The CSG Plague
Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)
All,
We are facing a grave foreign policy and national security policy problem and I would argue, the gravest in my lifetime.
Why?
We have a domestic political agenda masquerading as international policy.
The cause is simple and the recent donnybrook with Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu captures the problem perfectly.
The foreign policy-national security wonks in the White House are more or less a Chicken S—t Gang (CSG), to use their colorful terminology.
The CSG survives because we all want friendly relations with Russia and Iran, we want a just settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians and we wanted U.S. troops out of Iraq. We all wantworld peace and a strong global economy.
Why is that bad?
The CSG exists to tell us the bad news about bad things abroad.
The purpose of having a foreign policy-national security group in the White House is not to tell us what we want to hear. Its job is to tell President and us what we do not want to hear.
Simply put, their job is to differentiate what we need from what we want and then ensure that our needs are met.
That requires the CSG to get out of their domestic bubble, something they have proven incapable of doing. That is why we are in the predicament we are in around the world.
Examples of the CSG in Action
The Reset With Russia. This proved a complete fiasco but the CSG wanted to be chums with Putin so the needs of the United States be damned. By the way, the CSG also threw two good allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, under the bus to “please” the Kremlin.
Crushing the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran. This was the first time the CSG gang got caught off balance (shouldn’t we be on the side of peaceful liberal progressives in Iran?) and it defaulted to its wants strategy. The CSG wanted to prove it could be friends with the Islamic Republic and so sad – too bad for the opposition in Iran.
What did the CSG care if the regime beat, tortured, imprisoned and often killed the peaceful agents for change in Iran? In the view from inside the CSG bubble, the American people would soon forget about all that and the CSG still wants to be pals with the Ayatollahs, a hoped-for part of the CSG’s legacy.
Abandoning the liberal progressives in Syria. This was a replay of the stale CSG game plan with Russia and Iran. The CGS wanted to be pals with Assad so Assad adopted Tehran’s policy of brutally suppressing peaceful opposition. Out went the good guys, leaving only the bag guys standing in Syria.
The Total Iraq Pullout. This was another fiasco and it is now becoming clear that the CSG sabotaged the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis (see Ambassador Jefferies 3Nov2014 WSJ column).
But the CSG had no choice: Life in the bubble is defined by domestic American politics. To meet the CSG’s domestic political wants, doing what was right – what America needed – did not matter. The CSG foolishly walked out and three years later, Iraq walked right back in.
Benghazi. Hey, the election was in two months and POTUS had to be in Las Vegas the next day for a fundraiser. The CSG knew what it wanted so the solution was simple: blame it on the video and be done with it.
The Red Line in Syria. The CSG was sure that if the President spoke, Assad would obey. Once again, life in the bubble prevented the CGS from formulating a realistic policy for the real world. The CSG made the President look feeble and incompetent. Even from inside the bubble, that was a bad call.
The Rise of ISIL/ISIS. This is very much the monster created by Herr Doktor CSG Frankenstein. When the CSG orchestrated the precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, pushed for an incoherent policy in Syria and ignored all the warning signs that ISIS/ISIL was a real danger you get the mess we are faced with today.
No other outcome does a better job of explaining why life in the domestic bubble inevitably leads to international catastrophe. The CSG has failed America.
Why does the CSG get away with it?
First, we like our wants addressed whereas needs can be bitter medicine. We can be part of the problem.
Second, our independent safeguards have done a poor job. Too many in the media have redefined news casting. Hard-nosed objective reporting has been replaced with info-goop, an entertaining editorial sprinkled with cherry-picked facts posing as news. Again, it is a pursuit of wants at the expense of needs.
Third, the CSG has overwhelmed the traditional checks and balances within the Administration. When push comes to shove, the CSG can and has overridden the judgment of State, Defense, CIA, NSA, JCS and any other dissenting voice you care to add. For that failure, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of President Barak Obama.
Now we face the greatest danger: A Nuclear Iran
The CSG and Iranian Centrifuge Nonsense. The CSG's biggest misperception is that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is for nuclear medicine and electricity.
If Iran wanted to be the world leader – bar none – in nuclear medicine it would have reached that goal over a decade ago and at a small fraction of cost it has spent on its “peaceful” nuclear program.
Why would anyone invest several hundred billion dollars to obtain nuclear material that could be had for millions? The answer is you would not. The purpose of Iran’s atomic program is notnuclear medicine.
Nor is it electrical power. Iran’s first nuclear plant opened three years ago. It operates entirely off of nuclear fuel bought on the international market – none that was produced in Iran. Iran could open additional reactors without any need for the thousands of refinement centrifuges.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program serves one primary purpose: to allow the production of nuclear weapons for use against its enemies.
Al Qaeda and its various mutations like ISIL are very serious threats but they pale before the threat of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic.
If you want to raise the cost to the United States in treasure to a new level and that in blood exponentially then “reset” our relationship with Iran along the line followed by the CSG. The result will be catastrophically worse than the Russian failure that ended in invasions of Crimea and Ukraine.
At this point in time, no deal with the Islamic Republic is the only thing America needs. And speaking of needs, the CSG needs to be tossed out of the coop and the sooner the better.
Mike
