Iran moves

The pseudonymous Spengler at the Asia Times has been counseling for years now—most recently here—the United States needs to embrace chaos, because that’s what’s on the horizon geopolitically.

It is embarrassing to read the musings of American strategists about their supposed options in Iraq. In an October 20 essay in the Wall Street Journal, Professor Eliot Cohen listed as candidates for “Plan B” the following: (1) ask Iran and Syria to help, (2) withdraw, (3) send in more US troops, (4) let the civil war proceed with US troops sheltered in secure bases, (5) put a military strongman in charge, and (6) partition the country. “All of the options for Plan B are either wretched to contemplate or based on fantasy,” concluded Cohen.

In fact, there is another option, namely to stop treating the conflict as an Iraqi matter and extending it to the whole region, first of all by attacking Iranian nuclear installations, and second by destabilizing Iran. Regime change as such may be a fantasy, but keeping the Iranians busy with problems inside their own borders is not. Widening the conflict is just what the US could not do in Vietnam without risking war with Russia or China.

Syria, Iran’s main ally in the region, would be caught up in the whirlwind. …

US policymakers, I wrote this March, “are deep in denial, or, as the case may be, deep in the Tigris. Like or not, the US will get chaos, and cannot do anything to forestall it. My advice to President George W Bush: When chaos is inevitable, learn to enjoy it. Take a weekend at Camp David with a case of Jack Daniel’s and Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest.”

Now, establishing his regional bona fides, Ahmadinejad has called the Iraqi and Syrian leaders to Tehran for a pow-wow.

Wretchard (in the comments of this post) is all doom and gloom:

The US voter may be sick of bailing out the Iraqis, but the war was only partly about them. It was about helping Iraqis to be sure, but the war in Iraq also involved protecting US national interests, though President Bush put it so poorly that often the point was forgotten. Many voters may have honestly thought it was all about whether or not to support the “purple fingered Iraqis” and as Cedarford said, they had enough. However, Teheran and Damascus will soon remind everyone just what it was all about. And then the public will come to realize the part the Liberals left out. In throwing out the purple fingers they were throwing out other important stuff too. And now we start seeing just what else got thrown out with them.

Segolene Royale just told Tony Blair to leave America or to leave Europe. And for the first time I think many Brits might say, “choose Europe”. The “superpower’s” check just bounced, even though there are funds in the bank, because the capital of will has dried up. However powerful America as a nation is, if the will of its political leadership is gone, like the Third Republic, then nothing matters.

I wrote after the election that we would see a rout; that things would get far worse before they got better. The pain has not even begun, nor will it begin to cease until both parties decide something is worth defending and convey that message to the enemy. But that day, alas, is far.

I wish I could be more encouraging. But one known way out of a problem you can’t solve is to expand the problem: make it bigger. This man has provided the opportunity:

But we will see much blood and many more tears before it’s over.