2. November 2009 by Raleigh Miller.

I don’t quite know what to make of the Afghanistan war.  From a strictly strategical perspective, I’m comfortable having no idea what to do about it; I don’t get into war, strategy, etc.  I don’t have much to recommend in the way of how to win, whether we should win, etc.

But politically speaking, this all feels quite surreal to me. Obama, and nearly every other moderate liberal candidate, emphasized getting out of Iraq and getting into Afghanistan. The conventional wisdom was that we were fighting the wrong war at the wrong time. Obama’s having re-focused resources on Afghanistan is his filling of a series of campaign promises. And yet, not 8 months later, a chorus of a thousand reasonable voices are urging us to get out. And (perhaps just because I dove-leaning anyway) I find the sentiments of that chorus persuasive.

So is there any real difference between Iraq and Afghanistan? Or are they just two bumps on the “always at war” path…are we soon going to be told that our efforts are wasted in Afghanistan and Iran is now what’s in need of our attention? It does seem, at least ostensively, as if the motives that pushed us into Afghanistan were better. The argument for going to Iraq was shifty and perpetually unpersuasive. The oil wealth over which Saddam presided, and the nepotism in the doling out of private contracts gave all sorts of reasons to suspect that we were in Iraq for all the wrong reasons. The argument for the war in Afghanistan has been different, and much more consistent: decimate Al-Queda. The arguments for pulling out now seem to be far more strategical and far less moral (whereas, the arguments for pulling out of Iraq are that it is an unjust and immoral occupation). The problem in Afghanistan is simply that traditional occupation won’t succeed at eradicating the hundreds of nomadic camps that operate largely independently and conduct most of their planning online.

I also wish someone could paint a reasonable picture concerning what we do next if we do pull out of both Afghanistan and Iraq? I’m in favor of both of these moves…and I suspect (with many) that anti-terrorism efforts will be more effective if our resources aren’t being drained by two wars. I do wish I knew what those efforts will be, though.

Posted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Politics | 1 Comment »

25. September 2009 by Raleigh Miller.

We’ve just found out that Iran has been building a nuclear plant that it has been hiding from U.N. inspectors.  This is a pretty big problem, and it signals that suspicions towards Iran were well founded.  Sanger and Cooper at the NYT report…

 The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmed for the first time on Friday that Iran was building a “semi-industrial enrichment fuel facility,” designed to produce nuclear fuel that it had not previously announced to international authorities, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported….“The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, standing beside Mr. Obama and Mr. Sarkozy. “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”  The extraordinary and hastily arranged joint appearance by the three leaders — and Mr. Obama said that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had asked him to convey that she stood with them as well — adds urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambition to build a nuclear weapons capacity. The three men demanded that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran, near the holy city of Qum.

There will inevitably be a chorus of “I told you so” coming from the right on this issue, but I think this turn of events signals the exact opposite.  It’s important we not overlook what distinguishes the above reporting from past speculations concerning the Iranian threat: the explicit announcement of solidarity between America, England, France and Germany.  And presumably, that list will grow if the threat of aggression is further required.  By waiting it out, and allowing Iran and Ahmadinejad to provide unequivocal evidence that they’re operating without much regard for international law, rather than rushing in on a hunch and attempting to justify the attack after the fact, Obama has made it much more likely that we can avoid agression altogether.  A diplomatic solution is made much more plausible when we’ve got the world on our side. It will even be insisted that, having been briefed on the secret plants almost a year ago, Obama was irresponsible not to comport himself more aggressively and with more hostility towards Iran, but this commits the same mistake.  If such aggression had been levied, based on the claim that such plants exist (and in the face of Ahmadinejad’s flat denials) it would have rang hollow with a public that was exhausted with fabricated justifications for war.  Now, having heard of the existence of such a nuclear plant straight from Iranian officials, Western leaders will be well poised to threaten as much as neccessary, and such threats are all the more likely to not require following through (which is the most preferable scenario, surely).  It may be easy to compare this style of foreign policy to the Bush doctrine and to point out, not incorrectly, that these tactics do provide less in the way of *immediate* and *gun at the hip* deterrence and prevention, but this is how civilized countries ought to act, and it provides more security in the long run, because it doesn’t have the tendency to dissolve tenuous international coalitions when other countries think we’re being to presumptuous.  This is actual diplomacy, something we haven’t seen for nearly a decade. (NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html?_r=1&hp)

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