What's coming is a real war but not the kind designed for television. To the battle the
Bush administration brings real strengths in an agile military ground force, a flexible air delivery system, enormous
satellite and computing power and a preeminent economy. It brings one glaring weakness - a weak hand in public
diplomacy. And, oh by the way, the real enemy isn't exactly the announced enemy.
The real axis is Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia - the oil states. North Korea has been thrown into the mix to duck
charges of an all-Islamic war. The Royal House of Saud has been left out because defeating them is the announced
primary purpose of bin Ladenism. The regime change scenario applies to them, just not in public.
The elements of battle are organized indigenous opposition, dominant air power, highly-mobile specialized ground
forces, a computer system able to trace the flow of money world-wide and intelligence cooperation from important
allies. Left unfunded in the next fiscal year federal budget are foreign aid and reconstruction and the PR effort
usually called public diplomacy. Undergirding it all is a dominant world economy. It is logically impossible to
say, as some Democrats do, that they support President Bush on the war but deplore his economic program. A weak
economy restricts the war effort. A strong economy boosts it. A delayed or mild recovery stretches out the time
it takes to achieve victory.
The Strengths of the Axis
Iraq diverts about one-third of the "oil for food" income it receives for its starving poor to finance
the development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons for use against innocent civilian populations. It then
blames their suffering on the sanctions. Its tactical weakness is that it needs to deliver the weapons without
revealing a "return address." Hence the need for radical nomads who can deliver an attack that cannot
be traced. In the hands of a secular madman, Iraq has a highly resentful but highly fearful population. Based on
previous experience, it is sheer folly to oppose Saddam Hussein if your allies don't want to win. The oil wells
aren't in Baghdad. The wealth of the nation is in Basra, adjacent to Iran and populated with Sunni Moslems as is
Iran. The threat of Iraq oil falling under Iranian control has been sufficient in the past to stop any serious
efforts at overthrowing Saddam. The biggest business partners of the current regime include Russia and France.
Iran, also Sunni and Persian in culture, is undergoing its own internal struggle. Its population is overwhelmingly
young and has no desire for life under the radical mullahs who are entrenched in power. While 70 percent of the
voters would throw out the mullahs, all the real decision-making and administrative power resides with the old,
tired, but clinging ayatollahs we have seen over the last two decades. Iran uses its oil money to fund the terrorists
of the Middle East who oppose the existence of Israel. When Yasser Arafat speaks in Arabic, it is the Iranian mullah
line of total destruction of Israel that he follows. They do business with China and North Korea.
The Royal House of Saud began with an overthrow of the historical line of succession. The true lineage and proper
responsibility for controlling Mecca and Medina, the holy sites, rests with King Abdullah of Jordan. The Saudi
royal family made a deal from the beginning with the clerics of Wahabbism, a radical Islamic cult, to buy their
support with oil revenues. As a result, the House of Saud has financed its own destruction. Arab imperialism is
funded world-wide by the Saudi family and associates. A large majority of the mosques and schools throughout the
world, including the United States, owe their funding to Wahabbi power. Where the radical sect has not funded Moslem
expansion it has still been in intimidating force against the moderates. The Wahabbi system creates young, hate-filled
illiterates incapable of finding meaningful work in a modern economy and thus available to be the foot soldiers
of revolution.
The United States faces two significant threats over the next decade. The one in the news is terrorist organizations
that provide the delivery system for weapons of mass destruction. The other is the strategic development of the
theater nuclear capability of China. Little reported this week was the successful test of an Aries rocker intercept
by an Aegis cruiser, the U.S.S. Lake Erie. The internal political opposition to a sea-based defense system is so
powerful that the Clinton administration scuttled the program for reasons of supporting the ABM Treaty. It bans
even the testing of seas-based defenses. In one to two years, the Aegis cruiser fleet can be given the capability
of destroying attacking missiles in their boost and mid-course phases. The cost would be under ten billion and
the system could be ready for homeland and allied security very quickly.
The underlying war against terrorism is a war against the creation of dysfunctional cultures. In a wonderful article,
Jonathan Rauch described what it takes to create a dysfunctional and therefore doomed culture. Women make up half
the population and they educate and acculturate young children. Depriving young women of an education strangles
a society.
For the young men, send them to a school that does not provide useful learning and teaches antisocial habits. Cultivate
a victim mind-set filled with the ranting of demagogues who find conspirators and oppressors to blame for the wrongs
of life. Boost failure as a badge of honor and view success as a betrayal of the group. Heighten conflict at every
turn and ridicule conciliation and compromise. Celebrate violence.
The point is that dysfunctional cultures fail because they cannot pass along values that build, rather than erode,
society. But on the way to destruction they take others with them. Don't fear Bin Ladenism's strength, Rausch concludes,
fear its weakness.
