Choosing to Lose

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Middle East, Uncategorized , , , ,

Unless we’re willing to inflict enormous pain on those we were supposed to help, the Iranian people, or put boots on the ground, or some combination of the two, we have a lost war with the Iranian theocracy. Awishy-washy nuclear deal, akin to, but maybe not as good as the one Obama negotiated, will end our involvement.

This conclusion leaves our Gulf allies in a precarious situation. Iran illustrated how it can hit their infrastructure anytime with rockets and drones. Closing the Strait of Hormuz or changing tolls remains subject to Iran’s whims. Spending billions on this outcome, we expected much better. Faith in America’s ability to protect our friends and allies is now questionable.

A recent feel-good story in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) shows both a possible path to right the war’s trend and exposes the lack of proper action that put us in this situation in the first place. Going into the war, the different radars that alert troops to incoming drones and missiles, and the interceptors used to shoot them down, didn’t talk to one another. This situation required a large number of personnel to monitor many monitors. This lack of integration may have contributed to the loss of six soldiers in Kuwait.

On a trip to Europe. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll became aware of the incompatibility issue and how the Ukrainians resolved it using proper software. The secretary got the Dense Contractors and bureaucrats to waive objections, and the engineers got together and came up with a Google Maps-type single screen, allowing for the proper response to any threat. After demonstrating it worked, we are now achieving the needed integration.

While we have now solved a major battlefield problem, it raises the question: why wasn’t it done before we went to war? Didn’t we wargame before we committed? Drone warfare has been a key feature of the Ukraine war for years. We’re just now finding out how they handle them. We actually reverse-engineered the key Iranian drone for our use, so we should know all about them. Yet we lack drone dominance to control the area.

The Administration and Iran Hawks can loudly claim success in the war all they want, but the facts on the ground say otherwise. Giving statistics on how many ships we sunk, or bombs we dropped, sounds reminiscent of the Vietnam War body counts. If we sunk their Navy, why are we looking for mines in the Strait, and why are so few ships risking leaving? Hawks such as Condoleezza Rice can claim, “It has achieved enough to produce a far better Middle East.”

Our Gulf friends and allies turning to the Ukrainians for answers to Iran’s drone and rocket capabilities threatening them doesn’t sound like they feel the area is “more stable.” Can we assure them of safe passage of the Strait, now and into the future? The Strait was open before the war. How are they better off?

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A Multi-Party US?

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Future Party, Uncategorized , , , ,

A two-party system has long dominated politics in both the U.S.A. and the UK, but the UK has recently evolved into a multi-party system. Public disillusionment with the Conservatives and Labor opened the door for Reform UK and the Green Party. Could this political change cross the pond and expand US ballots?

Donald Trump’s longtime friend, Nigel Farage, heads Reform U.K. Both men share a dislike of immigration and the establishment, as well as a love of media attention. A major backer of the UK leaving the European Union, Farage left the Conservative Party over Prime Minister John Major’s signing the Maastricht Treaty, which he felt was too pro-European Union. He formed a new party in protest.

Reform UK now leads the polls at 24-27%, followed by the Conservatives at 17-20%, Labor at 17-20%, the Greens at 14-16%, and the Liberals at 12-14%. The Conservatives and Labor can no longer count on passing their programs whenever they win. Coalitions loom in the future as they are in other multi-party nations.

How did the dominant parties lose their hold? People didn’t know what they stood for. Margaret Thatcher undid much of the Labor Party’s failed socialist policies with great success. After privatizing entire industries, capitalism returned to the forefront.

Yet conservatives dumped her. One of the main reasons the old-guard conservatives acted was Thatcher’s wholehearted opposition to joining the European Union (EU). The born-to-rule class old-guard conservatives went on to join the EU. With Farage at the forefront, the Brexit vote later pulled the UK out of the EU. Conservatives failed to listen to the people.

When Liz Truss, as Prime Minister, tried to return to the classical Liberalism of Thatcher and her good friend, Ronald Reagan, the same old guard sabotaged her with a phony bond crisis. The Conservatives appeared to stand for nothing except their own power.

Like Bill Clinton in the US, Tony Blair, Labor’s leader around the turn of the century, accepted many of the Reagan-Thatcher reforms. As Clinton said, “‘The Era of Big Government is over.”

Not for long. After a time in the wilderness, Labor is back in control, but it seems lost. Going back to failed Socialist policies isn’t promising. An expensive transition to renewables has left the UK with an inadequate, costly energy sector. Yet a large part of the Party still wanted to return to socialism and continue heavy spending on renewables. Adding in a good deal of anti-semitism, this bunch broke off as the Green Party.

Today, Tony Blair offers Labor a way back, touting a radical center prescription. Boost productivity by treating business more kindly, adopting realistic energy policies, and enacting welfare reform.

Why is the proliferation of parties in the UK important to us? Many of the same problems that broke up the Tories and Labor are present in our two main parties. To many in our country, the parties aren’t even presenting a viable choice. The Republicans are devoid of ideals or a consistent policy. It has deteriorated into a cult of personality. The Republicans are for whatever Trump puts out in the middle of the night on Truth Social. If it conflicts with what he posted yesterday, no matter, everyone falls in line with the new direction.

Disagreeing with the President, especially in public, results in the end of your political career. Just ask Senator Bill Cassidy or Representative Thomas Massie. Because Trump has approximately a third of the electorate, and that’s enough to dominate the Republican primaries, Trump only has to endorse a challenger, and you’re on the outside looking in. If you’re in the executive branch, you’re out the door if you’re lucky as an ambassador to Lower Slobovia. In most cases, you’re just gone.

This situation reduces a Republican administration to a meeting of the US chapter of the Baghdad Bob Club:

While it’s entertaining to see all the major players in the Party dancing to Trump’s tune, and seeing how adept they are when he changes the beat, how is this sustainable? The President turns 80 soon, and in any case, he has about 2 years left in the term. From top to bottom, everyone in his administration and all his political allies have shown an amazing lack of character. Fealty to Trump is all they have to offer. How does this play in 2028 and beyond? Who’s thinking about the country?

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Crossroads

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Middle East, Uncategorized , , , ,

Forgoing his son’s wedding, President Trump is in Washington promising to inform us of a decisive next move in the Iranian War. With the “ceasefire in effect for about a month, at the beginning of May, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that the administration must successfully finish the War. I agreed, but in an unpublished letter to the editor, I pointed out the changes needed, or we would fail:

To: WSJ letters to the editor

      Trump’s resolve on Iran at 60 Days.”

       The Journal’s editorial board is correct in stating that Trump’s abandonment of the War is unpalatable. However, this ignores the elephant in the room: the failure, from the start, to set clear goals, develop a strategy, and equip the military with the tools to achieve them. We attacked without the ‘why’ and ‘how’ being determined. We failed to anticipate the enemy’s likely countermeasures. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, and the widespread use of drones and rockets against our friends and us, weren’t anticipated and countered. Our lack of offensive and defensive drone capacity, or even of mine sweeping, shows a lack of real preparation.  

If we fail to rectify these shortcomings, dragging out an unfocused war will end with the same untrustworthy fanatics in control in Iran. The taste of defeat and humiliation will not only remain foul but will be much more costly.

It will likely take replacing the current ineffective military command with new, knowledgeable, and imaginative leadership to put a workable plan into action. With help from others, such as Ukraine and the Kurds, to fill in the gaps, there is still time to win this War, but not without recognizing how we went wrong in the first place.  Dave Davis, Phoenix, AZ 

If Trump decides to escalate from here, what visible signs will there be to hope for success? Some indication of armed revolt or turning of existing military units within Iran. Bombing and the blockade by themselves don’t directly threaten the ruling Iranian Regime. One has only to look at Cuba, where the people are living with next to nothing, and still the communists are in charge. The people can’t shoot back.

Conversely, a successful armed uprising is an existential threat. The Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) has no choice but to divert troops and resources to quickly suppress the uprising or ultimately face being crushed. However, moving to contain the revolt exposes the IRGC to the overwhelming U.S. and Israeli air power.

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Recalling a Failed Test

Dave Davis Commentary, COVID-19, Policy, Uncategorized , , , ,

A cruise ship reporting an outbreak of Hantavirus, with a loss of life, brought back memories of COVID and how we responded. Lockdowns, needless nursing home deaths, school closures, isolation, and all the rules, such as distancing and mask requirements. Not a pleasant memory.

Then we have the recent Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee receiving testimony from a CIA whistleblower on the cover-up of the likely Wuhan Lab Covid origin. Dr. Anthony Fauci used his government position to intervene in a CIA report on the lab’s origins, which was connected to funding for the Wuhan Lab. That establishment was conducting “Change of Function” research that could have resulted in the Covid virus.

Shining a light on how misinformation and government actors led to actions we’re still suffering from, it made clear that the top-down government response failed on a massive scale. Yet, this is the type of crisis progressives claim government experts handle best.

To understand how we ended up on this Covid response road, we have to recall the history of top-down government dominance. As I’ve pointed out in “Long Journey to More”, for thousands of years, settled agricultural societies divided people into classes, with an educated ruling class at the top (up to 10%), an illiterate mass, and a smaller artisan-merchant class in between.

The masses lacked the knowledge to dispute what the government told them, and the artisan-merchant class, though often literate, was too dependent on the ruling class’s good graces to offer much dissent—human progress was glacial.

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Making Things Worse

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, Uncategorized , , , ,

Maybe you might feel the same way. It’s as if the Trump administration looks at things and asks, ‘ How can I make things worse? Take our problem with Iran. Israel had hammered Hamas, Hezbollah, and most importantly, Iran, to a point where they could offer little resistance from air strikes. The U.S. joined in by bombing and burying Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mismanagement by the ruling regime led to water shortages and galloping inflation.

The Iranian people had it. All we needed to do was to find a way to create some space in Iran where they could arm, train, and organize. Once established, the regime is on the horns of a dilemma. Put their most loyal troops out where airpower can disseminate them, or hold back, allowing the revolution to grow.

With restive minorities and an army overshadowed by the Revolutionary Guard, coupled with Israeli contacts on the ground in Iran, with some planning, the regime is ripe for overthrow. Done right, we control the timing of the regime’s demise. Involved in an existential civil war, the last thing they’d want to do is use their limited military resources to attack other nations or international shipping.

What we got is a massive bombing attack on Iran’s military and nuclear facilities by a vast armada, Israel’s air force, and other resources, combined with decapitating the regime’s leadership.

Rather than surrendering, Iran struck back at our military installations and our allies’ infrastructure, mainly by massing drones. These were followed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the world’s economy.

Our response has been a “ceasefire” and a blockade of Iran, further restricting the movement of oil, gas, fertilizer, and other goods, worsening the world’s problems.

The Iranian people, the ones we should be helping, are far worse off. With less of everything, runaway inflation is making people poorer than ever. The regime continues to hang the opposition. We never gave them anything needed to fight back, and they’re paying a steep price that only looks to get worse.

Somehow, we’ve managed to make everything much worse.

The American people elected Donald Trump to another term in hopes of returning to the strong economy of his first term, based on growth-friendly tax policies and reduced regulation. Increasing supply to defeat Biden’s high inflation.

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