NOTHING COMES FROM THE "REALIST" CRITIQUE OF PRESIDENT BUSH



A brief reply to Steven Clemons Washington Note
Con George-Kotzabasis

"Enlightened" realists, like Clemons and many others, do not realize that America being the sole superpower is in the unenviable position of being damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. But in a world that is ominously threatened by global terror and Islamofascist states such as Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons, it's better to be damned for doing things--even if one commits mistakes as a result of the huge scale of one's involvement and the uncertainties of war--than for doing nothing. Of course, if one does nothing ("nothing comes out of nothing", King Lear) one will be totally exempt from committing any mistakes.

Hence in the setting of the war against global terror and its state sponsors, the critique of the so called realists is completely misplaced and unproductive. It would have been more productive if they had corrected the errors of the Bush administration in the context of the war against global terror, instead of "decontextualizing" the war by an withdrawal of US forces from Iraq because of these errors. An withdrawal from Iraq before its security was accomplished would leave a political and military vacuum in the country that would be exploited by the Jihadists as a tremendous victory over the US, and would deal a deadly blow to the strategy of the latter against global terror. Furthermore, it would hurl the region into a maelstrom that would threaten the lives of millions of people as the present regimes would fight to the death to hold their power. All this will be achieved with the compliments of the shallow critics of the war and the political dilettantes of Congress, such as Nancy Pelosi, who want to put conditions upon the military and on general Petraeus how to fight the war.

LEADERS MADE UP ON THE ROLL OF THE DICE.

Con George-Kotzabasis

The following is an extract from my book Unveiling The War Against Terror, published in May 9, 2004. The article was written on September 24, 2003


There was always a lurking suspicion, that Gareth Evans' projection on the firmament of Australian politics as Foreign Minister, was not propelled by the force of egregious merit, but by the force of the "roll of the dice", as played in the numbers game of the "witless men" of the Labor Party. This suspicion was confirmed by the former Minister himself, by his intellectually tasteless and insipid, not to say brutal and banal, Hawke Lecture, mocking and deriding American Foreign Policy in the bombastiloquent, colorful, and jesting terms of a court jester. Obviously, your Chairman was more concerned with entertaining and beguiling his audience than enlightening it, although one must admit, that enlightenment cannot burst forth from an 'eclipsed star'.

His “hors d' oeuvres”, to quote him, was the most eclectically bitter anti-Americanism one could taste. It was either the reaction of a prima donna who had been shunned, or of a political guru whose advice and pearls of wisdom were not allowed to trespass the corridors of power. After a litany of syndromes of medical and clinical psychology, which are so alluring and beloved by the progressive intelligentsia, after an array of run-of-the-mill accusations against the Bush Administration, such as "current enemies used to be friends" etc., which seem to reveal more the caliber of his diplomatic and political acumen, than the fault lines of the Administration's foreign policy, and after his crude and brutish metaphors, such as "the top dog on the global block" (one can only ask about such a literary creation, was it an outcome of a syndrome of deprived imagination?), oblivious of the fact or shuffling it away, that it was this "dog" who saved the world from the twin miasma of Nazism and Communism, and that it will be the same dog who has the means and will to defeat global terrorism. At the end of this drivel, although he concedes that all these accusations might be "unfair", he nonetheless does not abstain from the ignominious temptation to make a 'big fair' out of them.

The English essayist Chesterton observed, "where is the best place to hide a leaf? In a tree.” Mr. Evans, apparently observes, where is the best place to hide a truth? Paint it in the colors of failure. The truth about global terrorism is that you cannot defeat it without also fighting the rogue states that directly and indirectly support it. It is therefore preeminently a two front war. And Iraq was a quintessential part of this strategy. Furthermore, only one nation in the world has the technological and military power, and will, to defeat global terrorism. The free nations of the world depend on America's triumph in this deadly contest with the terrorists. And as in all critical contests, there have to be tradeoffs between independence and dependence. Your Chairman would have known this, since he reads Isaiah Berlin.

This is the truth that the liberal intelligentsia is so abhorrent of and runs away from. All the accusations against the Howard Government's erosion of Australia's independence are, therefore, grossly erroneous and lack historical insight. As for his criticism of pre-emption, your Chairman completely disregards the fine distinction between pre-emption as an option, which is applicable to a world that is under discontinuous threats, and pre-emption as a doctrine, which is applicable to a world that is under continuous threats, as presently posed by the terrorists. And as for his hypocritical statement of standing with America, "but when we were needed on the big issues, we were always there", one is tempted to ask, is global terrorism not a big issue? Lastly, all his expatiations about international rules and laws that bring order in an anarchic world are totally inutile. Only when peoples and nations abide by these rules and laws, can the latter be effective. The trouble is that neither the terrorists nor the rogue states are prepared to submit to such a legalistic regime. Recent examples of this are Rwanda, Serbia, Kosovo, and Iraq.

All the colorful bubbles that your Chairman (Gareth Evans is the head of the International Crisis Group based in Brussels) presented in the guise of serious arguments in his lecture, will not survive the Aeolian winds that erupted on September 11. Your Chairman, for his own reasons, is a fugitive from reality. History has shown, that in hard times only the “hard men” can prevail. The wets and the wimps are cast aside. Alas, one can only summon the squatter diplomat, Gareth Evans, to "remove his belongings" from the domain of Talleyrand.

DELEGITIMIZE STATES THAT SPONSOR TERROR
Con George-Kotzabasis

The following paper was written on September 20, 2006, and was sent to President Bush on the same date. The reason why it's republished here is that the Pentagon has now a secret plan to attack Iran within twenty four hours, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine.



Distinguished former diplomats, like Warren Christopher, Clinton’s Secretary of State, remain at their “postless”, no new messages on diplomacy, posts, and continue to argue on the virtues of old diplomacy. In his piece on the Washington Post, July 28, 2006, he calls for “negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the warring parties” in Lebanon, and asserts that a “permanent” and “sustainable” solution to the root causes of the conflict—which is the goal of the Bush administration—“is achievable, if at all, by protracted negotiations.” As an example of such successful diplomacy that occurred under his tenure as Secretary, he refers to the rocket attacks by Hezbollah in April 1996 against Israel and the countering of the latter with Operation Grapes of Wrath, that the Cagliostro like arts of diplomacy successfully stymied this confrontation and ushered a truce between the parties that lasted for ten years. He claims, that only by such broad-minded diplomacy that involves all the players in the region could America stop its “tattered reputation.” But he is completely mindless of the fact that this long Truce was neither permanent nor sustainable, but, merely, a respite for the Hezbollah during which the latter would militarily train and proselytize its militia with its fanatic deadly ideology and arm it with Katyusha rockets for a deadlier future confrontation with its mortal enemy, the Jewish State, as we now see. To repeat therefore the diplomacy of the past in the present context in the face of these lessons given by this flauntingly failed diplomacy, is not only to repeat the mistakes of the past, but more grievously still, to weaken Israel and its Western allies against greater impending dangers in the future. As the upshot of another long Truce between the belligerents now would only benefit Hezbollaf by making it politically, ideologically, and militarily even stronger, and loading this time the tips of its rockets with weapons of mass destruction, including tactical nuclear weapons, thus fulfilling President Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic foreboding of wiping Israel off the map. And needless to say, such an outcome would be a tremendous victory for global terror and a serious strategic reversal of the West’s war against it.

Furthermore, it would set in concrete the ambition of Iran to become the dominant power of the region, whose present trailblazing two-pronged strategy to forge an axis between Shi’ites and Sunnis, as the present pact between Iran and Syria illustrates against their arch enemy Israel and to paralyze the EU and the US as a condominium to formulate an ironclad policy that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are the means by which it will achieve its aim. Since, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, the grand diversion that Lebanon has provided will ease its task to acquire a nuclear arsenal, as the divisions that would be spawned by the Lebanon crisis among the Western countries and within the UN about how to handle the situation on the ground, would be of such a nature that would completely enervate the US and EU condominium from casting a position that would stop Iran from joining the nuclear club.
Hence, the war in Lebanon may initially appear to be a local conflict between Israel and Hezbollah but in reality is a geopolitical conflict between Iran and the Western powers since the former will be using the conflagration of Lebanon as a fulcrum to achieve its strategic goals (a) to acquire nuclear weapons, (b) to emerge as the predominant power in the region, (c) to become the leader of the Muslim world, and (d) to establish in the world the millenarian regime of the twelfth imam Mahdi. As the respected Middle East analyst Amir Taheri wrote in The Australian, on August 7, 06, “to Ahmadinejad to wipe off Israel is the first step toward defeating the ‘infidel’ West”. He furthermore quotes Iran’s state controlled media as saying “that Lebanon would become the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East”. And Tehran believes, “that a victory by Hezbollah…will strengthen Ahmadinejad’s bid for the leadership of radical Islam”. And Taheri comes to the conclusion “all the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulation may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict”.

Will the “new” diplomacy, as embodied in the unanimously approved resolution by the UN Security Council, in its stylishly dashing French clothes, but worn, by the old decrepit body of diplomatic thinking, bring the long desired, but up till now evanescent, permanent and sustainable solution to the region that so many attempts in the past failed to do? The auguries for such an outcome however, are far from favorable. The Council’s resolution calls for a halt to the fighting and Israel’s withdrawal “in parallel” with the deployment of UN peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese troops who will attempt to create a buffer zone in South Lebanon free of the Hezbollah militia. However, the resolution vaguely refers to the disarmament and dismantling of the latter, that is pivotal to a permanent and sustainable peace between Israel and Lebanon and whether such international force and the Lebanese army--which is riddled with Hezbollah sympathizers--even if they had a clear mandate to disarm Hezbollah, would have been able to accomplish this task, given the unambiguous statements of Hezbollah that it will not disarm. Nor does the resolution take a firm and implacable stand in stopping the supply of weapons to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.

Hence, the dragon teeth of Hezbollal are still planted deep in Lebanon’s soil, presaging an even greater and more dangerous conflagration in the future between the warring parties, especially if Iran stealthily slips into the nuclear club. The UN resolution therefore is merely a soporific. It will provide a couch to Israel and Hezbollah so they can lay down in a temporary state of dormancy until Hezbollah feels strong enough, in its never ending act, to wipe Israel off the map. Thus, the future confrontation will be by far more deadly than the present one, as hundreds of thousands will lose their lives.

AMERICA’S NEW STRATEGIC DIPLOMACY

Surely the American leadership must be aware of this lugubrious scenario that has been staged by this toothless resolution of the Security Council. Unless they have in mind a second stronger swift resolution that will be addressing the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hezbollah and irrevocably stopping Syria and Iran from supplying weapons to its proxy, they will entangle and compromise their up to now clear strategic position in the strategically myopic, unimaginative, fickle, and flabby diplomatic stance of their allies in continental Europe. It will be the ultimate folly, post 9/11, once you have identified your irreconcilable, implacable, and mortal enemy, as the Bush administration has done, to render the enemy and its proxies respites that will strengthen their military capability and make them even more dangerous as well as more difficult to defeat in the future, instead of destroying them at their weakest moment, as no kind of diplomacy ante 9/11, no matter how brilliantly conceived, can achieve the complete destruction of this infernal enemy.

The Bush administration being presumably aware of this fact, i.e., of the complete inadequacy of the old diplomacy, of which so many of its "encoreists", such as Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright, are continuing to give it “standing ovations”, does seem to be willing--despite its tactical errors in Iraq that have given rise to a rampant insurgency making the war more difficult to win and as a result of this making some members of the Administration more circumspect to launch another attack, this time on Iran--to take leave of its circumspection and embrace a more hawkish diplomacy that would be much more successful than the effete and barren diplomacy of the past. Such robust diplomacy will not be draped in the smooth velvety apparels of “old” Europe or in the tattered garments of the United Nations, but will be draped in the bristling carapace of a porcupine. While there will not be a scarcity of carrots in the exercise of this armed diplomacy, the sticks will be deadly in their threatening application against those intransigent nations that continue overtly or covertly to sponsor terrorists and use them as proxies to achieve their geopolitical and millenarian goals. The axis of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah will have the kiss of death planted on its forehead by this no “frills” American diplomacy. But the angel of death in this new diplomacy will be last in the queue. Before the US deploys as a last resort its lethal arsenal against the axis, it will in the incipient stages of this diplomacy call for the de-legitimatization of Iran and Syria as states that sponsor terror. Iran and Syria will become pariah states and will be isolated from the rest of the world. The only avenues that will remain open between the former and the latter will be the economic ones. But the economic transactions between de-legitimate states and the rest of the world will proceed not through individual states but through an intermediary channel, an international consortium whose representatives will be enlisted from the de jure states of the world who will deal with the economic representatives of the outlaw states. Such procedure will place the free world in a powerful negotiating position to impose its own economic regime on the outlaw states. Needless to say, some nations will not accept, and will not abide, this “outlawing” of Iran and Syria and will continue to have their relations with the latter unchanged. But as long as the major nations of the world hold the line, this recalcitrance of the minor nations will in no way loosen the tightness of the noose around the throats of the outlaws, as the latter will be banned from attending all international forums where the important decisions in the affairs of the world are made.

The chances that the call for the de-legitimatization of states that sponsor terror, as a diplomatic move to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are quite high that it will rally many nations to support such a call as the best alternative to an American military attack against Iran, particularly, when such an attack would result in a great loss of lives as well as have the potential to throw the world’s economy into the doldrums, as it’s the latter as well as their electoral base that many European nations are mainly concerned with in the advent of an American attack on Iran. The exercise of this new adroit American diplomacy will address therefore both the concerns of the Europeans and the fears of Iran. It will have, on the one hand, enough carrots in its diplomatic basket to feed the Europeans and to entice them to the idea that the outlawing of Iran is the better option for all concerned than a devastating military confrontation with the latter, and on the other, it will have enough sticks to coerce Iran to abandon its goal to acquire nuclear weapons. In the intense pressure of the vice that the Ahmadinejad regime will find itself both as a possibly ostracized de-legitimate state or as a military target of the Americans, the odds are that the regime will succumb to this pressure. In the event that it sticks to its guns, then it will play Russian roulette with its own people, as such a stand will strengthen the internal opposition against the “mullahcratic” regime. And as the majority of Iranians shift behind the Opposition parties this could lead to the fall of the theocratic regime of Ahmadinejad by an army revolt that would act in the name of such strong opposition from the people.

The success of this diplomacy will depend entirely on the Bush administration making it unambiguously clear to its European allies, as well as Russia and China, of its utter determination that in the event the proposal to de-legitimatize states that sponsor terror is not adopted by the major nations of the world, then the US will have no other option but to attack militarily the rogue states that sponsor terror, and Iran will be the first one and more likely than not the only one, as the other ones will follow the example of Libya and cave in. It’s inconceivable to imagine, that the European nations, as well as China, for which the sine qua non for its present stratospheric economic development is the economic stability of the world, will be so dim-witted not to accept the American proposal and risk the chance that the Bush administration will not deliver on its threat.

Hence, this hawkish US diplomacy is far from being a long shot in persuading the major nations of the world to outlaw states that sponsor terror. Moreover, it has the great potential as a dual realizable threat to outlaw Iran or attack it militarily, to coerce the latter to unequivocally abide by the demands of the international community. In the event that the Ahmadinejad regime remains unwilling to discard its obsession to possess nuclear weapons and continues to defy the European Union and the United States in their demand to stop supplying its terrorist proxies, such as Hezbollah, with weapons, then the call will be on “the angel of death”, draped in stars and stripes, to jump the queue and put an end to this apocalyptic threat that stems from the regime of the mullahs.


HIC RHODUS HIC SALTA

NO TURNING BACK TO THE OLD WORLD AFTER 9/11

Con George-Kotzabasis

September 11 has placed open societies and their democratic values at the crossroads of victory or subjugation. No nipple-fed intellectual quibbling or obfuscation can cover or evade this historic fact. Fanatic Muslim terrorists pose a threat to civilized societies of biblical proportions, especially, if they acquire weapons of mass destruction, or worse, from rogue states. Yet the liberal intelligentsia in its necrophilous stance, attempts to shift the blame from the terrorist perpetrators to their victims. In their mind's eyes, September 11 was the comeuppance of America for the ills the latter had "rained" upon the poor and oppressed of the world by spreading its rapacious eagle's wings over the globe in its pursuit of dominance and empire.

Thus, the terrorist threat is subordinated and replaced by the liberal invention of its own "evil empire". Turning logic on its head, fanatic terrorism becomes less dangerous and is transformed into a "lesser evil". In an ironic twist, the threat posed by terrorists against the West, is turned into the threat of the "Lone Avenger". But that the latter might ride through the canyons of America, in his pursuit to punish evil, not with six caliber pistols in his holsters but with nuclear weapons, is of no concern to liberals. Thus, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are all liberals. Foreordaining the destruction of Western societies by a fanatic horde of religious barbarians. But for the historically savvy part of mankind, there is no turning back to the complacent and innocent old world, but a forward advance against a mortal foe with no quarter given. In a world where multilateral action is weak against great dangers, only unilateral and preemptive action by the strong, as a last resort, is the only option. New challenges impose new methods of resolving them. Conventional diplomacy, under the auspices of the dilatory, weak, and morally and materially corrupt UN, as the example of Iran presently shows, is defunct.

OBAMA: FUTURE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF GIVES ADVANCE NOTICE TO THE ENEMY HE WILL RETREAT

Con George-Kotzabasis


Barack Obama has committed in military strategic terms the cardinal “sin”: Giving advance notice to the enemy when America will withdraw its troops from Iraq, which is the inverse of giving advance notice to the enemy when he is going to be attacked. It’s neither surprising nor astonishing that Senator Obama committed this “hellish” mistake. Sprinkled by Saint John the Baptist with the holy waters of populism--which in present day America many politicians consider it to be the primary pass that will guarantee a presidential candidate to enter and ensconce himself into the Oval Office--the springy and eloquent senator has entered along with other Democrats the contest for the golden trophy of the candidature for the presidency. The White House however, in our dangerous times, is no longer an easy entry for the smooth and the eloquent--as it was in Clinton times--is no longer a treat for the weak. So Senator Obama even if he wins the golden trophy as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, it’s most unlikely that he will be given the chance to put his trophy on the desk of the Oval Office. It’s more likely that he will place it on the mantelpiece of his lounge room rusting as memorabilia. As G.K. Chesterton observed, "a dead thing can go with the stream...but only a living thing can go against it'. Senator Barack Obama is "a dead thing".

The present attack by the leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd on Prime Minister Howard for the latter’s critique of the doltish and politically and militarily irresponsible announcement of Senator Obama, that if he became the next president he would withdraw the troops by March 2008, is a shameful diversion from the real issues of the war, that Rudd will have to carry with obloquy in his public persona. In answering Laurie Oakes’s question Howard by spelling out the verities of the war and reminding Australians of the impending dire consequences that an American defeat in Iraq would have not only in our region but in the West generally, he acted as a responsible leader, unlike Rudd who is gamboling with the vital interests of the nation for his own narrow egotistical political interests. The fact is that the defeat of the US will embolden all the terrorist organizations in our region and will turn the Indonesian archipelago, as I have said in a previous article of mine, into a tidal wave of Islamic fanaticism crashing on the shores of Australia. To defend our country from being subdued the losses of our military will be in the thousands in comparison to the few loses that Australia might sustain with the new strategy of the Coalition forces under general Petreaus. Moreover, the protection of Australia from this great portentous threat will require America to come to our help.

We are at war with a remorseless, fanatic, mortal foe, who furthermore is irreconcilable and deaf to the sounds of reason. The clever thing to do is to destroy this implacable enemy whilst he is still weak and not to give him time to become stronger and hence make his defeat more difficult in the future, and at an enormously higher cost in human lives and materiel. To achieve this strategic end, the new strategy under the command of general Petraeus must not be constrained in using overwhelming force as a last resort to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. History pellucidly illustrates that all protests and demonstrations against war are dissolved in the cup of victory.


Delenda est furor religiosus

THE DEMOCRAT DESERTERS FROM THE WAR
AND THEIR REPUBLICAN AUXILIARIES

Con George-Kotzabasis

The Democrats and the Chuck Hagels of the Republicans in this clash between civilization and barbarism that is fought presently in Iraq will go down in history as turncoats to their historical responsibilities to the nation, at a time when America is at war. They have chosen to become populist leaders for their selfish short term political interests at the expense of the vital long term interests of the US. And, indeed, of Western civilization, as America being the sole superpower is the custodian and the only effective protector of this civilization from the suicidal sallies of fanatic Islam.

The Senate and House “dissidents” of the war instead of leading from the front are leading from the “tail’, pushed by the whimsical wind of populism. For this reason, they are totally effete and inadequate to lead their country in these dangerous times.

Wars are not won by coruscating Obama eloquence nor by "micro-politicians" embedded in committees set up by Congress nor by spineless and populist resolutions of the latter, but by the relentless deeds and great sacrifices of the troops on the field of battle. General Petraeus must be given the chance to defeat the insurgents in Iraq and save the latter from becoming a theocratic regime that will threaten the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and beyond, as well as keep intact, and imprint upon the world, the status of the USA as a great benign power. In this test of will, to be or not to be, the USA must not fail.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI’S ROMANTIC DIPLOMATIC “SURGE”
TO EXTRICATE AMERICA FROM ITS IRAQI WOES

…Brzezinski Calls Iraq War a Historic, Strategic, and Moral Calamity…
Washington Note—January 31, 2007

A brief response—Con George-Kotzabasis


Zbigniew Brzezinski is a proud American-Pole. But he is also, as an avatar of his rich historical Polish heritage, the quintessential romantic. His suggestion that the US initiate a diplomatic demarche with other powers, such as the EU, Russia, and China that have interests in the Middle East region, as the only way that America can extricate itself from its Iraqi debacle, is painted with the brush of a hugely talented romantic artist. One is reminded of the heroic cavalry charge of Polish officers against the panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht, at the beginning of the Second World War.

Likewise, Brzezinski is leading a diplomatic cavalry charge against the Islamist fanatics that can only end in placing America on the hill of Calvary. For a diplomatic “surge”, as he proposes, without the United States first solidifying its dominance on the field of battle, and hence negotiating from a position of weakness with these irreconcilable tenacious foes, will render to the global jihadists and their state sponsors, such as Iran, a tremendous victory over the US that will instantly threaten the vital geopolitical interests of the latter, if not bring the US to stare into the abyss of its self-inflicted extinction as a dominant superpower.

This is the “hemlockean” strategic remedy that our romantic and eloquent Dr. Brzezinski proposes, a presumed votary of realpolitik, to the American political elite as an escape from the woes of the Iraqi war. The way to hell for the USA is paved with the romantic escapades and lack of resolve of the liberal intelligentsia.