Don't cry for me Hasan Nasrallah

Schadenfreude is an interesting thing...and so is realpolitik. And I have to say, that as an extremely cynical and snarky observer of the Middle East, I find the current debate on the situation in Syria fascinating to watch.

I mean, seriously, who thought when this whole "Arab Spring" thingy began almost two years ago that it would ignite a 21st century version of the "Thirty Years War" across the Middle East?

For those under-educated public school readers who spent all their time reading Howard Zinn pontificate about the wonders of Caesar Chavez and Bella Abzug, the Thirty Years War was primarily a religious war that tore apart Europe from 1618-1648 along Catholic and Protestant lines and left Germany plundered and destroyed as new nationalist hatreds were either magnified or replaced by older ethnic and religious strife. 

SO, what do we have going on in the Middle East today? Well, it's basically a power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for control of the direction of Islam, oil wealth, and general "mine's bigger than yours realpolitik."

Enter Syria, Iran's only real ally in the entire region, and Lebanese Hizballah's primary benefactor. In addition to being the most dangerous terrorist organization on the planet, Hizballah has the dubious distinction of being the only Arab "army" that can claim some measure of victory of Israel in battle. Although the be fair, Hizballah can only really claim that they stood toe-to-toe with the most lethal military in the Middle East and survived, in Arab parlance, that equals victory. Weird, but true. So, today we learn that Iran is going all in to rescue Asad's regime and make sure the world knows it...from the UK Independent:

Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria 

Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.

America’s alliance now includes the wealthiest states of the Arab Gulf, the vast Sunni territories between Egypt and Morocco, as well as Turkey and the fragile British-created monarchy in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan – flooded, like so many neighbouring nations, by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees – may also now find himself at the fulcrum of the Syrian battle. Up to 3,000 American ‘advisers’ are now believed to be in Jordan, and the creation of a southern Syria ‘no-fly zone’ – opposed by Syrian-controlled anti-aircraft batteries – will turn a crisis into a ‘hot’ war. So much for America’s ‘friends’.

Its enemies include the Lebanese Hizballah, the Alawite Shiite regime in Damascus and, of course, Iran. And Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America ‘liberated’ from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has – against all US predictions – itself now largely fallen under Tehran’s influence and power. Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad’s forces.

This is huge, like, really, huge...where Iran basically says to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and all the Sunni countries that have been backing the Syrian rebels (who have been taken over by Al Qaeda affiliates, by they way...but hey let's not let pesky facts get in the way, we have to do something to help those poor terrorist thugs killing the other terrorist thugs) AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON...

and what does this Administration do?  FOR THE FIRST TIME, I totally agree with what they are doing...AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE...at least I hope so, in spite of idiotic calls from Republicans like Lindsey Graham...who is clearly off his meds for a "no-fly zone" and arming the JIHADI AL QAEDA LOVING rebels. 
Continuing from the UK Independent link above

In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms – almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles – only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army.  The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side and has been blamed for atrocities including the execution of Syrian government prisoners of war and the murder of a 14-year old boy for blasphemy.  They will be able to take new American weapons from their Free Syria Army comrades with little effort.

From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus - every war crime committed by the rebels - will be regarded in the region as Washington’s responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011 – who are America’s greatest enemies as well as Russia’s – are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration.

This is the height of stupidity...I assume the distinguished Senator knows that implementing a no-fly zone will likely bring about a war between the US and our allies and Syria and their allies.

Not to mention that the US military is not excited about fighting to save a bunch of Al Qaeda loving jihadi murderers after spending the last 10 years hunting them down and killing them in great bunches.  My ol' stand-by website Foreign Policy says it best:

Why the Pentagon really, really doesn't want to get involved in Syria

The Pentagon's enthusiasm for a no-fly zone is tempered by past experiences. The Air Force still quickly points to Operation Northern and Southern Watch over Iraq as an operationally exhausting and expensive endeavor that lasted many years.

"The biggest reason the military is resistant is frankly that it recognizes as well it should, post-Iraq, that military action brings extreme and unintended consequences and that's totally valid," said Joe Holliday, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of War. Holliday, who provided blueprints for military intervention to the Pentagon's Joint Staff some months ago, believes that while military planners have looked at various courses of action  - and the second and third order effects that would follow - it hasn't looked at the impact of not doing anything.

A perception that there is a dearth of military assets needed for such action contributes to the collective military sentiment about Syrian intervention. There's also perhaps a deep, psychological underpinning: the Syrian rebels are nearly indistinguishable from some of the very foreign fighters the military has been fighting.

"The defense establishment has been fighting jihadis for the last many years, and now, why are we helping them?"

ENTER.....Sarah Palin...that's right, Caribou Barbie that the left loves to hate with spittle flying intensity and what does she say???

---

“We’re talking now more new interventions,” Mrs. Palin said, according to The Blaze. “I say, until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he’s doing, well, chief, in these radical Islamic countries who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, ‘Allah Akbar,’ I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say, let Allah sort it out.”

BAM...yup..that's exactly right...there is not one damn thing the U.S. has at stake in Syria...in fact...if we follow my old friend Bismarck's quote about the Balkans:

"The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier"
- Otto Von Bismarck

Just replace Balkans with Syria and I totally agree with Sarah...STAY the hell out of Syria.  IN fact, if you are truly a realpolitik cynic like myself...let them fight it out for as long as possible until Iran and Hizballah are played out...I really, really like the current analogy of Syria as Iran's "Stalingrad"

The growing infusion of Iranian-backed Lebanese and Iraqi Shiite fighters into the Syrian civil war is causing some veteran pundits to panic. Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, warns that "Iran is beating the U.S. in Syria." Former Bush administration deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams sees "a humiliating defeat of the United States at the hands of Iran."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Setting aside the matter of how Washington can be losing a war it is not fighting, the claim that Iran is winning is dead wrong. The Islamic Republic's headlong intervention in Syria is akin to Nazi Germany's surge of military forces into the Battle of Stalingrad in the fall of 1942 – an operationally competent, strategic blunder of epic proportions.

To be sure, the influx of thousands of foreign (mostly non-Iranian) Shiite fighters into Syria in recent months has enabled pro-regime forces to regain some ground in the Damascus suburbs and a belt of territory linking the capital to Homs and the coast. The town of Qusayr, critical to both rebel and regime supply lines into Lebanon, fell on June 5.

That's a shame, but the Iranian surge won't prevent the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab rebels from eventually prevailing on the battlefield. Sunni Arabs have a 5-to-1 demographic edge over the minority Alawites who comprise most uniformed and paramilitary pro-regime combatants, and a 2-to-1 advantage over all of Syria's ethno-sectarian minorities combined. The rebels are strongly supported by the overwhelming majority of Arabs and Muslims worldwide who are Sunnis, and their four principal sponsors – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan – have a GDP well over twice that of Iran. Russia continues to do business with the regime, but it won't intervene decisively enough to change the math.

 I LIKE IT...is it kind of cold and heartless? Maybe, but that's how realpolitik works...and I know some morons both in the Democratic and Republican parties think the US can do something useful..I doubt it...that ship sailed over two years ago...now the only thing the U.S. can and should do is support Israel, help Jordan and Turkey ship the Syrian refugees home when the fighting is over and for goodness sakes, don't frickin' bring any of them here?  

What kinda stupid is that?  Let their fellow Sunnis and Shias take care of them...they've got plenty of oil wealth...

Schadenfreude...great word for today...."Let them kill each other, Allah will sort them out."

The Making of Israeli Strategy: Survivalists in the Desert



Since the founding of Israel via a long war in 1948-1949, strategy, politics and war have been focused on one single goal: the survival of the Jewish state in the midst of an extremely hostile environment. When analyzing Israeli strategy, even more than geography, this is the primary consideration of Israeli planning and is clearly driven by the memory of the Jewish Holocaust and the constant threat of annihilation by their Arab neighbors.

Unlike ALL of the case studies we have reviewed, Israel’s opponents could literally wipe them off the map. This simple fact has been a pretty good focusing factor in the Israeli military leadership and politicians and has allowed the Israelis to make strategic and military decisions that many other countries would shrink away from. 

As the essay by Handel points out, the Israelis have been remarkably consistent in their strategic thought for the period he studies from 1948 to roughly after the Gulf War. The simple fact of geography, both in terms of the length of border to be defended and the lack of strategic depth of Israel proper has driven Israel to a strategic and tactically offensive posture in any potential conflict.

Because the Israelis have been, and will be, heavily outnumbered by their likely adversaries, the basic doctrine of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is to strike first, strike hard and quickly defeat their opponents before the preponderance of Arab military power can be brought to bear. In both 1956 and 1967, the Israelis were stunningly successful with this doctrine and defeated Arab forces that were not only quantitatively, but also in many cases qualitatively superior. Although the morality of preemptive war is a hot topic of debate today, for the Israelis, there has never really been any discussion of the need to avoid fighting on Israeli soil at all costs, given the geography of the Jewish state.[1]



Handel outlines some serious critiques of the Israeli strategic planning process, in particular the unique political structure of Israel, with its coalition governments and parliamentary power sharing, which has in fact shown a remarkable unity when wartime strategy needed to be created and carried out. The lack of any standing national security bureaucracy for most of its existence would seem to argue that the execution of Israeli strategy ensured a fairly quick path from politicians to generals, particularly when many Israeli politicians are former themselves former generals, a unique situation in the Western World that has allowed Israeli politicians a much better understanding of the difficulties of modern war. Handel points out that this improvised process has occasionally produced tactical solutions to strategic problems, such as the 1982 Lebanon invasion and occupation, and only recently has Israel attempted to take a more balanced and rigorous look at their long-term strategic needs.[2] 



Moreover, the Israelis have made several major strategic and tactical blunders, some of them almost fatal. The extreme overconfidence of the IDF after the Six-Day War and an overreliance on intelligence for indications and warning to allow time for an Israeli mobilization nearly led to a Syrian breakthrough on the Golan Heights in 1973. The Israelis also significantly underestimated the fighting ability of the Arab armies to fight a set-piece battle and the effectiveness of their new Soviet SAM and ATGM systems. The Israelis were only saved by a desperate stand on the Golan, combined with the ability to trade space for time in the Sinai as their army was mobilized. Once the Israelis completed their mobilization and learned to counter the Arabs new weapons, the rigid Soviet-style tactics of their opponents allowed the Israeli forte at maneuver warfare to once again dominate the battlefield. However, as the essay points out the military shock of their experience with the Egyptian Army was likely a major contributor to the political efforts to sign a peace treaty with Egypt in 1977, removing the largest military force from Israel’s list of potential enemies.[3]

 

In terms of strategic planning and execution the Israelis have not fared so well in the 21st century. Although the IDF is still far ahead of its opponents in the realm of conventional warfare, the asymmetric threat posed by Hamas and Hezbollah portend a new kind of strategic challenge that will be difficult to defeat. Israel made many of the same tactical and operational mistakes in the 2006 Hezbollah war that the U.S. has made in Iraq. An overreliance on airpower, the reluctance to commit ground forces to bloody urban combat and a complete misunderstanding of the complexities of waging war during a 24/7 news-cycle left the Israelis without even a real tactical victory in Lebanon. More importantly, the 2006 fiasco has shown the Palestinians and their mentors in Iran the long-term strategy to potentially defeat Israel: Goad the Israelis into attacking by firing rockets into Israel or kidnapping Israeli soldiers; hide your troops, missiles and equipment in hospitals, mosques and schools; broadcast lots of images on Al Jazerra of Israeli F-16s bombing those same hospitals, mosques and schools while showing images of fighters in civilian clothes lying in hospitals; when world opinion gets the Israelis to stop fighting on the verge of bombing you out of existence, declare victory and dance in the streets.[4]



Creating a long-term strategy to deal with these new threats, including a potentially nuclear-armed Iran will present a tremendous challenge to Israel, particularly considering that one (1) nuclear missile striking Tel Aviv could devastate Israel beyond recovery. Attempting to create long-term peace process will also be difficult, as Israel really has few military options short of the complete annihilation of Hamas and Hezbollah and their opponents understand this fact. As the Israelis struggle with this new strategic environment, they will face many of the same challenges the U.S. faces in our GWOT.

 
[1] Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein, ed., The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War (New York: Cambridge University Press: 1994), 538-539. 
[2] Murray, et al., 555-556, 562-564. 
[3] Murray, et al., 540-542, 574. 
[4] Andrew Exum, Hizballah at War: A Military Assessment (Washington Institute for Near East Policy:2006) downloaded at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=260

Ode to a magazine

Well, this is an unusual topic, but I had to say goodbye to an old friend.

 North and South Magazine. 

I have been a faithful subscriber to one of the finest Civil War history magazines for over 10 years.  I looked forward to getting this magazine every other month, to see what kind of nit-noid article (I mean seriously, who really cares about Chinese participants in the Civil War?)

to the magnificent--it actually had an entire issue dedicated to the retreat from Gettysburg before that was a cool Civil War topic.

Through it all, the magazine had interesting book reviews, fantastic articles by many, many well known and highly endorsed by your Grouchy Historian authors, and generally maintained very high standards for a history magazine sold to the masses at your local Barnes and Noble.  Sadly, on the business end I guess it didn't do as well, and since there are many, many military history and  Civil War magazines competing for dollars, it had to fold.  Of course, being a small independent magazine probably didn't help either, especially in the days of the media conglomerate and magazine empires.

So, farewell to a fine magazine...