The Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East

<blockquote>Young people, students, reading and lurking, are you getting it yet? Getting the feel of my commentary around here because at this point, you are my (our) only hope, Obi Wan....</blockquote>Disagree Madhu. You admit to being the daughter of academics, so you are shaped by the very academic institutions that are brainwashing kids into utopian ideals that never work...because the real world is not utopian. It is motivated and shaped by imperfect realpolitik. Within limits, "greed works."

However, if you never venture from the academic world into the domain of businesses that <strong>do</strong> shape the world, you remain in the idealistic dominion of the woulda, coulda, shoulda clan that think that they can overcome fundamental human weaknesses and strengths to create a more equal world where the talented have only moderately more than the weakest Darwin-creations of our societies.

However, the weakest get to vote so any academic or political institution that pushes such ideals of "all men and women are created equal" is going to get the votes of anyone pushing something for nothing. The entitlements created by academics making their way into government never fail to misfire relative to the market-based solutions that create themselves through the medium of business and international commerce "greed."

<blockquote>9-11 never mattered, not really, because it's about Iran and Russia always and forever. Great Power politics matter, sure, but is a Cold War posture the most optimal way to view Great Power politics in this era? How should we view Great Power alliances in this era? This, folks, is supposedly the best thinking out there. Brzenzki's forever!</blockquote>

Brzenski mattered under President Carter who appeased Iran in seizing our embassy hostages and starting a long theocratic rule that hurt the people of Iran. I beg to differ that 9-11 never mattered. Only images of planes hitting the towers and falling were strong enough to overcome the inertia of content U.S. heads buried in the sand. We ignored terror until we no longer could ignore it. We played Chamberlain with no-fly zones and Iran and North Korea sanctions until those, too, appeared to be failing and nuclear weapons were being obtained. While we turned out to be wrong about WMD in Iraq, Hussein admitted himself that he deceived us into believing he had such capabilities in order to scare Iran. Perhaps a similar condition exists in Syria, Iran, and North Korea today with leaders threatening that the world will burn if the U.S. intervenes. Is it that or the world will burn if we don't?

One only need look at photos of North Korea at night vs the South to see the disparity in the idealism of communism vs. the reality of capitalism. One has a 28K per capita income while the other is about 2K. The old East Germany is another example proving that identical cultures thrive quite differently when embracing the academic notion of one size fits all, and the real world solutions of the marketplace. Idealism in religious extremism is another example of where great people rise to a level of mediocrity. The nation's of India and Pakistan are filled with brilliant people, yet we see none of the major rise in world commerce and living standard that such intelligence might lead to because religion gets in the way.

<blockquote>Whatever negative effects come out of our alliance with the Saudis (even if there are positives it's a multipolar world which requires outside-the-bloc thinking) doesn't matter and never will.</blockquote> Again, must disagree. The Saudis and ourselves have overcome our religious differences by embracing our similar desires for oil and commerce. I've suggested in the past the realpolitik solution of the Saudis, Jordan, and Turks simultaneously invading Syria with U.S. help, to have stable Muslim nations ensuring its stable partitioned rule with a small section carved out for its currently ruling Alawite and perhaps Kurd minorities. You see a degree of that manner of thinking in Saudi offers of up to $8 billion to Egypt's current rulers because they recognize the need to keep the Suez Canal in stable hands.

However, academics who frequently move back and forth between universities and the state department or Democratic party government would never recognize such a practical solution of force and stable governments running a split-up Syria because it lack idealism. Instead, they feel that somehow things will fix themselves and all will sing Kumbaya and not slaughter one another, if not now, perhaps later when one group of extremist Sunnis or Shiites prevails. The other prevailing view appears to be that it will not fix itself but it won't affect us so who cares and we will save billions and get Democrats reelected. The Chamberlain concept of appeasement never dies until what would have cost hundreds of billions ends up costing trillions when action eventually must occur in harsher conditions.

<blockquote>Yeah, we don't want the Saudis to go nuclear (think this is about anything else? Sure, energy too but our system doesn't do multipolar well, does it?)</blockquote>Yeah I think it is about something else. It is about not wanting the Iranian theocracy to go nuclear, or the North Korean child- or military-rulers to have the capacity to cause serious damage with their few nukes. South Korea could get them as well, as could Japan, and then you start expanding the probability of some smaller war leading to a nuclear exchange...the ultimate A2/AD solution.

Nobody tells you how to practice medicine Madhu. However, that expertise as a physician does not translate to similar awareness of how to run a government, fix international conflicts, or fight a war or stability operation. When I look at countries like India and Pakistan and see how well their peoples practice capitalism in the U.S., whether it be the small business or Silicon valley, I marvel at their work ethic. When I look at their home countries and see gang-rapes of journalists, animals roaming everywhere, rampant water pollution, corruption, and overpopulation, I can't help but feel that Darwin is at work there as well. The fittest leave those countries and come to the U.S. where their hard work can make a difference in improving their lives.

Unfortunately, the politics of entitlement in the U.S. are moving toward an environment less conducive to such success. I just watched Fareed Zakaria and noted how a woman became one of our youngest self-made billionaires through pushing her Spanx vision against countless no's. Steve Jobs faced the same conditions in his era. But today's Democrat pushes the opposite notion that no matter how little you work and despite your lack of gumption to overcome setbacks, you are entitled to more. That is an evolving assumption of entitlement that is guaranteed to win the votes of our weakest, while simultaneously creating an America with less employment, fewer middle-class consumers, and more taxes for all that do work.

Worse yet, such a U.S. nation where middle-class and wealthy tax dollars shift to entitlements, ultimately will lead to a nation incapable of dealing with serious threats that disrupt energy supplies and threaten limited nuclear exchanges and terrorism. The idealistic notions of youth seeing conspiracy in the NSA making infinitesimal small mistakes, ultimately will disrupt our ability to monitor the communications of our terrorist and rogue state adversaries who are splintered and dispersed and forced to communicate through interceptable means. Then one day we will see a mushroom cloud over one of our port cities. However, beyond that extreme is this reality from Mead's article:

<blockquote>Finally, the administration, rightfully concerned about the costs of intervention in Syria, <strong>failed to grasp early enough just how much it would cost to stay out of this ugly situation.</strong> As the war has dragged on, the humanitarian toll has grown to obscene proportions (far worse than anything that would have happened in Libya without intervention), communal and sectarian hatreds have become poisonous almost ensuring more bloodletting and ethnic and religious cleansing, and instability has spread from Syria into Iraq, Lebanon and even Turkey. All of these problems grow worse the longer the war goes on—but it is becoming harder and costlier almost day by day to intervene.</blockquote>