Hoyapolitik

Western media has given significant air time and attention lately to a spate of public demonstrations in China - rallies, protests, marches and the like, to which state authorities sometimes respond violently.
Did you ever wonder why, other than being pissed off, the phenomenon appears to be on the rise?

According to a recent publication, the Chinese Communist Party employs a peculiar system for keeping tabs on local politics. I’m grossly oversimplifying, but here’s the nuts and bolts:

China is massive. Huge. There’s no way, even with an extensive intelligence and political infrastructure, that Beijing can keep an eye on every local development. This has been a somewhat positive incentive for provinces with high economic potential, because local leaders have had some leeway to pursue lucrative trade policies, particularly on the international scene.

Domestically, however, it is a system of conflicting incentives. Central party officials rate the ability of local party officials to provide social goods - food, water, housing, employment, etc. This is one of the major forms of legitimacy that the CCP retains - by providing a steadily increasing standard of living through economic prosperity, they argue they are best suited to remain at the helm.

One of the ways Beijing measures the performance of its local officials is by how many mass protests, petitions and uprisings there are in a given area of responsibility. If there are relatively few complaints, Beijing posits, then things must be going ok. If there are repeated mass uprisings, publicity stunts and general civil disorder, the local official is considered lacking, and therefore removed from his or her position.

What this does is incentivize two incredibly antagonistic behaviors - local citizens are forced to organize mass protests, because there are no peaceful, legitimate means to bring complaints against the local goverment - the courts don’t work, the internet is censored and media access is controlled. Otherwise, whatever lack of performance is occurring at the local level never reaches Beijing’s attention.
On the same token, local officials are compelled to repress, suppress, squash and otherwise stamp out any kind of public movement, for fear that Beijing will determine he or she is unsuited for the position.
The reality is that it encourages extreme rebellion and extreme repression at the same time.

This analysis is presented in much greater detail and much more cogently in Chapter 3 of The China Balance Sheet: Social Instability in China, by Carl Minzner of CSIS. Carl Minzner spent three years as a congressional advisor on local governance, civil society, access to justice, and internal migration in China, and is now a scholar at Washington think tank, CSIS.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Strategic and International Studies publish an annual survey of major issues and developments concerning China. This year’s volume is entitled, The China Balance Sheet in 2007 and Beyond.

You can learn more at http://www.chinabalancesheet.org.

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We took a little labor day break from Hoyapolitik but we’re back with three new postings this week, with a heavy focus on COIN or counterinsurgency. Don’t miss “War No Longer Exists” and “How to Measure Insurgencies” below this post.
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LTC Gian Gentile, an OIF veteran, writes Eating Soup with a Spoon an interesting piece in the latest Armed Forces Journal, suggesting that the COIN manual (FM 3-24) overemphasizes the non-kinetic in COIN and fails to recognize the need for tactical (kinetic) successes in COIN.

Gentile argues that tactical success not only can disrupt insurgent operations, but are essential to maintain morale and initiative of the COIN force. To put it bluntly, the daily slog of patrols, community engagement, and casualties from IEDs will erode the COIN force morale (and boost insurgent morale), whereas tactical success will boost COIN force morale (and potentially sap insurgent morale).
I think Gentile has a point that is nested in a broader misunderstanding about COIN. COIN is not about subjugating kinetic operations (”fighting”) for reconstruction operations. Rather the center of gravity of COIN is political — getting a community to cooperate with a political process rather than to resort to violence. Kinetic security operations are essential to COIN but should be applied primarily to this political standard — does the operation serve the political strategy? Killing a bunch of insurgents that have been intimidating local tribes would certainly meet that standard.

Both kinetic and reconstruction operations should target political effects — on the community, on insurgents, on coalition forces, and even domestic perception.

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Retired British General Rupert Smith says “War no longer exists.” He presents a scathing review of what he labels as the disconnect between the application of military force and its stated political objectives, that is, its “utility,” in his book The Utility of Force. The general commanded British forces in the 1991 Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland.

His basic point is that current military force structures are insufficient for their stated political objectives today, that conflicts are not fought between states but in and among “the people,” and that the objectives of modern conflicts are not so much familiar concepts such as annihilation, surrender or the capture of land or resources, but the attainment of what he calls “conditions” - conditions which allow for other activities to occur, for instance, the flourishing of democracy.

Smith has a great tongue in cheek assessment of the term “assymetric warfare” as being the product of military commanders’ inability to conceive of why the enemy was not positioning himself in such a way as to disadvantage his own forces (e.g. in open force on force combat).

But the more I read, the more it seemed he suffers from an inability to see outside of many of his own paradigms based on his experience. For instance, he expects the enemy to structure itself according to its own advantages, but then characterizes guerillas as “parasites, depend[ing] on his host for transport, heat, light, revenue, information and communications.”

Another way to put it might be, say, a freedom fighter or a revolutionary, fuelled, supported, encouraged, sheltered and beloved by the people. I’m not saying either characterization is entirely accurate, but it does make one wonder.

This gives way to a larger point in Smith’s arguments - legality. Smith draws the line between state-sanctioned forces and non-state forces as being a legal one. He describes a regular force as one that is “legal, deadly and destructive.”

But who determines that a force is legal? Wouldn’t it be the same consensus, the same forces that label groups and regimes as “rogue,” “outlaw,” “guerilla” and “terrorist” that determine what is legal in war? Are U.S. unilateral military actions legal? Maybe the non-state sanctioned combatants are just choosing not to conform to legal standards that are not to their advantage.
Here are reviews from the Washington Post and others.

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Earlier this week, America’s top two officials in Iraq testified before Congress about the war in Iraq. Ambassador Crocker described slow but sure progress; General Petraeus spoke more strongly, citing goals met and “substantial” progress.

I was surprised. After a steady public debate of stalemate and withdrawal, the pair put forward recommendations to remain. The disconnect between how America has judged Iraq and how our two most knowledgeable professionals have is great.

Why?

I believe that the answer lies in measures. Media reports and independent assessments like the Brookings Institution’s “Iraq Index” have opened the floodgates on statistics. Analyses abound. But, as a recent Salon piece demonstrates, not all have been disciplined. Indeed, the public discourse has abandoned methodology entirely.

In an unusual move, however, Gen. Petraeus took time away from his testimony to assure Congress that he hasn’t. The military, he said, uses “a methodology that has been in place for well over a year” to ensure “rigor and consistency” in its analyses. Then he called in a second opinion: “Two U.S. intelligence agencies recently reviewed our methodology and they concluded that the data we produce is the most accurate and authoritative in Iraq.”

What is this methodology? Or, more broadly, how do we measure insurgencies?

To answer that question, I began to rummage around, uncovering a number of studies outlining insightful conceptual approaches. They hardly agree. But, taken together, they highlight five important principles.

First is the firm assertion that there are no magic numbers—not troops deployed, not dollars spent, not total number of insurgent attacks. As one of West Point’s “Irregular Warfare Messages of the Month” notes bluntly, “trying to reduce success or failure to one or two criteria is risky if not irresponsible.” Instead, suggests Craig Cohen of the U.S. Institute of Peace, it is better “to devise an aggregate index of indicators.” With measures, more may not always be better, but a handful will always be too few.

Second, analysts need a framework that attaches meaning to each metric. As James Clancy and Chuck Crossett explain in one of the Army’s leading journals, different officials too often find different meaning in the same numbers because they have no common reference. To one, falling casualties may be good news. But, to another, it is a sign of decreasing patrols—a possible indicator of heightened instability. The Army’s Douglas Jones phrases it simply: “it is only through agreement of definitions and a common framework of insurgency that applying measures of effectiveness to counterinsurgency operations becomes useful.” Without a framework, a pile of statistics can be made to fit almost any position.

Third, measures must be important, not just convenient. Counting heads at a graduation parade is far easier than measuring public opinion in a war zone or tracking insurgent financing. But it is a poorer measure of effectiveness. As Frederick W. Kagan notes in the Armed Forces Journal, such tallies of casualties, attacks, and trained locals “are measures of convenience, reflecting the ease with which data can be collected and presented rather than its inherent importance.” Honest assessment begins with honest data, even if it is difficult or dangerous to collect.

Fourth, outputs are more important than inputs. Measuring inputs like total dollars spent or the number of bases constructed gauges effort, not effectiveness. As Craig Cohen notes, progress should not be “judged in large part on the basis of international resources expended or programs implemented rather than on the basis of actual results produced.” In some ways, this is related to the problem of convenience; analysts can track coalition actions much more readily than their effects. But it is the effects—not efforts—that ultimately matter most.

Fifth—and perhaps most important—is the recognition that the strategy must determine the metrics. The two must be tied. If one campaign goal is to disrupt insurgent operations, for instance, a count of local cell phones would be little more than a statistical distraction. In their approaches, researchers from USIP, the Rand Corporation, the Johns Hopkins University, the Brookings Institution, and the Army’s Command and General Staff College all follow this principle. They start high and move down the ladder—from strategy to goals, from goals to measures, and from measures to specific metrics. As in a chain of command, each metric reports to a goal, and that goal back up to the strategy. This approach both highlights needed metrics and removes unneeded metrics—the cell phone counts of some government fact sheets.

So, before the testimony, how did the measures in America’s public discourse hold up next to these principles? In a word, poorly.

Media reports were misleading. Major newspapers continue to announce casualties and troop levels daily, encouraging a “magic number” mindset. The Washington Post’s series “Weighing the Surge” cites inputs like dollars of oil revenue spent or the number of Baghdad security outposts, and convenient counts like the number of market stalls opened, Iraqis trained, or barrels of oil produced. A graphic published the day before report is the perfect example. And a recent overview in the New York Times presents an array of measures without any mention of the author’s insightful framework.

But the media follows the lead of others. As an intern with a government agency working to rebuild Iraq, I saw firsthand the random—and always positive—fact sheets that once circled Washington. Today’s Congressional benchmarks are only slightly better. The legislative requirements, for instance, are measures of convenience; in such a corrupt place, laws are cheap markers of government effectiveness and social change. Further, at least five of the eighteen benchmarks measure inputs and not outputs. And nor are they tied to strategy. As last Wednesday’s GAO report notes, they were derived not from methodical assessment, but from public statements made by severely pressured politicians.

Notably, such an application to Iraq should be taken with a degree of due reflection. These principles apply to insurgencies; the war in Iraq is more than an insurgency. Among others, tribal warlords, political opportunists, criminal networks, foreign intelligence services, and terrorist organizations complicate the picture considerably. Further, these troubles with measures do not necessarily discredit the broad conclusions of public discourse. Plainly, Iraq remains stubbornly unstable and violent.

But the guidelines outlined above can help—and not just with Iraq. The United States faces an international environment simmering with active and possible insurgencies. It is a challenge that will not go away. Bringing America’s public measures nearer its professional ones may help us develop clearer consensus—ensuring that our conflicts abroad do not also become our conflicts at home.

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What does the Georgetown SSP community believe our grand strategy should be? Brent Scowcroft has argued that the lack of a national consensus on our grand strategy has led us to a period of awkward missteps and confusion. Unlike any other era of American history, we feel it is American responsibility and destiny to help shape global events, but we have no common strategy on how to do so (as we did in the Cold War… thank you George Kennan!)

To help spark thinking on this topic, I refer readers to the August issue of Armed Forces Journal which featured a debate on whether America has a grand strategy, and if so, what is it? Four experts offered differing views, summarized as follows:

Francis Fukuyama: Bush launched a three-pronged strategy: 1) with a preemptive approach to terrorism, 2) that favors coalitions of the willing over international organizations, 3) and promoting democracy. As a result of overstretch, the Bush Administration has abandoned that strategy and is now improvising.

Stephen Rosen: The US has national objectives but no strategy because strategy implies two things that are missing: 1) consistency in pursuit of objectives and 2) anticipation and understanding of how others in the world will act and react.

Tom Donelly: US grand strategy boils down to sustainment of US geopolitical primacy and promotion of democracy. That has been true for Bush 43, Clinton, and Bush 41 and will likely remain true.

Richard Danzig: US grand strategy SHOULD protect our interests and values, reduce armed conflict, and protect our citizens. This requires a flexible armed forces but also to leverage of broader support of other agencies, nations, and organizations. The strategy must be realistic in balancing sometimes competing interests. The Bush Administration has done poorly against this criteria.

In follow up discussion, the four experts conclude that American strategy will always have to balance some degree of inconsistency. There is consensus that China is a key threat, perhaps the most important threat, for US strategy to address.

Let me offer my own one-sentence strategy: Consolidate and grow the cooperative global core (stable countries with a stake in the global economy and institutions) while managing instability and rejectionist forces across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. This grand strategy implies several subordinate strategies: 1) further integrate China, India and Russia into the core and prevent a schism within the core, 2) apply soft power as the primary tool to promote expansion of the core, 3) apply a mix of hard power and soft power to combat instability and rejectionist elements (including the global insurgency).

Who has an alternative view?

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Today’s amazing piece in the WSJ “How Courting Sheik’s Slowed Violence in Iraq” further explains what is happening in al Anbar and suggests very far-reaching insights for our policy in Iraq.

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President Pervez Musharraf is coming to a decisive moment in his high-stakes game to control Pakistan by outmaneuvering both radical Islamist forces and secular Pakistani political parties. He has been subject to three unsuccessful assassination attempts and following a slew of crises after the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), more assassins are certainly laying in wait. The current set of dual crises has the potential to undo Musharraf and America’s multi-billion dollar investment in him as the instrument for regional security.

The religious-extremist crisis comes on the heels of a secular crisis sparked by President Musharraf’s decision to fire Pakistan’s Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, on March 9. Supporters of Chaudhry and the secular Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), long marginalized by Musharraf, briefly paralyzed the country through riots and demonstrations and the Supreme Court quashed the dismissal as illegal on July 20. For the first time, secular forces seem steadfast enough to spark the sort of resistance that could overthrow Musharraf’s regime. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s calls for Musharraf to step down, including their recent historic meeting, may finally have legs.

Musharraf today is unable to control radical elements, including militant Islamists, in the renegade regions of Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Provinces, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and most recently in urban settings like the Lal Masjid mosque in the nation’s capital, Islamabad. The Army resolved the Lal Masjid standoff by force, killing over 100 Taliban-like Islamists and several Pakistani soldiers. The operation has sparked mass violence throughout Pakistan, including myriad suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of civilians, and some senior Islamic clerics in major Pakistani cities are warning of all out civil war.

He also cannot satisfy secular Pakistanis that his agenda includes a real return to democracy. Two unappealing potential moves remain for dealing with these twin threats to his dominance, and either could spell checkmate for his downfall as leader of Pakistan.

Musharraf’s first option is the “iron fist.” This strategy primarily focuses on raids into extremist strongholds to capture and kill suspected terrorists; it would likely include further repression of secular civil society and political parties in the name of stability and security. His second option is to “wait it out” and attempt to revive the “truce” with tribal leaders that collapsed after the Lal Masjid raid and soothe the secular political parties into accepting a slow walk along his chosen path to democracy. Both options would be mired in controversy and likely to generate follow-on security threats to the central government.

The more sensible version of the iron-fist option would require thorough military clearing operations, including de-radicalization of madrassas and mosques—a feat that will almost certainly generate greater radicalism and terrorist attacks in the short term. Even if attempted as a counterinsurgency aimed at protecting local populations, this would likely galvanize Islamists throughout Pakistan to attack the secular government and innocent civilians. Last time the Pakistani Army adopted a confrontational stance in Waziristan, it took a drubbing, made little tangible progress, and withdrew under the flawed “truce” that just collapsed.

Taken to its extreme, the iron fist could involve Musharraf attempting to “coup-proof” his regime by purging key Pakistani military officers and cabinet members, while conducting operations against extremists and stifling attempts to reestablish democratic civil society. Such efforts could allow Musharraf to maintain his hold on power and continue to lead Pakistan as an isolated strongman. But Pakistan is not North Korea, and this strategy would likely lead push radical Islamists and secular groups together in an effort to oust a Musharraf-led cabal. If they succeed, the new Pakistani order would almost certainly be dominated by the extremists.

Musharraf’s second option is the “velvet glove.” This option primarily focuses on President Musharraf starting a new round of diplomatic negotiations amongst political and religious leaders throughout the country. This would entail a law-and-order approach to the current crisis which could be perceived as weak if the violence persists.

A velvet-glove is unlikely to prove effective with the most hardened (and currently infuriated) Islamist groups and will subject Musharraf to skepticism amongst military leaders and his western patrons about his steadfastness and his ability to govern. This path, though better for democracy, would also indicate to insurgents and radical Islamists that the government is unable to retaliate against terrorist violence—and for Musharraf it may diminish his ability to use the crisis to “coup proof” his regime.

A hybrid of these two options may be the least bad choice for Pakistan, if not for Musharraf’s political career. Until now, Musharraf has done backroom deals with the extremists while using fear of those same extremists to slow the return to democracy. With the “truce” with extremists over after the Lal Masjid incident, Musharraf needs to see through his war on terror at home. The key to success will be resisting the temptation to purge his leadership circles and crack down on moderate civil society.

Musharraf needs more than luck to prevent the Pakistani state from violently careening off the cliff into failed-statehood. If the United States wants to protect its investment for the long term, it should encourage Musharraf to strike meaningful and transparent deals with secular political parties now while increasing pressure on extremists. If Musharraf plays well, his own checkmate need not be the end game for moderate governance in Pakistan.

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There was an interesting report a couple of weeks ago from Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni stronghold of al Anbar province in western Iraq, from a full-bird infantry colonel stationed there.

I’ve pulled a couple of interesting passages from the letter, which extols his unit’s recent progress in pacifying the region, building infrastructure and maintaining a functional security alliance with the local sheikhs versus the ever-pressing attacks of al Qaeda.

Security here in Ramadi continues to improve as the Iraqi police and army forces work daily to keep the population safe. When we arrived in February, we were averaging 30-35 attacks per day in our area of responsibility. Now our average is one attack per day or less. We had an entire week with no attacks in our area and have a total of over 65 days with no attacks. I attribute this success to our close relationship with the Iraqi security forces and the support those forces receive from the civilian population. The Iraqi police and army forces have uncovered hundreds of munitions caches and get intelligence tips from the local population every day.

Despite all the progress we have made with the Iraqis here in Ramadi, the area remains very dangerous. We continue to receive truck bomb attacks, but have been successful in keeping them out of the city and other populated areas. Al Qaeda has not given up on their desire to retake Ramadi and al Anbar, so we can’t let up in our efforts to stop them. The good news is that the people of al Anbar and Ramadi are united in their stand against al Qaeda.

Rock of the Marne!
John W. Charlton
COL, Infantry Commanding Camp
Ar Ramadi, Iraq

I think what is pointedly missing from the account is historical perspective and true causal analysis. The approach the colonel describes in al Anbar is exactly, and I mean exactly, the same approach that my brigade used in 2003, to no avail. Even according to the colonel, as little as 5 months ago, there was still no “rule of law.” He cites no real tangible, empirical progress in the area, only a lack of attacks and increased cooperation. Employment is largely limited to day laborers, who can easily be bought off with offers of higher salaries from less discerning employers. Communities are “cleared,” cordoned off and kept under strict military overwatch, but not pacified in and of themselves. The police are still under-funded and under-equipped. O’Hanlon and Pollack’s New York Times editorial even admits that the Iraqi police are one of the major remaining hurdles to real security in Iraq. You can get their take at Finel on O’Hanlon/Pollack in HoyaPolitik.

What little progress the colonel can count cannot be based on any trend or significant change in tactics.

The colonel never suggests that it is an extra 10,000 troops that did the trick, nor clear and hold tactics, nor economic development, nor employing day laborers. He lists all the things his unit is doing, and the effects that he is seeing. He does not draw a causal relationship between the two.

So the question is – what changed? It isn’t the coalition approach, nor the incentives facing Sunni leaders in the area. Something in their assessment of which side it’s worth allying with changed. That’s where the answer is.

I have the utmost respect for the sacrifice, risk and dedication shown by our military personnel. I wouldn’t presume to speak for them. I’ve been out of Iraq for three years. But they are stationed exactly where I was stationed, and they are using exactly the same tactics we used, with marginally, and I cannot emphasize just how marginal, improvements.

So from where I’m sitting, this is what it looks like. It looks like the tribal sheikhs in al Anbar made a shrewd and calculating decision at the beginning of the insurgency. They calculated that it was more politically expedient to ally with al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents. At times, they even allied with Shiite and Kurdish insurgents. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Sunnis gained power and influence through the ability to wield violence, to garner the attention of the American political regime by killing its soldiers and causing unrest.

The limit to that approach came when al Qaeda began to become a more potent political force that threatened to either diminish or unseat the traditional foothold of power held by Sunni sheikhs in al Anbar. Al Qaeda declared al Anbar a separate Islamic caliphate. They began operating in a fashion that was politically unfavorable to the Sunni sheikhs. They were overly violent, indiscriminately violent – they were undermining the support and control of the populace which the sheikhs value above all else.

It was not, as it has been cast, that the Sunni populace eventually became fed up with the violence perpetrated upon them by al Qaeda and rallied as a populist movement against “foreign insurgents.” It was when the political power calculus tilted in favor of allying with U.S. forces as more beneficial that al Qaeda became persona non grata.

The sheikhs realized that they were being voted out of power in parliament, they were an increasingly marginalized faction, they held less and less sway and carried more liability by allying with al Qaeda. So they switched sides. I am not judging the sheikhs. Their job is to preserve their position and influence in Iraqi society as the traditional representatives of their population. They are the House of Representatives of al Anbar.

Mind you, al Qaeda still has plenty of support in the area, as evidenced by their continued attacks, to which the colonel attests. A Saudi cannot simply waltz into Iraq unnoticed, nor can a Syrian, much less an Afghani. They have to have help.

Again, this is what I see happening from here, stateside. The main point is this:
Until commanders, analysts and politicians figure out how the calculus of Sunni tribal sheikhs changed, and why, there are zero guarantees the wind won’t blow in the other direction tomorrow and the U.S. will find itself facing a tribal sheikh-al Qaeda alliance again.

Just this week, a major Sunni bloc quit parliament. Look to those same players to lobby and seek influence, concessions and support from the U.S. in exchange for their continued alliance against al Qaeda in al Anbar. And look for that alliance to weaken and falter if the U.S. cannot deliver.

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Mike O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack are two of the most influential moderate Democratic pundits around so they generated plenty of attention (and liberal backlash) with their recent Op-Ed in the NY Times “A War We Just Might Win.” What is this? Democrats seeing progress in Iraq and possibly even prospects for victory?

Leave it to our own Bernard Finel to offer one of the most thoughtful critiques of O’Hanlon/Pollack and other defenders of the surge.

Finel properly focuses on the fundamental issue that so many Iraq policy makers, pundits, and critics miss — that the source of instability in post-Saddam Iraq is political and can only be solved with political progress, not military or reconstruction progress. While there have been some important changes in political conditions, there is too little political progress this late in the war.

That said, he’s a bit too dismissive of O’Hanlon and Pollack because a number of the postiive trends they cite do improve conditions for political progress, even if such progress isn’t yet evident. These include:
- the Anbar political split between insurgents and tribes leading to cooperation with the US
- broad Shia political dissatisfaction with the growth of Sadr’s power
- improved security situation, including among Iraqi forces
- more effective local political and reconstruction engagement via the Provincial Reconstruction Teams

In addition, O’Hanlon and Pollack’s op-ed is significant because it may help create a more balanced Democratic position on Iraq which could give US engagement in Iraq a longer lease on life. Any hope for some version of victory in Iraq will require a rebuilding of political credibility in the notion that progress is possible. In fact O’Hanlon and Pollack’s op-ed is not significant for its ideas (their observations are consistent with credible reporting out of Iraq for months) but for their standing in Democratic circles.

Still lacking: any indication that the Bush Administration has an effective diplomatic strategy for Iraq. Improving political conditions means almost nothing if the Bush Diplomatic team does not gain more political traction at both the local and national levels.

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One would think that with all our current entanglements, adding a new focus would be a low priority.  And yet, it is becoming increasingly clear that the last 18 months of the Bush Administration will be focused not on Iraq, not on Afghanistan, not on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, but rather on Iran.

• We are deploying ABM systems to Eastern Europe, at the cost of relations with Russia, to thwart an Iranian ballistic missile program.
• We are giving a massive military aid package to sometime-ally Saudi Arabia to blunt the growth of Iranian power in the Gulf region.
• We are using the last of our international prestige to cobble together a coalition to oppose the Iranian uranium enrichment program.

I don’t like the Iranian regime.  It is composed of a combination of religious fanatics and political opportunists.  They are dangerous and reckless.

But, regardless of the current intentions of the regime, prior to embarking on any costly policy (as our anti-Iran focus certainly is), it is useful to think about trends.  The fundamental question about Iran is, “Is confrontation now smarter than confrontation later?”  Or “are trends working for us or against us?”  I can’t claim to be an Iran expert, but it does seem to me that the answer to those question is at least up for debate.  If the current regime is likely to face increasing domestic resistance in the absence of an external threat, then maybe, just maybe, this is one of those few cases where doing nothing and playing for time could work to our advantage.  Americans are a notably impatient people, but I can’t help but work if by taking an activist role right now we are not throwing away the advantage of time in this case.

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