War about the War: Analysis

As anyone who has read my earlier posts can probably guess, I subscribe to Perception One as described by Mr. Meyer. Bin Laden and others have stated time and again the intended objective is to establish a Islamic fundamentalist caliphate in the Middle East, centered on Iraq with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Palestine (including Israel), Lebanon, Jordan and probably northern Africa all included.

From there, this caliphate would seek to destroy western civilization, which for all intents and purposes includes the United States, Europe (basically all of it), Australia, India and southeast Asia. (What they'd do in regards to China and Japan would be interesting to speculate about, but only in a work of fiction.) These civilizations would be replaced with states loyal and subservient to this caliphate. So there is a lot at stake here, assuming Al-Qaeda ever gets the resources to pull any of this off. Ostensibly, keeping Al-Qaeda from acquiring these resources (land, oil, weaponry, etc.) is what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are all about at present.

The second point the author makes is that President Bush, while dogged in his determination to stop Al-Qaeda, has assumed a middle, and rather muddled, path in prosecuting both wars. While I disagree with parts of Bush's overall approach; it can't be denied that using excessive force that inadvertently kills innocents not only riles up more support for the bad guys, but also hurts support among those who subscribe to Perception 2. For most Americans, a short, brutal war would probably be preferable to a long, drawn-out war of a thousand cuts.

That being said, it is unfortunately true that a second 9/11 style attack, particularly in Europe, will most likely have to succeed to wake up most of the European elite to the true threat these terrorists present. Also unfortunate, is that depending on the nation attacked, especially if it is the United Kingdom, support from other European countries to assist us in the Iraq and Afghani theaters may be lukewarm at best, as these countries would most likely want to beef up anti-terrorism strategies and tactics at home first.

Of course, if this attack occurs in the United States, we will surely wake up from our media-saturated and economically-successful slumber. And depending on where the attack is, as well as the number of casualties, world support for aggressively counter-attacking regimes supporting Al-Qaeda, such as Iran, Syria and the Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan, could grow even beyond post-9/11 levels.

This has been one of the key elements that's been missing from our strategy since invading Iraq. While I do not believe invading Iran or Syria is either feasible, nor necessary at this point, aggressive economic sanctions on both regimes would damage their ability to support their proxy wars in Iraq, Lebanon and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. I would go so far as to blockade the Persian Gulf, prohibiting all shipping to and from Iran. At present, Iran is unable to supply enough gasoline for its own people, due to a lack of refining capacity. Much of their surplus oil leaves the country, is refined, and then traded back to Iran. Eliminating, or at least retarding this trade, could cripple the Iranian economy, pushing the populace's patience with the clerical regime, already short, over the edge. In the case of Iran, regime change could come from within, and because the populace is much more homogeneous than Iraq, where a minority ethnic group dominated the majority under the old regime, stability could be achieved in a much less painful fashion.

As for Syria, the elimination of Assad's most important ally would most likely be enough to make the Assad regime play nice and perhaps even issue a Gaddafi-style mea culpa.

The final paragraph of Meyer's article is articulate reasoning about how American society seems
hard-coded to be pushed to the edge before finally dealing with serious problems. As I think about it, this isn't confined to foreign threats as in the World Wars or even the Cold War. Domestically, problems ranging from the Civil War to race relations have to boil over before we, as a nation, confront and deal with them. Sadly this seems to be true for our over-extended positions on Medicare and Social Security as well. But that...is for a future post.