Democrats and the "GWOT"

FOX News reports that Democrats are fighting their Global War on Terminology again, attempting to strike "Global War on Terror" and "long war" from defense reports:

Erin Conaton, the committee's staff director, sent out the 15-page memo titled "Style Guide for Defense Authorization Report."

"When referencing military operations throughout the world, please be as specific as possible. Please avoid using colloquialisms such as, 'the war on terrorism, or the 'Long War' Please do not use the term 'global war on terrorism,' " according to the memo.

Happy Easter! Signed, Your friend Mahmoud

Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (MMA) has agreed to "pardon" captured British soldiers and just in time for the Easter holiday! Well, how about that. FOX reports.

Ahmadinejad asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair not to "punish" the crew for confessing that they had been in Iranian waters when they were seized by Iranian coast guard. Iran broadcast videotapes of some of the crew giving confessions, infuriating Britain.

Aww, what a swell chap. It gets better:

Ahmadinejad said Iran was not seeking a "confrontation" when it intercepted the British, "but the deplorable conduct of the British government led to the prolonging of this incident."

He criticized Britain for deploying Leading Seaman Faye Turney, one of the 15 detainees, in the Gulf, pointing out that she is a woman with a child.

"How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don't they respect family values in the West?" he asked of the British government.

Touche.

Taking One on the Stiff Upper Lip?

Former soldier and current military analyst Frank Peters today questioned the actions of the British hostages in Iran, claiming the Brits "wimped out in a matter of days and acquiesced in propoganda broadcasts for their captors." Ouch.

Peters colorfully describes the situation:

What on earth happened to the Royal Marines? They're members of what passes for an elite unit. Has the Labor government's program to gut the U.K. military - grounding planes, taking ships out of service and deactivating army units - also ripped the courage from the breasts of those in uniform?

The female sailor who broke down first and begged for her government to surrender was pathetic enough. But when Royal Marines started pleading for tea and sympathy . . . Ma, say it ain't so!

Meanwhile, back at No. 10 "Downer" Street, British politicians are more upset that President Bush described their sailors and Marines as "hostages" than they are with the Iranians.

Okay, Lord Spanker and Lady Fanny - what exactly are those sailors and Marines? Package tourists?

Naturally, the European Union has praised Britain's "restraint." We've now got another synonym for cowardice.

I've always respected the Brits and quite liked those I worked with when in uniform . . . but I'm starting to wonder if I bought into a legend. While criticizing our military's approach to everything, the Brits made an utter balls of it in Basra - now they're bailing out, claiming "Mission accomplished!" (OK, they had a role model . . .) In Heaven, Winston Churchill's puking up premium scotch.

U.S. to Blame...Again

It turns out Rosie O'Donnell is not the only voice in the liberal wilderness blaming the U.S. for the British hostage crisis. She is joined by the British daily, The Independent, which claims in an article today that a botched U.S. raid ten weeks prior to the hostage incident is ultimately to blame for Iran's actions.

I'm sure Iran is really miffed that we took a swipe at the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on his visit to Arbil in Northern Iraq. After all, I'm sure he was on a goodwill mission, delivering cookies and milk to Kurdistani diplomats there. But it stands to reason that they would send a clear message to us instead of the hopelessly mixed signals coming from Tehran at the moment. Also, nevermind the fact that evidence has been found showing Iranian involvement in resistance efforts against the U.S.; Rick Brennan covered this in a NYTimes piece two weeks ago. Nevermind Iran's repeated flouting of U.N. demands to come clean over their nuclear program. Simply forget Mad Mahmoud's eagerness to perpetrate another Jewish holocaust. It is, as always, those cowboys from the West who are to blame.

If only we wouldn't be so gung-ho. If only we would listen to the worldwide community (who, interestingly, spends most of their time listening to Iran's demands). If only we would reward bad behavior by the promise of incentives upon compliance. Then this hostage situation could have been averted. This whole Middle Eastern imbroglio might have been averted if we would have curried the favor of world opinion.

This article is, sadly, another example of a growing dhimmitude in Europe--a hope to achieve success through submission. That the UK would take so long to attempt to resolve this situation doesn't speak to patient virtue, but to indecisive weakness. There is a reason, after all, that British soldiers were kidnapped and not Americans, and The Independent never quite gets around to it. Iran's leaders know that kidnapping American soldiers would be the death knell for Ahmadinejad and his cronies. They understand the language of the strong man--that a strong man only submits to the stronger man. Unfortunately, as Tony Blair warns the Iranian government that he will move to a new diplomatic phase if pushed, British hostages are paraded, humiliated, and made a mockery of to a worldwide audience. Teddy Roosevelt said to "speak softly and carry a big stick." Thus far, the British only have the first part of that right.

Update: Allahpundit at Hot Air offers an extended debunking of The Independent's article here.

More on Britain's "quiet diplomacy" from Time.

At a Camp David press conference on the weekend, Bush reiterated his support for his friend across the Atlantic and deplored Iran's "inexcusable behavior" in "the British hostages issue." The use of the word hostages was "utterly careless," says John Williams, who in June 2004 as Director of News for the British Foreign Ministry, was involved in moves to free eight British service personnel, also detained by Iran on a stretch of the Shatt al Arab waterway. He argues that the British government must be seen to regard the current crop of detainees "as victims of a misunderstanding that could be resolved." That's a prerequisite for the kind of quiet diplomacy that prevailed back in the summer of 2004 when the eight were freed after three days.

Yes, but it is also a prerequisite for more aggressive behavior on Iran's part, as manifested in this latest hostage incident.

New Assessment of the Jihadist Threat Released

(H/T Jihad Watch)The United States Military Academy has released a report citing the declining influence of figures such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri in jihadist circles because of the increasing global spread brought about by the internet. The real cultivation of radical ideology seems to be coming from chatrooms and forums. But, here's the really harrowing news:

The report found that radical Islam, sometimes called Salafism, is so deeply embedded in the Arab world that Salafis now constitute a “majority or significant portion” of the Muslim population in the Middle East and North Africa.

Contrary to what I've read and heard--and most of that was from conservatives--the threat from radical Islam is much greater than many previously thought. The folks at Jihad Watch have been saying this for some time, but I guess I didn't want to overstate the problem.

One difficulty is being able to discuss this without the demanded qualifiers (you know, the litany of "of courses" that has to follow any claim about radical Islam.) Again, I think it's time we speak through the emotion surrounding this issue to get at the facts.

Not Groundbreaking, But Good News Nonetheless

The Iraqi Interior Ministry reports that it has issued an arrest warrant for one of the top instigators of sectarian violence, the AP reports.

The Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant Thursday for the head of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, said Harith al-Dhari was wanted for inciting terrorism and violence among the Iraqi people. Al-Dhari [is] the top leader for the Sunni minority.

Sounds like good news to me, especially given incidents like this:

In continuing bloodshed in Baghdad, police said gunmen opened fire on customers and workers in the bakery in the religiously-mixed neighbourhood of Zayouna.

Most bakeries in the capital are run by members of Iraq's Shia majority and are frequently targeted by Sunni militants.

Daniel Pipes on Installing a Strongman in Iraq

Pipes agrees with James F. Burns' article in the NY Times that suggests the idea of installing a strongman in Iraq may be an attractive alternative to the chaos existing there now.

Pipes' response is here.

Crazy Mahmoud?

From Washington Post/AP:

VIENNA, Austria -- International Atomic Energy experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for an explanation, an IAEA report said Tuesday.

The report, prepared for next week's meeting of the 35-nation IAEA, also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the agency's attempts to investigate suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program that have lead to fears it might be interested in developing nuclear arms.

And it said it could not confirm Iranian claims that its nuclear activities were exclusively nonmilitary unless Tehran increased its openness.

"The agency will remain unable to make further progress in its efforts to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," without additional cooperation by Tehran, said the report, by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Such cooperation is a "prerequisite for the agency to be able to confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," it added.

As expected, the four-page report made available to The Associated Press confirmed that Iran continues uranium enrichment experiments in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.

Both highly enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, and Iran is under intense international pressure to freeze activities that can produce such substances.

But Tehran has shrugged off both Security Council demands that it stop developing its enrichment programs and urgings that it cease construction of a heavy water research reactor that produces plutonium waste. It insists it wants enrichment only to generate nuclear power and says it needs the Arak research reactor to produce isotopes for medical research and cancer treatment.

Earlier Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would soon celebrate completion of its nuclear fuel program and claimed the international community was ready to accept it as a nuclear state.

Could the international community please wake up? What is it going to take for the UN to act? Does Israel have to be nuked first? A suitcase bomb set off around the Green Zone in Iraq? Oh wait, the UN doesn't act. It only talks, exhorts, condemns, and "isolates." Apparently, President Ahmadinejad thinks that the international community is ready to embrace a nuclear Iran--one more member of the nuclear gentlemen's club.

I really hope diplomacy works, but I'm almost sure it won't. If it doesn't, let's hope that the US is prepared to follow through with the alternative.

What Will the Baker Commission Accomplish?

With Pres. Bush's appointment of Robert Gates to SoD, the media chorus of "Daddy Bush to the rescue" is all I've heard. Gates is a member of the Baker-Hamilton Commission on Iraq and is, some say, James Baker's mouthpiece to this administration. Gates, along with Baker, is part of the braintrust, if you remember, that stopped short of deposing Saddam Hussein, much to the chagrin of many a Shiite and Kurd. Of course, one could argue that the situation is not much better now. The Bush 41 gang are being hailed as realists, unlike the ideologues who dominated the first three years of this war.

We'll have to wait until December, presumably, to find out the specifics of the Commission's report and how President Bush will react to it. However, I have a feeling that it won't be long until the Dems aren't the only ones who will be accused of cutting-and-running.

In the meantime, the fellas at Jihad Watch have compiled a list of things the Baker Commission won't do.

Just Say No to Iran

Tony Blair, for reasons yet unknown, seems to be backing away from his strong partnership with President Bush regarding Iran and Syria, the Times Online reports. Bush, who has long held the view that the two countries are part of the "axis of evil," is getting the Downing St. cold shoulder as Blair begins to sound more and more like Kofi Annan. Forget all that passe sabre-rattling of the past; if Iran continues supporting terrorism in Iraq (and, may I remind the PM, in Lebanon...remember Hezbollah?) and does not stop its nuclear weapons ambitions, then let it be known that full-scale isolation will ensue. To borrow from the Jerry Springer show, "I know he just didn't."

Yes he did. If Iran doesn't cooperate then it will face international time-out. And just like children who laugh in the face of parents who practice this, Iran will only resume its bad behavior once "isolation" is over. It's no accident that President Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il are big buddies; Chairman Kim has been working the UN for years now.

What does isolation mean anyway? That Iran won't get into the international gentlemen's club? That it will be denied the right to talk an issue to death until no one remembers what caused the discussion in the first place? I'm sure President Ahmadinejad will be wringing his hands over that until the 12th imam emerges from the well.

The reality is that Ahmadinejad is doing things his way. He wants to be the strong man in the Middle East and an usher of Islamic fundamentalist rule. He sees the potential power vacuum in Iraq and will not be shy about trying to fill it. After all, it was only twenty years ago that the two countries were at war. He has turned Syria into a puppet-state and recently waged a proxy war with Israel in Lebanon. Most fearful, perhaps, for the U.S. and its ally Israel is Ahmadinejad's quest for a nuclear weapon. For him, this represents real power: the power to bargain and, if that fails, to demand. Or, if you like, the power to get into the gentlemen's club and, barring that, to destroy it altogether.

It is becoming apparent to me in all of this that the approach to Iran is all carrot and no stick. Internationalists continue to offer incentives in the hope that this will prompt good behavior rather than demanding that good behavior preclude any rewards. They threaten isolation for the same reason that many parents send their kid to his or her room: because they either abhor or fear the traditional alternative. For progeny's sake, let's hope the world soon learns to discipline Iran.

U.S. Needs to Get al-Sadr

Fox News reports that U.S. military forces raided the homes of several of Muqtadr al-Sadr's followers. This guy has been a thorn in the collective American military flesh for a while, and has helped to hinder the democratic process in Iraq.

Here's hoping that this is the beginning of the end for al-Sadr.