COMMENTARY
So let's refocus our attention on those big questions. On Afghanistan, the news is relatively good—not the news about how the war is currently going on the ground, but the news about the policy decisions that will determine how things go over the next few years. The most important thing necessary to win a counter-insurgency war is persistence. If we make clear that we're not going to quit and we're in it to win, that demoralizes our enemies and—more important—emboldens our local allies, who become convinced that if they stand with us, we'll be there to back them up. The good news here is that General Petraeus, who has already declared that "we are in this to win," is now doing his level best to undo President Obama's vow to start withdrawing troops by next July—a key signal of weakness to the enemy. In a discussion with Dexter Filkins of the New York Times—one of the mainstream media's better war reporters—Petraeus openly acknowledges the damage this vow has done to the war effort. "Clearly the enemy is fighting back, sees this as a very pivotal moment, believes that all he has to do is outlast us through this fighting season." Petraeus then says, "That is just not the case." He continues: "The president didn't send me over here to seek a graceful exit. My marching orders are to do all that is humanly possible to help us achieve our objectives." I'm not sure whether those really were his marching orders, of if President Obama really meant it. But what matters is that Petraeus means it. In a way, the whole stupid controversy that got Stanley McChrystal fired from the top spot in Afghanistan could end up having one good consequence: it put General Petraeus in the driver's seat for our policy in Afghanistan—and took President Obama out of the driver's seat. Having fired McChrystal and brought in Petraeus, it would be politically disastrous for Obama to then turn around and deny Petraeus any major request that he makes. It would be a confession that Obama is utterly lost and directionless in setting the nation's war policy—which may be true, but Obama won't want to confess it. That will be especially true after November, when Obama will be facing a hostile Republican Congress, and when the election loss will have caused much of his current team to either be fired or quit, probably giving more influence to advisors who want the president to stop antagonizing the American people, for once. So it looks like General Petraeus is effectively running the war now, which is a good thing. But the real, immediate crisis—which has been building in the background, while everyone has been distracted by the mosque controversy—is the Iranian nuclear program and the increasing expectation that Israel will strike against Iran. The immediate trigger for this is the news that Iran is finally loading fuel into the nuclear reactor built for them by the Russians. This creates what John Bolton describes as "a second route to nuclear weapons," in addition to their existing uranium-enrichment program. (Meanwhile, in an irony that says a lot about the current state of the world, the Iranian reactor's sister plant in Germany is being shut down as part of an anti-nuclear jihad by the country's environment minister.) So there has been widespread discussion and anticipation of an Israeli airstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities, to happen some time in the next year. I'll provide just one link that will give you the full flavor of it: a Washington Times editorial cheerleading for an Israeli strike in the next three days, before the Russian-built plant is fired up. The last line of the editorial sums up the position we're in: "The Free World depends on Israeli power." We depend on Israeli power, because we are unwilling to use our own. Jack Wakeland thinks the Israelis won't order an attack, for reasons that he has published in TIA Daily: the Israelis can't do it without the support of the American president, particularly because Obama could threaten to leak news of the impending attack to the Iranians, forcing the Israelis to call it off. I've been thinking about this, and I don't think that's actually a potent threat. Rather, I think the shoe is on the other foot, that it is the Israelis who are in a position to threaten Obama. Consider what would happen if Prime Minister Netanyahu called up President Obama tomorrow to inform him that an Israeli attack had just been launched and would strike Iran within hours. How could Obama block it? Could he order US airmen to shoot down Israeli planes as they head across Iraqi airspace? Well, do you think any American pilot would comply with that order? For that matter, do you think Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would relay such an order? As for the threat of leaking the news to the Iranians, I need only point out that if anything were an impeachable offense, this would be it—and we will shortly have a Congress that will be very much in the mood to impeach the president if they catch him aiding and abetting a hostile power. But again, who would carry out such an order, even if Obama gave it? This, by the way, is part of the genius of the American system, particularly the constitutional provision that the president's top advisors and officers must be approved by the Senate. To pass this test, they cannot just be political functionaries dependent on the president's own will (such as the "czars" Obama has been appointing in an attempt to undermine this system). To pass through Senate confirmation, Obama's appointees have to have substantial experience and a long track record in government, which also means that they have careers and long-term political interests which are independent of the president. (Exhibit A: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.) So Obama is limited by his need for the acquiescence of the top officials who would be called upon to carry out his orders. Any action Obama would take to block Israel would have to be approved by his security cabinet—the top cabinet-level officials relating to national security—and I don't think they would do it, even if it was clear Obama wanted them to. Certainly, if I were Benjamin Netanyahu, I would be inclined to call Obama's bluff. But even if Israel does some of our work for us and attacks Iran's nuclear installations, Jack points out that there is another danger the Israelis cannot head off: that the Iranians could retaliate by buying a few nuclear warheads from the North Koreans, with whom they have an extensive technology-sharing arrangement. So Jack concludes that what is needed is a series of attacks aimed, not just at Iran's nuclear program, but at the Iranian regime itself. And that, alas, is precisely what we cannot expect from this president. At best, we can expect that an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would touch off wide-scale Iranian retaliation, which would draw the United States unwillingly into the conflict—but that is too speculative to rely on. All of this does suggest one thing: that this November's election, which is primarily about domestic issues, can have a substantial beneficial effect on foreign policy. A Republican majority in Congress that is in favor of a stronger, more vigorous national defense can use its political power to push the president into making a longer-term commitment to the war in Afghanistan, deter him from actively obstructing Israel's action against its enemies, and provide a loud and effective pro-war caucus if the US begins to be drawn into a conflict with Iran. It's the best result we can hope for before 2013. Changing the majority in Congress is something substantive—and symbolic—that we can do to increase America's chances of finally achieving the upper hand in the war against Islamic terrorism.—RWT That's the whole problem with focusing on the enemy's weapon instead of on the enemy himself. What the world really needs is not an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, but a sustained military campaign to unseat the Iranian regime by individually and patiently targeting and killing the sources of its power: the top leadership (including Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Basij militia, the Quds Force, and the Revolutionary Guard.
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