Most U.S. politicians have for so long shilled on behalf of Israel’s ahistorical and deceitful contention that a nation has a “right to exist” that it probably was inevitable they would come to believe the lie themselves. As noted here previously, every country has the right to defend itself according to its own best lights, but no country has a right to exist. Existence depends on national defense capabilities and a readiness to use war as a last resort to annihilate the few entities that pose life-and-death threats; a determination to avoid cultivating enemies at home and abroad; a prosperous economy that affords opportunities for all; and a cohesive social fabric that encourages free speech and welcomes an armed citizenry. Without these attributes a nation-state eventually goes up the spout, be it Israel or the United States.
President Obama’s 22 June 2011 speech on Afghanistan amounted to a declaration that the United States has a right to exist even if it refuses to defend itself. He is wrong. Certainly no country on earth has more human, economic, military, and historical assets at its command in attempting to survive than the United States, but if those assets are not used in an effective and timely manner Americans will eventually find that there is no one out there who will make sure that our country continues to exist.
Mr. Obama surrendered to worldwide Islamist forces on June 22nd. He and most of the U.S. political elite live in a world that does not exist and so make decisions that are uninformed by reality. In saying that the “wave of war is receding” Mr. Obama proved himself either ignorant or stupid, or perhaps just hopeful that those attributes characterize most of the electorate. America has lost its unnecessary war in Iraq. Washington accomplished nothing there that it set out to do; al-Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist groups have reformed and are on the offensive; and a Sunni-Shia civil war is shaping up that will destabilize the region — and perhaps oil production — even further.
America also has lost its war in Afghanistan. Even with the surge of U.S. soldiers and Marines the reality today is what it was before the surge: Karzai’s government and military/security services are not viable; the Taleban-led insurgency has the military initiative; and U.S. forces control a piece of ground only so long as they stand on it and are willing to kill to keep it. On this last point, when Obama, Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus say that the progress of the U.S.-NATO coalition is “fragile,” they are saying that there has been no military progress that can be sustained without the presence and combat activity of U.S.-NATO forces. The now ongoing movement of coalition combat forces from the Kandahar region to eastern Afghanistan, for example, will cede to the Taleban any recent gains in the former and demonstrates that the current level of forces cannot hold any territory unless they physically occupy it. What happens when there are 33,000 fewer U.S. troops in Afghanistan is really quite easy to predict: Defeat countrywide for the Karzai regime and a return to the status quo antebellum under the Taleban.
