Finally an Opinion to leave the Middle East Alone

My response to Thomas Friedman's Contain and Amplify editorial:

Finally an opinion to leave the Middle East alone to a long dose of benign neglect. ISIS uses terrorism as a tool for its Sunni rebellion in Shia dominated Syria and Iraq. Its a civil war and we squander our blood and treasure believing it to be anything other. Much better to for us to look inward and work on our pressing needs which have better prospects from our attention.

English is Liberty

My response to David Brooks' Talent Loves English :

English is Liberty.  Magna Carta, Common Law, Rule of Law and Adam Smith is a framework that brings talent to the fore.  The Napoleonic Code on the other hand is a legacy of the Roman Empire and mercurial authoritarian rule that holds talent back.

A Beautiful Authoritarian

Rule by Velvet Fist by New York Times Op Editors Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman brings up an interesting subject, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Authoritarian rule goes badly when it tries to manage the market economy in the same manner it manages its politics, with an iron fist.  Singapore flourished because it welcomed a free market economy and with it an eventual development into a democracy.  Lee Kuan Yew was a beautiful authoritarian.

I’ll get hate mail for this but the second inline is Pinochet of Chile, a hateful political authoritarian who was advised to bring in the Chicago Boys after his coup d’etat to develop Chile’s moribund economy. The economic flourish lead to a return to a successful  democracy in Chile.

There is no such a prognosis for General Sisi’s coup d’etat in Egypt because the military fosters a crony capitalist paradise of insider deal making.  Its a capitalism which does nothing to generate prosperity and therefore forget about an eventual turn to democracy. Other strongmen who reject capitalism, such as Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela, reject prosperity and its democratizing influence as well.

No Will to Fight

Iraqi Forces are Blamed in ISIS Rout, well yeaaaah!  Okay imagine it's 1864 and Abraham Lincoln was able to gather a volunteer force of Southerners to fight for the Union.  They fight in Virginia and are garrisoned as a unit in a town in the Shenandoah valley.  The locals call them traitors.  All of them have family fighting against the Union and themselves as well. Doubtful there is much will to fight in that unit.  How is it different than in Iraq and its civil war to split itself into Shia and Sunni regions?

Now for a real laugh.  Imagine President Lindsey Graham petitioning the Congress for authorization to commit American boots on the ground to fight Iraq's Civil War.

ISIS is nothing more than a Rebel Group

My response to Roth Douthat's editorial "Can the Islamic State Survive" :

If we consider ISIS as a media savvy rebellion in a region of governmental dysfunction then logic might prevail in our current inept analysis, especially this one likening ISIS to the Soviet takeover of Czarist Russia. Syria and Iraq are splitting into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish sectarian regions. Don’t fight this civil war with worse then useless military aid to reconquer towns and cities which are then left desolate and without a community from which to regroup.  Just let the divisions happen and support only those political unions that govern and protect their people, for example the Kurds of Kurdistan in Iraq.

Premature Conquest of Tikrit

The May 9th article “After Wrestling Tikrit From ISIS, Iraqis face Sectarian and Tribal Tensions” mentions the Jabours of Alam, just north of Tikrit as the essential Sunni moderates that allied itself with the Baghdad government.  Now that all attention is focused in Anbar and the Ramadi loss to ISIS expect Baghdad to ignore Tikrit.  Pity the Jabours because ISIS will return and annihilate the tribe as an example to those Sunnis considering allying themselves with Shia Iraq.

To battle ISIS the allies are required to be somewhat effective political unions.  Among the the players in the Middle East only the Kurdish regional government of Kurdistan is one. We should support their effort to unify their people as part of our pacifying strategy in the region that includes Syria, Iran and Turkey as well.  The remainder of Iraq and Syria is in the middle of a civil war and must be abandoned to benign neglect because there is no fixing it.  Our military aid only makes it worse as the last of the Jabours will undoubtedly recount in some future telling of our inept foreign policy.

Its not time to Double Down in Iraq

Iraq's Sunni Strategy Collapses in Ramadi Rout by ISIS illustrates the uselessness of supporting a unified Iraq as part of the grand strategy to pacify the region.  Its a civil war.  Stand down and let Iraq break apart while supporting he Kurdish, the only people that have a solid political union to work with.