Lose Afghanistan, Lose Pakistan, Lose Iran, Lose It All

From The American Thinker and James Lewis

October 06, 2009


Lose Afghanistan, Lose Pakistan, Lose Iran, Lose It All

By James Lewis

The gangster regimes of the world are on the march, and they've got our number. They know how to squeeze more civilized nations. Our weakness is cowardice, and that goes double or triple in the face of nuclear weapons. That's why all the rogues are trying to get nukes as fast as they can. They know it's the perfect blackmail weapon, and it makes them invulnerable to attack.

That is also why President Obama's public rejection of General McChrystal's advice on Afghanistan affects your personal safety and mine. Gen. McChrystal wants more troops. Obama doesn't want to send them because he needs the money to promote his socialist take-over of America. You can't have both. Look at Europe, where the military have become pathetic social welfare programs. All the air is sucked out by bigger and bigger victim programs.

Obama must be realizing by now that the chance of a major war in the Gulf next year is rising to 100 percent. Ahmadinejad will have nuclear weapons too, and he already has enough radioactive materials for a dirty nuke, a low-tech weapon that can spread terror everywhere in the world. The Left always puts the burden of proof for WMDs on America, which can never prove their existence because the CIA rarely can penetrate totalitarian regimes. You can't prove a negative. Ever. So the Left is always asking the impossible. It makes them sound reasonable when they are just sabotaging common sense.

But Saddam had a warehouse full of yellowcake uranium, as we now know, and to make a terror weapon all he had to do is load a plane full of that stuff and crash it into the LA Library Tower. You don't need a nuclear explosion to spread terror. All you need is a lot of radioactive stuff thrown together with explosive; agricultural fertilizer will do. For radioactive material you could use the Cesium in your local X-ray unit. Saddam did not do that because he feared our inevitable retaliation.

If Israel attacks Tehran, the Iranians will try to retaliate, either by a missile strike or by local attacks using Hezbollah and Hamas. If Israel does not attack Tehran, the Iranians will try to attack Tel Aviv anyway, because it is the key plank in their ideological doctrine, the one they have been chanting about for thirty years. For Israel it's just in the difference in the timing of an inevitable war. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. So it makes more sense for Israel to attack first, and expect to defend immediately against Iranian retaliation. It is far, far better to do that before the Iranians get actual nukes.

If Obama expects to stay out of that battle, good luck. The Iranians are just as likely to strike the Saudi oil fields (fifty miles away), the Gulf sheikhdoms, the US military in Iraq, the US Navy in the Gulf, or Israel. Israel is the best-defended state in the region. Unlike the Arab states Israel has proven retaliatory capacity. The Arabs have to rely on us, but if we don't come through and defend them successfully, the Saudis are all ready to import nuclear weapons from Pakistan. They've already paid for them by financing Paki nuke development.

So the United States will be drawn into an East Asian or Gulf war. There's no way it can stay out. Unless of course we want a war to spread wider.

As soon as rogue nations get their nukes we are in completely unknown territory. Nothing in the US-Soviet balance of power over the last sixty years is guaranteed to work anymore. The nuclear balance will not have two sides, but half a dozen. Tehran preaches suicide warfare, the first regime to do so since Tojo's Japan sixty years ago. Pakistan does not, but if Pakistan is taken over by the Taliban, you can't trust that any more. India certainly will not trust Islamic radicals with nuclear weapons next door.

So everything depends upon vigorous American action. That's what McChrystal has undoubtedly been telling Obama behind the scenes. We know that the General decided to go public at the risk of his career. That means Obama was resisting the iron logic of reality. He is by far the most unqualified president ever to occupy the office in a time of grave national danger. He's no Washington, no Lincoln, no Truman, no FDR, no JFK, and no George W. Bush. If he can learn quickly enough, he might be able to rise to their level of courage and realism. If not, the world is back to 1939 and Hitler's invasion of Poland.

Will the United States back Israel in a preemptive war? If so, and if preemptive strikes succeed, we can keep the rogues in their place. Beating down Iranian nukes will signal to the other rogues that nuclear weapons are not the ace in the hole they think it is.

That is why Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan, AfPak, is a historic watershed moment. If we lose in Afghanistan and the Taliban win, and they can combine with their brethren in Pakistan to get control over a nuclear weapon, and we will see an Al Qaeda look-alike with nukes. That's what Cheney and Bush were warning us about. India can't afford that, and they are quickly arming up. China can't afford it either.

The same logic applies to Iran. Ahmadinejad has been threatening not just Israel and the United States, but the Saudis and Gulf States. The Saudis have financed Pakistan's nuclear program to be able import them instantly, as soon as Tehran gets its own.

It is the United States that keeps its finger in this dike. Pull that finger out, and we'll see a flood.

So we lose, and the world does, too, if we don't beat down the threat. If we succeed in defending the world in alliance with other countries, we will survive and the gangster regimes will be held back.

Welcome to Obama's Choice.
The White House debate on Afghanistan is therefore critical. That is why General McChrystal is risking his career by going public, and why the White House is sneering at him in public, the way they do. But McChrystal was appointed just ten months ago as the best expert in the Petraeus anti-insurgency doctrine. There aren't any better military leaders for this kind of conflict. His willingness to go public shows what kind of values he has.

Obama is now where he dreamed of being: Making a huge life-or-death decision on civilization. He has never shown any comprehension of America's strategic aims and doctrines in the last sixty years. I can only guess that he is getting intensive tutoring right now by General Jones and SecDef Robert Gates; maybe even by Hillary and Bill. Anybody with credibility will do.

If Obama makes the wrong decision, start digging that hole in your back yard. It'll be a long-term investment, because you'll want a bomb shelter for years to come.

This could be the real Obama Stimulus Plan.

Israel is bound and determined to defend herself. If the United States fails to back an Israeli attack on Tehran they will do it anyway. The US will then be caught in the middle, along with Saudi Arabia and all the rest.

There is no substitute for successful preemption. Bush and Cheney tried to point out those harsh realities, but they were shut out by our fantasy-driven media. The Left chose to close its eyes and ears to the plain facts.

Now Obama is in charge.
We're waiting for the answer. So are the gangster regimes.