Sunday, December 03, 2006
Mark Steyn: The Green Zone
Mark Steyn is blowing the bugle, calling reveille to America. Somehow, some way - we must get more people to listen. In the Chicago Sun-Times:
Yeah - I think that's a pretty productive line of questioning. How come the 'hyperpower' is submitting to an insurgency from Iran and Syria - and they don't have one of their own to worry about? Where is the IED factory and why is anyone who works there still alive? How are the Iranians who train Shia warriors for Iraq and Palestine able to go about their daily lives with peace and quiet? Why aren't they spending sleepless nights wondering when their camp comes up on the radar? Seems like we ought to be doing something about that.
I think the perception we had is that getting Al-Zarqawi would break the will of the insurgency in Iraq. The problem is that the will for the insurgency in Iraq is not in Iraq - it's in Iran. The money, the ammo, the freshly manufactured "improvised" explosive devices - these come from somewhere. We should be making somewhere a pretty tough place to live.
Why aren't we? Fear of an oil crisis? Get real. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, an oil crisis will look like a Sunday picnic compared to what we'll have to deal with.
It has been strange to see my pals on the right approach Iraq as a matter of inventory and personnel. Many call for more troops to be sent to Baghdad, others say the U.S. armed forces overall are too small and overstretched. Look, America is responsible for 40 percent of the planet's military spending: It spends more money on its armed forces than the next 43 biggest militaries combined, from China, Britain and France all the way down the military-spending hit parade to Montenegro and Angola. Yet it's not big enough to see off an insurgency confined to a 30-mile radius of a desert capital?
It's not the planes, the tanks, the men, the body armor. It's the political will. You can have the best car in town, but it won't go anywhere if you don't put your foot on the pedal. Three years ago, when it was obvious Syria and Iran were violating Iraq's borders with impunity, we should have done what the British did in the so-called ''Confrontation'' with Indonesia 40 years ago when they were faced with Jakarta doing to the newly independent state of Malaysia exactly what Damascus and Tehran are doing to Iraq. British, Aussie and Malaysian forces sent troops on low-key, lethally effective raids into Indonesia, keeping the enemy on the defensive and winning the war with barely a word making the papers. If the strategic purpose in invading Iraq was to create a regional domino effect, then playing defense in the Sunni Triangle for three years makes no sense. We should never have wound up hunkered down in the Green Zone. If there has to be a Green Zone, it should be on the Syrian side of the border.
Yeah - I think that's a pretty productive line of questioning. How come the 'hyperpower' is submitting to an insurgency from Iran and Syria - and they don't have one of their own to worry about? Where is the IED factory and why is anyone who works there still alive? How are the Iranians who train Shia warriors for Iraq and Palestine able to go about their daily lives with peace and quiet? Why aren't they spending sleepless nights wondering when their camp comes up on the radar? Seems like we ought to be doing something about that.
I think the perception we had is that getting Al-Zarqawi would break the will of the insurgency in Iraq. The problem is that the will for the insurgency in Iraq is not in Iraq - it's in Iran. The money, the ammo, the freshly manufactured "improvised" explosive devices - these come from somewhere. We should be making somewhere a pretty tough place to live.
Why aren't we? Fear of an oil crisis? Get real. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, an oil crisis will look like a Sunday picnic compared to what we'll have to deal with.
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