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Re: Of Realists, and Madmen.
Rajiv -
Thanks for the videos of Lt. Gen. William Odom. We should indeed have a man of this intelligence at the NSA or on the Joint Chiefs of Staff today. I also applaud his insights and conclusions - very hard-headed and pragmatic.
However answer me this: How do these posted videos answer any of the points I've raised? Where have I made any direct endorsement to widening of the current war or even it's prolongation? The answer is "no".
You may be falling into the same stereotyping which informed Jeff and Phirang's objections, i.e. that you imagine you are addressing an apologist for this war? Is it possible you are assuming that someone who disagrees with even just portions of your arguments "must be subscribing" to a foolishly unqualified support for the Iraq war?
What I notice with some wry amusement, is that all the objections I've read here uniformly ignore the fact that all I've posted here has merely called attention to Iran's evident financial and direct arms support to Hezbollah, and Hamas, as well as divers small Shia groups in Iraq.
Why are you guys not expending a single breath denying this is true? Could it be that you consider the odds of debunking this assertion are slim?
You really don't have any argument with me regarding Lt. Gen. Odom's testimony. I agreed emphatically with his entire assessment, save the last conclusion, which he offered on the final CNBC interview - which given his quite evident intelligence otherwise, left me wondering whether his last comment was conciously or unconsciously inconsistent with all the rest of his testimony - he asserts that in the absence of a US presence in Iraq, Iranian 'meddling' in the form of active support for militias would 'subside'.
I submit to you, despite the remarkable authority which is evident in his testimony, that this is manifestly a partial, or glossed over assessment of the reality.
Why? Because Iran have been very actively funding and arming Hezbollah and later Hamas, to the point of instigating hot shooting wars, well before 09/11, George W. Bush, or the Afghanistan or Iraq wars started. Where is the consistency or acuity of Lt. Gen. Odom's argument - when it's quite clear that Iran was actively funding Hezbollah's systematic dismantlement of the Lebanese state even back when Bill Clinton was first inaugurated?
Iran was funding and arming Hezbollah's challenge to the Lebanese Government many years ago, which left to it's own devices would have long since cemented a peace treaty with Israel. Iranian funding of Hezbollah was so pernicious and so toxic to the peace in that region, that it culminated in a full fledged UN investigation (which promptly went nowhere) of President Assad of Syria's assassination of Rafik Hariri, the premier of a neighboring country to Syria. That's Iran acting, during a period when no other wars were occurring in the middle east, the US presence was nowhere in sight. It stretched on for years, steadily building up Hezbollah's growth and subversion of the Lebanese state.
The UN investigation of top echelons of the Assad family, and of the Syrian Military's involvement in Hariri's assassination was getting so close to an indictment of Assad himself, that Assad found it necessary to goad Hezbollah (they receive all their arms and money through Syria) into starting another shooting war with Israel in '06 precisely to derail that UN investigation into their complicity - and it was direct complicity in the murder of an adjacent sovereign country's premier? This is what I posted comments about to begin with - and it is precisely the point which Lt. Gen. Odom's analysis skirts delicately around.
Why would he skirt delicately around this point?
Yes, the US commitment to Iraq is indeed manifestly untenable, and prolonging the conflict will put us far deeper into the mire. But reality is often presented in the form of a paradox, and in this circumstance the paradox is that Iran has manifestly demonstrated, well before the Iraq conflict, that it has an extremely audacious, intrusive and irresponsible propensity to meddle very dangerously in neighboring countries, with militias, with arms, and with propaganda aimed precisely at neutering and eventually gobbling up their sovereign government - and you can take LEBANON as your prime example.
I've scanned the various contributor comments here and this is where I think a lot of you have some rather large partisan 'blinkers' on. Taking your blinkers off will irrevocably complicate your view of the merits we expect to see accruing from the end of this war. My suggestion is that what follows this war, in terms of shifts in the balance of influences for peace or war in the region, will be treacherous and large, seriously affecting Kuwait, Lebanon, Israel, and the balance of influence between hot-head fundamentalist hysterics such as Hezbollah and more pragmatic players such as Jordan or the secular and democratic Fouad Saniora government in Lebanon (now on it's way out).
The complexity of these observations about ramifications would seriously compromise Gen. Odom's suggestion that a pull-out may have a benign dividend at some point. It in most probability will not, given the evidence of history. That certainly does not imply a pull out is not critical for the US to aim towards - in fact as he notes, it's even now imperative - but it's a quite large WHITE-WASH of the probable consequences. The idea that Iran's proven propensity to meddle in foreign nations will subside with a US withdrawal is manifestly not borne out by the previous regional history, and that is what he so notably declines to mention.
An abrupt departure from Iraq does not only leave the Iraqi conflict to deepen and worsen, as he acknowledges - it also offers to Iran a clear green light to become ever bolder in it's manipulation of Lebanon, right to the point of collapsing the last vestiges of it's civilian government and turning Lebanon into a 100% hollowed out Hezbollah stronghold (it already is on the edge of that), which together with the hollowed out shell of a Palestinian state which is the Hamas stronghold in Gaza, will turn two entire nation groups, the Palestinian and the Lebanese peoples, into 100% wholly owned proxies for further relentless goading of the Israelis into that "definitive conflict" which has obsessed the Mullahs in Iran for more than two decades.
FACT: This country has very amply demonstrated with vigor and great consistency their interest in pursuing this strategy for decades, yet Lt. Gen. Odom does not mention it as relevant. If he's an intelligence or strategic / military analyst, this oversight or omission in that testimony is not a minor one.
You people are talking around the issues I raised, not addressing them directly. I am not pro-Iraq war. I think the Iraq war is a disaster, and I think 98% of Lt. Gen. Odom's analysis is correct. But the 2% which he glosses over is critical - perhaps the most critical aspect of the Iraq war aftermath - what Iran will do once it is emboldened by a US withdrawal.
For Lt. Gen. Odom to suggest at the end of his powerful testimony that this is a 'non-issue' is the one glaring anomaly to his otherwise commanding and very astute statement to the US senate.
Of course the US needs to end this war. But don't kid yourselves for a minute that this will not have seriously ugly, critically ugly repercussions, for the last scraps of a non-Hezbollah government in Lebanon, nor that Kuwait's security will not see a substantial deterioration, nor that the tensions between Iran and the Sunni States on the West side of the Arabian Gulf will improve, and in the final analysis, at least to my view, that Iran will become in net terms a better neighbor to Iraq in the aftermath.
Insofar as the aftermath of a US withdrawal involves warlords and a bloody free for all until a new strongman emerges as Odom describes, Iran will be in the thick of it - Why? Because they have quite manifestly been in the thick of it elsewhere for decades, so what disingenuous person would then conclude they would not then practice the same 'foreign policy' in Iraq, when the US are gone?
If you think these factors, particularly Lebanon's final surrender to the virus of the Hezbollah, will be minor you are kidding yourselves.
Your presentation of Gen. Odom's testimony as some kind of drastic rebuttal of what I've brought to your attention is a non-answer. You are talking right over my shoulder, past the observations of how toxic Iran has manifestly been in neighboring nations for decades, and you are talking to some imagined pro-Bush administration dummy. I was fully aware of the essentials of Lt. Gen. Odom's assessment for a good long while, and fully agree with them. It is you, not I, who need to broaden your scrutiny to the surrounding factors - and ask yourself if you have fully understood the role Iran has played in this region for the past twenty years.
Their footprints extend all the way out to assassinations of dissidents in Europe, to bombing of synagogues in Argentina across the decades, in their dogged pursuit of a sickly amalgam of theology with racism, with geopolitical machinations. But they sure don't seem to find very stern or outspoken critics among those who have responded on this thread.
And with regard to Lt. Gen. Odom being a realist - well, yes, he evidently is - but I suspect he's not offering up the full extent of his own understanding of the ramifications after the US withdrawal.
Rajiv -
Thanks for the videos of Lt. Gen. William Odom. We should indeed have a man of this intelligence at the NSA or on the Joint Chiefs of Staff today. I also applaud his insights and conclusions - very hard-headed and pragmatic.
However answer me this: How do these posted videos answer any of the points I've raised? Where have I made any direct endorsement to widening of the current war or even it's prolongation? The answer is "no".
You may be falling into the same stereotyping which informed Jeff and Phirang's objections, i.e. that you imagine you are addressing an apologist for this war? Is it possible you are assuming that someone who disagrees with even just portions of your arguments "must be subscribing" to a foolishly unqualified support for the Iraq war?
What I notice with some wry amusement, is that all the objections I've read here uniformly ignore the fact that all I've posted here has merely called attention to Iran's evident financial and direct arms support to Hezbollah, and Hamas, as well as divers small Shia groups in Iraq.
Why are you guys not expending a single breath denying this is true? Could it be that you consider the odds of debunking this assertion are slim?
You really don't have any argument with me regarding Lt. Gen. Odom's testimony. I agreed emphatically with his entire assessment, save the last conclusion, which he offered on the final CNBC interview - which given his quite evident intelligence otherwise, left me wondering whether his last comment was conciously or unconsciously inconsistent with all the rest of his testimony - he asserts that in the absence of a US presence in Iraq, Iranian 'meddling' in the form of active support for militias would 'subside'.
I submit to you, despite the remarkable authority which is evident in his testimony, that this is manifestly a partial, or glossed over assessment of the reality.
Why? Because Iran have been very actively funding and arming Hezbollah and later Hamas, to the point of instigating hot shooting wars, well before 09/11, George W. Bush, or the Afghanistan or Iraq wars started. Where is the consistency or acuity of Lt. Gen. Odom's argument - when it's quite clear that Iran was actively funding Hezbollah's systematic dismantlement of the Lebanese state even back when Bill Clinton was first inaugurated?
Iran was funding and arming Hezbollah's challenge to the Lebanese Government many years ago, which left to it's own devices would have long since cemented a peace treaty with Israel. Iranian funding of Hezbollah was so pernicious and so toxic to the peace in that region, that it culminated in a full fledged UN investigation (which promptly went nowhere) of President Assad of Syria's assassination of Rafik Hariri, the premier of a neighboring country to Syria. That's Iran acting, during a period when no other wars were occurring in the middle east, the US presence was nowhere in sight. It stretched on for years, steadily building up Hezbollah's growth and subversion of the Lebanese state.
The UN investigation of top echelons of the Assad family, and of the Syrian Military's involvement in Hariri's assassination was getting so close to an indictment of Assad himself, that Assad found it necessary to goad Hezbollah (they receive all their arms and money through Syria) into starting another shooting war with Israel in '06 precisely to derail that UN investigation into their complicity - and it was direct complicity in the murder of an adjacent sovereign country's premier? This is what I posted comments about to begin with - and it is precisely the point which Lt. Gen. Odom's analysis skirts delicately around.
Why would he skirt delicately around this point?
Yes, the US commitment to Iraq is indeed manifestly untenable, and prolonging the conflict will put us far deeper into the mire. But reality is often presented in the form of a paradox, and in this circumstance the paradox is that Iran has manifestly demonstrated, well before the Iraq conflict, that it has an extremely audacious, intrusive and irresponsible propensity to meddle very dangerously in neighboring countries, with militias, with arms, and with propaganda aimed precisely at neutering and eventually gobbling up their sovereign government - and you can take LEBANON as your prime example.
I've scanned the various contributor comments here and this is where I think a lot of you have some rather large partisan 'blinkers' on. Taking your blinkers off will irrevocably complicate your view of the merits we expect to see accruing from the end of this war. My suggestion is that what follows this war, in terms of shifts in the balance of influences for peace or war in the region, will be treacherous and large, seriously affecting Kuwait, Lebanon, Israel, and the balance of influence between hot-head fundamentalist hysterics such as Hezbollah and more pragmatic players such as Jordan or the secular and democratic Fouad Saniora government in Lebanon (now on it's way out).
The complexity of these observations about ramifications would seriously compromise Gen. Odom's suggestion that a pull-out may have a benign dividend at some point. It in most probability will not, given the evidence of history. That certainly does not imply a pull out is not critical for the US to aim towards - in fact as he notes, it's even now imperative - but it's a quite large WHITE-WASH of the probable consequences. The idea that Iran's proven propensity to meddle in foreign nations will subside with a US withdrawal is manifestly not borne out by the previous regional history, and that is what he so notably declines to mention.
An abrupt departure from Iraq does not only leave the Iraqi conflict to deepen and worsen, as he acknowledges - it also offers to Iran a clear green light to become ever bolder in it's manipulation of Lebanon, right to the point of collapsing the last vestiges of it's civilian government and turning Lebanon into a 100% hollowed out Hezbollah stronghold (it already is on the edge of that), which together with the hollowed out shell of a Palestinian state which is the Hamas stronghold in Gaza, will turn two entire nation groups, the Palestinian and the Lebanese peoples, into 100% wholly owned proxies for further relentless goading of the Israelis into that "definitive conflict" which has obsessed the Mullahs in Iran for more than two decades.
FACT: This country has very amply demonstrated with vigor and great consistency their interest in pursuing this strategy for decades, yet Lt. Gen. Odom does not mention it as relevant. If he's an intelligence or strategic / military analyst, this oversight or omission in that testimony is not a minor one.
You people are talking around the issues I raised, not addressing them directly. I am not pro-Iraq war. I think the Iraq war is a disaster, and I think 98% of Lt. Gen. Odom's analysis is correct. But the 2% which he glosses over is critical - perhaps the most critical aspect of the Iraq war aftermath - what Iran will do once it is emboldened by a US withdrawal.
For Lt. Gen. Odom to suggest at the end of his powerful testimony that this is a 'non-issue' is the one glaring anomaly to his otherwise commanding and very astute statement to the US senate.
Of course the US needs to end this war. But don't kid yourselves for a minute that this will not have seriously ugly, critically ugly repercussions, for the last scraps of a non-Hezbollah government in Lebanon, nor that Kuwait's security will not see a substantial deterioration, nor that the tensions between Iran and the Sunni States on the West side of the Arabian Gulf will improve, and in the final analysis, at least to my view, that Iran will become in net terms a better neighbor to Iraq in the aftermath.
Insofar as the aftermath of a US withdrawal involves warlords and a bloody free for all until a new strongman emerges as Odom describes, Iran will be in the thick of it - Why? Because they have quite manifestly been in the thick of it elsewhere for decades, so what disingenuous person would then conclude they would not then practice the same 'foreign policy' in Iraq, when the US are gone?
If you think these factors, particularly Lebanon's final surrender to the virus of the Hezbollah, will be minor you are kidding yourselves.
Your presentation of Gen. Odom's testimony as some kind of drastic rebuttal of what I've brought to your attention is a non-answer. You are talking right over my shoulder, past the observations of how toxic Iran has manifestly been in neighboring nations for decades, and you are talking to some imagined pro-Bush administration dummy. I was fully aware of the essentials of Lt. Gen. Odom's assessment for a good long while, and fully agree with them. It is you, not I, who need to broaden your scrutiny to the surrounding factors - and ask yourself if you have fully understood the role Iran has played in this region for the past twenty years.
Their footprints extend all the way out to assassinations of dissidents in Europe, to bombing of synagogues in Argentina across the decades, in their dogged pursuit of a sickly amalgam of theology with racism, with geopolitical machinations. But they sure don't seem to find very stern or outspoken critics among those who have responded on this thread.
And with regard to Lt. Gen. Odom being a realist - well, yes, he evidently is - but I suspect he's not offering up the full extent of his own understanding of the ramifications after the US withdrawal.
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