It looks obvious

So when neoconservatives talk about spreading Freedom and Democracy this is what they have in mind:

We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to U.S. interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn’t like that, he can go to hell.

I probably got confused a little bit since this is sound very much like colonialism. But I guess this what it was all along….

The short review of the previous round of armed conflict between the US and Iran is very interesting. It add some missing perspective. I would be very careful drawing conclusions from this article toward possible strike against Iran now. It is very interesting to note how just few years before the first gulf war the different countries played different rolls:

When its shipping came under attack, Iran retaliated against Kuwait, a financial supporter of Iraq, by focusing its attacks on Kuwaiti-bound ships. Under heavy pressure, Kuwait turned to the U.S. with the idea of re-flagging some of its tankers. In January 1987, the U.S. agreed to place Kuwaiti ships under the Stars and Stripes, and dispatched naval forces to the Gulf to protect them.

The U.S. escort plan was code-named “Operation Earnest Will.” To avoid errant attacks by the Iraqis, such as the one that had occurred against the USS Stark in May 1987, the U.S. worked closely with Saddam Hussein’s regime. To facilitate communication between Iraqi jets and U.S. ships, a UHF monitoring frequency was provided to the Iraqis on a monthly basis by the U.S. military attaché in Baghdad. The U.S. also supplied Iraq with the convoy routes in advance. In light of subsequent events, this fairly extensive U.S.-Iraqi cooperation has been kept very low profile.

The close alliance between Iraq, Quwait and the US seems very unlikely just few years after when it was important to, finally, notice how villain was Saddam Hussein.

I don’t envy the frustration of the relief workers trying to access Myanmar and help the survivors. The military regime in Myanmar was evil before the current disaster and it demonstrate, again, its horrible nature after the cyclone hit. But calls to invade Myanmar are unwise and irresponsible:

That’s why it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — “I can’t imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it’s not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government’s consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan.

The urge to do something in face of crisis, or evil, is well understood. However we have enough experience that such invasion isn’t as simple, short live, effort. Considering using military force, that will change the current balance in East Asia can’t ignore the interest and the reactions of other countries in that region - china is the most prominent of them. Moreover, those who advocate for such invasion usually ignore the assumed responsibilities by the invading countries after they successfully invade. Such efforts aren’t limited to relief effort but must include developing replacement for the previous regime. We don’t need to search historical cases, although we can, since the results of such efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq can alerts us to the unavoidable failure such efforts brings.

Armies are limited organizations - they can capture and area, defend it and destroy enemy forces. Observer tend to get illusion concept of the military abilities because they are comparatively efficient, disciplined and can execute tasks in short notice. One can use the military forces successfully to deploy relief efforts. But using armies to achieve political outcome such as nation building, developing a healthy political culture and other dreamed goals - never worked and there is no reason to believe that will magically work in Myanmar.

Furthermore, even if we assume that there is a chance for successes for the foreign invasion, one have to wonder if global strategy of removing evil regimes is based not on well thought plan but rather on natural disaster. Is Myanmar the worse place for its people in the world today? Or is it simply the current news focus? The rush to war is yet again premature, not fully thought and will lead to even worse results than avoiding such course of action

There are basically only two reason to go to war - “Positive” and “Negative”. The terms might be somewhat confusing as Negative war is a defensive, and it is negative only because the goal of the war is to prevent from your adversaries to achieve their goal. It is important to note that the positive war or usually the immoral one, the imperialistic and those who tend to fail at the end. The call for invasion into other country, regardless of its motives, is a call for the wrong kind of war.

If hell exist, they are preparing in it a special place for Prof. Henry Kissinger. That being said, this interview of Mike Wallace with Kissinger from July 1958 is nothing short than fascinating. It is fascinating not only because of Kissinger, and his answers, but also because of the high quality of the interviewer. One cannot ignore also the rather interesting position Kissinger took on his future boss…

When the “National Security and Foreign Affairs expert” candidate is not so expert, how worry should we be?

Obviously doesn’t need to be an expert on every detail around the globe, however it seems logical that the experienced candidate will have the basic understanding of the regions he is committing his army for a 100 years of colonialism. On the other hand details are often just annoying and disturbing when a President is busy dreaming about “national greatness” so it is much simpler to ignore them…

Lets assume for argument sake that the reason we invaded Iraq was to spread democracy. We will have the leap of fate that the administration’s doctrine was that the tyranny and lack of hope in the Middle-East are one of the major reason for the radical islamic terrorism and the best strategy to address it is by changing the conditions in the Middle-East. This is by the way isn’t cynical approach rather than a well argued and very influential concept advocated by scholars, such as Fouad Ajami.

We should expect that the American policies would aimed at increasing freedom, and ensuring that the horrifying methods used by Sadam Hussein - such as his secret police and their interrogations methods. Doing the opposite is a sign that either we never really intended to change the Middle East, or that their is no real connection between our strategic goals and the tactic we are using to achieve them: 

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s government has been quietly bringing back into service Saddam-era intelligence agents who have experience spying on Iranians.

The effort is aimed at improving Iraq’s ability to gather intelligence about Iranian-supported networks operating in Iraq, said Dan Maguire, the top U.S. adviser on intelligence.

[...]

U.S. officials have approved of the practice of bringing back some former agents. Maguire said the hiring of former agents had "a lot of logic to it." He said he did not know how many agents would be affected by the ban on Baath Party members nor how many Saddam-era agents have been brought back.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry intelligence department has been seeking "former regime intelligence officers, primarily ones that worked against the Iranian target," Maguire said.

Bringing agents back to work is fraught with risk, said Wayne White, a former deputy director of the State Department’s Middle East intelligence office.

Because their "business was human rights violations," White said, those "who functioned in that environment must be to some degree morally warped."

One the other hand, with the assaults on Human Rights back at home one might argue that we are spreading the American democracy….

Gotcha, McCain.

The truth is that there is no real difference between the two situation - only that during the peace keeping mission in Somalia was during the Clinton administration and the non neoconservative in the GOP advocated for limited intervention.