Dusk in Iraq

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A troubling milestone arrived on Thursday when the US withdrew its final combat brigade from Iraq. The remaining 50,000 US forces are charged with advising and training the Iraqi military. President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw them as well by the end of next year.

 

When US-led allied forces invaded Iraq seven years ago, their action raised the hopes and incited the dreams of millions throughout the region and throughout the world.

 

Operation Iraqi Freedom promised to bring the light of liberty to a corner of the world that had known none. By doing so, it was supposed to inspire and enable men and women throughout the region to believe that they too could be free.

 

But as the last US combat brigade departed on Thursday, the Iraq they left behind was not an Arab shining city on an Iraqi hill. The Iraq they withdrew from has no government.

 

The post-March 7 elections coalition talks are hopelessly deadlocked. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to serve as the head of a caretaker government for now and take no major decisions about Iraq’s future. In a word, Iraq suffers from governmental paralysis.

 

Then there is the US-trained and -armed Iraqi military. Recently, Iraq’s most senior general, Lt.-Gen. Babakir Zebari, acknowledged that Iraqi forces will be unable to defend the country from domestic and foreign aggression until 2020. Zebari asserted that the reason the withdrawal of US combat forces was proceeding well was “because they [the US forces] are still here.”

 

This week’s suicide bombing at the military recruitment office in Baghdad in which some 61 people were murdered is part of a growing trend in Iraq. As the US withdraws, the forces the US fought throughout the past seven years are on the rise. Al-Qaida is reportedly behind much of the recent violence as it seeks to convince Iraq’s uneasy Sunnis to rejoin its ranks in a continuing war against the Shi’ites. And as for the Shi’ites, their leaders remain alternatively and often simultaneously dependent on and threatened by Iran.

 

As outgoing US commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno acknowledged last month, Iran remains the largest sponsor of sectarian violence in the country.

 

And so, despite the US investment of more than a trillion dollars in Iraq, and despite the more than 4,400 US servicemen and women who lost their lives in the country, the future of Iraq remains uncertain at best. Certainly a coherent, moderate, US-allied and democratic Iraq remains an elusive goal.

 

The US blames Iran for Iraq’s political deadlock.

 

It is right to do so. The election results gave a narrow two-seat lead to former prime minister Ayad Alawi’s Sunni-backed Iraqiya party over Maliki’s State of Law Shi’ite coalition.

 

And yet, rather than accept the results, Iranian-allied Shi’ite politicians led by Ahmed Chalabi sued to have six members of Alawi’s party denied the right to assume office due to their past ties to Saddam’s Ba’athist party.

 

Although the lawsuit was defeated in May, the sides continue to be unable to come to an agreement that would enable the Iraqi parliament to come into office or a government to be formed.

 

Iran’s hand is everywhere in this chaos. As George Friedman wrote in a recent Straffor Intelligence Bulletin, it is true that today, with 50,000 US forces still deployed in Iraq, “the Iranians do not have the ability to impose a government on Iraq. However, they do have the ability to prevent the formation of a government or to destabilize one that is formed. Iranian intelligence has sufficient allies and resources in Iraq to guarantee the failure of any stabilization attempt that doesn’t please Tehran.”

 

As Friedman notes, for Iran, keeping Iraq in an ongoing state of instability, with sporadic periods of outright chaos, is a low-cost, high-return investment. It denies Iraq the ability to reconstitute itself in its traditional role as a regional counterweight balancing Iranian power in the Persian Gulf. It also denies the US victory, erodes its will to fight and saps it of its determination to defend the Persian Gulf from Iranian ascendance.

 

As Friedman sees it, “The Iranian strategy seems to be to make the United States sufficiently uncomfortable to see withdrawal as attractive but not to be so threatening as to deter the withdrawal.

 

“As clever as that strategy is, however, it does not hide the fact that Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf region after the withdrawal. Thus, the United States has nothing but unpleasant choices in Iraq. It can stay in perpetuity and remain vulnerable to violence. It can withdraw and hand the region over to Iran. It can go to war with yet another Islamic country. Or it can negotiate with a government that it despises – and which despises it right back.”

 

There are two frustrating aspects to Friedman’s analysis and what it tells us about the prospects for the region going forward.

 

THE FIRST frustrating aspect of Friedman’s diagnosis of the situation in Iraq today is just how similar it is to the situation in Lebanon.

 

As in Iraq, anti-Iranian political forces won the Lebanese elections last year. And as is the case today in Iraq, Iran’s proxies in Lebanon gridlocked coalition negotiations, and so coerced the anti-Iranian March 14 movement candidates led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri to agree to forge a unity government with Hizbullah. Moreover, they forced Hariri to accept effective Hizbullah – that is, Iranian – control over his government. This they did by demanding that Hizbullah receive enough votes in the cabinet to give it a veto over all governmental decisions.

 

Hizbullah’s dominant position in Lebanon was depressingly and tragically demonstrated last week, when Hariri called on the UN to investigate Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s allegations that Israel was behind his father’s assassination in 2005. Former prime minister Rafik Hariri’s murder in February 2005 was carried out by Hizbullah and Syria, and his son knows this.

 

That he would bow to his father’s murderer is a hair raising example of how the ruthless Iranian power game works. Lebanon’s hapless prime minister rightly fears Hizbullah, Syria and Iran more than he trusts the US. And so he remains prime minister in name only and serves at their pleasure – the effective slave of his father’s killers.

 

On a military level, the US’s inconclusive campaign in Iraq bears striking similarities to Israel’s departure from southern Lebanon 10 years ago. In Lebanon, as in Iraq for the US, Iran and its proxies made it impossible for Israel and its allies in the South Lebanese Army to bring stability to the south. Hizbullah’s constant but low-key assaults on Israel and IDF forces, punctuated by sporadic escalations, eroded the Israeli ruling class’s will to fight. So, too, the elusive character of the asymmetric enemy made it easy for the same elites to ignore the nature of the adversarial forces arrayed against Israel and so paved the way for Israel’s retreat. This in turn fomented Hizbullah’s triumphant takeover of the south, and in due course, its takeover of the whole of Lebanon.

 

THE SECOND frustrating aspect of the state of Iraq today is what it
says about the US’s ability to acknowledge the realities of the region and fashion successful strategies for contending with its challenges.

 

For the past seven years, advocates of the Iraq war and opponents of the war, Republicans and Democrats alike, have consistently refused to understand the nature of the battlefield and what that meant about their prospects in Iraq and the region.

 

Both the Bush and Obama administrations wrongly characterized Iraq as a stand-alone war. But the fact is that Iraq has always been a battleground of a regional war. And the main enemy in Iraq, the main obstacle to stability and victory, is Iran. Just as Israel was unable to beat Iran in Lebanon, and so lost to its proxy Hizbullah, so the US has been and will remain unable to defeat Iran in Iraq. And if it maintains its current strategy, it will be defeated by Iran’s proxies.

 

The only way to safeguard Iraq is to overthrow the regime in Iran. The only way to get the likes of Hariri out from under the jackboots of Hizbullah and the Iranian-proxy regime in Damascus is to overthrow the regime in Iran.

 

If it were just a question of Iraq’s well-being as a country, it would arguably make sense for the US to avoid escalation of the war and refuse to challenge the regime in Teheran.

 

But Iran is not only fighting for Iraq and it is not only fighting in Iraq. Through its proxies, Iran is also fighting in Lebanon and is using its proxies to increase its influence throughout the Persian Gulf, the Levant and beyond.

 

And with the regime just a short step or two away from nuclear capabilities it is clear that the US strategy in Iraq was wrong all along. It was wrong and dangerous.

 

The US strategy was to bring democracy to Iraq and by doing so, inspire democratic revolutions throughout the Arab world.

 

Although inspiring, it was wrong first and foremost because it was predicated on ignoring one of the basic dictates of strategy. It failed to recognize that there were other forces in the region. 

 

It failed to anticipate that every US move would be countered by an Iranian move. And in failing to recognize this basic strategic truth – even though it has been staring them in the face – the Americans aggressively pursued a strategy that became more and more irrelevant as time went by.

 

As the actions of the Hariris of Lebanon and their counterparts in Iraq show clearly, Iran’s counter-moves have always been more forthright and compelling than the US’s moves have been.

 

In the September issue of Commentary, Arthur Herman depressingly sets out the Obama administration’s declared plans and early moves to gut the US military. It is obvious that regardless of Obama’s political position after the mid-term elections in November, he will not revisit the US’s current Middle East strategy, which is predicated on ignoring the Iranian nuclear elephant in the middle of the room. He will not work to overthrow the regime or support any forces that would overthrow the regime.

 

It is true that in the short term, the prospects for the region hinge on whether or not Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has the courage to order the IDF to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. And it is also true that if an Israeli strike is sufficiently successful, it would empower many positive forces throughout the region – from Teheran and Kurdistan to Ankara, Damascus and Beirut.

 

But in the medium and long term, nothing can replace America. And as long as the US continues on its trajectory of strategic blindness, the Iraqis will be far from alone in their suffering.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

 

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24 Comments

  • Seawolfman 08/20/2010 at 12:13

    It is shameful how our US leadership is conducting a PC driven war management strategy, of not only warfare itself, but our inability to face the facts that stare us in the face. Our treatment of our Israeli friends is equally shameful. It is not only Israel….it is the Holy Land – and; this we defend, not equivocate.

    Reply
  • Marc Handelsman, USA 08/20/2010 at 12:42

    The Iranian regime cannot be overthrown without outside support. Iran will continue to threaten regional stability, until it is decisively defeated. Unfortunately, the US State Department appears to have no comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran. The world cannot permit an erratic nation, like Iran, to produce and deploy nuclear weapons. And time is quickly running out for Israel to attack Iran’s nuke sites. Soon enough, we will know whether or not Prime Minister Netanyahu has uncommon courage to order the IAF to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations.

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  • Marcel 08/20/2010 at 13:03

    ‘But in the medium and long term, nothing can replace America’
    You are long overdue for a ‘vision’ adjustment.
    Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he Proverbs 29:18
    Israel’s great hope in what America could accomplish in it’s neighborhood was not vision but delusion which it is now awakening from,allbeit slowly.
    This Iraq failure and the Gaza Hamastan failure of US policy should have already awakened Israel from it’s stupor.
    After a trillion dollars wasted and young lives wasted for a war that has only united Iranian and Iraqi Shiites the used to be superpower is severly hobbled with another Afghan failure and disaster on the way.
    The peace process has severely weakened Israel and made her more dependant on a questionable ally with a nerd now in charge and as long as this unholy slave and master alliance continues Israel will suffer more and more. A much needed message to Iran would have been heard if Israel had defeated Hezbollah and Hamas. But instead by FOOLISHLY following the always failed US agenda ,Israel has GREATLY encouraged Iran by it’s projection of weakness for the US led peace lie.
    Instead of allowing the American empire in decline to sacrifice Israel to the Islamic hordes on the bloody altar of submission Israel needs to completely dump the Road Map delusion and get it’s own personal,national vision of overwhelming force to once again resurrect the deterrence lost by the phony peace process.
    I recommed starting with ‘Never Again’ and sending this FORGOTTEN message loud and clear to all of her bellicose neighbors.
    By cutting loose the lead weights of capitulation for peace and the failed decades of slavery to a failed and delusional US appeasement of Islam policy Israel

    Reply
  • HEP-T 08/20/2010 at 13:33

    Keep in mind, An Army Corps is about 40,000 men, A Field Army is 80,000 men.
    What is left in iraq is a re-enforced Army Corps quite capable of combat operations.

    Reply
  • David Custis Kimball 08/20/2010 at 14:31

    Ahmed Chalabi is the same guy who convinced George Bush 43 to go into Iraq. The weapons of ‘mass distraction’. He was discredited, and probably remains an Iranian mole, but would be able to find out all the military actions to find the WMD, and then direct Iran to ship to Syria.
    Of course, if everything worked, he would be leading Iran, so Iran would defame him just to keep him humble.. but as a Shiite, he’s now the one that has frozen the government, and making it easy for the regional conflicts to flair as cover for the Iranians … you pick which ones.
    Just as Iraq had all the bluffs as to readiness, so too does Iran. Remember when the showed off their Photoshopped missiles … because there were a few duds in the shot.
    Iran needs a good punch in the gut. And wack Chalabi.

    Reply
  • Greg Arnold, USA 08/20/2010 at 15:27

    I am appalled that the same country which acted in such a righteous manner as to depose Saddam Hussein, could not bring itself to recognize and remove this cancerous tumor named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We are now going to be faced with another evil, despotic megalomaniac. Will we be able to show a level of courage commensurate with that of Israel?

    Reply
  • lurene gisee 08/20/2010 at 15:38

    It seems that the bigger threat today — August 20, — might be Pakistan. They are nuclear, and extremely desperate at moment. Financial aid will do too little, given the corruption in that region. I have no concept of what might unfold in Pakistan in next few weeks, however, if militants get control of nuclear materials there right now. — Lurene Gisee [email protected]

    Reply
  • Marcel 08/20/2010 at 16:37

    By cutting loose the lead weights of capitulation for peace and the failed decades of slavery to a failed and delusional US appeasement of Islam policy Israel can keep herself from drowning and regrow some family stones and a vision that is uniquely Israel’s and not the broken,bankrupt and sunk U.S. empire’s.
    It’s past time that Israel demanded major concessions from the defeated Arab’s and stop acting as if it were defeated by them.

    Reply
  • Geoffrey Britain 08/20/2010 at 17:11

    As far as it goes Ms Glick’s analysis is spot on, but with all due respect, falls short because it fails to go deep enough and thus ironically, falls prey to the very criticism she makes of US policy; “ignoring one of the basic dictates of strategy. It failed to recognize that there were other forces in the region.”
    Ms Glick states; “Iraq has always been a battleground of a regional war. And the main enemy in Iraq, the main obstacle to stability and victory, is Iran.”
    Iraq is a battleground in a regional war but the M.E. itself is a regional battleground in a global war which consists of four fronts against four main ‘opponents’ inimical to the nation-states of the West. The main enemy in the M.E. is not Iran, which is merely a proxy for Islam, one of the four fronts in the global war.
    The evidence that Islam itself is the culprit rather than an ideological ‘school’ of Islam is provided by the over 12,000 passages in the Qur’an that call for conflict with the ‘infidel’ and the incontrovertible fact that at every junction Islam is in conflict with its neighbors.
    Islam is a religious/political/military ideology just as Nazism was and boldly and unequivocally proclaims its goal of world-wide conquest. Its history demonstrates a cyclic aggressive/passive nature. We are currently in an expansion phase, precipitated by the intrusion into Islam of the modern world, which to a 7th century tribal ideology like Islam presents an existential threat to its very survival.
    Until The Theological Nature of Islam is understood, the underlying reasons why Islam is inherently in conflict with the West will be unappreciated. Islam cannot be understood without examining its theological precepts and without that understanding, any analysis of radical Islamic terrorism will be fatally flawed.
    The second front is an internal Western philosophical conflict between two conceptual paradigms, each embraced by the right and left and the primary source of the left’s condemnation of Israel and US actions in the M.E. and whenever their nation-state self-interests are promoted. Yoram Hazony in his treatise Israel Through European Eyes does a masterful job of explaining this conflict in paradigms.
    A secondary but important supporting paradigm embraced by the left is explained in “Just War Theory”.
    Together, these two paradigms form the global ideological thesis embraced by the Western Left, which together are in conflict with the traditional, nation-state paradigm Hazony describes so well.
    This second front is of utmost importance in the global conflict because the twin-paradigms embraced by Europe and most of the West obstructs and undermines any effective response to the threats on the other fronts. Lincoln’s observation that, “a house divided against itself, cannot stand” is still true.
    The third and fourth fronts are arguably categorized as one but as they operate out of substantially different motivations, I address them separately.
    Both consist of Geo-political opposition to the West and specifically the US. The foremost actors or leaders in those fronts are Russia and China, who out of Geo-political and ideological rationale’s oppose the West. Iran, as the foremost proxy of Islam is enabled by Russia and China. As indeed all ‘rogue nations’ are enabled by Russia, China and the European and Western liberal nations.
    Russia and China however are using radical Islam in a covert, quasi-military, strategic ‘stealth’ campaign of aggression against the West. The purpose of which is to reduce US regional and global influence by hindering its ability to project its will in defense of its self-interests and the protection of its allies.
    Europe’s opposition is out of philosophical disagreement and essentially pacifistic in nature, its motivation is not primarily power-driven as is Russia and China’s opposition.
    Russia’s opposition is primarily nationalistic and Geo-political in nature. Ruled by an ‘oligarchy of strong men’ with a semi-dictator in Putin, it seeks to regain its former stature as a super-power out of purely egotistical motivations. As such, it is the least threatening and most easily dealt with, though as it is actively promoting and facilitating the spread of nuclear weapons proliferation, it is the most immediately dangerous of the four fronts. Russia’s motivation is revealed and confirmed by the character of the nations it seeks to assist in attaining nuclear power; all are unstable, third-world nations inimical to the West and particularly to the US and its allies.
    China along with Russia ensures that no effective sanctions or actions are taken against the rogue nations in the UN, blocking international consensus and therefore undermining the moral legitimacy of any unilateral US action. China is the least immediate threat but aggressively building up its economic and military power, intent upon becoming the next super-power and then surpassing the US as the world’s foremost super-power. In my view, it is naive to presume that China’s totalitarian Communist leadership has abandoned its allegiance to communism’s ideology, nor its view that the capitalistic societies of the West are its enemies. If that is so, then at some point it will challenge the US for world supremacy, as its ideology demands that path of its adherents.
    A final important factor for Israel, though not a front in the global conflict is Israeli reliance on US aid, which makes Israel subservient to US direction and approval. Israel must cut the umbilical cord.
    Ms Glick’s other writings indicate an awareness of these factors, though she may not fully agree with my characterizations but to exclude these factors in any discussion of US foreign policy and its effect upon allies such as Israel is to necessarily limit the discussion in a way that precludes offering practical solutions to those forces arrayed against both the US and Israel.
    Those practical solutions require the neutralization of the Islamic threat detailed here:
    The Realities Israel Must Accept.
    The rejection by the US and Israeli public of the twin-paradigms of pacifistic suicide that the left advocates, with leaders elected who mirror that rejection.
    Followed by strategic moves that contain the ambitions of a resurgent Russia and a US economic policy that eliminates the trade deficit with China, as an economically strong US is the best insurance against Chinese ambitions.

    Reply
  • [email protected] 08/20/2010 at 18:32

    This war is useless. It brought jihad to Americas.
    Islam will collapse within, by itself. These wars are reporting it…

    Reply
  • naomir 08/20/2010 at 19:27

    It seems we didn’t learn from the fiasco in Vietnam. How sad that Iraq will just become another war that accomplished absolutely nothing. Besides the lives lost and the tremendous sums of money spent we are left with a dubious legacy at best for our future generations. How do we explain that such a great country as the US is unable to defeat the enemies that threaten the basic freedoms of our friends. Israel would certainly do well to learn from this. It’s still not too late.

    Reply
  • White Eagle 08/21/2010 at 6:20

    Well, well, well … An ‘image-concious’ society Has Proved it’s Depth , America Tried to maintain some kind of ‘image’ in the Vietnam conflict , which only resulted in Disgrace for our Soldiers and Disgrace for our Leadership … NOW we have such a flimsy ‘Intelligence’ for any kind of Dealings of a Military or Political nature , that anyone can See right through us …. America is a shallow Whore … Not willing to make the necessary sacrifices for Virtue and Integrity , but rather to try to maintain ‘airs’ as though her kind of Love is the ‘Healing of the Nations’ . Insanity is the order of the day for the ‘good-ole’ U.S. of A. … I for one , Regret it ….

    Reply
  • MouthAgape 08/21/2010 at 8:48

    Bush…. What a disappointment.
    Anyone who knows this situation knows what must be done but there is no will, to do it. Probably because the media, doesn’t want it to happen and therefore undermines, every effort. Say! The same thing happens in Israel, doesn’t it? I wonder, if some of their family is killed, will it change their minds but I’m not going to hold my breath.
    Obama, well I wouldn’t count on his benevolence.
    The first thing you would have to do is, get him off his prayer rug. He is definitely not on the side of the righteous.
    The media has gotten everything they could have hoped for, out of him but now they’ve starting to distance themselves. I think they realize that at some point, there will be blame to fix, and that since they got him elected, it might fall upon them. They are absolutely correct about that.
    Amazing how right the Nazi’s and Soviets were about the effectiveness of propaganda. Their descendants have used it well, seemingly in every part of the world. They all appear to have the same ideology and goals.

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  • Geoffrey Britain 08/21/2010 at 14:37

    naomir asks,
    “How do we explain that such a great country as the US is unable to defeat the enemies that threaten the basic freedoms of our friends. Israel would certainly do well to learn from this. It’s still not too late.”
    Agreed, it’s not too late.
    What lessons shall Israel learn though? Many erroneous lessons are ‘learned’ through experience. In love, hearts betrayed and left broken often lead to never trusting that heart in love again.
    What we ‘learn’, the conclusions that we draw from experience are dependent upon the insights gained.
    If Israel’s public concludes that fighting ones opponents is a lost cause by accepting the left’s assertion that what happened in Lebanon and Iraq is ‘proof’ of the ineffectiveness of armed confrontation, it will have reached the conclusion that the left seeks.
    The US, Israeli and European Left’s opposition is why “such a great country as the US is unable to defeat the enemies that threaten the basic freedoms of our friends” they actively undermine and block any direct actions by Israel and the US to defeat our enemies.
    Why does the left do this? Is it because they’re inherently evil, the ‘bad’ guys?
    No, though certainly there are some on the left who are bad people, just as some on the right are bad people. But many on the liberal left are our friends and family and we know that they are good, reasonably intelligent people. Are they merely misinformed? Many of us have thought so but when we present all the logical reasons and common sense that support our view, they are rejected as irrelevant, so something else must be going on.
    What’s ‘going on’ is that they view the world through a different psychological ‘filter’ or paradigm, which leads to them viewing the circumstances differently, which leads them to perceive aggressive action as counter-productive or even seeing, what we view as an attack, as a reaction. See Israel Through European Eyes for an essential understanding of why this is so.
    Once you’ve done so and gained that understanding, consider that what people believe determines their actions and, in turn what they believe is the result of the paradigmatic set of filters they have accepted, which determines how they interpret events and what they thus think about those events. Which in turn determines how they feel about circumstances.
    So in brief, our paradigm (or world-view) determines our beliefs, which in turn create our perceptions, which in turn give rise to our thoughts, which in turn give rise to the emotions we experience. And our beliefs, thoughts and emotions drive our actions…
    Until we understand the particular paradigm the left operates under, we can’t examine it for any irrationalities, such as Europe’s belief that eliminating nation-states and implementing a one-world government can’t easily turn into ‘1984’ and oppress any dissent, with no outside force available to counter it. Truly, “a dictatorship of the proletariat”, otherwise known as a dictatorship of the mob and mobs are always led by demagogues.
    Which given the popularity on the left of the Star Wars movies with their antagonist ‘the evil empire’ is truly ironic. Of course they rationalize that the empire is only bad because of the ‘evil emperor’ and Darth Vader. That rationalization allows then to conveniently avoid the corollary of ‘the poor you shall always have with you’, which is that we shall always have those who seek power at any cost. It’s naiveté to presuppose that tyrants and their lust for power will disappear with the elimination of the nation-state.
    So we can’t construct a counter-paradigm,until we understand the left’s arguments, which spring from their paradigms. To sway the argument to our side, in the publics’ mind, which is critical if we are to turn this disaster in the making around…we must have a paradigm which supercedes their paradigm.
    In representative democracies like the US and Israel, the public determines leadership, who set the policies that the public will accept. Until the public awakes, nothing will change. Only compellingly challenging the left’s paradigm will effect that awakening. Until then, Israel will continue to be led by the left’s paradigm, in fits and starts to the gallows.

    Reply
  • ripalinsky 08/21/2010 at 21:29

    Jews everywhere “should” work for the success of Israel (against Iran and the current US political disaster) but they aren’t united either. I wonder if all the conflicts of the world are actually being fought by Jews against Jews, and the rest of us are clueless and powerless.

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  • ripalinsky 08/21/2010 at 21:40

    Remember, we’re dealing with the “last men” Ruling Class in America. They won’t help Israel (especially our Muslim President) but neither will they be able to stop Israel, if they are ignored. You seem to me to be absolutely right regarding Israel’s best strategy, I hope the leaders will listen to you. Israel seems be be without visual friends, but many cowardly world leaders are counting on Israel to do their fighting for them, like the US used to fight for right before its collapse.

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  • naomir 08/21/2010 at 22:59

    Geoffrey Britain asks me “What lessons shall Israel learn though?” Perhaps one of the biggest lessons to be learned is that giving into to pressure accomplishes nothing except total disrespect for us as a people and a nation. There can be absolutely no compromise when it comes to the Jewish state and her borders even if it means war. As long as Iran is allowed to control the governments of surrounding countries by threat of nuclear war there can be no peace. Talk is cheap and means nothing. It’s the actions that count.

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  • Ahmad Ameen 08/22/2010 at 2:50

    Geoffrey Britain says:
    “Islam is a religious/political/military ideology just as Nazism was and boldly and unequivocally proclaims its goal of world-wide conquest”
    Are you saying that Hitler was religiously motivated for the crimes he committed? if so, then you are accusing Christianity of its goal to world-wide conquest. You will never go public with your hate to Christians and Christianity as you would loose your support from the so called “west” you use frequently to hide Israel under that term pretending that Islam hate the “west.”
    You need to wake up to reality. Intellectuals in US and Europe have now passed that 50’s level of yours. Islamic law, Islamic finance, etc are now a subject of debate and soon of practical implementation in many non-Muslim countries, fueled by the spectacular collapse of the global capitalist financial system.
    Keep attacking Islam and Muslims, this will diffidently expand the circle of enemies of Israel. During the last six decades the conflict was engineered to be called Arab-Israeli, it is too disappointing that people like you are not active enough to turn it into an Islamic-Israeli one.

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  • marcel 08/22/2010 at 11:40

    Before Bushehr Israel was two for two on hitting unfriendly nuclear reactors.
    Iran broke Israel’s record of strength and deterrence and this is due to the Road Map and their red and green lights restraint on Israel for the fraudelent peace.
    The snared by the peace slaves of Israel are the last to realize that like Sampson their strength is gone by way of the trojan peace scam.
    Will Israel wake up in time ?

    Reply
  • Geoffrey Britain 08/22/2010 at 13:50

    Ahmad Ameen,
    As everyone knows, the Nazi’s were primarily atheists, so it’s not an exact analogy. As the ideological similarities between Islam and Nazism far outweigh the differences, your focusing on the one area where they differ, reveals itself to be… avoidance of the issue.
    I could care less what ‘support’ I have in the west or anywhere else, as empirical observations do not need agreement in order to remain accurate.
    Islam does hate the west, (because its not of Islam) and three pieces of empirical evidence undeniably support that assertion; the 12,000+ passages that call for aggression against the infidel in the Qur’an. The more than 13,000 terrorist attacks against Islam’s neighbors since 9/11. And the Qur’an’s explicit direction (God’s explicit direction!) to Muslims to place ALL non-Muslim country’s in the category of “Dar al-Harb” The House of WAR…
    “You need to wake up to reality. Intellectuals in US and Europe have now passed that 50’s level of yours.”
    You mean wake-up to your definition of reality? How convenient for you. The ‘intellectuals’ in the US and Europe to which you refer are moral cowards, who’ve adopted a world-view (Israel Through European Eyes), which allows them to rationalize appeasement, when faced with criminality on a national level.
    It’s true that “Islamic law, Islamic finance, etc are now a subject of debate and soon of practical implementation in many non-Muslim countries”, you pretend it’s a viable substitute for capitalism, I and many others maintain that it’s ‘stealth Jihad’ another example of Taqqiya and that “Islamic law” or Shariah law is fundamentally incompatible with western legal premises, the US Constitution and a despicable form of legal slavery.
    The spectacular collapse of the ‘global capitalist financial system’ is the result of two things, neither of which have anything to do with Islam; the rise of the entitlement mentality in the west, otherwise known as “democratic socialism”, which allowed people to temporarily live beyond their means. And the disconnection of western currencies from an actual, material store of value.
    That disconnection was precipitated by Pres. Nixon and the US Congress in 1971. Disconnecting the US dollar (the world’s default currency) from Gold (the standard measure) forced the rest of the west to follow suit and resulted in an explosion of credit, which the west has been living off of ever since.
    Global capitalism didn’t fail, it’s delivering exactly what the perverter’s of that system have created. Economic laws, such as supply and demand, don’t change simply because nations find them politically inconvenient.
    Until someone logically demonstrates where my premises, extending logic and conclusions are in error, I shall keep speaking out, as to the truth as I understand it, about Islam and Muslims. I welcome you or anyone else demonstrating how I am in error, do you welcome the opposite? I think not.
    Israel’s enemies can’t expand beyond their present limits, those who deny her right to self-defense have already declared their allegiance.
    Your seeking to dishonestly retain the categorization of the regional conflict in the M.E. as solely an “Arab-Israeli” one, by denying that it is merely a regional part of the the global Islamic-Western conflict is pathetically inadequate.
    Islam’s actions speak louder than it’s words.
    Good luck with your attempts at trying to make reality fit into your 7th century tribal view.

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  • Ben Cohen 08/23/2010 at 15:23

    The Real Agenda, stated in documents for “The New American Century” written by Dick Cheney, William Kristol and Donald Rumsfeld among others is a two fold agenda.
    One, to deny Russia and China middle eastern oil and establish Anglo-American domination through control of the “crossroads” of the world. Second, is to eliminate all monotheistic religions through turmoil and wars, plagues and controlled weather manipulation. Destroy all Religions (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) in a final war of extermination. Establishing a One World Secular Order. Establish Three trading blocks, Eastern Asia, Mideast and Central Europe, and Western Europe, and the Americas. Playing the three groups off against one another for a period of around 100 years. Then, when chaos has destroyed all, reveal the “true light” of the world and Lucifer will reign for 1000 years. At least that’s the plan.
    Source: The Project for the New American Century
    Albert Pikes, Letter to Mazzini
    google it.

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  • anonymous 08/24/2010 at 9:56

    Geoffrey
    Obama’s paradeigm and the European one are now one. Howeve some similarities have always existed, the United States has always prevented Israel from fully defeating her enemies.

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  • anonymous 08/24/2010 at 10:01

    The Iranians don’t need a Bomb, all they need is a meshumad like Netanyahu. However a Bomb gives him more excuses to make suicidal consessions to the Muslims and allow his kapos to beat up Jews and allow his Arab friends to abuse and murder Jews.

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  • anonymous 08/25/2010 at 10:34

    Correction. Geoffrey your reference notes that actually Kuhn did not exactly come to the conclusion that the old generation has to pass away first and that it was Max Plank’s idea. My reading of Kuhn I’m inclined to think he agrees with Plank unless to extrapolate from Kuhn one has to posit that the old paradigm has so many loopholes, patches, and insistancies that the new simpler paradigm makes more sense and gains more adherants while the old one loses adherants by attrition.
    I think the leftist, appeasment paradigm will be definitely shown to be deficient when every church in Europe has been converted into a mosque and Sha’aria law completely imposed.

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