Nov. 06, 2014 Do Iraq and Syria no longer exist? (9): Maybe, but it isn't up to us anyways David

Nov. 06, 2014

اقتباس :

اقتباس :: Do Iraq and Syria no longer exist? (9): Maybe, but it isn't up to us anyways

Nov. 06, 2014 Do Iraq and Syria no longer exist? (9): Maybe, but it isn't up to us anyways David 06_E3_6

David Fastabend, a retired Army officer who was director of Army strategy (G-5) and also chief of strategic operations for the U.S. military in Iraq during the surge:

اقتباس :: "Iraq and Syria may in fact no longer exist. American strategy should in fact change. The driver of that change is not the nationhood status of either Iraq or Syria but rather our answer to the challenge first posited by Clausewitz:
"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish...the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive."
There is a disturbing connecting thread across the region for the past several decades that reveals this to be an ideological -- yes, religious -- Sunni/Shiite conflict that has existed throughout the history of Islam, at least within the Arab-Persian world. Perhaps dormant since the end of the Ottoman Empire, it is back -- this time with many of the tools of modern communication and warfare at its disposal.
Our strategic choice then is to decide if it is our task to finally resolve this conflict for the Muslim world. It is not.
Our next choice is to decide our preference for who wins. Better yet: do we want anyone to win? Any victor of such a conflict across the Arab-Persian world would be impelled by the momentum of their victory and the dictates of the ideology to move on to the infidels. Better for us and our friends if they never get to that phase. Our involvement should therefore be a balancing effort that does not necessarily resolve their conflict but confines it to the region -- in a way that is least amenable to propagation.
The obvious risk in a globalized world is that one or both of the sides will exercise provocations to draw us in and inflame their base of support. When such provocations come -- and they inevitably will -- we should respond. More specifically, we should punish. Our intelligence need not be perfect, but our response should be perfectly immediate, violent, and devastating. By the way, there is no nation-building in devastating.
If I had more words I would go on to say that it may seem harsh and pitiless to consign the region to decades of violence. But strategy is about choices. Islamic extremists, as well as the moderates who choose to hope that others will resolve this for them, have made theirs. We must make ours."

via Wikimedia