Military Milestones from the Alamo to Mount Suribachi
Posted by editor on 24 February 2009 at 8:26 pm UTC
This Week in American Military History:
Feb. 22, 1909: One-hundred years ago today, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” –a four-squadron armada of white-painted warships manned by some 14,000 sailors and Marines – returns to Hampton Roads, Virginia after sailing around the world in a grand show of American Naval power. According to the Naval Historical Center, an anonymous sailor may have said it best: “We just wanted to let the world know we were prepared for anything they wanted to kick up. We wanted to show the world what we could do.”
Feb. 22, 1967: The U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade conducts the first and only mass parachute jump of the Vietnam War. The jump is but one element of the much broader airborne (primarily heliborne assault) and infantry “search and destroy” operation, Junction City. The operation will continue through May.
Feb. 22, 1974: Lt. J.G. Barbara Ann Allen Rainey becomes the first female Naval aviator. In 1982, she will be killed in a crash while training a student pilot.
Feb. 23, 1778: Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian Army officer – arguably the father of American drill instructors – arrives at Valley Forge with the task of whipping the Continental Army into shape.
Feb. 23, 1836: The advance elements of a 4,000-plus-man Mexican army under the command of Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna begin the siege of the isolated Texas Army garrison at the Alamo mission near (now part of present-day) San Antonio, Texas, during the Texas War of Independence.
The following day, South Carolina-born Lt. Col. William Barret Travis, the garrison commander, dispatches a letter “to the People of Texas and all the Americans in the World” a portion of which reads:
“… The enemy has demanded the surrender; at discretion, otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the summons with cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. … I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forfeits what is due to his own honor and that of his country. Victory or death!”
The Alamo’s approximately 200-man garrison – including Travis, Kentucky knife-fighter Col. Jim Bowie, and Tennessee’s legendary frontiersman and legislator Davy Crockett – will be wiped out nearly to a man when the Mexicans storm the mission on March 6. But the drama which plays out over the two-week period as well as the courage and against-all-hope tenacity of the Alamo’s little force, will make heroes of the defenders. And the battle will become as much a part of American military history and tradition as it is Texas lore.
Feb. 23, 1847: Eleven years after the Alamo – during the Mexican-American War – a Mexican army under Santa Anna launches a series of attacks against a numerically inferior U.S. Army force under the command of Gen. (and future president) Zachary Taylor near Buena Vista. Though Taylor is surprised and outnumbered (Santa Anna fielding at least 15,000 men to Taylor’s 4,800), the Americans – fighting on good defensible ground – are well-disciplined, and that combined with superbly employed artillery beat back the Mexicans who are forced to withdraw with heavy losses.
Feb. 23, 1945: After several days of savage fighting, U.S. Marines capture the summit of Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
Just after 10:30 a.m., a small flag is raised on Suribachi. But an officer orders a larger flag be hoisted so that it might be seen from the far end of the island. A large flag is found and brought back to the top.
Then, in what will become one of the most dramatic scenes of the war, five Marines and one Navy hospital corpsman raise the American flag over Iwo Jima. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captures the moment on film. Rosenthal will win the Pulitzer Prize for the picture, and the famous Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia will be based on the same.
Only two of the five Marines will survive the battle. The sailor will be wounded.
Interestingly, the sailor – Petty Officer John “Doc” Bradley – is the man in the center of the picture, illustrating the extremely close bond between sailors and Marines in combat.
Feb. 24, 1813: The sloop-of-war USS Hornet (the third of eight so-named American warships) under the command of Capt. James Lawrence sinks the Royal Navy brig HMS Peacock in a swift action in which Peacock’s skipper, Capt. William Peake, is killed.
The following June, Lawrence also will be killed in action: His dying words becoming the famous American battle cry: “Don’t give up the ship!”
Feb 24, 1991: U.S. Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf gives his subordinate Army and Marine commanders the green light during Operation Desert Storm, and at 4:00 a.m. the lead elements of the enormous coalition ground force begin surging forward into Iraq and Kuwait aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait.
Coalition forces having defeated the Iraqi Army in Kuwait and destroyed much of Hussein’s air and ground forces in Iraq, President George H.W. Bush will order a ceasefire on the 28th. The 42-day “mother of all battles” (38 days for the initial air campaign and four days for the ground campaign) will end.
Feb. 25, 1779: Following an arduous campaign through freezing floodwaters, a joint American-French force under Virginia militia Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark captures British-held Fort Sackville at Vincennes in the Illinois backcountry.
Feb. 26, 1949: Lucky Lady II, a U.S. Air Force B-50 bomber flown by Capt. James Gallagher and his 13-man crew, begins the first leg of the first-ever nonstop flight around the world. The flight, requiring nearly four days and four in-flight refuelings, will be successful, and it will prove to the world that U.S. aircraft are capable of flying from their North American bases and striking any city on earth. But the flight will not be without loss. One of the refueling tankers will crash upon returning to the Philippines, killing the entire crew.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: “This Week in American Military History,” appears this week in WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW and every week as a feature of HUMAN EVENTS.
Let’s increase awareness of American military tradition and honor America’s greatest heroes by supporting the Medal of Honor Society’s 2010 Convention to be held in Charleston, S.C., Sept. 29 – Oct. 3, 2010 (for more information, click here).
America’s Lord Nelson to an Earth-orbiting Marine
Posted by editor on 17 February 2009 at 5:55 pm UTC
THIS WEEK IN AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY:
Feb. 15, 1898: A terrific explosion rips through the bow of USS Maine anchored in Havana Harbor, Cuba. Almost everyone in the forward third of the vessel is instantly killed. Black smoke and seawater begin pouring into the remaining spaces. The dying ship, its bulkheads groaning under the stress of collapse, is then rocked by a series of jarring secondary explosions. Capt. Charles Sigsbee, the Maine’s skipper, orders “Abandon ship!” Within minutes, 260 U.S. sailors and Marines are dead.
Convinced that the explosion (the cause of which is still being debated) is the result of a mine or the work of Spanish saboteurs, American newspapers will demand vengeance. America will soon be at war with Spain.
Maine is the first of three so-named American battleships and one submarine.
Feb 16, 1804: U.S. Navy Lt. (future commodore) Stephen Decatur sails a captured Tripolitan ketch he renames USS Intrepid into the harbor at Tripoli. There, Decatur and a volunteer force of sailors and Marines board the frigate USS Philadelphia (the second of six so-named American warships), which had been previously captured by Tripolitan pirates. After a brief but violent close-quarters struggle – in which several pirates but no Americans are killed – Decatur orders the Philadelphia burned.
In time, Decatur will be referred to as “America’s Lord Nelson,” an affectionate comparison to Britain’s legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. In fact, when Nelson himself learns of Decatur’s action at Tripoli, he says it is “the most bold and daring act of the age.” And contemporary British historian John Keegan will describe Decatur as “the most dashing of the frigate captains whom the Corsair and 1812 Wars produced.”
Destined to be killed in a duel with fellow Naval officer Commodore James Barron in 1820, Decatur is author of the famous aphorism, “Our country, right or wrong.”
Decatur has had five American warships and numerous American towns and counties named in his honor.
Feb 16, 1945: American paratroopers – members of the U.S. Army’s famed 503rd Regimental Combat Team – jump over the Philippines’ “fortress Corregidor” (also known as “the Rock”) in one of the most difficult airborne operations of the war. Jumping in relatively high winds, the paratroopers hit the ground hard, fighting Japanese soldiers who had been ordered to fight to the death. For the next 11 days, the Americans will root out the enemy (deeply burrowed in a labyrinth of caves and tunnels) and beat back multiple banzai attacks before wiping out almost all of the 6,500-man enemy garrison.
Feb. 17, 1864: The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley – a pioneering vessel designed to help break the Union Navy’s blockade of Southern ports – sinks the Federal sloop-of-war USS Housatonic in Charleston (S.C.) harbor, becoming the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship in action. It is a pyrrhic victory however: the submarine also sinking – either with its victim or soon after the attack – with the loss of all hands.
The submarine is named for its designer and builder, Tennessee-born engineer Horace Lawson Hunley, who incidentally was killed during one of the submarine’s test dives.
Feb. 17, 1865: Exactly one year to the day after Hunley’s famous attack in South Carolina waters, S.C.’s capital, Columbia – site of the first secession convention – falls to Union Army forces under the command of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Columbia is subsequently burned. Both sides blame the other for the destruction of the city, fueling a controversy that continues into the 21st century. Sherman will withdraw from Columbia within three days, and continue his march up through the Palmetto state. He will write in his memoirs, “Having utterly ruined Columbia, the right wing [of the army] began its march northward toward Winnsboro.”
Feb. 18, 1944: U.S. Marines land and quickly capture Engebi island, the first obstacle to seizing Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshalls. The following day, U.S. Army forces strike Eniwetok – a tougher fight – and soldiers and Marines seize the island in three days.
Feb. 19, 1945: One year after the Eniwetok landings, the first two of three dispatched U.S. Marine divisions begin hitting the beach on day-one of the epic battle for Iwo Jima (one of the great U.S. Marine Corps victories which we will expound on over the coming weeks). Described as “throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete,” the battle is best remembered by the dramatic photograph of the flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi and the 27 Medals of Honor awarded. But it will not be without great cost: Of the 21,000 Japanese diehards defending Iwo, some 20,800 will be killed. Almost 7,000 Marines will lose their lives. Another 26,000 will be wounded. Aside from Marine losses, a handful of casualties will be suffered among the ranks of U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard personnel who also were there.
Feb. 20, 1944: U.S. Army Air Forces and Britain’s Royal Air Force begin Operation Argument – also known as “Big Week” – a massive thousand-plus bomber offensive (with all of the bombers’ supporting fighter aircraft) aimed at destroying the German Air Force in the air and the Luftwaffe manufacturing facilities on the ground in order to achieve irreversible air superiority before the Normandy landings. Allied losses will be high. German losses will be staggering.
Feb. 20, 1962: U.S. Marine Lt. Col. (future colonel) and two-war fighter pilot John H. Glenn Jr. becomes the first American to orbit Earth. Glenn orbits Earth three times in less than five hours in his spacecraft, Friendship 7.
Glenn will become a U.S. senator in 1974. In 1998, at the age of 77, he will return to space (becoming the oldest human in space) aboard Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95) commanded and piloted respectively by U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonels Curtis L. Brown and Steven W. Lindsey.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: “This Week in American Military History,” appears this week in WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW and every week as a feature of HUMAN EVENTS.
Let’s increase awareness of American military tradition and honor America’s greatest heroes by supporting the Medal of Honor Society’s 2010 Convention to be held in Charleston, S.C., Sept. 29 – Oct. 3, 2010 (for more information, click here).
HIZBALLAH GETS AWAY WITH MURDER, AGAIN
Posted by editor on 15 February 2009 at 6:30 pm UTC
Hizballah’s thugs are at it again – as they so-often are despite scant-if-any media coverage of their ongoing activities aimed at achieving complete political and military dominance over Lebanon, which is why their operations are so often successful in that country. And it is why their strategic/political leverage continues to strengthen unabated.
Saturday, members of the Shia terrorist organization and their allies reportedly attacked members of the pro-democracy March 14 movement whom – representing a majority in that country – were marching and speaking out against Hizballah’s leaders following a Beirut rally commemorating the 4th anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Several March 14 members were injured; and one man, Lutfi Zein Eddine, was killed (reportedly stabbed multiple times as he attempted to shield his son, who was wounded in the attack).
According to sources, “Police watched from a distance and did not intervene.”
Naturally, Hizballah denies having any responsibility in the man’s death. They often do deny such things, and they get away with it. In fact they always get away with murder, and are even rewarded on those rare occasions that they do accept responsibility. Remember May 2008.
Some Lebanese media – to include some international correspondents – try to paint Hizballah as a somewhat misunderstood religious-based political party (with, ahem, military grade weapons). But Hizballah is clearly one of the most dangerous, expanding terrorist organizations on Earth. And nobody is permitted to speak out against Hizballah. Nor is any reporter to attempt to accurately report the strength and activities of Hizballah until Hizballah is ready – if ever – for those activities to be disclosed.
As we have exhaustively reported, Hizballah – the so-called “party of God,” which rules a Shia kingdom inside the sovereign state of Lebanon, and which gained enormous strategic/political leverage when they turned their so-called weapons of resistance against the Lebanese government and citizenry in May 2008 – is in the words of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk, ”a premier terrorist organization. Beyond that, it has built up an independent military capability that is greater than the military capabilities of the Lebanese armed forces.”
Let’s recap what I have been reporting since 2007:
- Hizballah is trained, equipped, and heavily financed (an estimated one-billion dollars annually) by Iran, and the organization is operationally supported by both Iran and Syria.
- Hizballah is expanding its base, and the organization is increasing its global reach.
- Hizballah has “conducted very large, spectacular” terrorist operations worldwide.
- Hizballah has defiantly refused to surrender its arms in Lebanon as called for under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701.
- Hizballah has demonstrated time-and-again since May 2008 that it has no qualms about overtly killing Lebanese civilians as a means of furthering the organization’s aims.
- Hizballah has heavily infiltrated the Lebanese Army.
- Hizballah, since May, has wormed its way into position as an official component of the overall Lebanese Defense apparatus.
Yesterday Hizballah’s attacks against those who would speak the truth resulted in Zein Eddine’s death. His son, Shadi, was treated in a hospital and released.
Our sources also tell us, members of the pro-democracy movement traveling toward northern Lebanon were attacked by Hizballah’s allies, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and others.
“The pro-democracy majority turned out in enormous numbers,” says Tom Harb, secretary general of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution. “They want 1559 implemented. They want justice for the killing of Hariri. But Hizballah and their allies keep trying to undermine democratic progress.”
Harb adds, “The current U.S. administration must understand the dangers of Hizballah and the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah axis. To rush into dialogue would be a huge mistake, because the terrorists and terrorist supporters will perceive themselves as having been granted greater leverage.”
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com
John Paul Jones’ Salute and Myron Harrington’s Marines
Posted by editor on 11 February 2009 at 12:50 pm UTC
THIS WEEK IN AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY:
Feb. 9, 1943: U.S. Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey receives the following message from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Alexander M. “Sandy” Patch:
“Total and complete defeat of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal effected 1625 today . . . Am happy to report this kind of compliance with your orders . . . because Tokyo Express no longer has terminus on Guadalcanal.”
The campaign launched by U.S Marines and sailors in August 1942, and fought by Army, Navy, and Marine forces (and allies) over a six-month period, has resulted in the decisive defeat of Japanese forces on-and-near the island of Guadalcanal. The close of the campaign also ends the first major American offensive of World War II.
Feb. 10, 1763: The Treaty of Paris is signed ending the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American colonies. For America – militarily speaking – the war strengthens Great Britain’s territorial dominance and strategic supremacy in North America. The war also serves as the conflict prior to the American Revolution in which many future Continental Army commanders cut their teeth.
Feb. 10, 1962: In a dramatic Cold War prisoner swap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel on the Glienecker Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam in East Germany.
Powers is a former U.S. Air Force officer who had been flying U-2s for the CIA when he was shot down over the Soviet Union and captured in May 1960. Abel, a KGB colonel, had been arrested in New York in 1957 and convicted of espionage activities against the United States.
Feb. 12, 1955: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower sends U.S. military advisors to South Vietnam.
Feb. 12, 1973: The first American prisoners of war are released from North Vietnamese captivity.
Feb. 13, 1861: U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon Bernard J. D. Irwin takes voluntary command of combat troops, leading an expedition to rescue some 60 men of the 7th Infantry who are trapped and surrounded by Apache Indian forces under Cochise. According to his citation: “Irwin and 14 men, not having horses began the 100-mile march riding mules. After fighting and capturing Indians, recovering stolen horses and cattle, he reached [2d Lt. George N.] Bascom’s column and help break his siege.”
Though the Medal of Honor does not yet exist, Irwin will receive the new decoration in 1894. And his actions at “Apache Pass” will prove to be the first in history for which the medal is awarded.
Feb. 13, 1945: USS Batfish (the first of two so-named American submarines) sinks her third Japanese submarine in four days.
Feb. 14, 1778: The Continental sloop-of-war Ranger (the first of 10 so-named American warships) under the command of Capt. John Paul Jones fires a 13-gun salute to French Adm. Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte’s fleet anchored in France’s Quiberon Bay. The French return the salute with nine guns. It is the first time America’s new flag – “the stars and stripes” – is officially recognized by a foreign power.
Feb. 14, 1814: The American frigate USS Constitution captures Lovely Ann, a British armed merchant vessel, and HMS Pictou, a Royal Navy schooner, within hours of each other.
Constitution (known affectionately as “Old Ironsides”) is the oldest ship in the American Navy. Launched in 1797, she serves today as a duly commissioned ship crewed by active-duty U.S. sailors and Naval officers in order to further public awareness of American Naval tradition.
Feb. 14, 1912: USS E-1 (SS-24), the U.S. Navy’s first diesel-powered submarine, is commissioned in Groton, Connecticut. The sub is skippered by an almost 27-year-old Lt. Chester W. Nimitz, destined to become the famous five-star fleet admiral of World War II.
Feb. 14, 1968: As the bloody Battle of Hue rages (part of the broader Vietnamese TET Offensive), Capt. Myron Harrington and his Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines prepare to assault the city’s Citadel with its commanding Dong Ba tower.
Harrington is ordered to attack, to which he responds simply, “aye aye, sir.” Harrington’s Marines take the tower and other objectives in fierce fighting. Harrington will receive the Navy Cross for “extraordinary heroism” in an action on the 23rd, and ultimately rise to the rank of colonel.
In a PBS documentary Harrington recalls:
“Throughout all of this, you constantly had this fear. Not so much that you were going to die, because I think to a certain degree that was a given. This was combined with the semi-darkness type of environment that we were fighting in because of the low overcast – the fact that we didn’t see the sun – gave it a very eerie, spooky look. You had this utter devastation all around you. You had this horrible smell. I mean you just cannot describe the smell of death especially when you’re looking at it a couple of weeks along. It’s horrible. It was there when you ate your rations. It was almost like you were eating death. You couldn’t escape it.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: “This Week in American Military History,” appears this week in WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW and every week as a feature of HUMAN EVENTS.
Let’s increase awareness of American military tradition and honor America’s greatest heroes by supporting the Medal of Honor Society’s 2010 Convention to be held in Charleston, S.C., Sept. 29 – Oct. 3, 2010 (for more information, click here).
Phares: Analysis of the Munich Conference on Russia, Iran and Afghanistan
Posted by editor on 10 February 2009 at 6:58 pm UTC
Military analyst W. Thomas Smith Jr.’s ongoing conversations with international terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares
IN AN ARTICLE FOR HUMAN EVENTS, my friend and colleague Clare M. Lopez laments that the Obama administration is playing a game of international appeasement with terror-sponsoring, nearly nuclear Iran to sate the appetite of a segment of Obama’s political constituency. And they’re likely doing it at the expense of U.S. national security.
“An 8 February 2009 speech by Vice President Joe Biden (in Munich, of all places) did note U.S. readiness to take pre-emptive action against Iran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism, but also repeated that the U.S. is open to talks,” writes Lopez, vice pres. of the Intelligence Summit and a former CIA operations officer. “This is what your mother always warned you against: mixed signals.”
Indeed, and as Bridget Kendall writing for the BBC says: “Many people want to believe that Barack Obama’s hopeful campaign message of change can somehow deliver a magic formula. But many have also noticed there was more mood music [at Munich] than concrete specifics.”
On the Munich table this year was Iran – How could it not be? – as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader war on terrorism, and deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations.
As part of our ongoing series of conversations with international terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares, we examine this month’s conference.
W. THOMAS SMITH JR.: Echoing Obama, Vice President Biden declared it was time to “press the reset button” in order to stem the tide of “a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the members of our Alliance.” In your book, The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad, you dedicated an entire chapter to the necessity of a renewed Russian-American partnership against terrorism and jihadism in particular. Almost a week before Biden announces “a strategic rethinking” of these issues you pointed out on Russia Today TV that “the new call to U.S. intelligence to gather better information about Russia” may well turn to “ an enhancing” or thawing of these frozen relations. Do you agree with Biden’s new approach to the Europeans and the Russians?
DR. WALID PHARES: The strategic approach I outlined in my last book, The Confrontation, was part of a comprehensive new doctrine promoting the isolation of the terror forces –particularly the Jihadi networks – instead of what we are witnessing which is the great powers and democracies fighting the fight in dispersed ranks and with different strategies. What I proposed last year – which by the way was advanced way before the U.S. election primaries – was a new geopolitical approach calling for repairing and reforming weakened Transatlantic relations since 2003 and the Russian-American relationship for the last few years. But to be clear, my approach was and is to reaffirm the Atlantic alliance and through it build a solid bridge to Russia not by caving in to the Jihadi powers, regimes and organizations, but by building a wider alliance to isolate these radical forces. In my many meetings and briefings in Europe for a whole year I advanced the idea of bringing together all of what is common between America and Europe regarding concerns over the rise of Jihadism within their own countries, and then design an Atlantic approach to confront the threat.
SMITH: And one such initiative, launched last April in Washington, was the formation of a Transatlantic legislative initiative.
DR. PHARES: Yes. With that initiative the aim was to develop fresh thinking on an international platform in the struggle against terrorism. Naturally I support the idea of a renewed Euro-American partnership in the campaigning against terror, and inasmuch as it can be successful, the initiation of a dialogue with the Russian Federation on joint efforts against Jihadi terrorism. But this new approach must move beyond the abstract and the emotional. Yes, working with the Europeans is more than a must, it is a natural strategic direction. And I don’t think there will be major hurdles in re-initiating this platform. But with the Russians specifically there must be a lot of work on redefining the common threat.
SMITH: The U.S. has much in common with the Europeans regarding our mutual strategic interests, terrorist threats, and our efforts aimed at countering global terrorism. The attacks in Madrid, London and elsewhere as well as our joint counterterrorism efforts worldwide, demonstrate this common thread and the threats we share. But let’s look at the commonality we share with Russia in this regard.
DR. PHARES: Keep in mind that regardless of politics and mutual criticism between the West and the Federation, the Russians have been targeted significantly by the Salafi Jihadists. Remember the atrocities at the Beslan school and the Moscow theater. There was and is an all out Jihadi campaign against the Russian people regardless of politics. The ideological platforms of most neo Wahabi and combat Jihadi movements consider Russia to be as much an infidel and an enemy as the West. Therefore, Washington and Moscow must come to some minimum level of understanding and cooperation in this realm. Actually it is illogical that both powers haven’t engaged in such an important counterterrorism dialogue. For if progress is made at this level, this may help alleviating the crises over other issues of great importance in Europe including the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and the problems in the Caucasus.
SMITH: But aren’t the Russians today prosecuting a somewhat “cold conflict” offensive aimed at undermining U.S. strategic interests in Asia and Europe? Didn’t Moscow encourage Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. base there? And we know the Russian Navy and strategic air forces are operating in America’s Caribbean backyard.
DR. PHARES: The symptoms of confrontation are numerous and seemingly irreversible. Listening to Hugo Chavez’s claims that Russian and Iranian support are necessary to expand his regime’s dominance in the Caribbean, watching as Ahmadinejad and the mullahs receive technology and military support from Moscow, and then we have Assad of Syria offering bases to Russia in return for shipments of weapons is certainly not reassuring to democracies. Nor are central European reports regarding concerns of Russian missiles and other provocations. But all of this is a result of the collapse of U.S.-Russia relations. Hence the necessity of repair, even if the United States must be the initiator of rebuilding burned bridges no matter who burned them. Washington must use all the tools at its disposal to reach out not only to the Kremlin but – and more importantly – to the Russian people in order to redirect the attention of both nations against a common threat. So my recommendations – as advanced in my book – are to engage in a two-pronged approach: Talk to the decision-makers but also to the citizens, and without hesitation. President Obama tried to reach out to the Arab Muslim world via an interview with al Arabiya TV, and he will deliver a speech from a “Muslim city” soon. He should do the same with the Russian people. What Vice President Biden has said in Munich should be the beginning of a tireless campaign to reach out to Europeans and Russians going beyond the abstract.
SMITH: As you’ve often said Moscow has been trying to shield the Iranian regime from the effects of international sanctions, supplying them with technology and more. How can the U.S. engage Russia diplomatically while it is blatantly supporting America’s foes in the Middle East?
DR. PHARES: It is a question of political engineering in Washington. I am not sure about what the Obama administration’s plans are in this regard, or if the administration even has any. But I would strongly urge a two-dimensional approach. Regarding the Iranian regime, Washington should expand its coalition against nuclear weapons. In doing so, the U.S. will remain under the UN umbrella but at the same time can engage in direct initiatives. Some are advising the White House to begin full-fledged dialogue. I would advise a different path, where the talking is not the issue, but the recipients of that dialogue must be the issue. We’ll address this later. But whatever the administration wants to do regarding Iran, it should not link it to its grand strategy of shaping new alliances worldwide. I admit, this needs lots of strategic crafting in Washington and it needs a global vision of how to confront the Jihadi threat ultimately.
SMITH: Russia has been warned in so many words that the U.S. will not accept the idea of a world divided into “spheres of influence” as we once were; and that former Soviet-bloc nations like Georgia and Ukraine should have the unimpeded right to decide which alliances – like NATO – they might decide to join. Will this prove to be an un-negotiable obstacle to any renewal of Russo-American understanding?
DR. PHARES: The current Russian leadership considers the extension of NATO close to Russia’s borders as a menace. But this is a new development for during the 1990s and the first years after 9/11 Moscow wasn’t that nervous about this advance of NATO. One has to analyze what happened that created a breakdown in trust? For Russia has had borders with NATO in the post Soviet era, on the borders between Kaliningrad and Poland. Alaska is dozens of miles away from Kamchatka. The question deserves a thorough analysis. What prompted Russia to consider the adhesion of Georgia and Ukraine as threatening? All Russian citizens killed by Terrorists since the end of the Cold war were attacked by Jihadists, either in the Caucuses or in Moscow’s heart. Russians populations are targeted by Wahabis and by their allies all coming from the south not from the West. Thus the question is legitimate: why does the Kremlin fear the Poles and the Ukrainians more than the Salafists and eventually the Khomeinists? The analytical review of this Russian shift has to be done in the West.
SMITH: Some have argued that NATO’s military presence in the Balkans is the real reason for Russia’s overreaction elsewhere.
DR. PHARES: The Russians didn’t hide their frustrations in 2007-2008 when Washington backed the secession of Kosovo from Serbia despite Russian calls to allow negotiations between the two parties over the fate of Serbian minorities in Kosovo. Politicians in the U.S. openly claimed that direct American support to Kosovo’s unilateral separation would gain the sympathy of the Organization of Islamic States to American foreign policy. Russia warned it would back similar claims in the Caucasus in return. In a sense, yes, the Kosovo problem has deteriorated Russian-American relations. Perhaps a re-engagement by Washington over the minority status of Serbs inside mostly Muslim Kosovo can thaw one segment of frozen Russian-American relations. But this is only one example of the complex web of interests between the two nations. There are many forces worldwide who have an interest in seeing the ties completely severed between Moscow and Washington. Radical ideologues cheered publicly during the Georgia-Russia conflict last summer, and were gleefully pronouncing a return to the Cold War.
SMITH: Back to the Munich conference, do you see that Biden’s approach and the report by General David Petraeus, commanding general of CENTCOM, regarding Afghanistan have brought support from Western democracies and Russia to the theater there?
DR. PHARES: Again, in my last book, I called for a maximum internationalization of the campaign against the Jihadi forces, including the Taliban and al Qaeda. Some of our friends in the counterterrorism community do not trust the United Nations and anything international about confronting the terrorists. They may be right at this stage, but this can change if a new coalition is formed inside the UN Security Council.
SMITH: Yes, but we are talking about the unwieldy, far-too-often incompetent, and – in many ways as we have seen in Lebanon and elsewhere – impotent UN.
DR. PHARES: Regardless of most of the UN bureaucracy and some of the institutions which seem not to be on board in the campaign against terrorism, an entente between the major powers to isolate the Jihadists and their allies can reverse the current realities. I saw this first-hand when in the spring of 2004 – and despite deep divisions between America and France on Iraq – we were able to forge a single-issue alliance between Washington and Paris on the need to evacuate Syrian forces from Lebanon. It worked and the Security Council became the main force in pushing the Syrian occupation outside the small republic. With regards to Afghanistan, there is already a NATO consensus on defeating the Taliban and their al Qaeda acolytes. Washington must put efforts toward consolidating this Western alliance and go on a charm offensive to convince Russia and even India to be more supportive of the campaign. Again it will depend on the strategic architects in Washington. Will they capture the moment and widen the alliance on the Afghan battlefield or will they lose the opportunity and retreat into doomsday theories of finding the “good” Taliban to talk to? It really depends on who in Washington gets it and is willing to move swiftly and globally. I see a window of opportunity for the Obama administration to score a significant victory in Afghanistan. With Petraeus’s new operational plans, an anti-terrorist government in Islamabad, a European perseverance so far, and potential common-interests with Moscow to reverse the Jihadi threat in central Asia, there couldn’t be a better alignment of the planets. But the window is small and short-lived.
SMITH: Back to Iran, how do you read Biden’s statement regarding Iran that the administration is ready to engage in dialogue with them?
DR. PHARES: I think the administration has decided to try the dialogue strategy with the Iranian regime. And there may be too much pressure now for them not to go down that path. First you have a campaign promise to fulfill, then you have a current majority in Congress, which has already adopted this direction. But more importantly, the administration is besieged by a mass of expertise pushing toward the “sit down” doctrine. I don’t see at this stage any other course of action for them – unless the Iranian regime commits a less-likely mistake – than to slide, slowly, then fast into the so-called dialogue with the Mullahs. The problem in my mind is that I do not see a medium nor a long-range plan in Washington projecting – if not predicting – the stages to follow the theatrics of this diplomatic dance. In other words, the big achievement is not going to be the actions of organizing meetings and what have you, but what is it that you are going to get from the meetings. I have my own predictions, but let’s hold them for future analysis. Vice President Biden though understands that the U.S. will be dealing with very difficult set of circumstances and a Machiavellian regime on the one hand. And he will have to keep the sword of Damocles in the other.
[Dr. Phares is director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. Recently, he was appointed secretary general of the newly formed Trans Atlantic Parliamentary Group on Counterterrorism. Dr. Phares has provided analysis to the U.S. government. He regularly conducts Congressional and State Department as well as European Parliament and UN Security Council briefings, and he has been providing exclusive analysis to us for nearly five years.]
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com
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