Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

I have danced, frequently, with the question of USA national strategic interests and USA grand national strategic objective, to include especially on the floor of the dance hall of USA national sovereignty and security.  USA national sovereignty is the floor, the stage, the base, the al-qaeda of the drama of the dance this life is.

Love’s Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle,—
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Here I wish to examine specifically best assumptions and conceptions of USA strategic objectives in MENA (Middle East and North Africa).

Assumption I:

MENA is a global cross-roads and energy pivot.  Except on her coastlines and elevations, MENA is inhospitable to the generality of humanity.  It is relatively easy, therefore, for smallish bands of brigands and freebooters to kink up global communications by pinching and chewing on corridors of movement that cross MENA.

Conception I:

Therefore, USA strategic objective in MENA number one: ensure flow-through capacities of communication corridors crossing MENA remain optimal.

Assumption II:

MENA comprises a large, self-aware and volatile terrain and human geography.  Optimal flow-through of communications crossing MENA is beyond the ability of one nation, to include the USA, to guarantee.  That task, however, is not beyond the ability of three nations who have, auspiciously, the characters and capacities, individually and in concert, needed to hold open MENA communications against impulses of brigands and freebooters.  Those nations are USA, India and Russia.  These are Three Brother States.

Conception II:

Therefore, USA strategic objective in MENA number two: form alliance of the Three Brother States with the immediate purpose of bringing quiet to MENA and the ultimate purpose of bringing quiet to Eastern Asia (China, Korea).

Assumption III:

USA has no territorial or cultural ambitions in MENA and no desire to base statecraft strength — diplomacy, finance, war-fighting — there beyond that necessary to ensure MENA communications remain max-open.

Conception III:

Therefore, USA strategic objective in MENA number three: foster the sovereignty of nations comprising MENA by maximizing security cooperation with them, to include new nations (e.g., Kurds) who may be emerging — on their own, not from USA meddling — from the sands and mountains of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Lebanon.

Assumption IV:

MENA is at significant physical distance from the USA homeland.  Troop deployments to MENA cost dollars (aka national debt), blood and IO.  While ultimately statecraft is warcraft, its other components — diplomacy and finance — should be USA first responders in MENA as well as elsewhere.

Conception IV:

Therefore, USA strategic objective in MENA number four: prioritize blanket deploy and maneuver to contact of USA assets in finance and diplomatics — and in parallel with protocols raised by the Three Brother States, individually and in concert — to uproot the logistical networks in Europe and the Americas who supply the belligerents in MENA.

Assumption V:

The belligerents in MENA are the Salafi and Shia Jihads.  The most ubiquitous and immediately destructive of those Jihads is the Salafi one.  The most pernicious is the Shia one.  Salafi Jihad goes under many names.  Its principal state sponsors have been the EU, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, Iran and, secretly, elements of the USA Executive Branch.  Saudi Arabia may be lifting the pedal from the metal on their sponsorship for Salafi Jihad and moving towards applying the brake.  Trust But Verify.  Salafi Jihad’s current state sponsors are the EU, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.  Iran is moving towards solely supporting its own Shia Jihad, which is supported by the EU and, until recently — and openly — elements of the USA Executive Branch.

Conception V:

Therefore, USA strategic objective in MENA number five: roll up Salafi Jihadis and the Iranian clerical bench while fostering the sovereignty of MENA nations already in place, to include Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia (so long as they actually do uncouple from their Salafi affections) and Libya.

Libya is the cork in the bottle of Arab/Pan-African Imperialism, a phenomenon quite apart from although intersecting with Salafi Jihad.  Libya and ordinary as contrasted with official Europe desperately need a government descending from that of Muammar Gaddafi, more gentle than, but that is the country’s only force vector sufficient to embody authority.  It is the only force there with a military mind — the foundation of national sovereignty — rather than a muddled one — the foundation of perpetual Jihad.

Europe turns black and hopeless without a strong government in Libya corking the Arab/Pan-African north-ward invasion:

Pakistan is in the Iran/China/Northern Korea orbit.  Formerly — Trust But Verify — in the Saudi orbit.  Pakistan’s location is one reason — there are others yet more deep and broad — India is in the vanguard of the world in new being, the world led by the Three Brother States.

Update 1: Over the past two years the increasingly skeptical citizenry of the United States and Europe has been treated to a stream of op-eds and television appearances lamenting the looming collapse of the liberal world order, to be accompanied by a surge of illiberalism, nationalism, and fringe politics. Rarely, however, does such hand-wringing stray beyond shopworn comparisons of the “complex interdependence” of the glorious past and the parochialism and narrow-mindedness of the current era. In truth, we are not witnessing a dramatic systemic change driven by conniving external forces, but a meltdown of political authority in the West caused by the relatively straightforward indolence of its political class. Our troubles are less about liberalism’s decline or the ascendancy of left or right politics. Simply put, the citizenry in the West has been frustrated for decades with its elites’ inability to deliver workable solutions to the problems of slow growth, deindustrialization, immigration, and the overall decline of self-confidence across the West.

The legitimacy, and hence stability, of the international system rests to a degree on the ability of the leading powers to deliver at home—or, simply put, to govern. The increasing volatility of international politics is in part a byproduct of systemic dysfunction across the West at the level of domestic politics. Americans and Europeans alike are running out of patience with the governing class. In Europe, the government’s inability to control mass migration or develop effective solutions to domestic terrorism are two important drivers of the growing public discontent. In the United States the middle and working classes have been frustrated for decades with the government’s inability to remedy de-industrialization, urban decay, and declining economic opportunity.

Glenn Reynolds comments: And in both places, as the “elite” has grown demonstrably less competent and honest, it has also grown visibly more contemptuous of the people it purports to govern. That contempt is, I think, the most poisonous part of the whole equation.

My essays on the question of authority are here.

Update 2: David Horowitz: Why The Middle East Is A Disaster

Update 3: President Trump Says US ‘Losing’ Afghan War In Tense Meeting With Generals

Update 4: 04AUG17, Brett McGurk Updates On Annihilate ISIL Campaign

Update 5: USA to stay connected with SDF/Syrian Kurds

Update 6: John Bolton: How To Get Out Of The Iran Nuclear Deal

Update 7: Spengler: The Bells Of Barcelona Toll For Europe

Update 8: How The West Was Lost

Update 9: Secretary Tillerson Discusses USA Relationship With India

Update 10: Pakistani Police Beat Christian Student To Death

Update 11: Full Text Of POTUS Trump Remarks On Iran Deal

Update 12: Michael Totten is getting it, gradually: Turkey Is Behaving Like An Enemy Now

Update 13: Myron Magnet: Saudi Arabia’s Earthshaking Coup

Update 14: John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821: Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.  But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.  She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.  She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

Update 15: Austin Bay: Erdogan’s Turkey and Nato

Update 16: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks

 AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA