The Official Neutralist Position on the Iran deal and Iran

Let us preface our announcement with the admission that the Neutralist has in no way focused laser like on the negotiations or the agreement.  If the Neutralist policy were in effect, the negotiations would have been irrelevant.  Why worry about Iran anyway as a rogue neighbor that does not effectively control all its own territory has deliverable nukes.

Our official position on the deal is that it is probably sort of okay.  All the People we respect endorse it.   No one we have some confidence in has opposed it.  Many people we do not have a good opinion of have opposed it.  It wins on points.

As we stated above, if a neutralist foreign policy were in place, there would have not have been any need to have negotiations.

What should a neutralist attitude toward Iran be.

As we have noted in prior posts, William S. Lind has spelled it out,

America's grand strategy should seek to connect our country with as many centers of order as possible while isolating us from as many centers and sources of disorder as possible.

So, if Iran is a center of order, we cooperate with them where we can or have to, and as they are on the opposite side of the world, that should not be too often.

Then again, as they are where they are, there should not be too much need to bug them unless they actively bug us.  We have a history with the Persians, but I don't want to get into who started it.  We should not try to continue it unless we have to.

Then again, If Palestinia can build an ordered state, we can cooperate with them, as we could with the Israelis and the Andorrans for that matter.

Notice, cooperate does not mean ally.

Now there is one state that is a bit rogue.  Granted, it made a good effort in the negotiations, but it feels it necessary to bother the Russkies for silly reasons.  We shall let our readers, few as they are, figure that one out.

America's von Ribbentrop-Samantha Power

Monty Python had a sketch of Hitler surviving and going to Britain to run in a by-election.  His entourage have only slightly changed names.  You can guess who Ron Ribbentrop was.

It was all very comic opera and so is our foreign policy if you are paying attention.  Samantha Power, our UN Ambassador is slick as was von R, but she is selling a dishonest policy to the world body.

Doing a great job dissecting it is a show on RT.  My Yankee chauvinism bubbles up and I confess to ambivalence about RT as a source, but as they say about the folks coming across the border, they are doing the jobs Americans don't want to do.

So, I watched the video and Salon's Patrick Smith was quick out of the box to distill Sam's role.  He called her an excellent rep for US policy.  Problem is the nature of that policy.  Hey Ron served Dolph well so that's what diplos do I guess.  Smith is right and most of the rest of the show was elaborating on that theme.

I had not been aware of Mr. Smith, but he batted it out of the park.  This is not to disparage the panelists, Daniel McAdams and Scott Rickard, they worked well also.

Anyway, watch the embedded video at this link.

Krauthammer, Will, Trump and the Bozo Wars

Memo to Chuck and George; Looking serious, sounding serious is not being serious.

On Fox News Special, they pooh pooh Donaldo calling him a rodeo clown. Yah know, I've always thought the guy was at least giving that appearance. Was he crazy like a fox, using a garish style to attain goals?

I think he's phony. I remember hearing his commercials about how he, along with some guy who I think was named Kiyosaki, was going to teach me to be rich in some seminar or something. If I were a billionaire, the last way I'd spend my time would be going around the country, staying in motels, giving courses on how to be as rich as himself.

That said, our goofy friend is saying things directly that so called serious people merely dance around. We have no southern border and your man has noticed. That strongest field, as Krauthammer put it, is mute.

As to being the jester at the horse competition, one might point out, this is not the first rodeo for either Willie or the Krautster. Both lads were all for going into Iraq. Georgie was sure the reign of heaven would descend and said so in an October 8, 2002 interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose:

I think the answer is that we believe, with reason, that democracy’s infectious. We’ve seen it. We saw it happen in Eastern Europe. It’s just — people reached a critical mass of mendacity under those regimes of the East block, and it exploded. And I do believe that you will see [in the Middle East] a ripple effect, a happy domino effect, if you will, of democracy knocking over these medieval tyrannies . . . Condoleezza Rice is quite right. She says there is an enormous condescension in saying that somehow the Arab world is just not up to democracy. And there’s an enormous ahistorical error when people say, “Well, we can’t go into war with Iraq until we know what postwar Iraq’s going to look like.” In 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor, did we have a clear idea what we were going to do with postwar Germany? With postwar Japan? Of course not. We made it up as we went along, and we did a very good job. . . .

Kind of the crazy talk that would make a real professional clown like Emmet Kelley blush. Of course, wisely, EK never spoke.

Charlie was equally voluble and wrong about Iraq. He never admitted he was wrong, but changed the justification he claimed for the war.

DeTocqueville observed that democracy separated the generations. In our era, not only are the generations separate, but we are different minute to minute, if not second to second. The two pundits' words of a war ago are as distant as Rome's invasion of Britain. By the time you read this, there recent words will be forgotten by most and they will go on to speaking fees and other emoluments.

Krauthammer has not always felt so badly about Mr. Hair. His feelings about Trump evolve as he saw some dignity in the man once,

 Krauthammer took a phone call from Donald Trump in April of 2011 and somehow came away with the impression that Trump was going to make a genuine run for the White House. Krauthammer’s reasoning was this: “But as a person, I thought more highly of him … because of the gracious way and the calm and courteous way he discussed the issues.”

At least Will has learned something as he wrote in a column:

The last 11 years have been filled with hard learning. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy decision in U.S. history, coincided with mission creep (“nation building”) in Afghanistan. Both strengthened what can be called the Republicans’ John Quincy Adams faction: America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

What is lacking, as far as we can find, is the owning up that he himself has had to learn something. No admission of error.

It does boggle the mind that these men continue to be taken seriously. At least they should be made to wear greasepaint makeup and big red noses as they bloviate on whatever outlet puts them on.

The Atlantic's Peter Beinart, who supported the Iraq war and honestly admits the error put it nicely,

To a degree that will baffle historians, the political-intellectual complex that made the Iraq War possible remains intact, and powerful. Amnesia is part of the reason why. If Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Benjamin Netanyahu knew that before denouncing the Iran deal they’d be required to account for their views on Iraq, they might not show up in the green room. If they did, their television appearances would take a radically different course from the course they generally take today.

We all know the accounting will not take place.

Ah well, On to Teheran.

Sic Semper Tyrannis, the two Paddies write well about the Middle East

Sic Semper Tyrannis is one of the best sites about intel and foreign policy on the internet.  It may be the best, but as I have not been elevated to the papacy, it might be correct to not speak infallibly.

Patrick Bahzad's FOCUS: modus operandi of ISIS on the tactical level explains much about the success of the forces of the neo-caliphate.  Our takeaway from his post is that whoever is running ISIS, mama didn't raise no fool.  To quote,

One of the most important things to stress about ISIS is that this is an organisation that has learnt to fight and survive – despite heavy losses – in an environment where they were totally outmatched technologically and under the constant threat of US air-power. The other decisive aspect to their military capabilities is the input of former military and intelligence personnel from the Saddam era.

In its early days, "Al Qaeda in Iraq" lacked the military, logistical and organisational skills of the former Iraqi military and it had a hard time surviving the US led "Surge". However, what was left of AQI in 2009 had merged with the ex-Baathist element and had gradually morphed into a structure that had learnt its lessons the hard way. Renamed "Islamic State in Iraq", it was led by a group of people skilled enough to seize any chance to expand and consolidate their organisation.

I remember from back in the day Hannity or someone local waxing poetic about how they had an election and democracy had taken root or something.  Well, Sunni Iraq lives and even if we come back with a few divisions, they will probably go to ground and wait us out and Monsieur Bahzad can write this column again.

Of course, we are not probably going back with a huge footprint.  That is what the other Pat dealt with in TheBorg is Screwing the Pooch in the ME.  At the beginning of the post is the painting of a crusader knight fending off besiegers, but not for long.    Colonel Lang draws the not so subtle analogy that we are not serious about our ME strategy and uses the words of General Dempsey to make the point.

He notes the general says we'll fight on even if the government falls from the network of hedgehogs.  

When pressed Dempsey said that if the Iraq government collapses we (the US Armed Forces) will fight on from our "network" of Hedgehogs assisting whoever wants help and without regard to the wishes of "the government."

Col. Lang mentions Dien Bien Phu and maybe we are in danger of that outcome.  Were I a Sunni or even a Shia, I would not believe or support anything the US did there.  I remember how we supported a revolt during Gulf War Uno and then left the people dangling.  The Colonel has mentioned the Awakening several times.  We are not all that trustworthy.

Good luck with those lilypads.

Bourbon Bob explains it all, again

Talleyrand said of the Bourbon dynasty "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing". It is said so often that it is a commonplace. That does not mean it is never valid.

The royal house still reigns in Spain and Luxembourg. As to their learning and memory, who knows? What interests us here is that another branch of the dynasty has arisen. We give you, Bob I of Bourbon-Kaplan.

Robert Kaplan is a well known writer most famous for his The Coming Anarchy. It was a prediction that the world was going to hell in a handbasket and it gained him no little notoriety. His reputation has only grown and In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine named Kaplan as one of the world's "top 100 global thinkers."

His day in the sun included plumping for the Iraq war. According to his wiki page he ”participated in a secret meeting convened by then deputy secretary of defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, at which he helped draft an internal government document advocating the invasion of Iraq.  He later concluded that the war had been a mistake and expressed deep remorse for supporting it”

How deep is that remorse. Well in a 2008 Atlantic article, he does express it, but it sounds if there are a few weasel words. In Iraq:The Counterfactual Game he posits that yeah it was bad, but it coulda been worse maybe, sorta if we hadn't invaded. Of course in 2008, the disaster didn't look as bad as it does today.

In a bizarre last paragraph, he plays a disturbing numbers game.

“Most fundamentally, does Iraq meet the parents’ test? Can you look parents in the eye and tell them it was worth losing their son or daughter over? As awful as it sounds, quantity matters here, for it says much about the scope of violence that is unleashed for the sake of a higher good. If there were, say, 500 sets of parents you had to look in the eye, the answer might well be yes, it was worth it, given where Iraq is today and what might have been had we not toppled Saddam. But at more than 4,000 and counting, the answer for years to come will still be no. Counterfactuals can only take you so far.”

At what point would Bob believe the test a flunk, 600 troops 2,751, 3,999? In 2015, one hopes he realizes by now only one, as in the American equivalent of the bones of Bismark's Pomeranian grenadier.

He is still an interventionist, not so long ago calling for saving Moldova, not that the Moldovans really needed saving. It appears the Moldies don't feel the need as much as our Bourbon scion thought.

The man has failed up and continues to do so. He has just had a paean to imperialism, published in Foreign Policy; The Ruins of Empire in the Middle East.

Among the imperial entities about whom he thinks positive thoughts is the Ottoman Empire. He credits them with providing safe space for all the diverse groups in their domain. When things went south under the Young Turks it didn't work so well for the Armenians, but why quibble. He also forgets the quaint practice of Devşirme or blood tax. Young boys were stolen from mom and dad and forcibly converted to Islam to serve in the Sultan's military or civil administration.

Several times in the article he uses the word “collapse” to describe what happens when such regimes, well, collapse. If they were so wonderful they might not collapse. Some of them, Iraq and Libya did not so much collapse as were pushed. The results have not been as sold.

It is true that for certain periods of time various imperia have kept a lid on violence, sometimes as deserts of peace, to mangle Tacitus. It may be true that only the heavy hand works in the Middle-East. It is also a verity that they all end, including the last western effort of Sykes-Picot.

We shall probably never know if they could sort themselves out without us because we are, in terms of the old SNL skit, the creature that wouldn't leave. Our Bourbon-Kaplan played his part. He remembers a lot, but did he learn anything? His last paragraph says it all.

“Back then it was states at war; now it is sub-states. Imperialism bestowed order, however retrograde it may have been. The challenge now is less to establish democracy than to reestablish order. For without order, there is no freedom for anyone.”

Come back Saddam, all is forgiven.

US again putting in motion to supply arms to ISIS

According to antiwar.com:

Officials: Pentagon Quietly Starts Massive New Arms Deliveries to Iraq

$1.6 Billion Fund Being Used for New Military Aid Shipments

File this under 

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Lest we forget

Memorial Day is over and all the speeches done by chickenhawk politicians are done and songs by non-serving cw singers have been sung, the reality is sadly with us.  Our wars overseas are doing nothing to preserve our freedoms.

The best commentary about the day was, not surprisingly, done by Col. Lang.  The Neutralist urges everyone to read it.

Dan Phillips at Traditional Right discusses Neutrality

Below is the article Grasping Neutrality from Traditional Right (May 5, 2015).  His article is important not merely because it is correct, but mores because it gives the essence of the best policy, neutralism.  Neutralism is not just anti-interventionism (though it is that).

In reading anti-interventionist websites, one almost never reads the word Neutrality, let alone in favorable terms.  It is refreshing to read someone actually write the word.

Who is the author?  According to Traditional Right he is:

Dan E. Phillips, MD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. His work has been published at Lew Rockwell, Chronicles Magazine, Intellectual Conservative, the Abbeville Institute blog, and several other places.

The link to the original article is here.

When I agree with someone on a political issue and I see him getting a bit carried away with his rhetoric, it’s easy to overlook. But when I disagree with someone on an issue, especially when we have essentially opposite opinions on a heated emotional issue, excesses of rhetoric really rub me the wrong way. After a while of dealing with it, poor argumentation starts to grate. Rational adults should be able to discuss an issue reasonably and dispassionately without resorting to illogic and ad hominem.

I consider myself very conservative, therefore I generally agree with my fellow conservatives. When I disagree with them it is often over degree, not direction. However, I have long been a noninterventionist conservative on foreign policy, and thus I frequently find myself at odds with my fellow conservatives when it comes to geopolitics. For the record, I don’t concede that there is anything conservative about interventionism, but that is for a different essay.

This has definitely been the case of late with the rise of ISIS, the negotiations with Iran, and the Netanyahu visit. For now, I’ll confine my observations to Iran, about which I have recently found myself engaged in several heated exchanges in various venues with people I likely generally agree with on most issues.

It is one thing to have a difference of opinion on a matter. It is also possible for people to disagree about the facts related to an issue, or to have a different take on facts that are agreed upon. It is another thing, however, to engage in bad argumentation. An argument is wrong when it gets the facts wrong, is inaccurate, or incorrect. An argument that employs bad argumentation is a bad argument, regardless of all else.

So, for example, I believe the U.S. should be neutral on the question of Irish unification. It’s not our problem. It’s not our concern. That does not, however, mean that I must hate Irish Catholics or that I am a shill for the Brits. As a Protestant I have certain sympathies, but I don’t think my sympathies should translate into official U.S. policy. But outside of certain circles, my advocacy of neutrality on the matter of Irish unification would not provoke those sorts of inflammatory charges. That the US should be neutral on a matter that is between two other countries likely strikes most people as common sense.

Take, however, the very analogous situation of Israel and the Palestinians and the broader relation of Israel to her Middle East neighbors. There my fellow noninterventionists and I also recommend the common sense position of US neutrality and disengagement, but the mere suggestion of this in the ongoing debate over Iran is very likely to brings immediate charges that the advocate of neutrality must hate Israel, love “Muzzies”, and is probably an “anti-Semite”. This is flawed logic. The conclusion is unwarranted because the premise is flawed. Of course someone recommending neutrality could in fact hate Israel, love Muslims, and be an anti-Semite, but these conclusions are not necessarily true and cannot be drawn simply from the advocacy of a particular policy position.

Daily I see on Facebook, or in my inbox, or in headlines at supposedly conservative websites that Obama must be a closeted Muslim who hates Israel and the U.S. and wants to see both destroyed because he is trying to reach a deal with Iran. I am no apologist for Obama who has been way too interventionist for my taste, and I don’t concede the legitimacy of the negotiations to begin with. I’m not sure how one sovereign nation with nuclear weapons and nuclear energy gets to tell another sovereign nation that they can’t have either, nor do I have any desire for the U.S. to play the role of global gun controller. That said, it is conceivable that Obama really thinks a deal with Iran is in the best interests of the U.S., as do most respondents to opinion surveys, and that he isn’t really a secret Muslim who hates Israel. These absurdly over-the-top declarations are unworthy of rational adults and mark the people who repeat them as intellectually unserious. I sure hope my fellow conservatives aren’t equally as irrational when they argue for tax and spending cuts, on which we agree.

No self-respecting conservative would tolerate without objection the charge from politically correct liberals that advocating the abolition of affirmative action and quotas means one hates minorities and must be a racist. Nor would they tolerate without objection the similar charge from like quarters that disputing the often repeated statistics with regard to sexual assaults on campus must mean one supports “rape culture”. But in both cases the liberal is making the same logically flawed argument that interventionists make when they definitively ascribe a certain mindset to a political or cultural opinion. If they can’t see this, they are either dense or aren’t thinking about it hard enough.

The hysteria related to the call for U.S. neutrality in the Middle East vs. the lack of hysteria related to the call for neutrality on Irish reunification (outside certain small circles) is clearly a reflection of the emotional investment of said hysterics in maintaining our current posture that is anything but neutral, rational, objective analysis of the issue. Interventionists should cite facts, challenge assertions, and dispute opinions. This is what debate is. But please spare me the flawed logic and ad hominem that so characterizes the debate today. It does not reflect well on your side.

Chickenhawk Victor Davis Hanson knows an aggressor when he sees one

I was reading a blog post that linked to a Victor Davis Hanson attack on Putin.  Vic was essentially nominating Vlad to the Bad Guy Hall of Fame.

He damns Putin for many sins, but claims he is just another dictator playing the democratic dupes like violins.

In his two big examples of feint and distract are Philip of Macedon and Hitler.  Of course, every shill gets around to comparing the object of their attack as Hitler.  Phil, that's kind of new and a great compliment to Vlad.

The Neutralist also read Liddel Hart's account of the two rulers and their tactics.  Vic should have cited L H as his source.  Then again, someone might look L H up and realize that Putin is not really following the evil incarnate playbook exactly as Vic would have it.

Let's look at a VDH quote that is just a bit misleading, "Once the Obama administration had reset the mild punishments of the Bush administration for carving out parts of Ossetia, Putin went back on the move."

Mr. Hanson knows the Georgians were the aggressors in South Ossetia.  Vic also knows that the leadership in Stalin's homeland had, if not an overt greenlight, at least a not or wink from us for the adventure.  If he doesn't, that would be embarrassing both for him and National Review Online.  He must hope his and NRO's readers are not too aware.  The Neutralist will not comment on the discernment of NRO patrons.

And, how did Putin go back on the move?  Vic lays it out,

"Obama’s reset was a green light for Putin. Who in the real world of serious diplomacy shows up in Geneva with a red plastic toy reset button, complete with a mistranslated Russian label? When Putin soon sized up the Obama administration’s appeasement around the globe — from fake red lines for Syria, to a scramble out of Iraq, to chaos in Libya — he moved into Crimea. And then he waited."

Conveniently, Mr. History leaves some out.  Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt abetting a coup against an elected government.  This questionable move was what led to the secession of Crimea.  We Americans are touchy on the matter of secesh, but whatever we may think, bogeyman Putin did not send tanks rumbling across the border in  a brutal war of conquest.  The Crimeans were happy to be appropriated.

He goes on to compare Putin to every other evil that has existed and finds they pale in comparison to Vlad.  The only thing Hanson proves is he is no Thucydides.

Nobody at the Neutralist would petition the Vatican to open a case for Putin's canonization.  We caution readers who have read Hanson's diatribe to remember the agitation near Russia has a Western element.  This is a fact ignored by most news outlets from MSNBC over to Fox as well as most of the commentariat.

the question we ask again is why, in a supposedly free country, does the press speak as one with mere token dissent?  One can understand how in a totalitarian regime the media must toe the line, but why here?

Oh well, I've heard there is a book, They thought they were free.

If you run into Vick, Please tell Vick, it was Hilary who brought the reset button.

The Z Man thinks about Iran

The Z Man has posted his thoughts about Iran on his blog.  It is a well thought out article and worth looking at.  Of course, the Neutralist likes his thoughts because they are essentially his.

He points out with clarity the truth about our MENA involvement, it has been a loser, and whatever else, we need to leave.

In theory, it is not a terrible plan. America needs out of the Muslim world. Whether or not it is a good idea to turn things over to the Persians remains to be seen, but history is on their side. They have been the dominant people in the region for 5,000 years, give or take.

That "history is on their side" is a good way of putting it.  None of the "right" or "wrong" side of history stuff.  No one can completely predict the future though there are some insightful people.

If history is on anyone's side, it is with a people who take the long view.  That is not most of our countrymen and women where two seconds ago is ancient history.

From William S. Lind-America's strategy is there is no strategyu

William S. Lind blogs at Traditional Right and has been featured at The American Conservative and was known for his On War articles that are now archived.

On April 2nd, Mr. Lind posted THE VIEW FROM OLYMPUS: AN ABSENCE OF STRATEGY.  The author makes the point that in World War II there were some deficiencies in the American war machine, but the strategy was sound and that made all the difference.

Nowadays, there is nothing coherent, as Lind puts it,

As we look at America’s current role in the Mideast’s Thirty Years’ War, the renewed war between Sunnis and Shiites, the most striking impression we get is of absence of strategy. In Iraq and Syria, we are simultaneously opposing both sides, the Sunnis because of ISIS and the Shiites because of Iran. Similarly, in Israel we oppose the Shiites of Hezbollah and the Sunnis of Hamas, despite the fact that our alliance with Israel is temporarily suspended after Mr. Netanyahu tore it up, spat on it and burned it during his election campaign. In Yemen, we are opposing both the Shiite Houthis and Sunni Al Qaeda. Presumably we will now back the Saudis in their intervention against the Houthis. The Saudis intervened against the Houthis once before. It did not go well.

In that one paragraph, Mr. Lind kind of reminds us of the point  Bill Murray makes in the bowling alley about how would you feel if you were doing the same stupid thing day after day.  The working class guy he is hanging with has probably one of the few insights in his life when he chimes in, "That about sums it up for me."

We are doing the same stupid thing over and over and it's not working.  What does Mr. Lind suggest,

We need a strategy. What should it be? The answer is obvious, low-risk, and cheap. Stay out and let Mohammedans fight their own damned Thirty Years’ War. With the exception of France, who came in late, none of the outside Powers who intervened in central Europe’s Thirty Years’ War benefited from doing so.

That is not a bad policy.  He further suggests,

As I have written before, the demographics of the Middle East guarantee war, supply-side war. The region teems with young men with nothing to do and no prospects. So what are they going to do? Fight. Our safe and simple strategy should be to let–nay, encourage–them to fight each other instead of fighting us. 

The Neutralist differs in that we wish all people would come to the conclusion peace is better than war.  Reality is on Lind's side and it would be better they fight each other and not us.

I have a few questions about some of the finer points of the strategy,

That strategy places one clear demand on us at the operational and tactical levels: keep the lowest of low profiles. Local agents are a good idea; we do want to know what is going on. If some locals are planning to attack us despite our non-involvement, our agents can also be used for direct action. If some locals succeed in hitting us, then, briefly, we would go overt, with an annihilating punitive raid. Other than in that case, we would always appear to be five thousand miles away, which, lest we forget, we are. Geography is the starting point of strategy, and our two oceans still give us welcome strategic distance. 

I am okay with intelligence gatherers, but not covert ops.  We would be in their land and that means, without troops or a large footprint, there should be nothing to hit.  Any depredations on our soil are mostly due to a mindless immigration problem.

It's a small quibble.  Mr. Lind is a rare font of sense.  I have even seen him on Cspan.  Well only once.  He is worth seeking out.

Ministry of Information flack Corey Flintoff stands up for Christians, As they say in Boston, wicked shokah

Usually, NPR looks upon evangelicals as a bunch of crazed snake handlers. Ah, but Corey Flintoff on NPR has found some he loves or at least is not full of hate for.

These Prods are being oppressed by the separtists in Eastern Ukraine for not baking gay wedding cakes.

Well no. the folks in Eastern Ukraine are Orthodox (as in Christian) and are oppressing the Evangelicals.

Now, if they refused to cater a gay wedding in Gary, that might be another story.

All News is propaganda.

Oh to be young, Hayat Alvi is shocked we are losing gazillions in equipment

In a Reuters' article, Hayat Alvi, Ph.D. noticed,

The reportedly hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons, equipment and supplies falling into enemy hands in Iraq, Syria and now in Yemen are more than just signs of strategic failure. Rather, they’re part of a long list of recent embarrassments, including the poor performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi military personnel when Islamic State invaded Mosul last summer, and the Islamic militant army’s confiscation of U.S. military weapons and supplies in the Iraqi territories it has occupied.

The lady is an Associate Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. She specializes in the Middle East, South Asia and Islamic Studies.   There is a picture up of her and though it is fetching, one notices the youthfulness of mien.

Those of us full of years remember the fall Vietnam.  The Vietnamese commies came out of that with a huge tank army courtesy of Uncle Sam.

One good outcome was that, yeah the taxpayer paid for that loss, but after that, we got to forget about the place.  We were done with them and left no forwarding address.

Hayat is too young to get that.  If we left MENA, they ain't coming in a carrier fleet to invade Long Island.

Ms. Alvi makes the case for neutralism,

The United States has unmatched military prowess for invasions and interventions, but fails miserably in post-campaign policies and strategies. It continues to have faith in supposed “allies” in the region, who usually end up undermining the very national interests that the United States is pursuing. This is because the United States fails to take into account that each state and non-state actor in the region — from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to Iran and even Shi’ite militias operating in Iraq — has its own interests and agendas that frequently do not align with the United States. Western powers cannot keep up with these growing complexities, especially in Yemen.

If we can't keep up with the complexities, it is time to say au revoir. 


Hat tip to Parapundit.

Don't think all the King's horse's and all the King's men are going to be able to put Yemen back together again

This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out [the Islamic State] wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.

Little more than a half a year ago, the president claimed success, if not victory for the policy above. The Neutralist need not be mean in pointing out this, like almost all of the policies of the current and prior administrations, has come a cropper.

There is no lack of outlets who have talking heads and scribblers discussing the great disaster that is the rise of the Houthis.  After all, we now can't run that vastly successful, game changing drone war.

None of the pundits is suggesting we say au revoir and bring it all home to pursue a neutralist foreign policy.

As usual, the best commentary is over at Sic Semper Tyrannis.  Col. Lang and his Committee of Correspondence are discussing the question at length.

In a departure from the demonization, Col. Lang has opined,

IMO the Houthis are the natural allies of the United States in the world wide war against Sunni jihadism.  The United States seems blind to that, blinded by its own delusions concerning the "evolution" of history and the dust thrown in US eyes by the Saudis who fear all things Yemeni.

If the Neutralist stopped being the Neutralist and were elected Commander of the Unfaithful (i.e. POTUS) and wanted to pursue a workable policy, he would appoint Col. Lang to run it.  Alas, it would be just a moment, not matter how effective and he and the Col. would be gone in the blink of an eye.

I truly wish a man as wise as the Colonel and his associates would give over and support neutralism.  Anything else is at best an interlude on the road to a bad end.

The Neutralist hopes no one has illusions

There is enough analysis of the Netanyahu speech that his words themselves need not be discussed on this page.

The Neutralist would rather address the question of why he was at all invited?

Everybody knows the truth, but few will say it.  The chief of state or government of any other country would not usually be invited to speak.  Certainly not while negotiations with another country are ongoing.

We hope no one thinks Mr. Boehner loves Israel out of the goodness of his heart.  He may have affection for the nation, but that is not the true impetus for his pushing the invitation.

The Neutralist would like to pose the question, Is there anyone who believes that the Congressional Republicans (and many Dems) would support Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech sans the financial support of wealthy Likud supporters?

Such hi-jacking of American foreign policy is a constitutional problem that is not to be addressed by either party anytime soon.  It is just another bit of evidence for the necessity of a neutralist foreign policy.  That unfortunately is also not on the horizon.

The Neutralist has made its policy on Israel clear before.  It is the same policy as regards any nation.  We would not ally with any country, but we would cooperate with any nation that constituted a center of order as William S. Lind termed it.

A Bezos Newsletter article (AKA The Washington Post) wants more war in Ukraine!

A couple of sinecuristas at the Brookings Institution have joined the call for more intervention in the Ukraine.  Why, well because as the title of the WAPO article reads, Ukraine needs America’s help.

Brookings is a 501(c)(3) non profit.  that means if you have a couple of farthings you want to donate tax deductible, Brookings will take it and turn it into impartial research.  If you have gazillions, well there is impartial and there is impartial.

It's not just any staffers blowing charge on the bugle.  No they sent their heavy hitters.  Senior fellow Steven Pifer and, if that were not enough, institution pres, Strobe Talbott, a D.C. barnacle if ever there was one.

Of course, in the case of the Ukraine, who would gainsay that august institution.  It is only out of goodness of heart that they support "lethal aid."  I know, I only feel noble when I hear the words "lethal aid."

The lads aren't the only ones beating the drum.  This is so urgent that they have come together with six other "former U.S. national security practitioners" to call for action.  This is big, I had no idea there was such a title as national security practitoner.  With the crummy foreign policy record over the last decades, they should try for a more humble title.

The expert practitioners are telling us why The Ukraine needs us, but never get around to why we need the Ukraine.  Please, someone enlighten the Neutralist.  How will the world end for our country if we say the Ukraine is not our problem?  Will Putin start the tanks rolling west to not stop until he has loaded the nouveau Red Army on his carrier fleet and landed in New Jersey?

Pifer and the Strobster are practitioners, but as we consider this a family blog, we refrain from saying what they practice.

The drumbeat continues-piling on Russia continues

The media from top to bottom keeps up the anti-Putin Russia hate.  At the top, Frontline had a hit piece, Putin's Way.  Our Ministry of Information outdid itself.  Hey, at least they didn't accuse him of stealing from the poor boxes.

Crazy John McCain was warmongering for more pro-Ukie involvement.

Stratfor is sure on the case, the last two email updates were, RED ALERT: Rocket Fire Could Signal New Offensive on Mariupol and then RED ALERT UPDATE: At the Heart of the Mariupol Crisis.  Who knows, maybe it's all true and the Russkies are on the march. Too many outlets have cried wolf too often.  Maybe it's just that our clients are too inept to use the equipment and training.

Ilan Berman in Forbes also thinks the Russians are on the march.

It all smacks of the drumbeat before Iraq.  You remember all that.  The Neutralist remembers it in all aspects.  First, Iraq was mentioned as part of a fictitious Axis of Evil. Then, the WMD that never were.  There was no goofiness that was not referenced such as this little jewel,

One talk show host, Jay Severin was shilling for the war big time. One afternoon he breathlessly intoned that it was reported that the anthrax involved in the letters had the footprint of an Iraqi lab and that if it did have that footprint, then, "We are at war with Iraq." Cut to a break.

Plus ça, you know.  Different administration, same ragtime.  

The Neutralist does not have the resources to say definitively what Russia, or for that matter, Europe or the US is up to.  Really, for us Americans, how much does the Ukraine matter?  Why did La Nuland feel the need to push a coup?

Refreshingly, Forbes also publishes someone who addresses the question of Why the Ukraine?  Doug Bandow's U.S. Should Stay Out Of The Russo-Ukrainian Quarrel: Why The Conflict In Ukraine Isn't America's Business, Part I is good enough that he could rest on his laurels and skip Part II.

Bandow makes the points following:

1) Ukraine isn’t important geopolitically. 

2) Russia matters more than Ukraine to America. 

3) Blame is widely shared for Ukraine’s travails. 

4) Washington never guaranteed Ukraine’s security. 

5) Vladimir Putin is not Hitler and Russia is not Nazi Germany (or Stalin’s Soviet Union). 

6) There’s no genocide. 

He explains each one convincingly.  Please read the article.  The Neutralist certainly agrees.  If there is someone out there who has a cogent argument against Bandow's points, I'd love to hear it.

The Neutralist is not holding his breath.

Vox Media’s Anti-Russia fanatic Max Fisher reductios to his personal absurdum

The most consistent aspect of Max Fisher’s coverage is that it is unhinged.  He is a serial Russia hater in article after article.  His Vox August 27^th screed, Let’s be clear about this: Russia is invading Ukraine right now conjured up visions of the Wehrmacht breaking down the border gate with panzers rolling.

Of course, that did not happen but the lad is not deterred.  He must be running out of bile, as there is nothing but buffoonery in his recent This quote about Putin’s machismo from Angela Merkel is just devastating.  Max had to go all the way back to 2007 to dredge up something so little.  According to Max;

“The incident of Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and the dog is a famous one. It was 2007 and Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, was visiting Putin at his presidential residence in Sochi to discuss energy trade. Putin, surely aware of Merkel's well-known fear of dogs, waited until the press gathered in the room, then called for his black Labrador to be sent in. The Russian president watched in unconcealed glee as the dog sniffed at Merkel, who sat frozen in fear.”

Yeah, tough ol’ Angela is afraid of a labrador.  It must be a hell of a phobia.  Labs have got to be about the friendliest pups around.  We’ve owned a few and as to protection from robbers, they’d help the thieves to the silverware just to be neighborly.

Okay, I don’t know what drives fear of mutts, but according to the Fish, what Angie said next was the ne plus ultra of digs;

"I understand why he has to do this — to prove he's a man," Merkel said. "He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this."

Max thinks it “one of the most pithily succinct insights into Putin and the psychology of his 14-year reign that I have read.”

For all I know he’s right, but devastate means “to lay waste; render desolate.”  Moi, I think your man is reaching a tad.  Maybe Angie was upset because Vlad is more macho than La Chancellor.

I suppose Putin did enjoy his little bit of fun.  We don’t know what may have been going on between the two and it may have been some smallness on his part.  The operative word here is small and Merkel’s words were nothing grand.

Why the drumbeat.  Max and Vox are not the only ones.  There is a lot of media out there that are screaming that Putin is the antichrist.  Well, at least another Hitler, but then again isn’t just about everyone eventually.  The hysteria sounds a lot like the propaganda leading up to the Iraq invasion.

That was stupid, and so is the Putin as devil narrative. The difference is Russia has nukes, the Iraqis didn’t.  Destroying Iraq led to many bad events, but there was none of Condi Rice’s mushroom cloud smoking gun.  No one doubts what the Russkies could do if pushed too far.

I have no answer as to why Fisher, with the probable blessing of his editors, keeps this up.

Vox Media appears to be a start up with angel investor funding.  It does not seem to make a profit yet and won’t soon if the level of advertising is any indication.  So far, it is little more than a present to its staff and writers.

The Putin/Russia as mad dog aggressor trope is pervasive across the mainstream media.  It is a lie, but why?  It can’t be just to provide a sinecure to Joe Biden’s drug addled kid.

Well, maybe it sort of is.  Hunter B.’s job isn’t crucial, but The Ukraine has, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports, Europe’s third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet.  According to Consortium News, this is “an inviting target especially since other European nations, such as Britain, Poland, France and Bulgaria, have resisted fracking technology because of environmental concerns. An economically supine Ukraine would presumably be less able to say no.”

That may be why we are bugging the former Soviets, but does not explain why so many so-called news outlets fall into line.  The pervasive toadying on the issue from the major outlets down to the fashionable lefty vanity sites like Vox is amazing to watch.

In the case of Fisher it could be he has some unfathomable hatred or he knows which side his bread is buttered on.  Either way, it is not a sterling testament to his character.

By the way, Vox seems to have no comment section.  Well this saves them the trouble of trolls, i.e. those who are so unsophisticated that they notice when someone is full of it and tell the little emperors how unwell dressed they are.

Bacevich on five myths and Tom on waste - so what else is new?

It is and has been the Neutralist’s contention that none of our overseas adventures does us any good.  It would be bad enough if all that happened were merely the drain of resources as we left troops overseas to keep up the national holding action.

Unfortunately, in introducing an article by Andrew Bacevich, Tom of TomDispatch has highlighted the war profiteering that is essentially America’s Sixth Column.  If a fifth column is subversives among an enemy fighting against their own country, A sixth column would be profiteers who make vast sums on a losing venture. 

Halliburton et al have made vast sums and will continue to and yet if success is measured in elimination of our enemies, anti-success has been achieved.  No matter how many we kill, they multiply faster than the loaves and fishes.  We have not got all that much for the four trillion +.

The article by Bacevich begins as a conversation with a young friend who avers that Iraq has ceased to exist.  Maps are probably still being printed of a united country, but who* disagrees with the young man’s at this point?

The discussion is really an intro to Professor Bacevich’s article, Malarkey on the Potomac.  He sets out five claims taken as articles of faith inside the Beltway and demolishes them.  We have not problem with that.

* The presence of U.S. forces in the Islamic world contributes to regional stability and enhances American influence.

We agree with the author, but would challenge anyone to point out where there is stability due to US presence?

* The Persian Gulf constitutes a vital U.S. national security interest.

The author mentions our new status as an oil power.  We agree but also believe that oil, a fungible commodity, is such that even without our involvement, we can get it at the correct price.

* Egypt and Saudi Arabia are valued and valuable American allies.

Egypt helps us how.  KSA without oil would be a joke.  The tribes that are the ruling class would never have been capable of anything on their own.

* The interests of the United States and Israel align.

Some do, but many don’t.  We have addressed it here.

* Terrorism poses an existential threat that the United States must defeat.

It could, but only because we import it.  All the terrorists in the world are incapable of forming a navy,  A necessity if they have to get here without our help.

These are the Neutralist’s thoughts on top of Bacevich’s writing.  I agree with his thoughts.

Go here to read both Tom’s worthy introduction and the article.

They are all believed and

*Some in government may pretend that we can turn that around, but such sentiment is pro-forma.  All the king’s horses etc.

War on Terror: Drones Target 41 but Kill 1,147 Mostly Innocent men, Women, and Children-Neutralist asks, Does this make you safer?

Mish Shedlock posted from a Guardian article of the headline above.  How effective are our drones;

The drones came for Ayman Zawahiri on 13 January 2006, hovering over a village in Pakistan called Damadola. Ten months later, they came again for the man who would become al-Qaida’s leader, this time in Bajaur. 

Eight years later, Zawahiri is still alive. Seventy-six children and 29 adults, according to reports after the two strikes, are not. 

Now, one guesses if questioned how inhuman all this is, our government spokesters would say we meant well or would channel Madeline Albright and say it is worth it.

Again, the Neutralist asks the question, does anyone feel safer in this country because of all the effort to control the Middle East or anywhere for that matter?

Please, someone tell me, how are we safer?

Link to Mish here, Guardian here.