Daily Report: Russia’s Imperialist Formula, Dutch to support attack on Iran?
1. The drug war inside Mexico is spiraling out of control. President Calderon rightly attributed the dramatic rise in violence to the “gradual and growing disintegration of public and government institutions.” Over 100,000 Mexicans participated in marches against the murders by drug traffickers. It is really hard to emphasize how much of an issue this is becoming for Mexico. It is almost the equivalent of America’s 9/11, as thousands of civilians have died this year and the public’s faith in government is collapsing. The big worry for me is whether the instability will reduce the government’s capacity to control territory, opening up an opportunity for Chavez-backed Marxist militants to take a stand.
2. The New York Times has a fantastic piece detailing the debate inside the Bush Administration for the surge. It appears the President went against Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, and Robert Gates in pushing for a surge of his size. Other proposals involved drawing back forces or smaller increases of troops of about 8,000.
This proves why the government cannot operate in a bubble, ignoring the advice of experts outside of government. The plan drawn up by Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff for the Army, has been undeniably successful. Odierno and Petraeus are also given credit in the piece as they lobbied for a new counter-insurgency effort before the surge was decided upon.
While “more troops are needed” was a common criticism of the war in Iraq, few actually supported sending more when push came to shove. Hopefully, the story of the surge, which is also a story of a president taking a bold step to operate out of the White House bubble, will become a lesson in leadership and management for all future presidents and office-holders.
3. The Israeli government has reportedly made its decision that it will not allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. No details have been provided about how Israel would manage to pull this off or deal with the hellstorm that Iranian retaliation would bring.
4. According to this report, Dutch intelligence has moved a spy it had in Iran out of the country due to their belief that a U.S. attack on Iran using umanned aerial vehicles would be decided upon in the next few weeks. The report cites the De Telegraaf paper as saying that the Dutch had participated in a secret operation with the U.S. to spy on Iranian military targets and sabotage its weapons infrastructure.
The Internet is abuzz with talk about this new indication of a potential attack on Iran. Personally I find the most shocking thing about the report to be that the Dutch are apparently better at gaining human intelligence in Iran than the U.S. If this report is true, then it is clear that dramatic intelligence reform is still needed.
5. Russia has announced that South Ossetia will become part of “one, unified Russian state.” It is impossible to overstate the shrewdness of the Russians. Their success in Georgia has shown the Russians they have a winning formula, and they will use this formula again at a time of their choosing. What is this formula?
First, Russia provokes a conflict by supporting separatists in the country Russia seeks to target. They stir up trouble (or wait for trouble to stir up on its own) and then cry that the human rights of Russians are being violated. Russia then steps in as the protective older brother.
Second, Russia pushes for an independent state for the separtist population as the only way to gain their safety. Accompanying this push is the establishment of Russian bases in the disputed territory so that the targeted country can’t do anything about it.
Third, Russia recognizes the independent state, although virtually everyone knows this “independent state” is not so independent.
Fourth, Russia absorbs the new “independent” state. Most likely, the new state will say it is their desire to join Russia. However, as the case of South Ossetia demonstrates, this isn’t an expression of the will of the people. After all, notice that the announcement that South Ossetia would become part of Russian territory came from Russia, and not the so-called independent South Ossetian state. Normally, the state being absorbed would have a say in such a matter. When the state doesn’t have such a say, it is imperialism. And that’s why this is called Russia’s “Imperialism Formula.”