A note from Mike Walker, USMC Colonel, retired. I sure hope someone is thinking about this now besides Mike, but I'm not confident. Our actions should be proactive, we shouldn't be "surprised".

A very short missive on a Containment Strategy for Iran

All,

Let us face reality, neither the United Nations nor the United States is going to take the steps necessary to prevent Iran from fielding nuclear weapons.

So now is the time to take out and dust off our old containment strategy books from the Cold War and develop a comprehensive policy to contain Iran.

That means putting together the unified military, multinational, economic, information, diplomatic, intelligence strategy, tactics, techniques, and procedures needed to defeat the world's newest totalitarian regime.

We have the time now to create a "soup to nuts" policy that will win this for us. Let us not waste the opportunity.

Semper Fi,

Mike

I just received this post from Mike Walker, a retired Marine Colonel. What a legacy Harry has left, "Say anything, no matter how damaging!" Yes, Mr. Reid, we remember!

All,

On 20 April 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, on the floor our capitol building, stated:

"...this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything..."

Was there ever an American holding a high office in time of war that made a more defeatist statement than that of Harry Reid?

Was there ever an instance where our armed forces, in the midst of life-or-death battle, were publicly subjected to such words of betrayal as those spewed forth by our Majority Leader in the Senate?

Due to the unsung bravery, dedication, and professionalism of our armed forces we have now obtained victory in Iraq. We have won the war that Harry Reid recklessly opined as lost, all the while sitting safe and sound back home (or "fat, dumb, and happy" in Marine jargon).

If ever a national leader deserves an equal public censure of being voted out of office by his electorate then that man is Harry Reid of Nevada.

President Obama said this during a speech on 21 March 2007 as a Senator:

"...we must learn the lessons of Iraq. It is what we owe our soldiers. It is what we owe their families. And it is what we owe our country – now, and in all the days and months to come."

We do indeed owe them and we can pay them back in part by doing whatever it takes to turn Harry Reid out of office in November 2010.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Two-tour veteran of the Iraq War

Excuses for Obama's Failure to Lead

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.

The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.

A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board -- and fueled two decades of economic growth.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.

It's 2010 and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health care reform -- lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."

Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.

Leave it to Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health care reform, to debunk these structural excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... But in this case there's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health care reform plan to American voters. He failed."

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections -- Virginia, New Jersey and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself -- despite the special interests -- through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Iranian regime change: An Obama achievement we could believe in

By William Kristol

Vice President Biden -- who was for the Iraq war before he was against it, and who then argued that the surge could never work before he decided (in retrospect) that it did -- said this to Larry King on Wednesday night:

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. . . . I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences."

Iraq is "one of the great achievements of this administration"? Well, any port in a political storm -- even if it means taking credit for the success of policies of the previous administration, policies you opposed. In politics, after all, success acquires many fathers. And that's fine, if it means the Obama administration is careful over the next couple of years not to toss away American troops' achievements in Iraq.

King (in his inimitable way) then asked Biden about Iran: "Iran, nuclear -- worry?"

Biden acknowledged that, yes, Iran is "a concern. A real concern, not an immediate concern in the sense that something could happen tomorrow or in the very near term. But what I worry most about with regard to Iran, if they continue on the path of nuclear weapons and were able to gain even a modicum of the capability, then I worry what that does -- Larry, and you know the Middle East, what that -- what pressure that puts on Saudi Arabia, on Egypt, on Turkey, etc. To acquire nuclear weapons . . . .That's very destabilizing."

Leave aside whether it make sense to worry more about other countries getting nuclear weapons in response to Iran than about the more immediate problem of the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Leave aside also that Biden -- following in his boss's footsteps -- couldn't be bothered to express anything in the way of solidarity with the demonstrators who would be taking to the streets of Iran the next day.

What's striking is this: (a) Even Biden seems to realize that having the current Iranian regime go nuclear would be a problem that could, unfortunately, outweigh all other successes in the Middle East, such as Iraq; (b) even Biden doesn't bother to pretend that the year the Obama administration spent on "engagement" with Iran produced anything worthwhile; and (c) even Biden doesn't bother to claim that the effects of a nuclear Iran can be "contained" by extending deterrence to other nations in the Middle East, or other favorite nostrums of some in the foreign policy community.

So what is the Obama administration going to do about the Iranian regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons?

Sanctions. But even if the administration succeeds in the U.N. Security Council, even if the administration is then able (with the Europeans) to go beyond what the Russians and Chinese will accept at the United Nations, even if the administration is willing to again consider the "crippling" sanctions it once discussed but now shies away from and even if the administration is willing to risk military conflict by preventing the importing of refined petroleum to Iran -- none of this is likely to succeed in inducing the regime in Tehran to halt uranium enrichment or in preventing the regime from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

But maybe sanctions are simply designed to buy time. Or, as one senior Obama administration official told the New York Times this week, "It is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war."

One supposes the official is referring to the possibility of an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program. Or is he referring to an American strike? In either case, he's right that war is a real possibility. In fact, I'd say military action is likely at some point over the next couple of years if there's not regime change in Iran.

But thanks to the people of Iran, regime change is now a real possibility. Surely the administration could have more of a sense of urgency in helping increase the odds of that devoutly to-be-wished goal.

Perhaps embracing the concept of "regime change" spooks the Obama administration. It's awfully reminiscent of George W. Bush. But one great failure of the Bush administration was its second-term fecklessness with respect to Iran. Bush kicked the Iran can down the road. Does Obama want an achievement that eluded Bush? Regime change in Iran -- that would be an Obama administration achievement that Joe Biden, and the rest of us, could really celebrate.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Ronald Reagan would be 99 years old today. When we talk about keeping our "eye on the ball" we should remember our role model of a fiscally conservative and prudent President. If you don't have it, don't spend it... and please, don't spend mine.

There is something wrong with this man... he is our president and he doesn't see the obvious. His remarks about Las Vegas, the bald faced statement below, and a pile of others which should have everyone alarmed. This guy is not prepared to do his job and we are in for a very rocky three years, well, like the one we just had. I think I am experiencing "flabbergast"....

President Say Anything

Hugh Hewitt

Today President Obama told Senate Democrats that they had faced "enormous procedural obstacles that are unprecedented.."

"You had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and 1960s combined. That's 20 years of obstruction jammed into just one."

This is astonishing. A filibuster is the successful use of 41 or more votes to prevent the closing of debate. There wasn't a single filibuster in 2009. Not one.

The president will say anything to advance a narrative that makes him a victim of obstruction. It is clear that 2010 will be spent pivoting from his 2009 mantra of Bush's fault to his campaign year blasts at the "do nothing Republicans."

His advisors must foresee grim news on jobs to offer up such a transparent and unpersuasive, indeed almost purposefully alienating argument.