PrintJune 22, 2009
How about this, President Obama? We win. They Lose.
President Obama seems to be grappling with an approach to safely resolve the grave international problems of Iran and of North Korea. He is floundering for the right tactics when what he needs is the right strategy. As my friend Herb Meyer, who worked closely with Reagan in winning the Cold War, reminds us, Reagan's strategy was straightforward: "How about this? We win. They lose." Barry Goldwater put in much the same during the 1960s, when his Cold War strategy was summarized in his 1963 book title Why Not Victory?
Obama, like many Leftists, confuses national security tactics with national security strategy. Our strategy, after July 4, 1776, was to win independence. Members of the Continental Congress could visit with representatives of the Crown all they wished, but the strategy of the conflict - not the tactics - changed and decided the course of the war. Winston Churchill, in the darkest days of the Second World War, said that "Our policy is victory. Victory at all costs."
Obama needs to learn a bit about statesmanship from Churchill, Washington, and Reagan. These men all had a defined goal and they each knew why reaching that goal was vital to mankind. When politicians lack a strategic plan, we end up with messes like Vietnam, Korea, or the Treaty of Versailles. Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon could never figure out whether they wanted to defeat North Vietnam - a relatively simple task which our four mothballed Iowa class battleships could having largely done alone - or to leave South Vietnam to the communists.
Wilson, the only president as naïve as our current president, promised the peoples of Europe sovereignty, and then allowed France and Britain to create precisely the sort of polyglot nations like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, which made some sort of European war almost certain and a Carthaginian peace on Germany which made it very hard for noble Germans to win elections in Weimar Germany.
What is our "policy" towards Iran (and North Korea)? It is, apparently, to talk. Obama thinks a process is a strategy. It is not, particularly when one is talking to unprincipled, violent monsters. Juan Williams, an honorable Leftist, expressed on Fox News that our strategy regarding Iran should be to make sure that the nation does not acquire nuclear weapons. That is dead wrong.
Almost certainly eight nations have arsenals of nuclear weapons - America, Russia, Britain, France, China, Pakistan, India, and Israel - so what? Has any fool in the last fifty years lost a night of sleep because Britain and France had nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems? What we should want is that the government of Iran should become, again, friendly, peaceful, and sympathetic to the aims of progress.
Would anyone be scared if South Korea had the same nuclear weapons and delivery systems that North Korea is acquiring? If so, why? The southern half of the Korean nation is modern, open, democratic, peaceful, and prosperous. It is a pathetic testament to the indoctrination through entertainment that a program like MASH, which routinely portrayed our efforts in the Korean War as wasteful, ignoble, and silly can still get people to laugh. If our strategic goal had been the reunification of Korea into an oriental equivalent of Finland - truly neutral, but free and democratic - the world would be profoundly safer now.
What should be our strategy in our current, very dangerous, undeclared war? Our goal should be to win. As President Bush correctly identified them, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are part - probably not the only part, but a major part - of an Axis of Evil. The enslaved people of ancient Persia are among the most cultured and sophisticated in the world. They, obviously, hate their savage theocracy and its hand puppet political leaders. Our strategy must be the liberation of Iran.
What should our tactics be? Open support for the liberators within Iran, covert support for them as well, pressure on the neighbors of Iran - Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan - to get off the fence and on the side that will win (and if our strategy is to win, that will affect those nations greatly.) There are many tactics used in winning a war.
What should our strategy be in North Korea? Kim Jong Il is only in the most nominal sense a "Marxist." He is, rather, an oriental despot of the most odious disposition. He must go and a more sensible government must replace him. That may mean a unified, neutral, Korea as a buffer between three great powers in the Far East. It may mean a North Korea like Vietnam is now - hardly free, but relatively open and interested in friendly relations with America. Perhaps we could support making North Korea a jointly run protectorate of China and of Russia.
But we must make it clear to both of those powers, especially China, that while we have no wish to interfere with Chinese interests generally, that we will not tolerate the continued rule of Kim Jong Il. Our tactical responses can include big carrots for China and, perhaps, Russia or it could include the use of tactical air power to dismantle and humiliate the power of Kim Jong Il.
Once we have our strategic goals clear: liberate Iran and end the reign of terror of Kim Jong Il, then we can use all the tactics, including negotiation, to help accomplish the strategic objective. But just as Washington, Churchill, and Reagan did, we must put the horse before the cart. We must define victory and actively seek it.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
