Timmyhawk

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST
Or maybe not? Here's historian Arthur Herman in the current issue of Commentary (NOT my favourite mag. . . ):

I point I've been making repeatedly for at least the last six years, though to be more accurate the last twelve is more like it. Here I am, without reservations I would make today, on my blog back in 2004:

Also here and here. What I find strange about this is that this is an obvious argument and yet Herman's comment above is the first time I've read/heard anybody else make it. Did I miss it?

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST
General Petraeus yesterday:

There will be no single moment at which we can claim victory; any turning point
will likely only be recognised in retrospect

Though you could have read that thought on my blog three years ago:

Finally someone listens to me… ;) Not quite, but the point matters.

I'm not sure, but I seem to remember the troops are Canadian, a country whose contribution to the battle for liberty was (and is!) often overlooked.

THANK YOU FALKLAND VETS
I know I'm posting this fairly randomly as today is no specific anniversary of the Falklands War that was on 25 years ago - just to point you to the British Legion's Falklands site.

IRAN HOSTAGES: SITREP AND OPTIONS
So today the headlines seem a little more positive, but I’m not holding my breath we’ll see our kidnapped forces released anytime soon.
Apologies for a lack of posting, the past week has been unexpectedly busy, but so this is going to be a lengthy one.

First point is the question about the kidnapping. Now had those boats been in Iranian waters Iran’s conduct would have been entirely legit. The MoD has also shown to everyone’s apparent satisfaction, where the boats were when they were captured. There has been criticism of the maps the MoD used showing that the boats were not in Iranian waters, because the Iraqi and Iranian governments have never agreed and negotiated the exact borders of their respective territorial waters, and hence those maps are less worth than would at first seem. However, Iran gave one position for the British boats to show they were in Iranian waters, and once the UK pointed out that that position would be well within the maps’ proper area, Iran hastily changed the position at which it claims the sailors and marines were seized. This shows that the Iranian forces were a) accepting of the territorial lines on temporary map, and b) were (now) aware that their capture was indefensible. Just to clarify this, Iran only has a right to conduct such operations in its own waters. So, even if you think UK forces shouldn’t be in Iraq and their presence is illegitimate etc, this has no bearing on the issue, as it only matters if they were in Iranian waters.
Now, you could argue that the border lines are in dispute. Ok. But then why is it indefensible for British forces, acting in line with a UN resolution, searching an Iraq-bound vessel on behest of the Iraqi government, to stray into disputed territory, but it’s apparently just fine for Iran to go into the same disputed territory and seize at gun-point? So, the Iranian regime knew either from the outset or after a day that the holding of the forces and their equipment was criminal, so it is quite right to speak kidnapping and hostages.
In effect this was an act of piracy and aggressive war. Nothing wrong with pointing this out either.

The second issue really is what can we actually do about it?
The EU is Iran’s biggest trading partner and any suggestion that their might be retaliatory sanction would put the heat on the regime. Our forces were operating under a UN mandate so the UN could issue some serious demands. Neither did anything. This demonstrates that in the field of security the UN and the EU are either good for nothing or worse. We can just about forget about them.
Do we have any military options? Well, it would be unreasonable to suggest nuking Iran, and in any case it wouldn’t really secure the release of the hostages . . . Ok, so seriously. An operation to free the captives was only really on the cards while they were being taken to Iran and perhaps while they were in a military base on the coastline. I’m guessing we had no contingency planning or indeed forces for such an operation, and that should be considered in the "lesson learnt" category. I don’t see that we would be able to extract our troops from where they are now due to a lack of intelligence on their whereabouts and the lack of an appropriate force to get them out of what is presumably a Revolutionary Guards compound in Teheran. Obviously we don’t have the forces to threaten much else against Iran proper. The only option I alluded to in the last posting was taking action against Iranian interests in southern Iraq. This has not been done in the past and neither was that build-up opposed by Britain for fear of being provocative. The result of non-action has of course been just that, provocative, for Iran thought it could get away with such an action as another kidnapping. If and when the hostages come free such actions should be considered anyway as punishment for the kidnapping.
So, if there’s not much to do here, perhaps diplomacy can save the day. The problem I see here is that we have little to offer the Iranian regime. It looks like they want confrontation, and the current crops politics is a politics of crisis so they need crises. We can’t really offer any compromise or climb-down our nuclear weapons stance. My only hope is that staying staunch on that issue at the last vote at the UN and after, demonstrated to Iran a sufficient level of British determination. Perhaps that has helped.
I don’t really see many options for us. I suppose we could always hand over some ransom money, or offer something similar, such as placing anti-regime activists on EU terrorism lists, to pick an entirely random possibility. For many reasons we will come to regret any of those moves, but I really don’t have much good advice on this whole sorry saga.

LATEST IRANIAN KIDNAPPING
The BBC report about Iran seizing 15 of our sailors is not too specific about the background, but I wouldn’t be suprised if this was a reprise of Iran’s previous kidnap of British servicemen. They got away with it last time so I guess they thought they could get away with it again. After British personnel are now officially accepting that Iranian undercover forces are active in southern Iraq, the Iranian government probably thought it would be a good idea to have another little show-down. Back in 2004 British commanders refused US orders to launch cross-border strikes in retaliation, so I wonder what’s going on behind the scenes now. Either way, it’s time we started reciprocating in some way. Earlier this year US forces were authorised to open lethal fire on Iranian agents, and this might be a good idea for us to do likewise. Or perhaps we should threaten such measures if the sailors aren’t released? Either way I think the UK has often been a little too soft towards the Iranian regime. Certainly, if our forces know who and where these Iranian agents are in southern Iraq, I’d suggest some serious raids are in order.

NATO LEADERSHIP
From today NATO’s big spring offensive against the Taliban is under way. Let’s hope it’ll be successful. Well, with a commander like this, should our hopes be up or down?

And who knows, maybe this blog will become a little more serious again some time.

As explained below we cannot reverse nuclear arms already aquired in the countries that have them. So, a realistic policy should firstly work at reducing their numbers, an area in which Britain is leading by example. The next realistic step is to stop further proliferation. The risk of this exists in two broad regions: the Pacific and the broader Mediterranean and greater Middle East.
Let's get the Pacific out of the way, as this is outside Britain's strategic sphere. The consequences of North Korea getting away with its programme and a possible weakening of American leadership could lead to the following chain reaction of nuclear weapons aquirement: South Korea & Japan, Taiwan, Australia and Indonesia.

Looking into our own region, let's have a look at the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, coupled with a possible drawdown of US-UK regional military policies: Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey as the first in line would go nuclear first. In turn this would pressure and open opportunities for Egypt, Lybia and Greece. Leading on from there Algeria and Syria can also not be discounted entirely. Once this is getting underway, who can say that other European powers, especially Germany will not be tempted as well? Additionally remember the strategic pressure represented by Russia.
This is bad for Britain's security. So, in order to counter this we will have to work on strategic arrangements and security deals that will lift the potential burden of Iranian/Russian nuclear blackmail from these countries. This would require resetting our alliances and making it clear that armed conflict will at some point draw in British military force, which must, and will, ultimately be insured with nuclear weapons.
Such a policy would not be able to reverse nuclear weapons in any of the countries in our strategic neighbourhood (Britain, France, Israel, US, Russia, Iran), but it would prevent the spread of such weapons to other countries.

(See also this article in the JPost by Emanuel Adler on the Israeli case, which makes a good point, similar to mine, and which ties in with this earlier posting).

TRIDENT RENEWAL: TOWARDS NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
Needless to say, it would be nice to be done entirely with such expensive and dangerous weapons, but Britain alone cannot not achieve anything with unilateral moves, except disadvantage the UK’s strategic position.
However, nuclear disarmament can only work if all potential competitors agree to do likewise, and in a simultaneous and verifiable fashion.

Who would that be for Britain/France/EU? And what other factors might drive their nuclear programmes?
Iran: Strategically this is a fairly direct neighbour. Iran claims in addition to us and the French, the US and Israel as concerns. Rivalry of course also with Russia.
Russia: Whilst there may not be much threat of any kind of serious conflict, we cannot know what the future holds, and in addition growing energy dependence on Russia would mean that our nuclear climbdown would shift the balance of power and influence excessively to Russia. So, what drives Russian nuclear arms policy? Its additional strategic neighbours and competitors are Iran, China and the US.

What follows from this? These countries would now have to be considered in a disarmament deal. So, like above:
Israel: To offset its numerical and spatial disadvantage vis a vis its neighbours, and because of Iran's programme, any Israeli disarmament moves are effectively impossible. And who knows who will follow in the region once Iran goes nuclear and the US-UK coalition abandons the region to its own devices: Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the most likely candidates; but more on this later.
China: Obviously the US is the main concern for China and additionally India plays a role, just as North Korea will be of some concern. Additionally a failure to contain North Korea and the weakening of American leadership would lead to more proliferation: most likely Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and maybe Australia.
US: Strategic concerns about Iran, Russia, China and North Korea.

So again: What follows from this? These countries would now have to be considered in a disarmament deal. So, like above:
North Korea: nukes used to extract international aid, strategic concern about the US and China.
India: Rivalry with Pakistan and China.

If we now add in Pakistan (vis a vis India, perhaps Iran), we have all the world's nuclear powers involved. From this we can conclude that the nuclear disarmament of Western Europe will only be possible within a framework that sees total global nuclear disarmament.
Whilst the likelihood of this is fairly small, formulating this as an end goal for British foreign policy to support is nonetheless right.
But before this can come about, Britain is right to keep its nukes, while making sure that the numbers are as small as possible. And on this, the Government for once seems to have got it right.

TRIDENT RENEWAL: WHY WE NEED IT
I want to keep this post as short as possible. Basically it is the right decision to renew Britain's nuclear weapons because we live in a strategic neighbourhood with other nuclear powers, and many potential ones. The motives of these are not always going to be benign, so we need to be sure the balance of power doesn'zt shift too much to our disadvantage.

The question now of course is, why not just rely on our allies? Personally I see no reason why we should lay our fate entirely in America's hands, who's to say that US interests will always overlap sufficiently for the US to remind our competitors of American nukes. Generally speaking probably yes, but the US is increasingly going to look away from (Western) Europe, for better or for worse.
So, why not rely on France? Despite many more differences than we have with the US, surely mere geography will ensure that French nukes protect us as well? Given some of the goals for British nuclear policy I will outline later, I think this is unlikely. In addition it misses the fact, that with France having the only nuclear weapons in Western Europe, it will get to call the shots on all matters regarding NATO and especially the EU. Polemically put, if we give up our nukes, there goes our opt-out out of the euro and common tax policy. If France gives up its nukes, its goodbye to the Common Agricultual Policy.
I assume that Western Europe will require a West European nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future, so why not switch British and French nukes to an EU system? As a eurosceptic I instinctively repel against this, but in theory this could one day be possible. Pigs might develop wings . . . . though with genetic engineering this might actually become possible one day. . .. Either way, this is not on the cards currently, and theoretically the EU might one day fail significantly enough for Britain to leave or the whole thing to collapse.

So, the prudent thing is to ensure that Western Europe has its "own" nukes, and that at least half of these are British.
I will provide more details on the reasons for such weaponry and how to change our nuclear weapons policy in the future in separate posts coming online later today.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE . . .OUCH!
The military utilities aside, have a look at the logo of the Army’s new special forces support group. Who on earth designed THAT?! And which organisation's emblem does it remind you of? Ouch, ouch, ouch. The amount of puns about this could be endless, you know, instead of ‘sas lite’, perhaps ‘ss lit’ et al. You know when Richard North warns of the ”Europeanisation” of our armed forces, it wasn’t always clear this is the kind of "Europe" we’re talking about . . . .
But seriously, this is just awful. No one in the press coverage seems to have noticed so far either. Can so many people be so ignorant?

BRITAIN GETS SERIOUS?
I do whine quite often about how the British public is so parochial that it doesn’t care about the serious business of foreign affairs, but here is some encouragement from recent polling:

Personally I would rate the economy and law & order higher schools’n’hospitals, but it is good to see some concern about our place in the world. Now if I can only get people agree with me . . . I wonder though whether David Cameron near complete silence on these issues explains part of his weakened popularity?

WHAT A DOUR WEEK
I should be blogging properly on all of this, but it’s not so much anger but despair that marks my reaction to what’s been going on in the past days. Where to start?
ID cards. Has anybody anywhere seen anything resembling a convincing argument that we actually need these breathing licenses? Sure their cheerleaders have argued well, if not convincingly, that they won’t turn this country into a police state and that they won’t bankrupt us. And that’s it. And some of the cheek they use in their arguments - just consider our probable future prime minister:

More shocking abuse in Iraq . . . well not really. We get a journalistically indefensible running of abuse image of Abu Ghraib. Why this qualifies as “news” escapes me, as it’s the same incident, the same day, that we have already worked through and it offers nothing in the way of new evidence. The only thing it does is provide material to the opponents of the Coalition. It’s almost like the responsible media want us to lose this war . . .
And as for our own boys, am I missing something here? I only read about it and didn’t see the images so I was expecting something disturbing. So I was rather dismayed to see the whole furour was kicked up only about a few troops in rather desperate circumstances kicking and hitting a little too much during an arrest. Admittedly, too much is too much and it is necessary for disciplinary action to be taken. But given the circumstances of an mob assault on the Army base, a mere few kicks and hits are pretty mild to the possible alternative of machine gunning the crowd. Again, this abuse only really shows again how we remain on the moral highground even if we lose the PR battle.
Which moves us on to the smoking ban. What to make of that? Is this fox hunting for pubbers? I don’t really see how this can be popular, or why we need it. In consequence pubs will wither lose customers, or change their licences to being private premises. As for people who don’t go to pubs, and who are probably the majority backing this move, they’re not going to be showing up in Ye Old Rose anytime soon. The only change is that now we have to waste the resources of public order on implementing this idiocy. What a day for limited government.
The final straw I think was the bizarre Dick Cheney shooting incindent. Sure, given that the victim seems in good shape, it’s certainly worth a giggle and some jokes in satire shows, but can anybody give me any reason why this was given whole minutes on prime time British tv news? Or why does it warrant any real attention? It’s all beyond me. It does however, along with the above raise questions about the competence of the journalistic profession.
All in all I just feel that sensible argument is just being lost.

IS BUSH GETTING IT?
A theme I have turned to sometimes seems to getting through to Bush:

Well, he’s got the wording right, but then he usually does – it’s the implementation that normally leave to be desired . . .

DEALING WITH IRAN: WHY WE NEED AN ISRAELI SECURITY GUARANTEE
Is it time for an "Osiran" strike? Is the solution to the current crisis about Iran's nuclear weapons programme a repeat of Israel's famed attack on Saddam's Osirak facility, or O'Chirac if you prefer that spelling?
I can see that many people are hoping this is going to happen. In a way it's a dream scenario: Israel does the actual dangerous and dirty work, the Coalition can huff and puff and indignantly protest how Israel has destroyed all its efforts at a peaceful solution etc., and in the end the problem is fixed or at least delayed. Equally the strategic fall-out would only hit Israel in the form of Iranian proxy retaliation via Hizballah and possibly Hamas, so we're in the clear on that one as well. Phew.
On the other hand if Britain and her allies take military steps against Iran there is going to be serious violence in Iraq, the conditions for which are already in place. As Iranian agents have reportedly been observing targets in Western cities, we may well even get some heavy hits on the "home front". Well, better let Israel take the brunt until we can find some magic wand to make the nuclear problem disappear.
One thing is clear however, a military strike by Israel alone will not suffice to end the Iranian programme it can only delay it a bit. Still it is an option Israeli policy makers will be considering now. And the timing is becoming more urgent. As has been pointed out by Richard North and the Wall Street Journal, Iran will soon have a new set of high-tech air defences from Russia (SA-15 Gauntlet, to be precise). These new systems would be good enough to make a single strike by Israel ineffective. That means that if Israel wants a sensible, i.e. non-nuclear option against Iranian nukes, it has until about March to do so, when the Russian systems are up and running. After that the options of dealing with Iran via air strikes will only be open to the US Air Force's stealth bombers, F-117s and B-2s.
The consequence of this situation is that Israel must either act now, or completely place its fate in the hands of the US and the EU-3, not to mention Russia and China. If you were an Israeli what would you be thinking?
So an Israeli strike is well on the table, and there is plenty of rumour about this sloshing around too.

But is this really desirable? I don't think so. There is a real risk that Iranian counter measures would spill over on to non-Israeli targets, including British ones. After all an attack by the demonised "Zionist entity" would be the perfect ideological rallying tool for Iran's current leader. He has something of a pedigree here after all. So, who's to say an Israeli strike couldn't be used as an excuse to recruit for and launch a serious jihadist campaign in the region and beyond. This would clearly hurt our interests, though this is a more speculative outcome.
Another problem I see is that diplomacy may still have some hope in Iran. Perhaps not in changing the ambitions of the current leader, but perhaps by slowing the programme down enough for an internal regime change to occur (or at least some moderation). An Israeli strike would clearly be a further step to full on violent escalation and I don't think we are politically or militarily entirely prepared for that yet. If we ever will be.

From this problem there are two separate courses of remedial action to be taken.
Firstly, there must be a way to stop Russia providing Iran with the Gauntlet missile system.
Secondly, and this is the key point of this posting, we have to find a way to dissuade Israel from attacking. Israel has many a good reason to carry out a strike, if it cannot depend on anyone else for its security. So an obvious step to take now would be for the US and the EU-3 to offer a clear security guarantee to Israel. Such a guarantee would bind all countries security together in this instance and by putting Israel's security into the diplomatic mix openly and comprehensively would remove Israel's need for action.

This would be a logical and necessary step, so it will be eventually taken, when it's too late, as these things always are. Nonetheless, it's simple really, it only requires a bit of political foresight. So, fingers crossed.

“BOMB AL JAZEERAH!”- WHY?
So we see the return of the story about how Bush allegedly wanted to bomb the headquarters of the Al Jazeerah tv channel in Quatar. I don’t know whether or not this is accurate but there is something else I have been wondering about: why would he even consider it? I am just assuming from hearsay that al-J’s reporting of Western military effort is biased against the Coalition. But if that’s what was bugging Bush, he would have been singling out al-J rather unfairly, given that there are plenty of other tv channels that are not noted for their enthusiasm for the war in Iraq. Some of them rather closer to home too.
Ok, so perhaps he really is the kind of war-mongeringly thoughtless nutter that the anti-war likes to make him out to be. Despite being a fully committed pro-American über-hawk I cannot of course rule this out theoretically. Well, I’ll leave that to the theorists then.
Another possibility that also can’t be discounted is that he was joking. Who knows? He might have been discussing the difficulty of getting any kind of good PR, and after mulling over the frustration of al-J specifically, might have jested, “we should just bomb them!”. If that were the case I can also see why no one would want this published because it would appear rather immature to be making jokes like that in the midst of a war crisis. And that’s still an understatement.
But here’s my guess at what could have been the driving factor. Apologies for the fuzzy detail and I don’t have any links at present, but I remember there was a story about al-J paying insurgents to carry out attacks so they had some exciting material. Additionally there were a whole host of allegations about collusion between al-J reporters and insurgents. I don’t know if those stories ever really got substantiated, but it would be quite a serious situation if it were true. Perhaps Bush indeed suggested to Blair that bombing al-J’s HQ might be an option of dealing with the problem. To my knowledge nothing was ever done. So the problem I see for Bush in regards to this memo is that it shows he had evidence of al-J/insurgent cooperation and then did nothing about it. This would be a real damper in regards to his standing with more hawkish types. Remember of course when this supposed discussion took place, frustration and even anger was on the boil about Bush N’ Blair’s refusal to send enough troops in the right fashion to win in Iraq (see archives of timmyhawk and Weekly Standard ad nauseam). Bush and Blair may simply now be trying to avoid coming under even more pressure from within their own camps.
There is one final reason for suppressing the memo. It’s a memo of a confidential, i.e. secret, deliberation between heads of government. If such conversations can in future not take place because of an overbearing fear of unprofessional civil servants leaking anything that tickles their fancy, communication between our governments will become ever more difficult, and in consequence it will become evermore harder to act. Particularly damaging to the Government in times of war.
Well that’s my quid’s worth, we’ll see one day I suppose. We always do in the end.

ARE WE READY FOR WAR WITH IRAN?
It seems like the situation is beginning to hot up for real this time. The EU-3 have made it clear that referral to the UN Security Council is now seriously on the table. Whilst in itself that may not be daunting challenge to the current Iranian regime, it does however signal a change in EU attitudes. Additionally, taking the issue to the UN marks the end of the kind of conciliatory diplomacy that the EU has been trying on its for the past 2-3 years. The next phase now will probably be a joint effort with the US at coercive diplomacy. How long that will last is hard to say. The possible end point of such an approach could well be military action. By whom and under what circumstances remains to be seen. An Isreali strike by March is a real possibility now. That may well be bluffing on Israel's part, but that bluffing is certainly aimed at getting others to act. To be clear, diplomacy may well achieve the goal of stopping Iran from getting nukes. But this will only be possible if there is a united diplomatic front against this, and a united Western military commitment to enforce a denial of nuclear weapons to Ahmadinejad's hands.
So, we have to prepare ourselves mentally and practically for war. Only that way can we build up the necessary pressure for diplomacy to work. Which again proves the old saying: si vis pacem, para bellum!

BRITAIN’S SELF-DESTRUCTION CONTINUES
That Sir Michael Rose, eh? I wonder if anybody is surprised by today’s news that he’s joined in the chorus of “impeach Blair!”. I’m certainly not. According to Sir Mikey, Blair “mislead” Parliament and the public over invading Iraq. There are arguments I can’t be bothered to enter into anymore, and this is certainly one of them. But there is something else going on here. Even if there was more truth in Rose’s claims that I can see, what on earth does he think he’s doing? He’s not going to achieve anything positive or constructive.
On another revealing wider point, his argument about wmd, where do you link to, if you want to refutation of that view? In the US it’d be fairly easy, and this piece is the first that comes to mind. But from a British perspective? I can’t off my head reading anything in, say, the Spectator, that made a similar argument about Britain’s war. Where are our hawks? (Even if they go ott.)
This only reflects the sheer and ever growing lack of nerve by the “great and the good”, of which a former general should be considered a member. Increasingly I get the feeling that the British establishment is losing its sense of political seriousness.
It is after all one thing thinking that invading Iraq in 2003 was a bad idea, it is quite another beating the anti-war drum long after the decision has been made and our troops are in the field. The only thing that will achieve is in undermining public support for a war that can’t be made undone anymore. In turn this saps away at the troops’ morale. Think about it, would you want to be a soldier risking his life in Iraq, when at home everybody’s saying that you shouldn’t be there and we’re going to lose anyway and everything you’re doing is a waste of space et al? No? Neither would I.
I find this episode all the more disappointing because Sir Michael Rose is a former general himself. He could at least counterbalanced his complaints about the political procedure prior to the invasion with a few strong words of support for his former colleagues.
And Britain sinks a little more . . .