Defeating Daesh: We’ve Done It Before And We Can Do It Again

The problem of Daesh (or ISIS, ISIL, the Islamic State, etc.) seems to be an impossible one for the Obama Administration to solve. The group that President Obama one idiotically referred to as the “jayvee team” now controls a massive land area in Iraq and Syria. They’ve attacked Paris, attacked America, and will do so again. Yet the Obama Administration and the rest of the world seems powerless to do anything to stop them.

However, we already defeated the Daesh once, eight years ago. We kicked them out of their positions in the western Anbar Province of Iraq, prevented them from holding territory, and killed their leader.

Al-Qaeda In Iraq: The Forerunner of Daesh

Daesh (and I use this term because the bloodthirsty bastards hate anyone who calls them that) sprang out of the infamous al-Qaeda militant Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. Those who read this blog years ago will remember that name well. al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian-born militant and two-bit thug who ended up at an al-Qaeda training camp before the September 11 attacks. After September 11, al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan after US troops injured him during the American assault of Tora Bora. From there, he fled to Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, knew that al-Zarqawi was in Iraq. American intelligence believed that al-Zarqawi received medical care in Baghdad in the spring of 2002 as a “guest” of the Hussein regime. During this time, intelligence differs as to where al-Zarqawi was: the US believed that he was in Iraq or Iran, and Arab intelligence believed he was in northern Syria, and what is now the Daesh heartland.

al-Zarqawi’s first attack against America came when he engineered the murder of USAID administrator Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan in 2002. This would be the first attack of many.

After the coalition invasion of Iraq in spring 2003, al-Zarqawi was definitely in Iraq, coordinating attacks against US troops and swearing fealty to al-Qaeda. However, even among terrorists, al-Zarqawi had a reputation for brutality. al-Zarqawi ended up killing more Muslims than anyone else, especially Shi’a. al-Zarqawi viewed Iraq’s majority Shi’ite population as apostates, and murdered them indiscriminately. This caused commotion within the senior leadership of al-Qaeda, so much so that Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, wrote al-Zarqawi in 2005 and told him that his methods were so brutal that he was alienating fellow Muslims.

During the 2005–2006 period, al-Zarqawi’s group was alternately known as “Monotheism and Jihad” or more commonly as “al-Qaeda in Iraq” (AQI). AQI consisted of foreign fighters from across the Sunni world, many of whom came to Iraq from Syria. AQI was also led by former members of Saddam Hussein’s military. These former regime leaders were Sunnis who realized that Iraqi Shi’ites would gladly see them dead for years of repression under the Ba’athist regime.

In this time, AQI seized large amouns of territory in western Iraq, specifically the majority-Sunni al-Anbar Province. Cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi fell to AQI militants, only to be retaken by US forces. During this time, the brutality of AQI alienated the local population. By October 2006, AQI announced the formation of the “Islamic State of Iraq,” led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and another militant named Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

How Iraqis and Americans Defeated the First “Islamic State”

In January 2007, just months after AQI became the Islamic State, President Bush announced the “surge” in Iraq. Not only would more US troops be arriving in the restive country, but the rules of engagement would be changing. Instead of US troops only leaving their bases to respond to active battles, US troops would be working closely with the leaders of individual towns and villages to provide security, help repair infrastructure, and build relations between US forces and the people.

The Middle East Quarterly has an excellent article on how the “surge” worked with the native Iraqi “Anbar Awakening” to defeat the first Islamic State:

Within a year of its advent, the Awakening movement had dramatically changed the security situation in Anbar with monthly attacks dropping from some 1,350 in October 2006 to just over 200 in August 2007. By now, the movement had been established on a national basis as the coalition sought to replicate its success in other parts of Iraq. It played a particularly prominent role in improving the security situation in Baghdad as part of the troop surge, helping to slash murders by 90 percent and attacks on civilians by 80 percent, as well as destroying numerous insurgent networks. Its contribution in other provinces was no less substantial: By the end of the year, al-Qaeda leaders admitted that their forces throughout Iraq had been decimated by over 70 percent, from 12,000 to 3,500.

No less importantly, the Sahwa eventually became a tool for promoting sectarian reconciliation and weaning fighters away from sectarian militias.

This strategy worked. A combination of US airstrikes, raids, and Sunni tribes banding together to push the radicals out led to the downfall of the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq.” By 2008, Iraq was relatively stable. While there were still terrorist attacks, they were rarer and less destructive. The Iraqi Government was forced to treat Sunnis more equitably in order to keep the hard-won peace.

A US airstrike killed Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi in the summer of 2006, just before the Islamic State began. al-Zarqawi’s death, however, did not end the cycle of zealotry and brutality he commenced.

The secret to this victory was not only American “boots on the ground” but it involved using those boots effectively. Gen. David Petraeus spearheaded those strategies when he helped reduce violence in the Iraqi town of Tal Afar. Gen. Petreaus and his troops worked closely with local leaders, engaged in regular community patrols, and empowered local leaders to help fight terrorism.

What brought Iraq’s Sunnis into the hands of AQI and the first Islamic State was simple: fear. In Iraq, Sunnis are a 20% minority in the country. The Shi’ite majority was actively engaging in purges of Sunni neighborhoods in and around Baghdad. Iranian-backed radical Moqtada al-Sadr was whipping up a frenzy, pretending that killing Sunnis was necessary to stop the spread of al-Qaeda. While US troops were going after al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, they were also attacking Sunnis in order to fight al-Qaeda. Iraq’s Sunnis embraced al-Zarqawi in the hopes that he would drive away both the Mahdi Army and the Americans.

The brutality of the first Islamic State also helped create its downfall. Instead of bringing peace and prosperity, AQI put Iraq’s Sunni tribes into a Taliban-style hellhole where offenses such as smoking led to vicious punishments. AQI and al-Baghdadi’s thugs viciously attacked those perceived as insufficiently pious to their radical Islamic vision.

The “surge” ended with the defeat of the first Islamic State. It lost its territory, its leadership was scattered, and its appeal was greatly weakened. Had the story ended there, there would not be any Daesh today.

Obama Loses Iraq

The election of Barack Obama changed the equation dramatically. While US troops were scheduled to leave under a “status of forces agreement” (SOFA), that departure was conditional on Iraq remaining secure and the central government in Baghdad continuing to negotiate in good faith with Iraq’s Sunni population. But President Obama had every intention of leaving Iraq on a timeline, irrespective of the security situation. By the time Obama announced the end of US troops in Iraq, violence in Iraq seemed well-contained. Leaving did not seem, at least to Obam’s national security team, like a terrible idea.

In 2010, a US-led raid near Tikrit (Saddam Hussein’s home town) led to the death of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri. The first Islamic State was left temporarily leaderless, without territory, and with most of their leadership dead or in custody.

In December 2011, the last contingent of US troops left Iraq.

Leaving without establishing either a political solution or having a US peacekeeping force in the region was a terrible idea. Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki was not interested in political reconciliation with Iraq’s minority populations. Instead, he continued to marginalize Iraq’s Sunni population from the political process and short-change Iraq’s Sunni provinces on oil revenues that could be used to make life better for Iraq’s Sunnis. Without the stabilizing influence of US forces and active US diplomacy, the situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate.

Meanwhile, the Arab Spring threw the rest of the Arab World into turmoil. The Arab Spring changed the face of the Arab and Muslim world—inspired in large part by the fact that Iraq was a nascent democratic state. Long-standing regimes in Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia were overturned. Reactionary forces, both nationalist (Syria, Egypt) and Islamist (Iran, Libya) tried to prevent a wave of democratization from sweeping them away. When the US and other nations eliminated the Libyan regime of Mohammar al-Qaddafi, Islamist forces quickly took root there.

This wave of democratization had not changed much in Syria, at least at first. During the Iraq War, the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad had allowed the free flow of weapons and fighters across the Syrian border and into Iraq. This created a powder keg in Syria, just waiting for the right spark to set it off. As the Iraqis pushed out the first Islamic State, many of those fighters ended up going back across the border into Syria. This included key members of the former Hussein regime.

Bashar Assad had reasons to want at least some al-Qaeda or Islamic State presence in Syria. That way, he could argue that his regime was all that stood between stability and turmoil. That argument would be the main argument for the regime in the civil war to come.

In 2011, a young Syrian spray painted anti-Assad graffiti on a wall in the southern city of Deraa, near the Jordianian border, just under 60 miles from Damascus. Syrian regime security forces arrested and severely the young man. In response, the boy’s family burned down the headquarters of the ruling Ba’ath Party and attacked security forces. The Syrian Civil War had begun.

Through 2011 and 2012, the security situation in Syria diminished immensely. As Assad’s fighters (backed by Russia, Iran, and Iraq) brutalized the opposition, they turned a blind eye towards Islamist radicals making their home along the Syria-Iraq border. Again, Assad hoped that by being the lesser of two evils, the Syrian people would choose him over the Islamists.

That strategy failed. Instead, the same radicals that had taken over al-Anbar Province in Iraq years before found a perfect base of operations in northern Syria. They took advantage of the chaos to establish a new capital in Raqaa, Syria. From there, the newly formed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, or in Arabic, Daesh) spread like a cancer. It was only by a combination of US airstrikes and Kurdish peshmerga forces that Daesh has recently been rolled back.

What The Defeat of the First Islamic State Teaches Us About Defeating Daesh Today

The defeat of the first “Islamic State” in Iraq should teach us key lessons about what to do today. First, and most obviously, it should teach us that Daesh can be defeated. The same fighters, the same leadership, the same techniques that Daesh uses today were used by the first Islamic State. Yet that first Islamic state lasted only a few years and never managed to hold much territory. Indeed, the First Islamic state was declared in October 2006 and by 2008 was virtually destroyed.

The second lesson is that Daesh cannot be destroyed from the air. Air strikes can degrade Daesh’s leadership, but that cannot destroy a terrorist network that can move easily through the civilian population. The first Islamic State was destroyed because the US was smart enough not only to commit troops, but to use them wisely.

Finally, it was not a matter of US troops staying in remote forward-operating bases and only coming out to fight. Instead, the “surge” followed Gen. Petraeus’ successes in having US troops regularly interact with and gain the confidence of local leaders. When the US kicked out the first Islamic State, US troops followed with resources that helped rebuild those downs that AQI had destroyed or terrorized. Not only did that help keep AQI from coming back, but it allowed us to get valuable intelligence that can only come from listening to people in the community. No satellite system, drone, or spy system can replace having people on the ground and having tea with the local sheik who knows everyone in the area.

The problem today is that those techniques could have stopped Daesh in its tracks in 2013, before they’d gained much territory. It will be a much tougher job today. For one, the Russian presence in Syria means that US-backed forces could be at risk of Russian airstrikes. In order to engage in ground operations in Syria, we would need to have a no-fly zone or at least a coordinated security response with the Russians. That may be difficult at best and perhaps impossible.

The reality is that Daesh is a cancer in the region. If we do not stop Daesh and eliminate it, it will spread once again. That is going to require a protracted US presence in the region for a long time: something like the 30,000 troops in Korea we have had for over 50 years now. But the alternative is worse: already Daesh have launched attacks in the West. They will do so again, and even if those attacks are just more shootings, the effects on the US and our allies would be severe. Worse, Daesh is undoubtedly looking to procure weapons of mass destruction—biological, chemical, or even a radiological “dirty bomb.” While the idea of Daesh getting their hands on a working nuclear weapon seems remote at best, it cannot be fully discounted. If that happens, the effects on the world economy would be a nightmare.

We can defeat Daesh. We have done it before. But it will take a commitment to get the job done, and an understanding that it is a long-term commitment of troops and resources. But it is worthwhile to prevent both a wider war in the Middle East and terrorist attacks here at home.

We learned many hard lessons during the Iraq War, at a cost of too many American sons and daughters. The fact that our political leadership has not digested those lessons less than a decade later should be troubling to every American. But while those who fail to learn from history may be doomed, those who apply history’s lessons can change the course of history for the better.

Obama’s Damascus Debacle

President Obama once again has stepped firmly into a disaster largely of his own making, as he now threatens Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad with military action. History is not without its sense of irony: here we have the same group of Democrats who campaigned against President Bush’s “war of choice” based on a Ba’athist dictator possessing weapons of mass destruction now advocating the very same thing. To see John Kerry forced to confront a skeptical Congress and convince them to go to war in the Middle East is like peering into Bizarro World.

President Obama is right on one thing, if only in theory. The use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians should be a categorical red line. Anyone government or non-governmental entity that launches an attack with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons should be blown off the face of the earth, no questions asked. In a perfect world, the international community would swiftly and surely punish such violations of basic international norms.

Of course, we don’t live in anything resembling a perfect world.

Obama may feel free to argue that the use of chemical weapons is a worldwide “red line” that demands immediate action, but saying it does not make in so. Until the Chinese and the Russians feel the same way, all of these high-minded proclamations of global resolve are for naught.

President Obama discusses Syria in the Oval Office.

Instead, President Obama is demonstrating his naïveté on foreign policy matters. We do not live in an age of international harmony in which the saintly United Nations will come to the aid of the suffering Syrian people. We live in a world based on realpolitik. Vladimir Putin is perfectly fine with Assad gassing Syrians by the thousands. What he cares about is expanding Russian power in the region and the globe.

Even though I’m still a believer in enforcing international norms through the judicious use of military force—exactly the sort of person that the President could convince—the problem is that we are entering into yet another Middle Eastern conflict with no clear idea of just what we are hoping to achieve. Are we trying to punish Assad for the use of chemical weapons? Exactly what is the point if the punishment will be no more than a token strike with drones or cruise missiles? That will not be an effective deterrent, and sends the message that the use of WMDs will lead to a piddling and ineffectual response.

The President has made it clear that the goal is not “regime change” or killing Assad. But that is precisely what the goal should be. If we want to effectively punish the use of weapons of mass destruction on civilians, we have to make the price unacceptably high. That means that the use of WMDs should be met with immediate, clear, and undeniable action. In short: if you want to use WMDs on civilians, the United States and its allies will hunt you down and kill you, destroy your military, and end your rule. Anything less gives tyrants like Assad the leeway to gas civilians and hope to survive the consequences.

Making this all even more complicated is that many of the Syrian rebels are tied to al-Qaeda and other Salafi groups. Even if Assad were deposed, Syria will likely end up embroiled in yet another bloody civil war in which the most likely winner will be radical Islamists. Our options are, to put it mildly, not good.

In the end, we are planning on going into Syria to try to “preserve credibility” by a series of ineffectual strikes, sending the message that if you use WMDs the United States will levy a small measure of its military might against you. Maybe. If we decide to bother.

Obviously, the Iranians are quaking in their boots.

If that were not enough, the situation is even worse. Great Britain, America’s staunchest ally in international affairs is out of the running. The French were the only coalition partners that we had going into Syria. (As an aside, this is because of France’s long interest in Syria, which was once a French protectorate.) But now, Obama’s sudden (but legally required) decision to consult Congress has left French President François Hollande in the lurch, and forcing him to go to the National Assembly in the hopes of getting permission to act against Assad. Contrast that to Iraq, where President Bush had nearly 40 coalition partners at the outbreak of the war—including the British. On Syria, the United States runs the risk of standing unnecessarily alone.

But this is a problem largely of President Obama’s own making. Despite his claim that “I didn’t set the red line,” the President’s very own words make it clear that he did set a red line with Syria. That in itself is respectable: the use of weapons of mass destruction rightly should be a red line for the United States. The problem is that Obama’s statement was made to look tough without being tough. What Obama should have done was to back up that statement with force: getting Congressional approval for a limited response targeting Assad and his military personally if there was a confirmed use of WMD.

Democratic partisans will argue that Obama would never have received the approval of the Republican House. Maybe so, maybe not. (I would guess that Obama could have squeaked it by.) But Obama is the one who decided not to even try to consult Congress until the last minute. Had this debate happened a year ago, the United States could have backed up its words with action now when it counts. But the President is openly and clearly contemptuous of working with Congress, abdicating the true source of his Presidential bully pulpit when it is needed the most.

Now, the United States faces an unnecessary crisis. Even if the President gets his approval to strike Syria, it will be too little, too late. The lesson being taught here is that the use of WMD against civilians will be tacitly tolerated, and that the United States is not to be feared, at least not under this Administration. And even if we do act in Syria, we will be acting in aid of a group of rebels closely associated with al-Qaeda who promise more bloodshed to the already ravaged Syrian people.

This is a situation that should never have been allowed to develop in the first place, but this Administration has abdicated leadership on the world stage. We have sent a message of weakness rather than resolve, and the world has taken notice. Our traditional allies are no longer with us, and we face a conflict with no clear goals, no clear resolution, and no real purpose.

While the President is right that the use of WMD is a categorical red line that should never be crossed, he lacks the political and international power to back up that statement. Even if we attack Syria, which is not a foregone conclusion, it will not achieve much. President Obama may think that it’s the credibility of Congress or the world that’s on the line, but the reality is that it was his credibility that was on the line, and he failed. Sadly, the consequences to America, Syria, and the world are likely to be severe.

Tom Friedman: Losing The Future

Tom Friedman phones it in again, in yet another New York Times column filled with the same old cliches we’ve heard a thousand times. This time, instead of kissing the asses of the Butchers of Beijing, Tom Friedman decides to give the GOP some unsolicited and unwelcome advice. Apparently, what the Republican Party needs to do is just agree with the Democratic Party on everything, and all will be well.

The problem with Friedman’s ideology is that we’re already watching it fail. The blue-state model is failing here, and the European welfare-state model that the Democrats want to emulate is teetering on the edge of chaos. (Just observe the inevitable end-state of the European welfare state as exemplified in Greece.)

Friedman argues that we need spend more on infrastructure and education—the same old cliched thinking we’ve heard before. The problem with such spending is that it doesn’t produce anything: it’s the equivalent of digging ditches to keep people busy. Take “high speed rail,” the fetish of statophiles everywhere. Nearly every rail project in this country goes massively over-budget and few people ride in them. Yet we spend billions of dollars developing “solutions” no one wants to problems no one has. But that’s how America is supposed to compete in the 21st Century.

What we don’t need is more bureaucratic pipe-dreams. We don’t need more top-down initiatives made by Washington D.C. that have no basis in the needs of real people. Have we learned nothing from the 20th Century: central planning does not work. No government agency, no matter how well-functioning, has the level of knowledge necessary to make better economic decisions than the people who are actually effected by those decisions. Trying to direct the economy from afar does not work, never has worked, and won’t work in the future.

And of course, Friedman wants to “raise revenue” to fulfill all of his dreams of high speed trains and elaborate (and pointless) fights against global warming. The problem with “raising revenue” is every dollar taken out of the productive economy and put into wild-eyed government initiatives is a dollar that can’t be invested in something actually worthwhile—the fact is that the “Keynesian multiplier” is a myth and $1 in government spending does not magically produce more than $1 in growth.

And that’s why we shouldn’t listen to people like Tom Friedman. It’s not that the Republican Party lacks ideas, it’s that the Democratic Party is threatened by change. The poles of American politics have reversed. From the union battles in Wisconsin to the 2012 Presidential race, it’s been the conservative upstarts trying to overturn the sclerotic and malfunctioning status quo while the left tries to defend their fiefdoms from substantive change.

Friedman doesn’t want to embrace the 20th Century, he wants to repeat its mistakes. The 21st Century is all about the decentralized over the centralized, autonomous and intelligent networks over large institutions, the agile over the cumbersome. And there is nothing that is less agile, less intelligent, and less willing to delegate power and authority than the United States federal government. Yet Friedman and his ilk would imbue that same broken system with more and more power over every facet of our lives. It’s like arguing that we should take down the Internet and put everyone on Minitel.

If the United States is to be successful in the 21st Century, it can’t emulate the failed policies of the last century. If there’s one side in this equation that is horribly out of step with the times, it’s the one embracing the failed strategies of the past. Perhaps it’s President Obama and his cast of Clinton-era retreads that should simply give up.

Kim Jong-Il: Death Of A Dictator

Kim Jong-Il, the tyrant that ruled over North Korea has finally died at the age of 69. He likely died from a heart attack or stroke, although the North Korean propaganda machine has claimed that he died from “overwork.” Under his leadership, North Korea continued to be a concentration camp writ on a nightmare scale. While Jong-Il dined on expensive Japanese sushi (imported directly from Japan through his personal chef) and drank French cognac, millions of North Koreans died of starvation and disease. On every measure of societal development, North Korea comes dead last, thanks to a regime that is the living embodiment of paranoia, xenophobia, and totalitarianism.

What is most frightening about the situation in North Korea is not that it’s so bad, it’s that it could be even worse. The Kim regime placed thousands of artillery pieces in the hills surrounding the Korean DMZ, and possesses chemical, biological, and crude nuclear weapons. The North Koreans have the means to devastate much of Seoul with a barrage of artillery, or even launch attacks against targets in Japan with medium-range missiles. The Kim regime may appear insane, but appearances are decieving: if anything, the Kim regime were coldly calculating, deftly weaving Korean legends and Marxist claptrap into a net that has kept 25 million people enmeshed in a living nightmare.

The scenes of North Koreans crying over the death of their persecutor mirrors the scenes of 1994 when Kim Il Sung died-—there too was a massive show of grief, staged or not. And what is even scarier to contemplate than these scenes being staged is that the Kim regime has so completely brainwashed the people of North Korea that the grief is real.

As terrible as the situation in North Korea is, it is made even more terrible by the fact that there is no acceptable endgame to this situation. Even if the regime were to collapse, it would be a humanitarian nightmare for the region and for the world. China has no interest in absorbing 25 million starving North Koreans. As much as the United States may wish to see a unified and democratic Korean Peninsula, that would be a project that could take decades, and the South Korean government may not be so willing to accept the cost of trying to lift the North out of its medieval state.

Heir to a Madman

But a collapse is all too possible. Kim Jong-Un has been designated by the Kim regime as the “Great Successor,” but he is not even 30, has never served in the military, and has only been groomed for leadership for a year. In contrast, the transition from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong-Il occurred only after Kim Jong-Il had 25 years of experience in taking on leadership tasks. The North Korean military is the only power in the country that could do anything to stop the Kim regime, and it’s not certain whether senior military officials are willing to be led by a 20-something with no military experience and little credibility.

Little is known about Kim Jong-Un, including his actual birthday, his background, his education, his outlook on affairs, or how he might choose to lead the DPRK. What we do know is that he was educated in Europe where his classmates observed a shy boy with a love for basketball. He was not interested in engaging in diatribes against the United States, but drew portraits of Michael Jordan and collected pictures of himself with NBA stars. What this means for his outlook on the world is unknown. But what is known does not paint a picture of someone who has the leadership abilities or cunning of his father or grandfather.

It may well be that Kim Jong-Un is little more than a placeholder—rumors are that the heir apparent to the madman’s throne is hardly up to the task. It may well be that his aunt, Kim Kyong-Hui may be secretly running things behind the scenes. There are a million rumors, and because North Korea is so secretive and isolated from the rest of the world, it’s impossible to know what is really going on.

No Good Options

The problem with North Korea is the same that it has ever been: there are simply no good outcomes at this point. If the Kim regime continues under the leadership of Kim Jong-Un, then the North Korean people will remain mired in a living nightmare for years more. If Kim Jong-Un falls, then the only power that could keep the country from sliding into anarchy is the military, and they could very well end up provoking World War III if given the chance. And if both fall, then there is nothing left in the country to hold it together. North Korea would fall into anarchy, and the human costs would be beyond comprehension. Not since World War II would the world have seen such a refugee crisis.

The best that anyone can do is prepare for the day when the regime finally collapses, and hope for the best. That is not a sound policy, but that’s the only remaining option left. The chances that Kim Jong-Un will set North Korea on a path of openness and moderation are slim to none, and even if he were to try, it’s not at all certain that the military would support him in that endeavor.

The fact is that we would like to think of the leadership of North Korea is being insane, but the reality is that it is sociopathic, but not crazy. Kim Jong-Il was a rational actor playing a rational game—bloody, intransigent, and evil, but rational all the same. Both he and his father knew that North Korea could not compete except by playing great powers against each other, which was accomplished by seemingly irrational actions like threatening war and shelling South Korean targets. So long as the DPRK could threaten the world, it could extract concessions that it would never have gotten by playing nice.

We simply do not know if Kim Jong-Un is smart enough to keep playing this game, or there’s some member of his inner circle that can. What is scarier than a coldly rational and insane-seeming North Korea is an irrational North Korea willing to risk it all on a dangerous whim. One of the best options may be that North Korea becomes a de facto Chinese protectorate, with Beijing keeping the country in line. As distasteful as that option may be, it is better than having an unstable North Korea with both an ongoing humanitarian crisis and plenty of weapons of mass destruction that could fall into terrorist hands.

Kim Jong-Il is dead, and roasting in a hell that he richly deserves. What we must hope for is that he doesn’t take the entire Korean peninsula down with him.

Obama’s Dangerous Deception In The Middle East

Martin Peretz has a powerful article in The New Republic on why Obama’s Middle East policies are in utter tatters. Peretz observes the rise of a new fundamentalism in Turkey, one of the most important countries in the region and once a strong U.S. ally. But thanks to President Erdogan, Turkey appears to be moving away from the U.S. and the West and towards becoming a hegemonic Islamic state.

The reason why President Obama appears to be so blind to Turkey’s new ambitions is that Obama is making the same mistake that many others have made in assessing the Middle East: thinking that the Israel/Palestine situation actually matters. Israel is the excuse given in the Middle East (and throughout the Muslim world) for a whole host of sins, as though the mere existence of Israel gave reason for Syria to murder its own people, Saudi Arabia to embrace the 14th Century, or Iran to destabilize its neighbors. But ultimately the Palestinian issue is a sideshow, a distraction from larger concerns. What is sad is that the West consistently plays into the Israel delusion, and Obama has embraced that delusion with full force. As Peretz puts it:

This conundrum of a non-negotiated state for the Palestinians appeals to the ardent déclarateurs. It ignores the fact that free and responsible politics has never been a habit in the Arab world. Read me right: never. There is nothing in Palestinian history to have made the Arabs of Palestine an exception to this stubborn commonplace now being played out again in virtually every country in the region. A commitment is never a commitment. A border is never a border. A peace is never long-lasting. Turkey has now added its serious mischief to the scenario. Erdogan himself will now unravel Cairo’s peace with Jerusalem, as Erdogan has already locked the PA into phantom international politics.

Poor Barack Obama. His adoring view of Erdogan has stimulated the Turkish regime to be a force not for stability in Cairo or reason in Ramallah. What’s more, Obama’s Palestinian initiatives have all collapsed. But the most striking collapse of his Arab politics has been in Syria where he posited that there were sensible and dependable men with whom Israel could make peace. Of course, that would entail giving up the Golan Heights (which are not the Great Plains) to Dr. Assad. The administration courted the family tyranny and its epigones. Responsible, reasonable, reserved. Two smart-assed Jewish boys were dispatched to play computer games with the Damascus elite. They were also enthused by the possibilities. I know that none of these people pulled the triggers on any of the thousands who are now dead. They just encouraged the clan to think they will get away with murder forever.

In the last few years, the Middle East has been at a crossroads. The democratic revolutions throughout North Africa could have spread into a full-on wave of democratization across the region. But that was not going to happen without the support of the West in picking the side of democracy. Instead, we have sat on the sidelines, content to let things play out as they may. The problem with that is that democracy in a delicate flower, and it can all too easily be crushed in the treads of a tank. Right now, Libya could easily become another enclave for al-Qaead, Egypt is a de facto military dictatorship, and the Syrian regime feels free to kill without fear of anything other than a few choice words.

Meanwhile, President Obama is playing the same old fool’s game of trying to negotiate a settlement between the most democratic state in the region and a loose-knit confederation of cast-offs who would like to see nothing more than the destruction of their democratic neighbor. There will be no solution to the Israel/Palestine problem until the Palestinians truly recognize the right of Israel to exist. Only then can the conditions for a lasting piece and Palestinian statehood exist. President Barack Obama is not going to talk them into that, no matter how much he thinks of his oratorical skills.

While the world occupies itself with the prospect of the UN recognizing a Palestinian state, the Middle East becomes increasingly dangerous after years of hope. Turkey’s sudden turn towards becoming a regional Islamic hegemon, Syria’s continued brutalization of its own people, and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons are all more important than playing into the Palestinian mythos. Until the U.S. and other world powers stop playing into the idea that Palestine is the be-all-end-all of Middle Eastern affairs, the Middle East will not change for the better. What is sad is that Peretz is right—Obama thoroughly misunderstands the Middle East, and it will cost us in the long run.

Obama’s War

The Washington Examiner has an interesting article on how President Obama used parliamentary trickery to talk Congress into approving a Libyan no-fly zone. It’s as though we have traveled into some bizarre parallel universe: President Obama, the peace candidate, has now fully embraced the the doctrine of preemptive military action. President Obama, who in 2007 said that “the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation” has unilaterally authorized a military attack on a nation that posed no imminent threat to this country.

President Obama speaks in Cairo

Not to mention the fact that President Obama has now endorsed military tribunals at Guantanamo for al-Qaeda detainees…

Exactly what is the difference between President Obama’s military policy and President Bush’s?

If You Strike At The King…

Of course, Obama’s supporters will argue that the difference between Obama’s wars and Bush’s is that Obama is supposedly more competent as a Commander in Chief. But the evidence suggests otherwise. What is our goal for military action in Libya? Are we trying to bring the rebels into power—without knowing who they really are? That hardly seems like a smart strategy. Is it to overturn Qaddafi? If that’s the goal, then why is President Obama denying any intention to assassinate the dictator? There is no clear goal, and the President’s desire to fight only a limited, bloodless war… or “kinetic military action” is in contradiction to the reality of war.

If our goal is to get rid of the Qaddafi regime, then the goal should be to blown Mohammar Qaddafi straight to hell. No questions asked. If we want to support the rebels, we should be doing what we did in Afghanistan—sending CIA teams to work directly with them in getting rid of the regime. (Which, admittedly, may already be happening.) We should not be fighting a war with half measures.

And worse of all, we may not be winning. We have committed to this fight, and once this nation commits to a fight, we should see it through. What message would Qaddafi’s continued rule over Libya send to the rest of the world. Al-Qaeda has always played off the Arab psychology of the “strong horse” versus the “weak horse,” and if Qaddafi hangs on, America (and the rest of its allies) will undoubtedly look weak.

Following In Bush’s Footsteps

So what should President Obama do? It’s clear that he faces a skeptical public and a restive Congress. (George W. Bush must be feeling at least some schadenfreude at this turn of events.) Plus, time may be running out. The Libyan rebellion cannot hold out forever, unless they are resupplied and rearmed from outside.

The President needs to admit that Qaddafi’s regime must be destroyed. We have committed to that end, and we have to see the task through. That means more than just engaging in limited and sporadic military action. That means decapitating Qaddafi’s military, cutting their supply lines, and killing them before they can kill civilians or the rebels. It is messy, it is bloody, and for all our technological advancement, it can’t be done effectively from 30,000 feet in the air.

But in the end, President Obama is right about one thing—even if inadvertently. For too long we have tolerated Arab dictators who have systematically oppressed their people, and the result has been the growth of groups like al-Qaeda. These dictators have systematically tried to suppress the normal civil society of a functioning state and replace it with cults of personality, pan-Arab nationalism, or sectarian intimidation. But what has happened is to create a situation in which the only groups that dare speak out, that give the people some escape valve, have been the religious fanatics.

President Bush seemed to instinctively understand this. President Obama does not, except in a deeply attenuated way. But ultimately, President Obama has stumbled into following the path of his predecessor. He has embraced everything that Candidate Obama railed against just a few short years ago: preemptive war, indefinite detention, all the sins of the Bush Administration. Next thing you know, he’ll be mispronouncing “nuclear.”

But the problem is that if President Obama is going to follow this path, he should do it boldly. If President Obama wants to be a champion of democracy in the Arab world, he should do so consistently. But sadly, this does not seem likely. Instead, President Obama is only taking action in Libya because the rest of the world has endorsed it. There is no “Obama Doctrine,” no grand strategy other than the hope that Qaddafi will fall and everything will be alright. Just as the Bush Administration (and some of its supporters) naively hoped that the fall of Saddam would lead to a flourishing of Iraqi democracy.

What is sad about this state of affairs is that not only is President Obama emulating many of President Bush’s strategies, he is emulating many of President Bush’s mistakes.

From Tunis To Tehran

It is now clear that a wave of democratization is sweeping across the Arab world. What began in Tunisia with the exile of dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has now spread to Arab and Muslim capitals from Cairo to Tehran. The world has not seen a democratic wave like this since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

Protests in Libya

Right now, it looks like Libyan dictator Mohammar Qaddafi, who has ruled his country with an iron fist, is about to be the next Arab despot to get thrown out. Michael Totten has an inside view into Qaddafi’s Libya, and it isn’t pretty. It’s telling that Qaddafi is playing the tyrant right to the inevitable bitter end: instead of leaving in exile, Qaddafi has ordered his forces to massacre civilians. With luck, that action will land Qaddafi a date with an angry mob and a lamppost rather than a comfortable villa in some tropical location.

That strategy isn’t exactly working for Qaddafi. His own diplomats are denouncing him, and two Libyan fighter pilots have defected to Malta rather than fire on protesters. Once the military begins defecting, it’s usually a sign that a regime is on the brink of collapse.

Meanwhile, many on the right are worried about Islamist influences taking over the Egyptian revolution. And while the fears about the Muslim Brotherhood are usually overblown there is cause to be very cautious. As Foreign Affairs notes, the Muslim Brotherhood is not the monolithic organization it’s made out to be. But at the same time, there are undeniably Islamist elements in the Muslim Brotherhood, and they are organized.

The Absent President

But what continues to be troubling is the absence of American leadership in this delicate time. The Obama Administration’s mixed messages over Egypt’s revolution has discredited them in the eyes of many of the democratic reformers than we will need to win over. By failing to support the Egyptian protesters early on, the Obama Administration ceded valuable ground to the Islamists who were late to the revolution but are now positioned to seize the initiative.

For all the talk about Obama’s “smart diplomacy,” we haven’t seen much of either. Right now, the United States should be enforcing a “no-fly” zone over Libya—but so far, the Obama Administration has been as weak on Libya as they were on Egypt. Now is not the time for mealy-mouthed platitudes or half-measures. It used to be that the President of the United States would unapologetically stand on the side of pro-democracy movements. Now, our government keeps sending mixed messages.

Where Does This Wave Lead?

The Middle East stands at an inflection point. Arab and Muslim dictators are dropping like flies, and the idea that Hosni Mubarak and Mohammar Qaddafi could end up being overthrown within the space of a few weeks would have been unthinkable not all that long ago. But even though many have been waiting for this moment for years, it is fraught with danger. Right now, the popular movements that are sweeping across the region are leaning in the direction of democracy. But the longer the West delays, the more anti-democratic forces have the opportunity to seize the initiative.

Now is the time for the West, and especially the United States, to make its position clear. The only legitimate governments are those governments that respect the wishes of their people. Our position should be the same as the protesters currently risking their lives in Tehran: death to dictators.

After Egypt’s Revolution

This weekend, the government of Egypt began to collapse. After a week of unrest, last Friday saw the beginning of the end for the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Following in the footsteps of the revolution in Tunisia, the Egyptian people have risen up and kicked out their incompetent and autocratic leadership.

This may sound like a wonderful thing on the surface, but the trust is far more complicated. The likely winner of a free Egyptian election won’t be liberal democrats, but the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Barry Rubin looks at the likely outcomes of the Lotus Revolution and finds that the radicals have the upper edge. Remember, Egypt is the birthplace of radical Islam. Sayid Qutb, the man who inspired the modern Islamist ideology, was an Egyptian. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The number two man in al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was Egyptian, So too was Mohammad Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks. Egypt has long been a hotbed of radicalism, and polling shows that many Egyptians are largely sympathetic to Islamist ideology.

Protesters in front of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum

What was even more distressing was the risk of Egypt falling into anarchy. Some of world’s greatest treasures are contained in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. The museum is next to the headquarters of Mubarak’s political party, the NDP. Already, two priceless Egyptian mummies were vandalized in the chaos. But the Egyptian people took the security of their ancient past into their own hands: a human chain of Cairenes protected the museum and arrested looters until the Army could arrive and secure the building. Many in Egypt have long learned that the only way to keep the peace has been to band together into neighborhood associations: the police would not or could protect protect them. Those ad hoc organizations have helped to save lives and keep order during the revolution.

Who Will FIll The Vacuum?

It appears clear that the Mubarak regime will not survive for very long. The Egyptian people have spoken, and if the Army continues to support the protests, Mubarak will have no choice to flee or die. But the question then becomes about how will fill the power vacuum?

Nobel laureate Mohammad El-Baradei appears the most likely front-runner. El-Baradei was the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and a well-known figure. He is also closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. If El-Baradei gains power, the Muslim Brotherhood gains power right with him. At worst, this would make Egypt like Gaza: a radicalized hotbed of Islamist that would pose a serious threat to the stability of the region, and could spark a war with Israel. At best, the Muslim Brotherhood has to compromise and support democratic reform. But given the attitudes of the Egyptian people, a secular government seems unlikely.

The big question is how the military will react. The military is the most widely respected institution in Egyptian society. If they throw in with the Islamists, then Egypt could look like another Gaza. But if the military decides to enforce democratic norms, Egypt could look much more like democratic Turkey. The Egyptian military, thankfully, tends to be less Islamist and more nationalist. A military government, strangely enough, could be more democratic than a populist government led by someone like El-Baradei.

Ultimately, the question is up in the air. There is even the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood and the military will end up fighting for dominance, leading to civil war. This outcome seems unlikely know, but the idea that the Mubarak regime would suddenly collapse in a popular revolution didn’t seem very likely just a few weeks ago.

President Obama: Voting ‘Present’ Again

Here in America, this crisis has exposed just how weak American foreign policy has become under President Obama. The lack of a coordinated response from the Obama Administration was inexcusable. First we had Vice President Biden saying that Mubarak was not a dictator and should not step down—a statement that was both irresponsible and idiotic. For one, Mubarak most certainly is a dictator, if an American one. Second, it signaled to the Egyptian people that the American government was in bed with the regime they were dying to overturn. The damage that statement caused was severe, and may have ripple effects for years.

President Obama was hardly better. There was a time when American leaders were unabashedly and unapologetically in favor of democracy worldwide. While President Obama’s statements on Friday night gave lip service to universal human right, the US government has done little to show support for the people of Egypt. Already, there are comparisons between Obama’s handling of Egypt and Jimmy Carter’s handling of Iran in 1979. The feckless response to the Lotus Revolution demonstrates American weakness abroad at a crucial time in the Middle East. Democratic movements across the region know that America will do little to protect them: Islamist ideologues know that America will do little to stop them. It is a recipe for disaster.

The Future of the Middle East Is Being Written Now

The revolutionary fervor that began in Tunisia is beginning to spread: there have been protests in Jordan and Yemen as well. But these revolutionary movements aren’t all democratic: many are Islamist movements seeking to further isolate the region from Western democratic influence. What we are seeing could be a flowering of democracy or a regional descent into radicalism. And we are sitting on the sidelines.

American policy should be clear: we will not directly intervene in the region without being asked, but we are not neutral. We support democratic movements over Islamist ones, and we will no longer prop up convenient autocrats like Hosni Mubarak.

When Mubarak first came to power, supporting the Egyptian regime made sense: they were willing to support peace with Israel and prevent the outbreak of another regional war. But the dynamics of the region have changed: autocracy feeds Islamism.

Before this revolution, the only place where an Egyptian could speak against the regime was in the mosques. The Muslim Brotherhood was the only group that could stand against the Mubarak regime. If Egypt is to democratize, it must develop civil society where there has been virtually none. That will not happen within a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years. Democracy is a process, not an event, and it will take generations for a democratic culture to develop in Egypt.

That is why sitting back and doing nothing is not an option. If democracy is to flower, it has to be supported, both internally and externally. That means the United States must be willing to engage with Egyptian pro-democracy activists and work to support civil society across Egypt and the region. But if all we are going to do is sit around and wait to see how things shake out, we will miss opportunities to shape events in favor of democracy and human rights.

President Obama said all the right words on Friday, but the right words are not enough. If we want a free and peaceful Middle East we have to support those who will make the Middle East more free and more peaceful. That means becoming more, not less, involved in the region. We don’t have to be heavyhanded in our treatment of the region, but benign neglect will not help anyone.

Right now, Egypt is at a turning point. The future of the region is being written now, and if Egypt tilts towards democracy and pluralism, it could continue to spill over across the region. But if Egypt becomes another Islamist theocracy, the democratic dreams of people from Beirut to Tehran could be crushed. As a believer in liberal democracy, I would like to think that democracy will win out. But pragmatically, I know that democracy is a rarity in human history: the human condition is much more likely to be in bondage to autocrats or tyrants than consensual governments.

But ultimately, the fate of Egypt will be written by the Egyptian people themselves. And they have shown that they will not live with the autocratic regimes that were once common across the region. The rest of the world can either recognize the new reality of the Middle East or be steamrolled by it.

Christian Persecution Spreads In The Middle East

The Coptic Christian community has been a part of Egyptian life for nearly 2000 years. The Copts are direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians, and the Coptic language is the closest linguistic descendant to the language of the Pharaohs. Christianity existed in Egypt before the Islamic faith was revealed to Mohammad.

The aftermath of the Alexandria church bombing

That is one of the reasons why the plight of Egypt’s Christian minority is so disturbing. On New Year’s Day, a Coptic church in the port city of Alexandria was bombed by Islamic terrorists with links to al-Qaeda, killing 21 people and wounding another 97. Repression of Egypt’s Coptic minority is becoming increasingly common, as Islamic radicalism spreads like a cancer through Egypt’s body politic. It is telling that the reaction to the bombing was not a condemnation of Islamic radicalism, but the typical accusations that “Zionists” and the Mossad were behind the blasts.

Not all Egyptians have fallen for the official line, and there have been widespread protests against the attacks, and calls for national unity between Egyptian Christians and Egypt’s Muslim majority. But at the same time, there have been attacks against Christian groups by Egyptian security forces, and the Mubarak government has been less than interested in stopping the attacks. So long as the terrorists aren’t going after the government itself, the Mubarak government will condemn terrorism on one hand, while fanning the flames of extremism with the other.

The Guardian explains some of the institutionalized prejudice felt by Egyptian Copts:

Some feel their very identity as Egyptians is being deliberately eroded by the state. Baghat expresses a victimisation that leaves Christians feeling “assaulted twice, once by their Muslim neighbours and then again when the powers-that-be side with the attackers”.

Peter Gobrayel, a worshipper at St Paul’s, said; “We are treated as second-class citizens in every way; the only interaction we have with the government leaves us feeling like failures, and of course that makes us feel like we don’t belong.

“I fought for Egypt in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and was a PoW in Israel; you could say that I’ve spent the whole of my life on the frontline for my country. Now, speaking honestly, when I see the nation burning I just want to add petrol. I am an Egyptian first and foremost, and yet my country seems to want to eradicate me.”

For Hossam Baghat, Copt-Muslim tensions will only be resolved when the government ends its security-driven response to sectarian violence and begins implementing the rule of law.

But the Mubarak regime has little interest in the rule of law. The Mubarak regime is playing a cynical game by using anti-Christian and anti-Semitic sentiment as a safety valve. Blaming religious minorities and Israel focuses popular anger away from the regime where the anger truly belongs. If people are rioting against the “Zionists,” they aren’t rioting against the Mubarak regime. Caught in the middle between autocratic regimes and Islamic zealots are people like Egypt’s Copts, increasingly endangered minorities trying to keep their faith alive.

But Egypt isn’t alone in this regard. In Iraq, an ancient Christian community is also under siege. Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled the country as Islamic extremism have made Christians a target. Nearly half of Iraq’s Christian population have fled the country.

From Egypt to Iraq, the Christian communities of the Middle East are dwindling due to violence and discrimination. The rise of radicalized Islam have pushed out minority communities, especially religious minorities. Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco used to have vibrant Jewish communities during more tolerant times. But since cynical Arab leaders realized that exploiting anti-Semitism could keep them in power, those communities have been forced to flee to the West or Israel.

What is more disturbing is that this phenomena is spreading across the globe. After the attacks in Alexandria, Coptic Christians from Australiato Canada to Germany are fearing further attacks by Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. If the goal of terrorism is to sow fear, then these attacks are working.

As Mark Seddon writes in The Independent that we may be witnessing a new age of Christian persecution across the region. Indeed, all the evidence suggests that is exactly what is going on.

The West should not stand idly by while entire communities are uprooted and religious persecution spreads across the region and the world. The plight of Egypt’s Copts and Iraq’s Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are part of the larger struggle for the Middle East. One of the goals of groups like al-Qaeda is to push all but Salafist Muslims out of the Middle East. But their violence won’t stop there: their goals are worldwide, and they will attack anyone who stands in their way.

The West cannot make weak condemnations and then ignore the problems. The US gave over $1.5 billion in foreign aid to Egypt in 2010, mostly in the form of military aid. If the Mubarak regime will continue to sit idly by while Egypt’s Copts are slaughtered—or worse yet, be complicit in the persecution itself, the US need not support them with foreign aid. Further US aid should be tied to demonstrable changes in Egyptian policy and demonstrable steps in fighting terrorism rather than tacitly encouraging it.

We would like to think that persecution of Christians is a phenomenon of the past: but throughout the Middle East it is a sad reality. And unless both the West and the people of the Middle East stand together against this new wave of persecution, it will only continue until these ancient communities are destroyed. But unfortunately, small communities like Egypt’s Copts or Iraq’s Assyrian Christians are almost invisible to most in the West. That is why al-Qaeda and other Islamic radical feel free to attack them: they know that it won’t make as big a splash as attacks against Western interests. But if the West stands firm and works hand-in-hand with civil society groups in the Middle East to protect religious minorities, there is still a small chance these ancient communities can be saved.

This January 7th is the Coptic Christmas celebration, a celebration that this year is muted by fear and violence. But Christmas is a time of hope, and if the world is willing to stand united in opposition to terrorism, there may be hope to stop this wave of oppression before it wipes out the Christian communities of the Middle East.

Passing Blame To The Wrong Party

Daniel Larison, of the paleo-con American Conservative takes a look at the woes of the GOP and the conservative movement and puts the blame on national-security conservatives.

It wasn’t that the Bush Administration went on an orgy of spending that made a mockery of conservative principles, or that social conservatives had a message that tended to alienate rather than include, it’s that the the strong national security message of the GOP caused them to lose:

Like their short-sighted cheerleading for a â€œsurgeâ€ in Iraq, which failed on its own terms, and their subsequent carping this year that the Pentagon budget increase is too small, the mainstream rightâ€™s apologies for torture are not only morally bankrupt but also divorced from the reality of the intelligence, or lack thereof, these methods provided. Much as liberals needed their internal critics to challenge the welfare status quo over the last three decades, conservatism desperately needs similar internal dissent concerning the warfare state. But there is almost none.

One reason for the lack of dissent and accountability is that the majority of the GOP was deeply implicated in supporting and defending the war in Iraq, the signature failure of national security conservatives. To a large extent, the party has defined itself around the ideological fictions used to justify and continue the war long after the country had turned against it. This process was aided by the disappearance of antiwar Republicans in Congress. Never numerous in the first place, most have been replaced by Democrats during the past two cycles.

Now, this argument is wrong, but it isn’t fundamentally wrong. It is wrong on the facts. The surge did work, it worked better than had been expected, and as a testament to how well it worked, the Obama Administration has not disavowed it. President Obama, were the Iraq issue as toxic as it is claimed, could have withdrawn all U.S. troops ASAP. Instead, Obama’s war strategy is not that much different than what a President McCain’s strategy would have been—a gradual and conditional withdrawal over the next year to two years. Moreover, the Obama Administration is hardly rejecting the idea of a hawkish foreign policy. During the debates, Obama needled McCain about getting bin Laden. Hardly the act of someone who wants to push for a more restrained war. Obama has been sending more drones into Pakistan, even though such actions may be dangerous. Rather than de-escalation, Obama plans to put more troops into Afghanistan and has signaled a muscular U.S. foreign policy.

The truth of the matter is, doves don’t win elections in the U.S. Muscular foreign policy is widely accepted by both political parties in the United States. The idea that the GOP lost because they embraced “hegemony” is something only someone inside the intellectual bubble of academia could take seriously.

Moreover, Larison divides the GOP into three wings: social, fiscal, and national security conservatives. The reality is that both social and fiscal conservatives also tend to be national security conservatives. There isn’t a separate wing of conservatives that believe in a strong national defense but not social issues or fiscal ones. Rather, both socially-minded and fiscally-minded conservatives tend to be interested in national security issues. That’s why it’s not that surprising that Evangelicals tend to be supportive of “torture” against suspected terrorists—there is no hard and fast line between social conservatives and national security conservatives. The Reagan coalition was largely built around national security issues, and a strong national defense has been one of the common issues shared by a vast majority of Republicans and conservatives.

There is, however, an element of truth here as well. The GOP lost in large part due to the war in Iraq, a war that was never convincingly explained by the President and suffered from poor management from 2003–07. The “surge” was the product of the Administration finally listening to the people fighting the war rather than dictating from the top down. President Bush never convincingly explained why we were in Iraq so long and why the sacrifice of American blood and treasure was worth it. There was truth in the adage that we were “fighting them over there rather than over here,” but that logic was never followed through.

The GOP has many problems, but “interventionist” foreign policy is not one of them. The Obama Administration continues to play lip service to the idea of a more “humble” foreign policy while still engaging in interventions abroad. Isolationism has not played a major role in U.S. politics since the end of World War II, and for good reason. America’s superpower status demands world leadership, and we can’t have one without the other. If the GOP becomes a policy that abrogates its positions on a muscular U.S. foreign policy, they will lose. While Iraq hurt the GOP in 2006 and 2008, the GOP’s foreign policy positions helped re-elect President Bush in 2004 when Kerry’s weakness on national security proved to be fatal.

The real lesson here is that if you’re going to fight a war, fight it well and keep the American people fully engaged in the conflict. To argue that the lesson conservatives should learn from the last election cycles is to abandon a deeply-held and popular principle of conservatism and embrace a discredited and dangerous isolationism is to learn exactly the wrong lesson.