I have pushed your emotional buttons. Sorry. vbg
1.- The perception of weakness has nothing to do with actual armaments but the perception that we are unwilling to use them to inflict the kind of damage which we are capable of inflicting, primarily because we are afraid to shed American blood.
As respects Gulf War I, the perception of weakness was created by the fact that we did not get rid of Saddam when we could have done so with a minimum of effort. Add that point to the Laundry List of Shame.
2.- Whatever you may think, the Saudis are no longer our friends. They are accommodating AQ to survive, and have concluded that we are not to be feared for the reasons set forth in the Laundry List. The Saudis and Saddam never thought we would invade Iraq because the rest of the world was so opposed to the invasion. Sadam himself thought in much the same way. Both miscalculated on the effect of 9/11 on our resolve.
Yes, we need to make the Saudis fear us. Until Iraq, they thought they could manipulate us in much the same manner they had for decades, namely, by turning the oil on and off as required. While they are no longer friends or reliable, the Iraq war proved to them once and for all, in a very salutary way I might add, that neither are we.
Radical elements in SA are never going to be appeased until they win or are nullified, so we might as well do whatever we can to manipulate the Saudis into dealing with their own problem. And, yes, the war did drive a wedge between the Royals and AQ, witness the fact that for the first time AQ bombed a Saudi police station this year. This is very significant, but only if you're paying close attention.
If you don't understand how the Iraq war was a good thing as respects our relations with the Saudis, I can't help you. The point is subtle but you're a smart if sometimes emotional guy.
3.- The Iraq war changed the strategic landscape in a huge way. Think about the following points, if you will. We are now the most powerful military presence in the ME. We have freedom of action if we need to from a spot which is the absolute strategic center of the region. We are in a position to secure oil supplies without having to actually take them over.
Nice, huh?
Look, I agree with you that the WMD issue was a sham. At the runup to the war no one really knew if Saddam had them. Perhaps so, perhaps not. What I think were the real reasons for the invasion could not possibly be articulated in public. I believe them to be more or less as I describe them. They are based primarily on the need to be able to prevent cataclysmic terrorism from ever again taking place on US soil, and the need to secure oil. Everything else is BS.
Will it work? I don't know. There have been serious problems. In my view, it is too early to tell. Things are in the balance. The Jihadists are very resilient, very tough, and are formidable though their plans for a generalized uprising in the ME have not fared well. We're not exactly weaklings either. It's a very difficult fight, an existential one, one that will define the first half of this century. We cannot shirk from it, in my view. |
