najaf's cemetery, the largest in the Islamic world, as a staging area. Just blocks away is the Shrine of Imam Ali, the holiest place in Shiite Islam. As the battle loomed, both sites were designated by U.S. commanders as "exclusion zones" for their troops. ... The British, the firmest U.S. partner in Iraq, were already angered by what they saw as provocative U.S. military tactics in the holy cities. ... U.S. soldiers said the zones awarded a tactical advantage to Sadr's men, who used them as refuges. Operating near the Shrine of Imam Ali, U.S. patrols came under steady fire that they did not return. Each night, mortars fell on their camp -- 495 in all -- fired from a mosque complex in Kufa, a few miles to the east, also protected by an exclusion zone. "Our soldiers were getting hurt in the same places every day because of these zones," said Spec. Christopher Stinespring, 30, of Arthurdale, W.Va. "There was nothing we could do."

In what was probably the most psychologically revealing moment of the battle, infantrymen fought six hours for the possession of one damaged Humvee, of no tactical value, simply so that the network news would not have the satisfaction of displaying the piece of junk in the hands of Sadr's men. The enemy understood the rules of engagement too well, but from the other side. "Squeezed into a few downtown blocks, Sadr militants began using children to shuttle ammunition, soldiers said. Youngsters carrying large plastic bags darted from corner to corner, and the soldiers would not shoot them. 'We all grew up knowing you don't hurt women and children,' Taylor said. 'And they used that to their advantage.' The US estimates that 20 civilians were killed in operations around Najaf. The Najaf hospital claims 81. When the Russians retook Grozny after a disastrous first foray, they returned to the operational formula of Marshak Konev in Berlin and rained down 8,000 artillery shells per hour on the town, killing perhaps 27,000 before attempting it again. The vastly more powerful Americans did not, yet triumphed. They are inept, as everyone knows.

Ted Koppel was determined to read the names of 700 American servicemen who have died in Iraq to remind us how serious was their loss. Michael Moore has dedicated his film Farenheit 9/11 to the Americans who died in Afghanistan. And they did a land office business. But at least they didn't get to show Sadr's miliamen dancing around a battered Humvee. The men of the First Armored paid the price to stop that screening and those concerned can keep the change.

The Grand Bumblers

People who really insist on characterizing US strategy and forces in Iraq as bumbling failures should really go back to 1995, in the golden era of Clintonian peace, where despite appearances all was not well. President Boris Yeltsin had attempted to reassert Russian influence over Chechnya by covert means. It failed and Chechen President Jokar Dudayev responded by parading captured Russian operatives on television. Unaccustomed to such cheek, the Russian President ordered his armies into the Chechen capital, Grozny, from three sides. Parameters describes what happened.

The first unit to penetrate to the city center was the 1st battalion of the 131st "Maikop" Brigade, the latter composed of some 1,000 soldiers (120 armored vehicles and 26 tanks) ... Russian forces initially met no resistance when they entered the city at noon on 31 December. They drove their vehicles straight to the city center, dismounted, and took up positions inside the train station. Other elements remained parked along a side street as a reserve force.

Sixty hours later, the unit had been wiped out. "By 3 January 1995, the brigade had lost nearly 800 men, 20 of 26 tanks, and 102 of 120 armored vehicles." It had been surrounded and despite urgent pleas for relief, been utterly destroyed. "Its commander, Colonel Ivan Savin and almost 1000 officers and men died and 74 were taken prisoners. As for the two Spetsnaz groups south of the city, they surrendered to the Chechens after having tried to survive without food for several days," one historian observed. A Russian soldier described what he saw as they approached the train station around where the "Maikop" Brigade had been.

En route to the Central Train Station, the streets are crammed with burnt and mangled hulks of "armor" and strewn with dead bodies. The bodies of our Slavic brothers, all that's left of the Mikop Brigade, the one that "spooks" burnt and wiped out on the New Year's Eve 95-96.

Whoever said "spooks" couldn't fight forgot to tell the Russians. They met tactical methods which have since become refined and familiar. The sniper, the RPG ambush, the IED, and using civilians for cover. More from Parameters:

The principal Chechen city defense was the "defenseless defense." They decided that it was better not to have strong points, but to remain totally mobile and hard to find. Hit-and-run tactics made it difficult for the Russian force to locate pockets of resistance and impossible to bring their overwhelming firepower to bear against an enemy force. Russian firepower was diluted as a result and could be used only piecemeal. Chechen mobile detachments composed of one to several vehicles (usually civilian cars or jeeps) transported supplies, weapons, and personnel easily throughout the city. Chechens deployed in the vicinity of a school or hospital, fired a few rounds, and quickly left. The Russians would respond by shelling the school or hospital, but usually after the Chechens had gone. Civilians consequently viewed this action as Russians needlessly destroying vital facilities and endangering their lives, not realizing who had initiated the incident. The Chechen mobility and intimate knowledge of the city exponentially increased the effect of their "defenseless defense."

These methods were used in far greater force against American forces eight years later with a different result. US forces in Iraq defeated an entire multidivisional conventional army and fought a yearlong campaign against a more sophisticated version of the resistance the Russians encountered, in an area the size of California, abutted by two hostile countries for fewer deaths than the Russians bore in sixty hours over a few city blocks. These two map (1 & 2 ) sections showing the density of IEDs encountered in the Baghdad-Ramadi road corridor alone should tell the reader why terrorist groups were so confident in believing that America could be driven out of Iraq. It's not that the enemy lacked the metal; its that the American targets were not cooperating. The Russians were brave but the American methods were better. The Strategy Page remarks:

It’s no accident that American tactics in Iraqi are remarkably like those in Israel. American officers and NCOs have been visiting Israel for years (usually in civilian clothes in the past decade) to observe and study the Israeli counter-terrorist tactics. This is kept quiet, but not secret. The Israeli tactics work, and have been widely adopted by American combat troops. ... The key to this ... is the greater use of intelligence (information gathered on what the armed Palestinians are up to and where they are), and using Israeli troops in high speed and unpredictable maneuvers. This is a classic military tactic. Using a combination of informers, electronic eavesdropping, overhead surveillance (cameras and spotters in helicopters) and constant analysis of Palestinian operations, the Israelis gain an information advantage over their opponents. They then use this edge to conduct raids to disrupt Palestinian combat operations.

Saddam Hussein, many people now forget was captured using operations research -- the logical analysis of information from all sources. The recent series precision strikes against terrorist safehouses in Fallujah are reminiscent of the Israeli helicopter strike tactic, except that Americans use way bigger bombs. And they are aimed, like the Israeli strikes, at leadership targets. But the Americans have one further weapon: they can wield the wedge of sectarian politics. The killers in the Sunni triangle, now on the payroll of Zarqawi, were saved from extermination in April 2004 by matching Shi'ite unrest in the south. But after the US pulled the wheels from Moqtada al-Sadr's wagon and outmaneuvered the UN's Lakhdar Brahimi's attempts at constituting an Interim Government preferred by Kofi Annan, the strategy of Sunni noncooperation with the Coalition authorities backfired big-time. The new Iraqi government was going to be dominated by Shi'ites outwardly prepared to cooperate with America. What looked like a Shi'ite-Sunni deal to drive the US out of Iraq in April turned out to be a deal, all right, but not the kind the Al Qaeda had bargained for. An enraged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's vowed to kill Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, murdered 100 Iraqis in a single day and probably engineered an attack on Shi'ite political party headquarters.  Allawi responded by announcing a plan for checkpoints, a curfew, a ban on demonstrations and even hinted at declaring martial law. The man who had pleaded with America to lift the siege on Fallujah was all smiles at the news of the latest American precision strike. Zarqawi's woes were compounded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani whose response to his offensive was pretty nearly blood-curdling.

At a Friday prayer meeting in Karbala, a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani told worshipers that Al Qaeda's top leaders are "filthy infidels". He names Osama bin Laden and the Jordanian-born terrorist purportedly operating in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. He says they are "bastards" who "nurture malignance" against Shiite Muslims. A prominent Shiite leader was assassinated in Iraq on Thursday night. Al Qaeda's leadership is made up of Sunni Muslims from the Wahabi sect.

The Strategy Page thinks Zarqawi's offensive is already failing. Despite the importation of fighters from all over the world and the use of weapons in numbers orders of magnitude greater than those directed at the Russian Maikiop brigade, the Jihadis have been unable to keep the inept Americans from creeping to within a hairsbreadth of installing a new government in the heart of Arabia.

Zarqawi's Oath

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's oath to fight "until Islamic rule is back on earth" -- besides being historically wrong, as it never was -- and his vow to kill the Shi'ite President of the interim Iraqi government, can be more accurately understood as a desire to fight for leadership of the Sunni triangle. The control of Iraq has slipped forever beyond his grasp. Iraqi blogger Hammorabi's breakdown of the the foreign fighters killed in one US strike on Fallujah underscores the point:

Nationality	Number
Saudi	5
Somalia	2
Emirates	1
Yemen	1
Morocco	1
Algeria	1
Syria	1
Libya	1
Kurdistan	1
China	1
Mauritania	1

From the looks of it, Zarqawi has brought in the Al Qaeda first team to derail the June 30 turnover to Shi'ite Iyad Allawi. But although he has quality, for his fighters are far better than Moqtada Al-Sadr's rabble, he has forgotten that the April upsurge of violence, which some had breathlessly hoped would signal the downfall of the US in Iraq, was only made possible by Teheran's decision to unleash simultaneous unrest in the south, in the hopes that a desperate America would pay any price for relief. But after the US calmly beat back both attacks, grinding Sadr down to a powder, it was no longer faced with a two-front war. There is now no way that the Shi'ites will allow the Sunni-backed Zarqawi to call the shots. The Sunni Saddam had lorded it over them once before; and neither the Kurds nor the Shi'ites will so easily let that happen again. A more attainable goal will be to prevent the emergence of any independent Sunni figure in the new government. Zaraqawi's methods are nothing if brutal. His elite forces have killed 66 Iraqis and 3 Americans in the Sunni triangle in the last 24 hours, a reminder that any Sunni who breaks with him should prepare to die.

One can only sympathize with those who want an independent Iraq. With the Syrians attempting to pull the strings of the Sunni politicians and the Iranians intending to manipulate Shi'ite figures like marionettes and the Kurds wanting out of the nation altogether, the new Iraqi government is in danger of being answerable more to foreign capitals more than to voters of the Land Between the Rivers -- whenever they get to vote. The United Nations which so gravely expects America to withdraw from the scene has no similar expectations of Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran. Indeed, Kofi Annan dispatched Sunni Lakhdar Brahimi to serve as his own plenipoteniary to ensure that the UN's own bureaucratic interests are protected.

This leaves the US in a curious position of strength. Although both the Sunnis, the Shi'ites and the other interests like France, possibly fronted by the UN may form occasional tactical coalitions against America, their interests fundamentally conflict. Like bank robbers squabbling over the loot, they may decide to jointly resist the police but will knife each other at the earliest opportunity once the coast is clear. Only America can play the lone hand. Some observers believe that both Washington and Teheran are clearing the decks for final showdown over Iraq once the two weaker players are ousted from the game. Clearly the Shi'ite-Iranian theater is the decisive area of operations. The Sunni Triangle, however disgustingly Zarqawi's elite fighters behave, is the secondary front.

As an aside, one might remark on the extremity of the Jihadi effort in Iraq. They are sending their best team, the team that harried the IDF out of Lebanon to no good effect.  US forces have quietly become very efficient, with chemical test kits to screen suspects for explosive residue, aircraft which electronically detonate IEDs, a steady drumbeat of raids on explosives factories and other operational advances. The enemy is still able to kill Americans, but not in any decisive numbers. But how will America use its capability to achieve a strategic result?

The answer to that question will not be revealed until after the November Presidential election if George Bush is re-elected: whether America will go West to Syria and Lebanon or move its sights squarely on Teheran. The Al Qaeda operational bases in Afghanistan have moved, it said, to the Bekaa in Lebanon. So there is reason to clean that out. But Teheran threatens to become a nuclear power in the very near future and is, despite Sunni pretensions to the contrary, still the central star in the Jihadi firmament. For the present, it is actually in the Coalition's interest and probably no one else's to build up a truly independent Iraq. Iraq would become another player to the game to balance off Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A strong Iraq, especially an independent Shi'ite Iraq would be a deadly threat to the Mullahs. A region so evenly divided could be tipped in any way by America and would complicate coalition building against it.

The week leading up to the formal transfer of power to the Iraqi interim government will be punctuated by heavy yet pointless violence. The event is as unstoppable as the Overlord invasion, Zarqawi or no. The enemy had better prepare his fallback position and prepare for the next phase of the campaign.

 

The Revolution Within the Revolution

The particular venom with which the Liberals regard President Bush is at heart a reaction to what they perceive as a coup d'etat directed against the carefully constructed edifice of their historical achievements. To understand why the President and individuals like Paul Wolfowitz are described as "illegitimate", one should not, like the man who doesn't get the reference, look to the Florida chads or US Supreme Court decisions. Liberals are not talking about that kind of statutory legitimacy. Rather they are referring to what is perceived as a brazen attempt to negate the cultural equivalent of the Brezhnev doctrine, the idea that certain "progressive" modes of behavior, once attained, are irreversible. In this view, an entire set of attitudes, commonly referred to as "political correctness" and their institutional expressions, like the United Nations, have become part of a social contract, part of an unwritten constitution.

President Bush, so the indictment goes, is guilty of ignorant trespass on these civilizational norms; he is simply too stupid, too much of a yokel to know better. Like a hairy caveman guided by only the most primitive of instincts, he is accused of reacting to the September 11 attack on America by clubbing all, near and far. Yet if George W. Bush is beneath contempt, not so his archpriests the "neoconservatives". They are the worthy heirs of a role historically filled by the Knights Templars, Masons and Jesuits: the scheming manipulators of the half-witted king.

In the days following September 11, the Liberals watched aghast as America went to war -- when that had been abolished! -- against Muslims in the Third World, all but twitching away the hapless figures of France and the United Nations in the process. Arrivals to America were not ushered to sanctuaries run by enlightened clergymen. They were interviewed by Homeland Security. Abroad, the doctrine of containment for rogue states, kept in place by gentle diplomatic prods, was replaced by outright confrontation. But worst of all, liberals were faced with an intellectual movement, one that had developed an alternative ideology, a competing explanation for the way the world worked. Prior to that, Conservatives, however distasteful, were inchoate; they had tacitly acknowledged the intellectual leadership of the Liberal project. No more. Now Liberals were confronted with people who didn't want to read the New York Times, were unimpressed by celebrity and didn't want to go to Harvard. Many liberals didn't recognize "their" familiar country any more. James Lileks described the intensity of the revulsion at the barbarians at the gates; not Osama Bin Laden, but rather someone else. (Hat tip: Roger Simon) 

I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen -- Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated.

Osama Bin Laden, if he was regarded as a foe at all, was the 'far' enemy; but President Bush and the neoconservatives were the 'near' enemy. Osama Bin Laden's men came but once, like flaming apparitions across a blue sky mayhap never to be seen again, but President Bush sat day after day in the People's White House to their everlasting chagrin. In the most ironic of reversals the Liberals had unconsciously taken on the mantle of defenders of the ancien regime while the neo-conservatives donned the robes of Jacobins overturning the old order. But just as the terrorist threat didn't emerge overnight, neither did the nemesis of Leftist edifice. Both took shape at around the same time, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, while Jimmy Carter racked his brains helplessly for a response to the Ayatollah Khomeini, where if one looked carefully one could see that Leftism in the West was dying too.

The key factor in the moribidity of both the Soviet and Western cases was that Leftism had ceased to work. Its last serious intellectual exponents, Baran, Sweezy and Joan Robinson had gone shuffling off to retirement homes. Its stultifying effect on demographics and freedom have been described elsewhere; but in one particular its failure was life-threatening: the "progressive" edifice had ravaged the Third World with its nostrums and willful blindness. Countries like India and China quietly abandoned the dogmas of Leftist progressivism in favor of a market economy but the more dysfunctional societies of the world turned to stronger waters. In Africa it was mayhem; in Arabia and South Asia it was Islam. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism coincided with the collapse of Nasserism. The Koran was what the incendiary Arab grasped when he cast away the Little Red Book in despair.

Through the long summer of 1990s, the wounds festered as the infection deepened. It was masked by the ineffectual cologne of NGO projects, corrupt aid delivery, United Nations peacekeeping public relations projects, by selective media coverage and by the jangling of fund raising concerts at which a Secretary General appeared, like some secular pope, to give his blessing, until the boil burst over Manhattan on that bright autumn day. As the debris showered on New York it obscured the fact that a new post-post-colonial ideology was ready to push the Liberal edifice aside and take up the challenge of Islamic terrorism; underneath the War for Terror there was now a War for the West.

James Lilek's friends must know that electing John Kerry to the White House will not restore the antebellum world. Things have gone too far for that. The Third World in general and the Islamic World in particular have burst their bounds; they can no longer be herded into the decrepit and threadbare tent of the United Nations; the Kyoto climate agreement; the International Criminal Court or any of Potemkin treaties woven by the European Union. Islamic fundamentalists are openly attacking Russia; besetting India; seizing British naval vessels; threatening to interdict the Straits of Malacca; menacing the House of Saud; renewing hostilities in Kosovo; bombing trains in Spain; raging through the Sudan and building nuclear enrichment plants. No Clintonian ceremony in the Rose Garden can replace the planets in their old orbits. All John Kerry can do if he must pay the price of restoring the Liberal dream is to withdraw, like Prince Prospero, into the artificial gaieties of last Bal Masque while the Red Death stalks without. Niall Ferguson, writing in the Wall Street Journal described a world exactly like that: 

"...a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to it. This could turn out to mean a new Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic rapine in the world's no-go zones; of economic stagnation and a retreat by civilization into a few fortified enclaves."

But that nightmare does not lie at the end of the Conservative dream; a dream which springs not from the Paris Commune but from the Declaration of Independence. And therein lies the problem for Liberals; that the only impetus to social survival springs from someone else and that illegitimate. To John Kerry's task of corralling Osama Bin Laden must be added the daunting job of persuading many Americans to renew their touching faith in the United Nations; to grasp the pages of the Time and Newsweek again as if they were gospel; to laugh on cue at the network anchor's artificial smile: to return, in short, to the Big Tent so recently punctured by the suicide pilots of the Al Qaeda -- as if nothing ever happened.

From a practical standpoint, the Liberal project will not die overnight. It is too old and established for that. But neither will the new faith that has risen to challenge it be banished by single John Kerry term. It is too vigorous for that. Sooner or later Liberals and Conservatives must form a coalition of national unity to face the barbarian horde as one. Perhaps President Bush is too polarizing a figure to achieve that; perhaps the current crop of Democratic candidates are too narrow to see that their world has ended forever. They will pass, and a new polity will emerge as the old wanes. On a long-ago summer in that vanished world, children played and sang a song so beautiful that it seemed it would never end:

Some will come and some will go,
We shall surely pass.
When the wind that left us here,
Returns for us at last.
We are but a moment's sunlight,
Fading on the grass.

But the last strains have sounded: the golden children have aged; night has fallen and the Morlocks have come. At their peril, for a flame still burns in the West.

High Over the Mojave

SpaceShipOne has successfully carried a man into outer space. Sixty two years-old old test pilot Mike Melvill has become the first person to win his astronaut's wings on a private aircraft. He will be old enough to remember this message from Centauri (.wav file). The stars were never made for those who refuse to look up; nor are they vouchsafed to those enslaved by ancient hatreds. Well done.

The Enemy Offensive Begins

If there's any doubt that the enemy full-court press has begun, the seizure of three RN smallcraft by Iran and the attack on 4 US Marines in Ramadi, probably by Ba'athist special forces, should erase any doubt. Fighting with the Ba'athists began again after the US killed two dozen foreign terrorists in Fallujah. It was only a matter of time before they struck back, as they do in Lebanon, where many of the Syrian-backed fighters train with Hezbollah. That was expected. But the seizure of the Royal Navy patrol vessels is surprising because it represents a public and unilateral escalation by Iran. As a political statement, it must rank with Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, which was calculatingly delivered against a weak Jimmy Carter. It is an indication of how politically emasculated the Mullahs think the Coalition is, that they should have attempted this at all. Shortly after the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Mullahs were practically trembling on their thrones. But now they smile; the BBC has done its work well.

The origins of the seizure, which have no apparent operational rationale, are rooted in the April 2004 offensive against Coalition Forces in Iraq. Iran saw that the US was unwilling to engage in large-scale combat operations against either the Ba'ath in Fallujah but more importantly against Moqtada Al-Sadr in Najaf in an election year. Instead, American commanders attempted to finesse the situation by applying limited and targeted force hand in glove with political warfare. Teheran saw that if those were the rules they were willing to play.

If the British sailors are not forthwith released it suggests that the Mullahs see Blair and his American ally, George Bush, as reduced to impotence by domestic political forces and see an opportunity to humiliate them. The Mullahs should be careful about trying to replay history. Karl Marx said "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"; little knowing how apt his sneer was; in time he would be to Hegel as Napoleon's nephew was to Napoleon. The problem with putting Tony Blair in the batter's box where Jimmy Carter struck out is that Blair will immediately realize how not to approach this problem. Jimmy Carter lost his job by scraping to the Mullahs and Tony Blair did not come this far to alphabetically precede Carter and Chamberlain in the dictionary of failures.

Although the Iranians may try to dominate the agenda with the usual television parade of hostages and prisoners, just as their terrorist counterparts in Iraq and Saudi Arabia do with their captives, the only real question should be how to humiliate the Mullahs. Tables were made to be turned. They should be made to remember this day so that if their miserable theocracy lasts another ten years they can never bring themselves to look at a calendar opened to the month of June without trembling. The British Tories are subject to periodic and nagging bouts of patriotism, a feeling the Democrats have conditioned Teheran to believe is extinct in the Western political opposition and whose consequences may now surprise them. The Mullahs have rolled the dice and the only answer should be to insert them, one by one, between their bearded lips.

You Talkin' to Me?

Irving Kristol listed out a classic set of of rules for polemicists, people who are trying to set out a particular set of ideas. Rule 1 says that you should forget about trying to convert your adversary.

"In any serious ideological confrontation the chances of success on this score are so remote as to exclude it as a rational objective. On the very rare occasions when it does happen, it will be because the person converted has already and independently come to harbor serious doubts and is teetering on the edge of ideological defection. This is due, more often than not, to some outrageous action by his own side or some shocking revelation."

Rule 3 says we should we should concentrate on "preaching to the converted"

"Preachers do it every Sunday. The strengthening of the commitment, intellectual performance, and morale of those already on your side is an essential task, both in order to bind them more securely to the cause and to make them more effective exponents of it. As religious move-ments in earlier times and the anti-Vietnam-war and civil-rights movements in our times have shown, dedication and enthusiasm are enormous assets, more than compensating (in the initial stages) for lack of numbers"

Al Qaeda appears to have taken his advice or at least independently come the same conclusion. STRATFOR's Geogpolitical diary for June 21, 2004 argues that the recent beheading of American Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia and a similar threat against a Korean kidnapped in Iraq is pitched to the Middle Eastern audience. This supports observations that Al Qaeda has given up on directly confronting the United States in favor of a new strategy of trying to gain influence and power in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The first would give them power over a large share of the world's oil reserves; the second would give them control of nuclear weapons.

Al Qaeda has three audiences: the Islamic world, non-Islamic U.S. allies and the United States. In the United States, as al Qaeda surely knows, the impact of the beheadings ... will reinforce the feeling that al Qaeda must be resisted at all costs ... It is also not working particularly well among U.S. allies. ... That leaves the third audience, the Islamic world. ... Beheadings are a demonstration of will and ongoing capability.

Al Qaeda may have come to the conclusion that if it hopes to win abroad, it must first of all win at home. The wonder is that America has not taken hymnal in hand and preached to its own choir. One of the implicit assumptions of a the forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East is that is possible to appeal directly to the Arab street; that is to say to convert our adversaries. As Michael Ledeen noted in his The War Against the Terror Masters, the fires of Islamic fundamentalism burn lowest in places like Iran and Afghanistan, where the enemy's cruelties are well known; we have adherents, in Kristol's words "due, more often than not, to some outrageous action by his own side". If anything, the appeal to freedom will find a more receptive audience in Teheran where people must listen to the Mullahs than in Riyadh or Cairo where people can listen to the BBC.

Yet perhaps that is not entirely accurate. Although the process began in the Reagan years, the "converted" did not exist as a coherent ideological flock until the end of the 20th century. To a certain degree the choir only began to sing after September 11, 2001. The attack on New York and Washington was to conservatives what the Paris Commune and the October Revolution were to Marxists: the birth of an intellectual nation. The real significance of the Osama's attacks on America to future historians may be that it marked the end of the transnational project of a politically correct world order; delineated the final boundary of the European tradition of Marxist thought and created the first post-post-colonial Western ideology. The Global War on Terror is in certain respects spectacularly ill-named. Its principal victim has not been the Al Qaeda network but the old order. The notion of the centrality of the United Nations; the idea that terrorism is a law enforcement problem; the idea that history is an irreversible march toward a Green-Left future are projects as cold beneath the earth as the Taliban's armies. If the European Union as envisioned by France finally dies; it will mark its departure, however long it may linger, from the time Mohammed Atta's aircraft struck the Towers.

The Al Qaeda may now understand that it cannot topple America -- let us not say the West -- by a coup de main. It has now settled into a war of civilizations. It is consolidating its own forces in a final bid to impose Islam on humanity. And by it's actions it is forcing populations long asleep to reinvent themselves.

Phase 2

Reader DL asks whether the simultaneous upsurge of attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan is a sign of increasing Al Qaeda strength. From the very beginning there has been a debate within Al Qaeda over whether Osama's method of challenging America directly by attacking New York and Washington DC was correct or whether the alternative method of seizing power in one or more Muslim countries was the true path to victory. Michael Ledeen, in his book The War Against the Terror Masters observed that the wells of Islamic fundamentalism flow strongest in "moderate" countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who are nominally American allies and weakest in places like Afghanistan and Iran. In the former it represents an idealized future to those disenchanted with their repressive and corrupt governments; but in the latter it is an all too real and despised quantity.

Walid Phares seems to believe that the polarizing effects of America's War on Terror has lent the Al Qaeda new strength in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda's ideology, he argues, is not only shared by a large section of the general Saudi citizenry but also by influential factions of the Saudi power structure. While Osama's direct challenge to America met with miserable failure, it had the unintended effect of making the second route to Islamic fundamentalist triumph -- the seizure of power in Islamic countries -- apparently more feasible.

One more time most of the press run headlines such as "Killing Arabs signals chaos within al Qaeda." One more time, the authors of these analyses fail miserably to comprehend what’s really going on. ... The Monarchy is shaken, its emirs promise punishment, but its Achilles’ heel is now revealed. ...Early in 2004, Abdul Aziz al Maqri, al Qaeda's regional commander, launched his Spring offensive. With al Zarqawi pounding Iraq and threatening Jordan, the Jihad in Saudi Arabia crossed one line after another. Al Maqri's men attacked Saudi security headquarters and finally landed in Khubar, the capital of Saudi oil. With high ideological precision, the terrorists struck twice: first against the nerve sensitive web of Petro-dollars and then against the "infidels." In a sinister reminder of the Nazi onslaught against the Jews during WWII, the armed men applied the teachings of Wahabism: "The world is divided in two: Muslims and Infidels." Ethnicity and language cannot help any more. During the killings, a Jordanian Christian and a family of Lebanese Christians had to lie about their religions to avoid execution.

The Arab world unanimously criticized these operations and stood firmly by the Saudi regime. But in the underworld of the radical clerics and the Jihadists, the "amalya" (operation) was a success. Some Imams-on-line (or so they define themselves) called for more and more, till the monarchy comes back to “the rule of Allah.” It is difficult for Americans, and many others in the international community, to fathom the nuances of the Wahabi paradigm. I was asked one day in the classroom: "If the Wahabis want a fundamentalist state, what do the neo-Wahabis want?" I answered without hesitation: The neo-Wahabis want it now and at any cost.

The truce between the Pakistani ruling classes and the Islamists may also be ending. The Washington Post reports on how the Islamists are now directly challenging the hand that used to feed them.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Recent high-profile attacks by Islamic militants on government targets, including a nearly successful assassination attempt on a senior army general last week, are pushing security forces into an escalating confrontation with extremist groups they once embraced as instruments of state policy, according to diplomats and analysts.Until recently, Pakistani militants have avoided direct confrontation with the army, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, has a long history of association with radical groups. The militants have seemed to distinguish between security forces and President Pervez Musharraf, an army general and supporter of the U.S.-led war on terrorism whom they twice tried to kill last December.

Over the past few months, however, some Islamic extremists now are seen to be broadening their anti-government campaign, according to the sources, staging frequent ambushes of army troops in the rugged borderlands near Afghanistan. In one high-profile attack on the morning of June 10, assailants sprayed automatic-weapons fire at the motorcade of Lt. Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hayat as he commuted to his office in downtown Karachi. Ten Pakistanis, including the alleged ringleader, have been arrested in connection with that attempt, which was described by a Western diplomat as a "qualitative step up" in the nature of extremist violence in Pakistan.

From this point of view, the Islamists can regard the new Iraqi regime represents as precisely the kind of "moderate", nominally American ally they can subvert in the same way as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Where better to generate hate for America, whether in the Middle East or in Europe, than within an "allied" nation? Yet from another perspective, this strategy constitutes a transformation from direct confrontation between Muslim and non-Muslim into a struggle within the fundamentalist heartland itself; it marks a tacit admission that America cannot be tipped into defeat by one or two spectacular blows. Whatever their shortcomings, the US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have returned the battleground to its native soil. After all, terrorism was never going to be finally defeated in Iraq or Afghanistan for as long as its roots remained untouched in the KSA and Pakistan. It is there and Iran where the final conflict will be waged.

Yet if the US Armed Forces were at least superficially suited to the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns, America singularly lacks a mechanism for swaying the hidden struggles which the War on Terror is now evolving into. Traditionally, the action space between a diplomatic protest and a Marine amphibious landing has been filled by clandestine action by the Central Intelligence Agency. But although that agency is supposed to have been revamped and strengthened after September 11, it is unclear whether it alone can bear the burden of the clandestine and twilight struggle within Islamic World. By charter and culture it fundamentally remains an intelligence gathering apparatus and not a secret army. America had a ready answer to Osama's direct challenge. But it is still evolving a response to the bid for power between vicious and still more vicious factions within Muslim countries.

The public agenda too will have to adjust. The bulk of Western media attention has been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan and on curious side-shows like Abu Ghraib while Al Qaeda makes a bid for Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia with its oil. The press cannot recognize these events as a long-held alternative Islamist strategy to power because it would undermine their principal contention that all terrorist events the world over are consequent to the Iraqi campaign; that Operation Iraqi Freedom represents the Year Zero, before which nothing happened and after which all terrorist history began.

The big battles in the War on Terror involving large regular formations may be over. The field itself may shifting to capitals of the Middle East and South Asia that have never seen an American tank. Fox news is reporting new developments on the Paul Johnson murder, "... the Al Qaeda cell behind Johnson's killing ...(said) ... it was helped by sympathizers within the Saudi  security forces."  The House of Saud becomes the House of Usher. President Bush was correct, but poorly served by the phrase that "major combat operations" had ended in Iraq.  He should have quoted Winston Churchill after a British victory over the Afrika Korps:

Now this is not the end.
It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Oil for Blood

The BBC tut-tuts over yet another proof of American helplessness. In an article entitled Oil attacks target Iraq recovery, author Matthew Davis writes "despite huge efforts to secure oil terminals and the 'economic lifelines' that carry oil through Iraq's deserts, they are proving almost impossible to protect."

Coalition forces, Iraqi police and soldiers backed by rapid response vehicles and air patrols are guarding hundreds of terminals, refineries and pumping stations. But night after night, out in the open countryside, the saboteurs manage to damage the pipelines. ... The latest strikes will have a 'big impact' in terms of Iraq's oil revenues, but perhaps not the $1bn cost of the most pessimistic forecasts, he said.

The "big impact" was later spelled out as amounting to $200M in lost revenues over the last seven months. Reuters put some numbers on the losses: "a trio of pipeline sabotage attacks that brought Iraq's 1.6-1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of exports to a halt. Oil officials in the country said they hoped to resume limited supplies of around 700,000 bpd quickly, but repairs continued on Friday, sources said." Nearly as damaging to world oil supplies was industrial action in Europe.

Adding additional stress to an already taut global supply chain, 200 Norwegian oil workers went on strike over pay Friday, forcing oil companies there to begin shutting in nearly 400,000 bpd -- or 13 percent -- of output from the world's third-biggest exporter.

 Global oil supplies, which America thanklessly protects, may be the new strategic target of terrorists. According to Bloomberg:

Iraqi militants this week attacked pipelines that supply the nation's Persian Gulf oil terminals, halting shipments from facilities that handle 90 percent of Iraq's exports and costing the country $50 million a day. Sabotage also has curtailed exports through a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Attacks on Iraq's oil industry are increasing as the U.S. prepares to hand over power to an interim government on June 30, hampering efforts to increase production and fund reconstruction. Any decline in Iraqi output, 2.6 percent of global supply last month, undermines the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' ability to reduce near-record oil prices.

'There is no capacity in OPEC to make up for the absence of Iraq oil,' said Fadhil al-Chalabi, executive director of the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies and a one-time undersecretary at Iraq's Oil Ministry. 'The sabotage now has been coordinated to hit the north and the south, cutting them off. It has the double effect of weakening the Iraqi government and tightening oil markets.'

Concern that terrorists will disrupt Middle East oil supplies has added as much as $10 a barrel to the price of crude, ministers from OPEC's estimated this month. Oil prices in New York closed at a record $42.33 a barrel on June 1, the first trading day after an attack on oil company offices in Saudi Arabia killed 22 people.

The dynamics here are complex. The damage to oil facilities will be partially offset by higher prices from the product which reaches the market. Terrorist activity has the same economic effect as a cartel-mandated reduction in production. It means that oil exporting countries can charge more for less. For so long as terrorist damage is restricted to fairly cheap sections of pipe through "Iraq's deserts" -- in the BBC's phrase -- or to expatriate Filipino cooks, Indian janitors or Australian chefs, the oil exporting countries can actually be net gainers from terrorist activity.

The Belmont Club pointed out in an earlier post that the STRATFOR consulting company estimates consumers are already paying an $8/barrel "terror premium".  Part of that goes to -- you guessed it -- paying oil producing countries money to "assist" them in securing facilities. For example, "the Canadian oil company Nexen, which operates the ash-Shihr oil export terminal, agreed in January 2003 to provide assistance to the Yemeni government in improving security" after an attack on the French-flagged tanker Limburg in 2002. Over and above the private security utilized by oil companies, Americans provide taxpayer dollars and lives to provide strategic cover, such as maritime security and forward force projection, like that kind that the BBC delights in reviling.

In particular, America bears a disproportionate share in keeping "oil chokepoints" open. World oil flows, on which Europe, Japan and the Third World are heavily dependent, go through the Bab el-Mandab, Bosporus, Hormuz and Malacca Straits, not to mention the Suez canal. Reader MT links to the case of the Straits of Malacca described in the Economist's article Going for the Jugular.

Facing west from Singapore's shores, it is hard to make out the Strait of Malacca, thanks to all the boats and islands scattered across the water. An endless procession of tankers, container ships, tugs, fishing boats, ferries and cruise-liners sails between tiny islets, through a shipping lane that narrows to as little as one and a half nautical miles at one point. Some 50,000 vessels, carrying roughly a quarter of the world's maritime trade, pass through the strait every year. So do about half of all seaborne oil shipments, on which the economies of Japan, China and South Korea depend. If terrorists were determined to devastate the world economy, it would be hard to find a better target.

So, at any rate, reasoned many of the participants at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore last week. Tony Tan, Singapore's deputy prime minister, pointed out that a ship sunk in the right spot, where the sea lane is only 25m deep, “would cripple world trade”. He also raised the possibility of hijacked ships being turned into “floating bombs” and crashed into critical infrastructure such as oil refineries or ports. Donald Rumsfeld, America's secretary of defence, stopped in at the conference to push the “regional maritime security initiative”, whereby America would help South-East Asian countries defend against such attacks.

At the moment, the strait is relatively poorly monitored, especially north of Port Klang, where the sea lanes widen. The cash-strapped Indonesian navy has perhaps 20 seaworthy patrol boats, to guard an archipelago of 17,000 islands. Singapore and Malaysia are richer and better equipped, but have no right to pursue ships into Indonesian waters. Singaporean sailors say that when they pass information to their Indonesian counterparts, it disappears into a black hole. Malaysia and Indonesia have already rejected the idea of American patrols in the strait or rapid-response units at the ready, both out of prickliness about sovereignty and for fear of inflaming anti-American feelings among their citizens. But they say they would accept American help in the form of advice, equipment and training.

In other words, Indonesia and Malaysia, peace be unto them, would accept American money; money for which America would get no thanks, to secure oil supplies through a Strait not a drop of which is used in America but by Japan, Korea and China. The War on Terror may prove to be "all about oil" but not in the way the Peace Lobby means it. International energy security, to which the Europeans contribute industrial action, is premised on the "commons" of American-provided maritime security. It is being turned into a money machine through which the most atrocious regimes on earth can extort ever increasing amounts of political influence and wealth through a glorified protection racket by proxy. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Ask not for whom the cash register rings; it rings for he.

The Second Star from the Right

On June 21, 2004, Burt Rutan is going to attempt to put the privately-funded SpaceShipOne into sub-orbit. If he succeeds, individuals using only commercial resources -- in principle anyone-- will have achieved what the UK, France and Germany or Japan have not attained as nations. The fact that the prize will likely be won by an American company is incidental. Teams from the UK, Canada, Argentina, Israel  and other countries are competing for the X-Prize and may win it yet. Thousands, including Dale Amon of Samizdata, are heading for the Mojave Airport to watch SpaceShipOne make its attempt. Atmospherically the event recalls nothing so much as Lindbergh's attempt to solo the Atlantic, as this poster perceptively suggests.

In an age when bravery itself is suspect and achievement considered a kind of oppression; when every new technology is hedged around with anticipatory restrictions it is wonderful to know that some men at least would like nothing better than to rise on a column of fire toward the beckoning stars. For every successful flight of this nature slips not only the "surly bonds of earth" but also breaks hidebound modes of thinking. It departs not just from a place but from a time. It takes us not from where we ought to be, but to where we belong.

Choices

Iraqi blogger Hammorabi (hat tip: MW) has more details on the possible alliance between the Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the Ba'athist stragglers. They've set up headquarters in Fallujah.

"There is news from Falluja talking about a special meeting recently took place in one area in the centre of Falluja in which the (Mujaheeden) has pledged allegiance to appoint Al-Zarqawi as the Ameer (Prince or Governor) of the City of Falluja! Zarqawi was in the meeting which was attended by top leader of Mujaheeden including Arabs from Jordan, Saudis, Syrian and Palestinians.

They divided the city into various areas and called it Emarat El-Falluja (Emirate) with Zarqawi as the Ameer (Prince). They appointed a leader for each one of these areas among the Mujaheeden with one group under his leadership. They gave Zarqawi an Oath to set out the Islamic state of Caliphate in Falluja and from there they will spread it into the rest of Iraq and the region. They now try desperately to gather lot of youths and young people enthusiastic for that to join them. They also tried to get themselves extended well beyond that area to Baghdad and other regions. Among them are many Saudi Wahabis and Syrian with other Arabs."

The Belmont Club earlier linked to an article from the Site Institute which reported that Izzat Ibrahim, once vice president of Iraq and one of Saddam's high ranking security henchmen had transferred his allegiance to Zarqawi, presumably because the Saddam well has run dry. Hammorabi also alleges that Zarqawi and his goons have their hooks right into the Iraqi Police in Fallujah. He counsels: don't run to the station house for help. The expletives are his.

In a news report distributed by Iraqi demonstrators in Baghdad, the IP in Falluja with the Wahabi terrorists captured and killed 6 Shia Iraqi youths. The demostrators seen in the above picture was during the funeral of the 6 men in Baghdad Today. The incident happened on 5th June 2004 when these men hired by a person from Falluja to transport goods there. Once they transported the goods they have been captured by the Group called Mujaheeden (Wahabist) with the help of the local IP in Falluja!

During their return to Baghdad the 6 Shia men have been stopped by gun men terrorists who introduced themselves as the Mujaheeden who fought against the US Marine in April 2003! The 6 men managed to escape and seek refuge with the IP station in the city. The IP then handed them to one of the Wahabi extremist Mullah who handed them to the thugs. The thugs (some Arabs terrorists among them) asked for a ransom of 3000 US Dollar for each one alive! Among the captured was Mohammad Khodier a 12 years old boy who was released later. He told that the Mullah handed them to the terrorists who speak with non-Iraqi different Arab axons. They then decapitated and mutilated them and among them were his older brother and his uncle! Another man called Alaa Marai said that he went to negotiate with the terrorist to give them alive and most of them were Syrian who refused unless the money paid! Shamran Mohammad Dawood one of the relative who went to negotiate their release told France Press that Mullah Al-Janabi (Wahabi) told him to come back after 2 days to get them! When they returned back the terrorist told them to go to Al Ramadi hospital Mortuary. There the thugs asked the relative to pay 700 US Dollars for each body to be given! The relatives then have to give the money to Al-Janabi (Wahabi Mullah) to receive the mutilated bodies of their beloved ones! Janabi with an interview with the Fucking Al-Arabyiah TV said he have nothing to do with their blood and he denied his involvement.

After tortured and abused; two Mullahs from the Wahabi sects called Abdullah Aljanabi and Thafer Al-Dilaimi ordered their execution and mutilation of their bodies and confiscating their belongings including their clothes! Just to remind that the Saudi thugs who killed the American engineer in Riyadh in the most barbaric way and filmed it and those kidnapped another one called themselves the Falluja Brigade! I feel sorry for the wife, the son, the daughter and family of the engineer when they saw him kicked and shout down in that film as I feel sorry for the Iraqi Shia youth's families whose bodies mutilated then given back to their beloved ones. The well known fucking Arab media which works as a mouthpiece for the terrorists propaganda with the hypocritical Red Cross concentrated and sympathized with the mass killer Saddam yet haven't mentioned any sympathy with victims of the above mentioned attacks. The only thing they showed is the film of the killing of the engineer in Riyadh which I am sure is very agonizing for his family to watch!

Apparently, Fallujah has cops who hand you over to the perps and imams who consider mutilation their ministry. This is part of the community which Iraqi political leaders sought to spare when the Marines were storming across the city. This transcript from a June 13 "Meet the Press" interview between Tim Russert and Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawar illustrates the point:

MR. RUSSERT: Thus far the United States has lost 827 soldiers, airmen, military servicemen in Iraq; more than 5,000 injured and wounded. And yet you recently said the United States was guilty of genocide. Do you think that's appropriate gratitude for what the United States did for Iraq?

PRES. AL-YAWAR: I never said that, my friend.

MR. RUSSERT: You said the United States in Fallujah...

PRES. AL-YAWAR: No.

MR. RUSSERT: ...was committing genocide.

PRES. AL-YAWAR: Yes. Yes. That was in the Fallujah case when a massive army besieges a city. Yes, we are against the bad elements in Fallujah, but the best way to get rid of them--by separating them from the rest of the people. When you besiege a city with an army and you start shelling it with jet fighters, definitely you are turning the law-abiding citizens of Fallujah to be comrades in a struggle with the bad elements. We don't want that to happen.

Mr. Russert may be shocked to learn that bad elements in Fallujah have transformed six simple law-abiding citizens into men of many parts. Mr. Russert's indignation about Marine heavy-handedness is not shared by a Washington Post reporter whose vehicle was reduced to junk by gunmen who pursued it all over Fallujah.  Daniel Williams of the Washington Post took his bullet riddled vehicle to Abu Ghraib, of all places, for safety. "Despite damage to the vehicle, it eventually limped to Abu Ghraib prison, about 20 miles west of Baghdad, where U.S. military police gave us refuge. Few residents of the notorious facility probably ever entered the compound as happily as we did." When Williams asked Marine Colonel Larry Brown why they didn't do something, the Colonel answered, "inevitably, if we went in, there would be a lot of collateral damage. People would defend their homes. We would only go as a last resort". The Colonel might have added, but tactfully refrained from saying, that the Post would be the first to pillory him if they did.

The June 30 transfer of power is less than a fortnight away and the Iraqis will have to start deciding whether their country is worth fighting for or not. It is the Iraqi half of a coin whose American face will be stamped in November, when the voters will signal whether they want to defeat the terrorist enemy or attempt to coexist with them. It is a transaction with no return, no exchange.

Europe and the Middle East

The two major items of the week are what happened in Europe and what may happen in Iraq. The UK Independence Party, which aims to withdraw Britain from the EU suddenly became a serious political party and fired a shot across the bow of European project by placing third in the UK European Member of Parliament elections.

Party	Percentage Change from Last	Number Elected
Conservatives	-9.0%	27
Labor	-5.4%	19
UK Independence Party	+9.2%	12
Liberal Democrats	+2.3%	12
Greens	0.0%	2
British National Party	+4.9%	0

Both the Labor and Conservative parties, the former which promotes and the latter which does not oppose further European integration, lost substantial ground. According to Brian Micklethwait of Samizdata, part of the motivation for this shift, apart from feelings of nationalism, is the growing perception that European policies are undermining Britain's future.

"How come? Well, simply, most of the business people of Britain support UKIP. They hate the EU and they want out. Maybe not the big business people. But in terms of the sheer number of businesses, the majority of them support UKIP. The majority of the people whose job description is 'Managing Director' want Britain out of the EU."

The bleak future that Britain seeks to avoid was recently described by the Economist (hat tip: reader MIG) which predicted that if current trends continue, Europe will have a markedly smaller, older and much poorer population than the United States by 2050. Higher American fertility rates, immigration and economic growth will demote Europe from a position of rough comparability to a second-rate status.

Category by 2050	America	Europe
Population	550 million	350 million
Median Age	36.2 years	52.7
Percentage of workers over 65 years of age	40%	60%
Percentage under 15	23%	12%
GDP	Twice the size of Europe, perhaps more

The fundamental weakness of the core European states was underscored by the election of a pro-independence candidate to the presidency of French Polynesia, which was annexed by France in the 19th century. France appears to be less influential than it once was even in Africa (thanks to Instapundit). Realistically speaking, these negative trends cannot be expected to continue indefinitely. As other Europeans, like the British, became aware of the catastrophe they are facing, parties with reformist platforms like UK Independence Party will wrest leadership from the current elite to try and steer them clear.

The other item, the more peculiar for not having happened yet, is the suggested Iranian buildup to destabilize Iraq. Michael Ledeen names Abu Musab al Zarkawi (AKA Zarqawi) as Teheran's point man to lead the expected wave of terror to precede the handover of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government. 

"the relationship between Zarkawi and Osama bin Laden is ambiguous, having seen some evidence (primarily the famous letter captured by U.S. special forces late last year) that Zarkawi was unhappy about the lack of support from al Qaeda. But whatever their tactical and personal disagreements (and these can be feigned), they share a common strategy for Iraq: kill members of the Coalition and any Iraqi who cooperates, and provoke internal conflicts among the various ethnic and religious communities. That tracks with my own analysis, which is that we are dealing with several different groups, supported by the various terror masters in Tehran, Damascus, and Riadh, in a joint operation within the overall matrix of Hezbollah — which of course means Iran."

Reader MIG links to a story from the Hadramoot Arabic Network, via the Site Institute, which reports that the most senior of Saddam's holdouts, Izzat Ibrahim, has pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al Zarqawi. If true, this may suggest that Iran has also swept up the masterless ronin of the former dictator and enlisted them under new management: in short, Iran may now own the Ba'athist remnants.

"It added that, at the sight of Zarqawi, Izzat Ibrahim shouted: “You are the commander and we are your soldiers”. His son Ahmad handed him a copy of the Quran. His father took it, placed his hand and the hands of his sons on it, and they made an oath to God, pledging allegiance to Zarqawi in the Jihad until victory or martyrdom, in good and bad times”.  In the end, the network stated that, “the meeting was brief. Izzat’s sons were placed with the Mujahideen, and the father was placed in the ranks of Zarqawi and other Mujahideen leaders. That day witnessed distribution of hundreds of automatic weapons and large quantities of ammunition on the Mujahideen”. Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri was vice-president of Iraq and deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council before the war in Iraq in 2003. Currently one of the most wanted men in Iraq (the king of clubs in the US's deck of cards), he is believed to be a leading figure behind the resistance attacks against US-led forces and has a $10mn bounty on his head, for his arrest or information leading to his capture."

The Command Post links to an article which somewhat alarmingly claims that Iran is gathering troops at the border in the event of a sudden American withdrawal:

Beirut, Lebanon, Jun. 15 (UPI) — Iran reportedly is readying troops to move into Iraq if U.S. troops pull out, leaving a security vacuum. The Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, monitored in Beirut, reports Iran has massed four battalions at the border. Al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted “reliable Iraqi sources” as saying, “Iran moved part of its regular military forces towards the Iraqi border in the southern sector at a time its military intelligence agents were operating inside Iraqi territory.”

Of course the cool heads at the Command Post understand that four battalions of Iranian regulars could hardly be contemplating engaging even a single US battalion. If the report is true at all the Iranian regulars are probably providing cover against Coalition Special Forces who may be engaging in "over the fence" operations. Still, reader M links to an article which alleges that six Shi'ites were horribly murdered by Sunnis in the resort town of Fallujah, a reminder of what a powderkeg the region remains.

BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Armed men and police in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah arrested six young Shiites and executed them on the orders of two religious figures in the town, representatives of Shiite tribes in southern Iraq said on Tuesday. During a protest to which the remains of the six men were taken, some 200 southern Shiites handed out photographs of the bodies which they said had also been mutilated by the Fallujah Sunnis.

In a statement also handed out in Fardus Square, Baghdad, on Tuesday, the protestors said the six went to Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad, to deliver goods for one of the town's residents. "After having delivered the goods for the Fallujah resident, they were arrested by members of a group calling itself "Mujahideen", in collaboration with the police," the members of the Rabiya and other southern Shiite tribes said. The men were arrested on June 5 and, according to the statement, their execution was ordered some time later by Abdallah Janabi, imam (preacher) of the Saad ibn Abi Wakkas mosque, and Dhafer Dulaimi, imam of the Hadra Muhammadia mosque.

The pot is boiling, with no shortage of cooks to stir the soup, nor is there any lack of gentle preachers willing and able to mete out mutilation. Kurdistan too, has seen recent attacks, with an Iraqi oil company security chief being assassinated and a pipeline being blown up. It seems only reasonable to expect a flare up in violence before the June 30 handover, and though it hasn't happened yet, the storm clouds are gathering. And yet in in this uncertain hour, no one -- not even French Polynesia -- looks to France or the United Nations to steer them through stormy seas. Roger Simon describes a fascinating interview of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President and Ghazi al-Yawar, the new Iraqi President, both of whom are in the US to meet with American officials. Their presence is a reminder of how the power realities of the world really stand and how the unwanted cup that has come at last to the only place it could -- "the last best, hope of earth".

Blood of some, Oil of many

Recent attacks by Al Qaeda related groups in Saudi Arabia against expatriates suggest that they are trying to strike at the Saudi regime. However, some believe that groups like the Al Qaeda may have the wider goal of striking at the oil industry itself. The Singaporean authorities, for example, worry about the interdiction of tanker traffic in the Straits of Malacca.

Minister for Security Tony Tan said attacks on ships by sea pirates in Southeast Asia are resembling military operations – growing bolder, more violent and fuelling fears of an attack that would cripple world trade. ... "In previous years when you had a piracy attack, what it meant is that you have a sampan or a boat coming up to a cargo ship, pirates throwing up some ropes, scrambling on board, ransacking the ship for valuables, stealing money and then running away," Tan told an Asian security forum, according to a report in the Khaleej Times. "But the last piracy attack that took place in the Straits of Malacca showed a different pattern," he added. The pirates were well armed, operating sophisticated weapons and commanding high-speed boats. "They conducted the operation almost with military precision."

Tan added: "Instead of just ransacking the ship for valuables, they took command of the ship, and steered the ship for about an hour, and then eventually left with the captain in their captivity. To all of us, this is reminiscent of the pattern by which terrorists mount an attack."

Although the "no blood for oil" theme has always imputed to America, the reality is that Europe and the industrialized countries of Asia in particular are more dependent on Persian Gulf imports than the US. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petroleu.html). 

Percentage of Oil Imports from the Persian Gulf 

Interestingly enough, the dependence of Third World countries on oil imports will grow at a far faster rate than the industrialized countries. India and China in particular will experience a growth in energy demand far exceeding that of mature economies. But even Central and South America and Africa will need oil products. Many people will be surprised to discover that Mexico, not Canada, is already the second largest consumer of petroleum in North America and will probably increase its lead over time. This chart of yearly percentage increases in petroleum consumption averaged to 2025 illustrates this.

Consumption growth by Region

It is the world, not just America, that is junked up on oil -- a supply now possibly a long-term target of the Al Qaeda. Yet most of this vital product passes through choke points whose security is ultimately guaranteed primarily by the American taxpayer. This list of world oil chokepoints illustrates the situation.

Location	Barrels per day
Bab el-Mandab	Location: Djibouti/Eritrea/Yemen; connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea Oil Flows (2000E): 3.2-3.3 million bbl/d Destination of Oil Exports: Europe, United States, Asia
Bosporus/Turkish Straits	Location: Turkey; this 17-mile long waterway divides Asia from Europe and connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea Oil Flows (2003E): 3.0 million bbl/d (nearly all southbound; mostly crude oil with several hundred thousand barrels per day of products as well) Destination of Oil Exports: Western and Southern Europe
Russian Oil and Gas Export Pipelines/Ports	Location: Russian oil and gas exports transit via pipelines that pass through Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland, Major Oil Export Ports: Novorossiisk (Russia -- Black Sea); Primorsk (Russia -- Baltic Sea/Gulf of Finland); Tuapse (Russia); Ventspils (Latvia); Odessa (Ukraine) Major Oil Pipelines (capacity, 2003E): Druzhba (1.2 million bbl/d); Baltic Pipeline System/Primorsk (840,000 bbl/d) Major Natural Gas Pipelines (capacity, 2003E): Brotherhood, Progress, and Union (1 trillion cubic feet -- tcf -- capacity each); Northern Lights (0.8 tcf); Volga/Urals-Vyborg, Finland (0.1 tcf). Yamal (to Europe, via Belarus; 1.0 Tcf, partly operational); Blue Stream (to Turkey via Black Sea; 0.56 Tcf, construction completed in October 2002) Destination of Oil and Gas Exports: Eastern Europe, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France, other Western Europe.
Strait of Hormuz	Location: Oman/Iran; connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea Oil Flows (2003E): 15-15.5 million bbl/d Destination of Oil Exports: Japan, United States, Western Europe
Strait of Malacca	Location: Malaysia/Singapore; connects the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Oil Flows (2003E): 11 million bbl/d Destination of Oil Exports: Japan, South Korea, China, other Pacific Rim countries
Suez Canal and Sumed Pipline	Location: Egypt; connects the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean Sea Oil Flows (2003E): 3.8 million bbl/d. Of this total, the Sumed Pipeline transported 2.5 million bbl/d of oil northbound (nearly all from Saudi Arabia) and the Suez Canal about 1.3 million bbl/d total. Destination of Sumed Oil Exports: Predominantly Europe; also United States. Concerns/Background: Closure of the Suez Canal and/or Sumed Pipeline would divert tankers around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope), adding greatly to transit time and effectively tying up tanker capacity.

Except for the Russian oil pipelines and the Panama Canal, which has been excluded from this list, nearly all the oil chokepoints are in regions where groups like Al Qaeda can be expected to operate. But although the dependence on oil is global, the defense of these strategic corridors has not been internationalized. While the US does not use the oil shipped through the Straits of Malacca, it will naturally be the linchpin around which the Regional Maritime Security Initiative, which is expected to secure the Straits, is based. This is not to say that America alone bears the cost of defending the oil supply. STRATFOR's June 8, 2004 briefing (hat tip reader JM) estimates that consumers already paying for terror at the pump. "Stratfor sources associated with a number of oil firms and finance houses indicate that there is approximately an $8 "terror" premium factored into the price of each barrel of oil."

This premium is charged by oil companies to provide 'security' for their facilities. For example, "the Canadian oil company Nexen, which operates the ash-Shihr oil export terminal, agreed in January 2003 to provide assistance to the Yemeni government in improving security" after an attack on the French-flagged tanker Limburg in 2002. Those who would revile the Blackwater security contractors in Iraq as "mercenaries" trading "blood for oil" should consider how this is the least of its manifestations. Yet none of these private arrangements would be of much use without the cover provided by US naval and military forces. A major interdiction of the Straits of Hormuz, Malacca or the Suez Canal would beyond the capability of a private oil company, however large, to remedy.

There is a further price which goes beyond securing existing facilities. As STRATFOR pointed out, the real problem is adding new oil production in areas beset by terrorism threats. Unlike existing facilities which can be run by Saudis, new production or enhanced recovery from mature fields is critically dependent on expatriate expertise and new investment. And it is precisely those expatriates who are being attacked.

It is the Third World, with its thin survival margines, that will be most affected by an interruption in oil supplies. And it may not be possible to guarantee supplies by using oil companies to funnel "assistance" to producing governments to provide security indefinitely. In actuality, the world expects America to pay, both in monetary terms and in human loss, for maritime and oil security. Those who object that this is unfair should read Garret Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" which describes this phenomenon:

The key to the tragedy of the commons is when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire cost of their several actions. Each seeks to maximize individual utility, and so ignores costs born by others. This is an example of an externality. The best (non-cooperative) strategy for an individual is to try to exploit more than his or her share of public resources. Since every rational individual will follow this strategy, the public resource gets overexploited.

That overexploited public resource, in this instance, is American lives, or to be perfectly fair, Coalition lives. The classic solution would be to charge nations a surcharge for oil to compensate for their lack of contribution to the security of a resource which they use. But that would mean charging some countries more than others for oil and the world isn't ready for that. It would be perceived as unfair.

Kim by Edward Said

Anyone who doubts the power of the Leftist pen must account for the peculiar circumstances in which Edward Said was asked to write the introduction to Penguin's 1989 edition of Rudyard Kipling's Kim. Peter Hopkirk, the inveterate chronicler of the "Great Game" -- the 19th century geopolitical rivalry between Russia and Britain for Central Asia -- observed in his 1996 book The Quest for Kim how far the historical revisionism had advanced.

"More recently both Kipling and Kim have become the targets of sanctimonious critics, especially in the United States. Declaring that all of Kipling's writing is 'shot through with hatred', the late American critic Edmund Wilson accused Kim of betraying those, the Indians, whom he considered his own people' by delivering them into the bondage of 'the British invaders'. He also accused Kim, by that time aged sixteen (in the novel), of spurning the advances of the Woman of Shamlegh because she is only a 'native' while he is a sahib. ... More recently still, Professor Edwar Said of Columbia University has accused Kipling of racial stereotyping, stigmatizing, particularly in Kim, objecting, for example, to his observation that 'Kim could lie like an Oriental'."

Kipling's wonderful adventure story, a War and Peace in miniature, thronged with characters seeking gain, salvation or knowledge in a vanished India, becomes, under the Marxist heel, just another cheap tale to be thrown onto the bonfire. The practice of retrospectively judging literary work by the standards of another millennium may yet cut both ways; Kipling and Kim will continue to be read long after Edmund Wilson and Edward Said have been forgotten. But that cure was unintended.

If there is something particularly egregious about naming a Baptist clergyman to write an introduction to the Koran it can be no less than the appointment of a man who considered the 1993 Oslo Accords to be too soft on Israel to introduce Rudyard Kipling's classic. Every man deserves to speak with his own voice and it would be as great an injustice to name Daniel Pipes to raise the curtain on Said's work as it was to enlist Said in prefacing Kim.

Literature ought to be and remain a persistent data structure; which while allowing the addition of new knowledge, preserves its old versions, that is, "previous versions may be queried in addition to the latest version". Marxist revisionism derives much of its power by substituting a partially persistent data structure for the fuller one, a cut-down system in which only the latest version survives -- and that version in their control -- and where the earlier, once overlain, disappears forever. Commentators who have searched for the reason why Leftist information dominance has declined in direct proportion to the spread of the Internet should observe that in many respects, the Internet is a kind of memory machine, the "persistent data structure" which is anathema to historical revisionism.

Descartes once observed, "I think, therefore I am". One might add, "I remember and therefore I will resist".

Once I was blind, now I see

Andrew Sullivan lists out the contemporaneous reactions of Arthur Schlesinger, Strobe Talbott and many leading journalists toward Ronald Reagan's attempt to actively confront the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Reagan's more thoughtful critics objected to the rollback policy as an abandonment of the policy of containment in place since the end of the Second World War. But the majority felt Reagan's policies were beneath serious rebuttal. The very attempt was dismissed as "weird"; a "national hallucination", a mutant form of "McCarthyism", a "primitive" reaction from an "evangelical" who in any case was "mindless" when he was not being "pathological". Sullivan concludes:

"Rest in peace, Mr. President. And know that after all these years, you were right - and all these people were clearly, emphatically, embarrassingly, wrong."

The interesting question is why they were so wrong. One possible answer is that Reagan's critics were themselves unconsciously in the grip of a "hallucination", which prevented them from seeing the facts as they were. We now know that the Soviet economy was a sham; its vaunted armies were hollow; its hold over subject peoples increasingly tenuous. But at that time many believed the opposite, and not just the editorial desk at the New York Times. When Tom Clancy published the Hunt for the Red October in 1984 it was premised around the existence of a Soviet super submarine whose missiles posed an existential threat to American defenses. Russian fighters were so good America that had to send Clint Eastwood to steal one in Firefox (1982); Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas being too primitive to come up with an equivalent on their own. It's hard to remember how downbeat, how beaten America was in 1984, nine years out of the fall of Saigon; four years after the shock which took oil prices to $80 a barrel in 2002 terms; four years after Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized a US embassy without Washington being able to do a thing about it. Theatergoers anted up to watch Red Dawn, starring a young Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, whose plot featured a Soviet invasion of the Continental United States:

Cast your mind back to the 1980s. The Soviet Union suffers its worst agricultural crisis in fifty-five years. Communist Cuba and Nicaragua each reach troop strength levels of 500,000, infiltrating and fomenting Marxist revolution in Mexico. The Green Party takes control of the West German government and bans American nuclear missiles on German soil, leaving Europe undefended to Warsaw Pact troops in the East and causing the eventual dissolution of NATO. In Colorado, on a crisp, clear autumn morning, Soviet paratroopers who infiltrated the country on passenger planes drop from the skies on an unsuspecting little town in the heart of America, thus starting World War III. When the war starts, a group of teenagers in Colorado escape to the neighboring mountains where they eventually wage a limited guerilla war against the Russian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan soldiers occupying their town. This is the premise of John Milius's 1984 film "Red Dawn."

Today Arthur Schlesinger's assessment of Reagan, written with such serious and deluded assurance, has something of the air of those scratchy old newsreels showing a turkey-necked Neville Chamberlain fluttering a paper bearing Herr Hitler's signature. Funny now but nobody was laughing in 1938, and Chamberlain waved his paper to the cheers of the crowd. James Lileks, hardly a stupid person, honestly relates the contempt he then felt toward Ronald Reagan's policies:

It’s 1983; I’m working at the Minnesota Daily, in the editorial department. Smart friends, common purpose, and by God a paper to put out! It gets no better when you’re in your 20s. We didn’t hate Reagan; we viewed him with indulgent contempt, since he was so obviously out of his depth. I mean, please: an actor? As president? (This from a generation that got its politics from “All The President’s Men.” This from a generation that would later embrace Martin Sheen as the ne plus ultra of all things presidential.) He was in a movie with a talking monkey, for heaven’s sake. That was all you really needed to know. “Bedtime for Bonzo,” you’d say with a smirk or a conspicuous rolling of the eyes, and everyone would nod. Idiot. Empty-headed grinning high-haired uberdad. Of course he was popular among the groundlings. It would be laughable if it weren’t so typical - he was just the sort of fool the voters could be trusted to elect.

Reagan was worse than stupid – he was conspicuously indifferent to our futures. It was generally accepted that he either wanted a nuclear war or was too dim to understand the consequences. It went without saying that he didn’t read Schell’s “Fate of the Earth.” It went without saying that he didn’t read anything at all.

"It was generally accepted" is an oblique reference to a "consensus" so pervasive as to be imperceptible; a thing so ingrained in popular opinion, like the flatness of the earth, that given a choice between believing our eyes and rejecting conventional wisdom, we preferred to cast away our sight. "And none so blind," Jonathan Swift once said, "as they that won't see". Wikipedia defines "groupthink" as:

a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972 to describe one process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believe to be the consensus of the group. This results in a situation in which the group ultimately agrees on an action which each member might normally consider to be unwise.

Janis's original definition of the term was "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." The word groupthink itself is intentionally reminiscent of George Orwell's coinages (such as doublethink and duckspeak) from the fictional language Newspeak, which he portrayed in his ideological novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Groupthink tends to occur on committees and in large organizations, and has been cited as a contributing factor in the Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs Invasion, both the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and the bankruptcy of Enron.

Sophisticates unwittingly paid Reagan a compliment by calling him a cowboy, by which they meant gunslinger, instead of in the more accurate sense of a man able to see nature without blinders; to know things for what they were. Although Ronald Reagan has left the nation a huge legacy of achievement still it would be incomplete and his bequest to posterity less final if we forget that his greatest strength was to think for himself and dare to do the same.

Famous Last Words

This story from HiPakistan illustrates the Jekyll and Hyde character of Saudi Arabia:

Riyadh: BBC correspondent Frank Gardner lay in a coma on Monday after extremists riddled him with bullets and killed the accompanying freelance Irish cameraman, Simon Cumbers, as they were filming in a slum area here. Mr Gardner, BBC's security correspondent and an Al Qaeda expert, was left for dead by the fleeing attackers, local newspapers said. But he survived and pleaded for his life, shouting to bystanders to help a fellow Muslim, a police officer told AFP.

"I'm a Muslim, help me, I'm a Muslim, help me," the father of two daughters cried in Arabic, the officer said. Mr Gardner, fluent in Arabic, was carrying a small copy of the Quran, a device used by Western reporters to try to reassure extremists. The BBC team were accompanied by a "minder" and a driver from the Saudi information ministry who escaped unhurt, a police officer said. Both men were now under investigation, the officer added.

It may illustrate something else to those who still believe that "progressive" thought or tolerance will prevail in the face of murder, but it will not be what you think. This poem was written by Judyth Hill in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Learn to knit and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don't wait another minute.

Yeah.

Leading the Horse to Water

Tim Blair has an insider's account of the Al Qaeda attack on expatriate workers living in and around the Oasis apartments in Khobar on May 29. It provides more detail than the press accounts, principally regarding the composition of the attack teams against a variety of targets.

• Two teams against the Oasis 3 compound
• One team against the Petroleum Center
• One team against the APICORP building
• One team lying in ambush two kilometers from the Oasis to take the Saudi helicopter assault under fire

The account mentions logistical support by a British team and the injury of two Americans, probably advisers, who were with the heliborne assault. There were 22 civilians killed in the attack, mostly non-Western contract workers. Some fought. Two Filipino cooks died while resisting. But although some ordinary Saudis heroically attempted to bring the attackers to bay (one man rammed a terrorist getaway car and was shot for his efforts) the consensus is that the Saudi security forces let some of the bad guys get away. The Saudi security forces displayed a curiously split personality.

"On the positive side they have effectivley taken out 17 terrorists and with the prisoners I would expect they will find and arrest a lot more.( The geneaver convention dont apply here so these boys are going to wish they'ed been killed) ... Three others escaped. It is unclear how they managed this with the whole building surrounded with Special Forces. The implication is that they had help. There is no doubt in my mind that the terrorists were allowed to 'escape' if not even escorted away from the facility. The lay out and position of the building is such that an escape attempt would be virtually impossible."

That duality is rendered more comprehensible by Michael Scott Doran's (hat tip: DL) article in Foreign Affairs. In his view, Saudi Arabia is in a virtual state of civil war, divided between two "kings". After reviewing the disturbingly similar attack on a Saudi residential compound in November, 2003 which killed 17 people, Doran says:

Among the four or five most powerful princes, two stand out: Crown Prince Abdullah and his half-brother Prince Nayef, the interior minister. Relations between these two leaders are visibly tense. In the United States, Abdullah cuts a higher profile. But at home in Saudi Arabia, Nayef, who controls the secret police, casts a longer and darker shadow. Ever since King Fahd's stroke in 1995, the question of succession has been hanging over the entire system, but neither prince has enough clout to capture the throne. Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis. The economy cannot keep pace with population growth, the welfare state is rapidly deteriorating, and regional and sectarian resentments are rising to the fore. These problems have been exacerbated by an upsurge in radical Islamic activism. Many agree that the Saudi political system must somehow evolve, but a profound cultural schizophrenia prevents the elite from agreeing on the specifics of reform.

Saudi Arabia's two most powerful princes have taken opposing sides in this debate: Abdullah tilts toward the liberal reformers and seeks a rapprochement with the United States, whereas Nayef sides with the clerics and takes direction from an anti-American religious establishment that shares many goals with al Qaeda.

Those two opposing tendencies were in full view during the Oasis attack. In Doran's account, everyone in the Royal House wears shades of dark, but Nayef -- the interior minister in charge of a large part of the security apparatus -- the very agencies who would be expected to defend against the Al Qaeda, has the black sombrero. Nayef is underpinned by clerics who see an American-Shi'ite conspiracy to take over all of Islam.

Saudi hard-liners are now arguing that the Shi`ite minority in Saudi Arabia is conspiring with the United States in its war to destroy Islam. Thus al-Ayyiri, the al-Qaeda propagandist, argued that the Shi`ites have hatched a long-term plot to control the countries of the Persian Gulf. As part of this conspiracy, the Shi`ite minorities in Sunni countries are insinuating themselves into positions of responsibility so as to function as a fifth column for the enemies of true Islam. "The danger of the Shi`ite heretics to the region," he states, "is not less than the danger of the Jews and the Christians." ...

Rather than shutting such inflammatory voices down, Prince Nayef finds it convenient to keep them on the streets: al-Umar runs a mosque as a government employee and operates an attractive Web site. By giving clerics such as al-Umar privileged platforms from which to spread their doctrines, Nayef gets the best of both worlds. To foreign critics, he can distance himself from al-Umar's extremism, claiming that the cleric speaks only for himself; at home, meanwhile, he can reap the benefit of al-Umar's threats, which strike terror into Shi`ite hearts.

The beating heart of the Islamic terrorism is rooted in the inner struggles of a cabal whose medieval conceptions would do justice to the Name of the Rose. None of this would be a problem if America were determined to act like a traditional conquering power, flattening all before it. But for good or ill the US has committed itself to a strategy of acting in cooperation with Arab partners. For example, in Iraq, the USMC has entrusted the cleanup of the Sunni triangle to its local allies. But the Fallujah Brigade has so far not made good on its promise to crack down on Jihadis, many of whom in all probability receive sustenance from Saudi Arabia. Like the advisers in the Saudi helicopter assault, Americans can the lead the horse to water, but cannot compel it to drink. How much of this reflects strategic preference and how much is compelled by domestic American political opposition is hard to determine. Yet the balance between unilateral American action and reliance upon allies -- whether of the French, Pakistani, Saudi or Iraqi kind -- needs to be calibrated according to some metric. That can only happen if a series of clear strategic goals in the Global War on Terror is nationally articulated an accepted.

Offering up the objective of more United Nations legitimacy or adopting an "exit strategy" in Iraq, as the Democrats have done, does not amount to a strategy. But neither does the open-ended formula of bringing freedom to the Middle East constitute an actionable agenda. It may be a guide to action, but what is needed is a set of intermediate goalposts against which progress can be measured. Some of these might be:

1. The desired end state in Saudi Arabia: whether or not this includes the survival of the House of Saud or its total overthrow;
2. The fate of the regime in Damascus;
3. Whether or not the United States is committed to overthrowing the Mullahs in Iran and the question of what is to replace them;
4. How far America will tolerate inaction by Iraq security forces before acting unilaterally;
5. The future of the America's alliance with France and Germany;
6. The American commitment to the United Nations.

Each of these hard questions must be weighed according to its contribution to the final goal of breaking the back of international terrorism. Somewhere in that maze, if it exists, is a ladder to victory. Leading the horse to drink presumes that we know what purpose watering them serves; what paths we will travel. Answering these questions will be a heuristic process, one that moves towards progressively better solutions. Finding ourselves in the place we first began is equivalent to defeat. Whether we are further along in Saudi Arabia in May 2004 than on November 2003 is one of the indicators of whether we are winning or losing. But someone has to keep score.

The Three Musketeers

John Fund argues that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Paul II won the Cold War. Until Reagan the twilight struggle between America and Soviet Communism seemed destined to last indefinitely. A generation of American attack submarines, strategic bombers and high-intensity combat systems built to outmatch Soviet weapons that were never built is mute testimony to the conventional belief that it would. For forty years the struggle continued. Then came came an extraordinary confluence.

Ronald Reagan died just one day after President Bush bestowed the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on Pope John Paul II for his heroic efforts to topple communism. Those two men, together with Margaret Thatcher, deserve much of the credit for the West's success in the Cold War. As the nation mourns Ronald Reagan we should also pause to reflect that in the space of 27 months between 1978 and 1981 three such extraordinary leaders--each with the belief that evil must be confronted--should have come to power. Together they changed the world. Containment had been the cornerstone of U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union since George Kennan articulated it in 1947. Reagan decided to add an active effort to undermine the props supporting the Soviet empire. Former CIA director Robert Gates says that "Reagan, nearly alone, truly believed in 1981 that the Soviet system was vulnerable . . . right then."

Paul Reynolds of the BBC disagrees. In his view, Reagan was a limited, but fortunate man who simply happened to be there when it happened.

He was not one of the greats like Lincoln or Roosevelt. They were presidents on whom the fate of the nation and the world depended. The Reagan presidency mostly made its mark by being inspirational. The battles of his day were battles of ideas and his ideas prevailed. One problem was that he saw communism everywhere.  Shortly after he came to power, he and his Secretary of State Al Haig decided that the front line ran through Central America, in particular the small country of El Salvador then in the middle of a revolution. They really believed that a thread ran from El Salvador to Nicaragua to Cuba to Moscow. This obsession led to the "contra scandal" which did Ronald Reagan great harm later on. Central America was really a sideshow, and the Berlin Wall would have fallen anyway, but at the time, President Reagan gave the impression that the fate of the western world depended on what happened among the mountains of those until-then forgotten lands. ...

History will probably record Ronald Reagan as a fortunate president, lucky to be on watch when the Soviet Union began to crumble. It will argue over how far he and his soulmate Margaret Thatcher contributed to that collapse. But it will not argue over their supreme confidence that they were right.

Paradoxically, both Reynolds and Fund suggest that an element of what might be called 'destiny' was involved: though one is thankful and the other rails at it. Certainly the time seemed to bring forth extraordinary men. If the first tier was occupied by Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul, there was a remarkable second tier consisting of Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Corazon Aquino, to mention a few, who supported the leading players. Reynolds would be hard pressed to dismiss them all as limited and rabid anti-Communists who just happened to luck out. But Fund in justice would have to admit that the 1980s were a special time and that Ronald Reagan's triumph rested if not in his stars then at least in his ability to read the sky aright: to feel the first fair wind toward his "shining city" when others had accommodated themselves to the doldrums. That Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul came together was no accident, yet neither was it foreordained.

Ex-Presidents Ford, Carter, George H. Bush and Clinton -- all able men in their own way -- might ask themselves if it was 'fate' and not some fault in themselves that bestowed a greatness on Ronald Reagan that will almost certainly elude them; though fortune is a two-edged sword as Ronald Reagan's long illness reminds us. It is especially poignant for Bill Clinton, still young and possessed of a restless intelligence, to ask himself if he could have done better, but it is ultimately a futile question. Maybe the moment came to him and maybe it didn't, yet it passed before he knew it.

Ronald Reagan Rest In Peace

The man who won Cold War died today. He couldn't take it with him, but left his legacy to billions of human beings. He was characterized as an idiot, an automaton and charlatan by many of his critics. Yet none of his detractors, however polished and poised, have changed the world so profoundly as this one man. When the oldest cask is opened, And the largest lamp is lit; When the chestnuts glow in the embers, And the kid turns on the spit; When young and old in circle Around the firebrands close; When the girls are weaving baskets, And the lads are shaping bows; When the goodman mends his armour, And trims his helmet’s plume; When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom; With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

Mephisto

Reader MG wrote to ask "in what way is The Left the spirit behind all the carnage of the 20th Century". The answer might properly begin with the words of the Internationale (1871), which took as its starting point the notion that men born to the world had nothing to lose but their chains.

Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant. ...
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

It set the theme which was to endure for more than a hundred years: that the familiar world is not worth fighting for. Only the unseen tomorrow gives life any meaning. The present could never be ended too soon. The odious aspects of life in the early 20th century were clear enough, and nowhere better portrayed than George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. Who can forget his portrayals of coal workers and their daily lives? From its earliest inception, the Left cried that the world was not good enough. It held that any attempts to find happiness in the present were not only doomed, but immoral. Religion, Marx said, "is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness." He claimed that capitalism could never feed the poor. Lenin said Marxism could, and defined Communism as "socialism plus electricity".

What they forgot to add was that the world would never be good enough. That not a single Marxist state ever managed to provide either the food or electricity in adequate quantities remained beside the point. Shortages were always in the present and the present was unimportant anyway. When capitalism provided wealth in quantities that Lenin could only dream of, then food and electricity themselves became hated in turn, the way starvation once was. The Left, as typified by McSpotlight.Org, now accuses capitalism of creating obesity.

"Chinese authorities at the weekend launched a campaign to get their people to revert to Chinese food when in search of a fast fill. An increase in levels of obesity - as much as 10% of the population of Shanghai is now overweight - has led Communist Party officials to pledge that comparable standards of speed and hygiene would be introduced into indigenous catering outlets in an attempt to fight off the foreign invader. How wise they are. Consumer goods are the vanguard of the forces of capitalism. Fast food outlets are its shock troops. And it is the burger which is the standard-bearer of Western economic hegemony."

As for electricity, what could be worse? The environmentalist Gar Smith in his article Third World Poverty: Why Powerlines Aren’t the Answer says:

Surrounded as we are by streetlights, neon signs, movie houses, 24-hour shopping malls, TVs, radios, microwave ovens, audio-, video-, CD- and DVD-players, it’s easy to forget that our material comforts are a historical fluke based on a premise built on an illusion -- the illusion that Earth’s oil resources are infinite. A parallel and therapeutic illusion (one that helps assuage the guilt over our material self-indulgence) is that someday everyone on Earth will be able to live like a citizen of Manhattan or Paris -- with full access to all-electric kitchens, HDTVs in the den and SUVs in the garage. But, if you pause to think about it, electricity is a luxury, not a necessity.

Lenin's future was attractive only for so long as it didn't exist and was legitimate only when its promises were not provided by capitalism. John Buchan could tell his son, when he wrote "Memory Hold The Door", which described friends who died in the Great War, that "they held up the world for you". But a true Leftist could only ever dream of boasting to his progeny that 'I tore down the world for you'. The present was always too hateful to endure. In 1933, as Hitler began to arise in Europe (and Stalin was hosting the Reich's reconstituted armored forces in rehearsing blitzkrieg techniques in the Ukraine), it was an article of Leftist faith that nothing in Western Civilization was worth fighting for. At Oxford University, the flower of Britain recited the famous Oxford Pledge never again "to fight for King and Country". There was a less famous version across the Atlantic, where American students were urged to "refuse to Support the government of the United States in any war it might undertake." Nothing was worth preserving -- even against Hitler -- for so long as Stalin was his ally. It is hard now, after sixty years, to recall that in Britain's darkest days in the summer and fall of 1940 that Stalin was still Hitler's ally. Only in the summer of 1941 after the Panzers invaded the Soviet Union, did Uncle Joe become an ally and World War 2 finally become the "Good War".

Yet the fruits of victory instantly became hateful. The destruction of Hitler, the end of rationing, the postwar boom -- all these counted for nothing. In the shadow of the Cold War, the Left counseled unilateral disarmament. Nothing was worth the risk of nuclear annihilation, the unbearable tension of living Ten Minutes Before Midnight -- certainly not the England they fought Hitler five years to preserve. In Bertrand Russell's memorable phrase, it was "better to be Red than dead." The future, even the dark Stalinist horizon of 1950s, was preferable to the present. It would always be. The Left lived in the mansions of both the past and the future; its present was a hovel.

The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present. Is there piety in current society? Well, "men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest". Are there mullahs who would stint at nothing to destroy the West? Why, the BBC News reports that lifelong Marxist Carlos the Jackal has happily converted to Islam. Was Pat Tillman so foolish as to fight for his country? The Indymedia commented "Dumb Jock Dies for Pipeline in Afghanistan." Are any of Saddam's men ready to mine the roads in Iraq? Well, here are a few words of encouragement from Ted Rall. "Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans." None of these positions are inconsistent. They only reflect a higher truth. As Orwell wrote in 1984:

Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible. ... The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

In all of Marxist literature, which reaches considerable heights, there is never a moment comparable to Christ's sermon on the Lilies of the Fields, a moment of certainty in the invincibility of love. In its place stands the conviction of the futility of life; of the awareness of existence in a dark room. Like Faust at his desk, it laments: "I have studied philosophy, jurisprudence and medicine, and worst of all theology, and here I am, for all my lore, the wretched fool I was before." Faust made a pact with the infernal spirits to accept damnation on the instant he found happiness, provided he was empowered to pursue the future, and failed. Yet like the Left, it was the simple happiness of others that shielded him in the end. When, after having ruined maidens by falsely pledging love and plundering the world of treasure which he unhappily piled up, Faust finally plants a garden and bequeaths it to the poor; and in so doing unintentionally experiences pure happiness, Mephisto comes to claim his due. And barring the demon's way was a cascade of flowers strewn by the simple girl whose love Faust took and whose pity he could not destroy. The Left should look out the window, and ask why Osama is not there.

The greatest apostasy in Marxist literature has always been to find value in the present. Hemingway's Robert Jordan departs the path of the true believer when he tells Maria, as he stays to hold off pursuers, not to fight for Communism's glory, but to go to Barcelona and see it for "the two of us". And it is an un-Marxist kind of heroism that impels the ordinary man to leave the simple things he loves to preserve them for a mere hour more. The most moving scenes in Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire occur when Leonidas pauses to embrace his wife to remember the scent of her hair and the fictional Xeo bids goodbye to the only woman he has ever loved, lost and found anew by a convent on the Aegean shore, before going without hesitation to Thermopylae. Neither gave thought to the future, only to what was and should remain; and cast their fortunes on the tides of faith.

Disclaimer to the Memo

I wrote the Memo to Osama series in the spirit of the Screwtape Letters. Readers have written suggesting a suitcase nuke or some other disease would be more appropriate to the scenario and they may be correct. But the Memo doesn't really aim to describe an actual scenario of what might happen over the summer any more than Screwtape's letters depict the actual the workings of hell. The most serious error in the piece, because it was not intended to be part of the fiction, was the construction date of Osama's mansion. One reader pinned it down to 1997, some years before the September 11 attack. Osama may not have intended to abide there after the dust had settled in Manhattan.

But like the Screwtape Letters it was my hope to allegorically raise certain real issues. There really was a debate within the Al Qaeda over the correct strategy for the global Jihad. Al Qaeda really does try to magnify their acts by manipulating the media. Actual dangers do exist, or so we are told by Homeland Security, including the threat of unconventional weapons attack, but their extent and possible form is something only the professionals may know.

The core problem the Memo tries to explore is how a committed Jihadist might try to destroy the West given their limited means. Since the Jihadi leaders are intelligent men, they must know their chief hope lies in exploiting the weakness of the West: to turn Western weaponry on itself and exploit the inner divisions in its society. While the Islamist's performance on the battlefield has been laughable, their success at using Western institutions to further their goals has been remarkable. They have converted passenger aircraft, fertilizer, crop sprayers, sources of electrical power and news agencies into potential weapons. Although they do not vote in elections, they decide or strongly influence their outcome in Western nations. While they have no armies worth the name, they are the principal threat to the world today.

The writer of the Memo understands how their enemy, the United States, by adopting a strategy of bounding the threat has limited the Jihad's prospects for direct action. But the Memo's author also realizes how little success America has had in mastering the destructive tides within the West itself. The Jihadi problem then, as the Memo's author suggests, is how to use Western institutions to amplify their rather puny capabilities; how to harness these destructive tides to tear down the House of the Infidel. In the Memo author's view, that this possibility exists at all is a judgement on the West. The West is disgusted with itself;  longs to die; yearns for condemnation. The job of the Faithful is but to put it out of its misery. Standing offstage only by their implied presence is the remnant of the West that that has not lost sight of love; that remembers  its covenant; that recalls "the starlight on the western seas." That is whom the Jihad must defeat and all it must defeat.

Memo to Osama 2

(This is the second and final part of the fictional Memo to Osama which attempts to form a scenario in which a mass casualty attack on the United States might still lead to an Islamic victory. It is a second choice strategem; a rather desperate one, coming from a position that Osama had never expected to find himself in. As Belmont Club reader DM put it:

"For many months I've been pondering a single, striking fact about Usama bin Laden: in the months before September 11, 2001, he spent a huge sum of money building a lavish mansion close to the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan--a mansion in which he appears to have expected to live, along with his wives and children. This is one of those small, seemingly isolated facts that succeeds in bringing into focus a larger picture. From this fact, only one conclusion can be drawn: bin Laden is an utter and irremediable fool, lacking even a shred of understanding of those whom he has decided to make his enemies."

He had not counted on George Bush. No one had. But Presidents do not remain in power forever and the foundations of Osama's lavish mansion are still there.)

The Memo

I have instructed Achmed to begin scuttling this safehouse and have signalled the electronic post to mark it unsafe. I will reauthenticate contact within the next 48 hours, beyond which, Allah willing, I hope to proceed for visual identification at the predetermined sites to reconnect. It will take about 90 minutes to run through the checklist for sanitizing this facility, which Achmed can do as well as myself. There is just enough time to complete this message and may Allah grant me protection from the accursed Shaitan.

As I was saying, we need one more push to topple the rock; to initiate the mass death, but in such a way that the Left can blame those who resist us. The project which awaits your authorization has two phases. The first is designed to confirm in the public mind the idea, already planted by the media, that the mysterious anthrax attacks of September 2001 were work of a rogue researcher at the US government laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland. It is the most crucial phase. Once this idea is irrefutably planted, the real mass attack will proceed and it will be ascribed entirely to a foul-up by the Bush Administration.

When our brothers in England, may Allah be pleased with them, stole a small quantity of anthrax from British research establishment of Porton Down, there was as you know considerable pressure to use the entire amount in an operation. I alone was opposed to the idea. The quantities obtained from England were sufficient to kill ten or twenty thousand people at the most. A heavy blow to be sure, but entirely inadequate to our ultimate purpose of "tipping the rock". The real significance of the Porton Down spores were that they were genetically related to the parent strain obtained from Fort Detrick in Maryland, although additionally engineered and refined. It meant that our limited quantity of anthrax, which was strategically insignificant in itself, could front for a follow-on attack of massive proportions from a pathogen we could obtain in bulk. You have heard of a false-flag intelligence operation; the world will soon see a false flag biological attack. The anthrax itself could not push the stone over the edge, but a huge follow-on attack which could be blamed on American government arrogance and carelessness could.

Thus, the operational objective of the anthrax envelopes mailed after the blessed attack of September 11 was to establish in the public mind the fact, true in itself, that the spores were genetically related, but not identical to the Fort Detrick mother strain. To the careless media mind, this could only mean yet another "friendly fire" incident and confirm their belief that the fountain of all evil is none other than America itself. That objective, Allah willing, has already been achieved.

The first phase then, involves a coordinated anthrax attack on the amusement parks most frequented by children in the United States, Japan and in Europe. The personnel recruited for this crucial phase are all Caucasians of somewhat unstable personality, the type that the media likes to call "loners", each of whom has been careful selected for some remote past connection with the American military or a Baptist church, and who have been carefully trained to disperse the material without knowing what it is. A special cell of carefully selected brothers, all native speakers of American English, will call our contacts in the press at a prearranged time so that they can capture the most graphic possible pictures of children being rushed to the hospital; hospitals which will be overwhelmed and who cannot in any case help the victims. Anthrax kills by painfully asphyxiating the victims and we expect the Press to film many such deaths in their entirety. We fully expect the Pentagon to blame the Jihad for this attack, but the accusation will completely recoil upon them once the spores are analyzed and found to be genetically related to the original Fort Detrick strain.

The second phase then, must come hard on the heels of the first. The smallpox pathogen obtained by our brothers in Russia must be spread as fast as possible. Because this is the killing stroke, the plan has found it necessary to use all available Jihadis irrespective of their ethnic origin to spread the contaminant. Some may be caught and traced to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan or the Sudan. But by then it will not matter. We estimate that the pathogen will kill a minimum of twenty million Americans doctors, scientists, engineers, skilled workers -- all Americans are more or less skilled -- each one of them with more average scientific knowledge than a hundred Muslims -- what a blow! And following on the anthrax attack, who will believe that the smallpox is not another of the warmongerers weapons gone wild? Although the military and intelligence professionals will know the truth, their protests will be unheard. In America the networks do not even cover a Republican President's speech. Some Democrats may realize the truth, but they will be blinded by the opportunity to seize power in virtual perpetuity and they will not let the chance go. The stone will tip, Inshallah, and we will triumph.

I am sending this message now and will begin the final inspection of the safehouse. We cannot cleanse it of everything, but we will have cleansed it enough. If you do not hear from me, remember my words and unleash the plan which I have recommended to you. It only awaits your signal. MashAllah.

Memo to Osama

Peace be unto you and Allah willing may we tread on the bones of our enemies in final triumph. You have asked me to examine, in as frank a way as possible, how this final victory is to be achieved. Permit me to retrace the old ground, familiar to you, which contains certain aspects which yet bear on the problem and have never been resolved.

Victory for the Jihad in operational terms means engineering the collapse of the infidel West. The alternative strategy, that of overtaking them in temporal power, was attempted in the 1950s and 60s by those among us who became enamored of Marxism. They believed Kruschev when he said, "we will bury you", and like Nasser, imagined that by building a few dams, some factories and dispatching a few dozens to study at Institutes in Moscow, we could surpass them in science, industry and wealth. But we found it was Ronald Reagan and not the Kruschev who did the burying. Still, while the House of Islam could not overbuild the House of the Infidel, if the world of the enemy could be reduced to ashes then it would be brought low; and we, while not growing a single inch in stature, would nevertheless grow high by comparison.

You were among the first to understand how possible this bold strategy was, that of bringing the West low, seemingly improbable to those overawed by it gleaming cities. Indeed, you understood how natural this strategy was. Having lived among them and killed many of them, peace be unto you!, you understood that the West on three occasions just barely escaped destroying itself. Whether in the muddy trenches of the Great War; or in the global bloodbath of the Second World War; or the Cold War, lived in the shadow of thousands of nuclear warheads, you understood the West was like a man who had escaped suicide thrice only through great good fortune.

This yearning for the death of the West comes from Shaitan himself and is proof of their accursed nature, and explains why we will eventually be victorious despite our material weakness. The desire for self-death is embodied in what is called the Left, the unnamed shadow motivating the carnage of the last century. We must remember its name, for we will invoke it again when deciding on how best to pursue the Jihad.

But if the West is like a stone balanced on a precipice, wanting to fall yet held back by those among it who wish to live, still its final plunge requires a lever, some instrument of power which by tipping it the decisive inch will unleash the self-destructive tendencies of the infidel; let them yield to the spirit that haunts them, "the spectre haunting Europe" and like the Gadarene swine of their scripture, hurl themselves into the precipice. That lever will be provided by Islam.

Our experience in Afghanistan brought us to a choice of ways. We could, on the one hand, focus our energies upon expanding the idea of Jihad throughout the Muslim world, enlarging our forces without provoking a final confrontation with the most dangerous remaining element of the West, the United States. Or, we could on the other hand, use the forces already at our disposal to tip the rock over the cliff. Since you have instructed me to be frank, I will say Brother Osama, killer of many infidels, peace be unto you, that you were mistaken in your appraisal of American weakness. The lever that we had, the special operation sent to destroy three precious enemy targets in his heartland on September 11, was not enough to move the stone. We would have been better served had we waited patiently, until the network of brother A. Q. Khan had disseminated the P2 centrifuges to a number of Muslim, I will not say Islamic, states. In retrospect even you will agree that had we focused our energies on seizing Pakistan or even Saudi Arabia and acquired nuclear weapons during the time America slumbered, for Europe was always asleep, our position today would have been immeasurably stronger! For one, America even had we attacked them like September 11 would not have dared invade Afghanistan, any more than they would hazard invading North Korea, which has but a handful of fission devices.

We overreached and in a far more fundamental way than America is being accused of overreaching in Iraq because our actions on September 11 irretrievably committed us to the fork in the road that we now wish to forsake. It bars a return to the crossroads where we might choose the road not taken, the road that we now know leads to victory. But if that is impossible then we must discover victory on the road we are on. Here I will examine the prospects in both directions and point out the pitfalls and promises of each.

The fundamental problem preventing a revival of the strategy of consolidating our strength within the Islamic world is the American occupation of Iraq. It presents a dual threat. First, it serves as an object lesson to those Arab states who would shelter us. Do this and you share Saddam's fate. But second, and most important, it has given the United States possession of a great Arab state, perhaps the greatest of them all. It is not the money they care for. You know the statistics. The gross national product of all the Arab states combined do not amount to that of a single medium-sized European country. What they covet is the human resource that Iraq provides. Its Mukhabarat, its limitless pool of Arab-speaking potential traitors, its secret files whose contents not even you, O Osama, may know. What they covet is its central physical location which makes it possible to project secret teams all over the Arab world.

But as you know, our successes in Iraq have been entirely inflated by the press. Objectively speaking, we have endured an unbroken string of defeats. We could not get the UN to stop the American attack; we persuaded Turkey to withhold cooperation, but it did not matter. The country fell to the invader and although we have called every Jihadi at our disposal into the theater, with Syrian and Iranian help, we have not been able to delay the American timetable of handover by June 30 so much as a single day. But worse, it has forced us into coalition warfare. I know how sick you are, as I am, of the Persian apostate mullahs and the greedy Syrians. The Americans can kick their ally France like a dog, but we alas, must endure the humiliations of dealing with the Assads and the Ayatollahs with a smile. It must now be accepted, than even if John Kerry wins, that we will not be able to seize a state like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or even Afghanistan again within a five year horizon. The return to the crossroads is barred, at least for the foreseeable future. It is sad, but a fact.

That leaves us with this tantalizing question. Having gone so far on September 11, can we not go further? Will one more push topple the rock? The answer is yes, but only if the push is sufficient and it leaves the Left which is the spirit of suicide, in control. This latter condition is essential. The fundamental fact is that the triumph of the Jihad must be momentarily preceded by the ascendance of the Left. Only the Left will pick up the gun, put the barrel to the temple of the Western mind and pull the trigger without hesitation. But their ascendance will only be momentary, and I for one delight in imagining how we will kick them as they squeal about their rights and their sexual entitlements once there is no one left to protect them.

In this respect, I must warn our brothers against wooing the Western Left too ardently. For it is the reality that the average Western man still recoils from the sight of the bearded believer or the veiled woman. He would much rather trust the eccentric English professor in rumpled tweeds with bad teeth. We must ensure that these types are always in ample supply. Already the Jihad is siphoning away their younger members, those who have grown tired of Solidarity Marches and dancing in the streets without their trousers, and who want action of the sort that the Left can no longer provide. It is useless to remind them that their physical contribution to the fight will be paltry. It is their propaganda they do best and we should leave them alone to imagine us innocuous, misunderstood and exotically dressed victims even while we prepare to kill them in their millions. The Left will find a way to blame the dead themselves, a job at which they are surpassingly brilliant.

The hard part then, is to kill those millions. The Al Qaeda has survived the onslaught by decentralizing itself and relying on what Western analysts prefer to call 'affiliates' -- local groups of brothers, underground societies in individual countries -- allies really, for they must be controlled by cajolery, bribery and intimidation, rather than explicitly follow orders like brother Mohammed Atta of old. But relying on affiliates has also meant a lowering of our operational standards. None of our actions since September 11 has come close to matching its technical sophistication. The operation against the Oasis apartment in Riyadh is, professionally speaking, a botched job. Killing Indian janitors, Filipino cooks and Sri Lankan utility men is not exactly what fighters in the top class can do. Our cell in Madrid merely got lucky. In truth, they were a bunch of released detainees with a history of petty crime. We will need much higher caliber professionals, a secure base for rehearsal and deep penetration American support cells to deliver a devastating blow to the United States before this fall.

Excuse me, as there is a knocking downstairs at the door, probably Achmed, who I sent out for supplies. He may arouse suspicion if I do not answer it immediately. I am dispatching this email now and will dispatch the second part later.