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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Is Israel Doomed?
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Jan. 09, 2007 For the Standard Today, January 11 issue In my article of Nov. 26, 2006 titled The Muddled East � archived in www.tapatt.org � I wondered out loud why - while President Bush was meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan � Vice President Dick Cheney flew six hours from Washington DC to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, met with the leaders of that medieval kingdom for eight hours, then flew another six hours straight back to Washington. That must have been, by any standard, an extraordinarily important meeting, considering that Cheney is the leader of the neo-conservative cabal which planned the 2003 invasion of Iraq even before Sept. 11, 2001, even before George W was elected president in November 2000, and which now is preparing an escalation (�surge�) of the Iraq war towards the neo-cons� unwavering primary strategic goal: total control of the Middle East. My interpretation of that meeting, as outlined in that November article, is that Cheney was preparing, with the help of the Saudi royals, for an Israeli attack on Iran �s nuclear facilities. In particular, Cheney may have sought Saudi permission for Israeli bombers to fly through Saudi air space on their way to Iran , and possibly for mid-air refueling for these aircraft on their way back to Israel after their bombing runs. After the debacle in Iraq , American public opinion will not support another ground war, in Iran . But, given the fabled influence of the Jewish Lobby in US domestic politics, it could conceivably support an air war against Iran �s nuclear facilities, or even only a supporting role to backstop an Israeli pre-emptive strike, by foiling any Iranian counter-strike against Israel right in the Persian Gulf . The selling point of such US involvement, I wrote in November, would be the expectation that the Iranian middle-class, who are considered pro-Western, would rise up and overthrow the ayatollahs and effect regime change in Tehran . That expectation was reinforced by the results of local elections in mid-December, in which the political allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were defeated. I also wrote in that November article that the Americans may be playing on the Saudi�s and other Arabs� historical distrust of the Iranians. The Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and they subjugated the Arabs in pre-Islamic centuries, even before the time of Alexander the Great, 2,500 years ago, when the Persian Empire commanded an area that stretched from Afghanistan to Turkey to the Libyan desert . It is significant that about one week after the meeting with Cheney, the Saudi government announced that in the event of an American withdrawal from Iraq, Saudi Arabia would support the Sunnis in their on-going civil war with the Iranian-backed Shias, a not-so-subtle message to the ayatollahs in Tehran. Two or three weeks before he was executed on Dec. 30, Saddam Hussein wrote a farewell letter to his (Sunni) people in which he warned them of �those hateful, devil-worshipping Persians!� This was a reference to the fire-centered practices of Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion in ancient Persia before the advent of Islam in the 7th century AD. So, if my interpretation is correct, the Sunni-Shia divide in Islam will be cultivated by the Americans and the Israelis, especially in the Arab and Muslim Streets, to create a hopefully receptive climate, among Arabs and other Sunnis, for the bombing of Iran �s nuclear facilities. Exactly when this will happen, depends on when the Americans and the Israelis feel events are moving towards a point of no return. And this would have to do with their perceptions on when Iran will acquire the capability to make nuclear weapons. President Ahmadinejad�s repeated threats to �wipe Israel off the map� cannot be taken lightly when he is actively working to acquire nuclear weapons. The American CIA estimates that it would take Iran 10 years to reach that point; the Israeli Mossad thinks it would take only two. The Israeli view seems to have prevailed with the neo-cons in Washington . According to this view, the Israelis will have to strike soon. Otherwise, they are doomed. So, when? In an article dated Dec. 21 in the Consortium News, the American writer Robert Parry warns that �the first two or three months of 2007 represent a dangerous opening for an escalation of the war in the Middle East , as George W. Bush will be tempted to �double-down� his gamble in Iraq by joining with Israel�s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to strike at Syria and Iran, intelligence sources say. �(Emphasis mine.) Parry quotes recent Bush statements that indicate that, rather than being chastened by his Party�s defeat in the November elections, Bush is in fact preparing to escalate the Iraq war into a wider Middle East war: Bush wants to demonstrate to the enemy that �they can�t run us out of the Middle East, that they can�t intimidate America.� �I�m not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq, except that it�s going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices, because the enemy is merciless and violent.� In another article dated January 8, Parry analyzed the recent changes that Bush has made in the US order of battle. Bush removed (by retirement) Gen. John Abizaid as commander of Central Command that oversees US military activities in Iraq , Afghanistan and the entire Middle East . He removed Gen. George Casey as overall US commander in Iraq , by kicking him upstairs as US Army Chief. Both Abizaid and Casey had publicly expressed reservations about Bush�s plan to �surge� the US forces in Iraq by 20,000 more troops by end of January. To replace Casey, Bush appointed Gen. David Petraeus, who has had experience training Iraqis for their national army and who no doubt shares Bush�s policy of escalation. More importantly, to replace Gen. Abizaid, he appointed Admiral William Fallon, who until last week was commander of Pacific Command based in Hawaii . Now, why would an admiral be chosen to oversee two on-going land wars, one in the deserts of Iraq , the other in the mountains of Afghanistan ? Elementary, my dear Watson. Adm. Fallon will have under his command two carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf , one already in place, the other soon to be there. Their mission? Almost certainly to back-stop an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran and to parry the inevitable Iranian counter-strike against Israel . Or even to actively take part in the destruction of Iran �s nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan , Arak and elsewhere. Another Bush dis-appointment that Parry finds significant is the demotion of John Negroponte from Director of National Intelligence (with oversight powers over 16 intelligence agencies) to a mere Under-Secretary of State under Condoleeza Rice. Parry reports that Negroponte had come under fire from the neo-cons� Frank Gaffney., for his soft reading of Iran �s nuclear potentials: �Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian (nuclear) weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade� were Negroponte�s famous last words. He was also criticized for appointing senior intelligence analysts who were skeptical of Bush�s claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . That is the American side of the emerging Middle East scenario for 2007. The Israeli side is no less hawkish or portentous. According to a Jan. 7 article in The Sunday Times (of London ) by Uzi Mahnaimi in New York and Sarah Baxter in Washington , � Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran �s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.� Just as they had destroyed Saddam Hussein�s nuclear facilities in Osirak in a pre-emptive strike in 1981, with conventional bombs. �Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility, using low-yield �bunker-busters� (known B61-11s), according to several Israeli military sources�.Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open �tunnels� into the targets, which are said to be protected by 70ft of concrete and rocks. �Mini-nukes� would then immediately be fired into the nuclear facility, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.� According to the Times article, Israeli pilots have been flying off Gibraltar in recent weeks in training (presumably over the Atlantic ) for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey . One of the two other routes, presumably, involves flying over Saudi Arabia , as I had earlier theorized in my November article. In his January 8 article, Parry quoted investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (in his article in the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker) that a number of senior US military officers were troubled by neo-con war planners who believed that the B61-11 tactical nuclear weapons were the only way to destroy Iran�s underground nuclear facilities. Hersh wrote that the White House refused to remove the nuclear option from the plans despite objections from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. �Whenever anybody tries to get it out, they�re shouted down.� So it looks like the world may see the first nuclear weapons detonated in anger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sometime during the first two or three months of 2007. Is Israel doomed? If, with the help of the American neo-cons, Israel beats the Iranians to the draw, probably not, in the short term. In the medium term, however, the more appropriate question may be: �Is the world doomed?� ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Is Israel Doomed?� Tony, This is one great article. I am sending this to others. AL Jose Leonidas, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, You are super perspicacious, perceptive or whatever the apt term is. Being able to pick out seemingly unrelated facts from a virtual haystack and [constructing a coherent timeline and credible structure] cutting to the chase for what will happen in the Middle East- one has to have been born with the proper genes. The government should appoint you to be head of what passes for the intelligence services in the Philippines. Sigh. Francis de Borja, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Congratulations on another coup in global strategic analysis! You hit right on the money with your January 11 article. Dubya is indeed fast moving the chess pieces to open another theater of engagement in Iran and Syria - both countries with blood debt to Uncle Sam (recall the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the messy Lebanon civil war, the killing of Beirut CIA chief Bill Buckley, 200 plus Marines dead among others). The designation of Admiral William Fallon as CENTCOM commander to lead a war-fighting command composed mainly of army soldiers and marines appears to be in preparation to cordon-off the Iranian sea-lanes, particularly securing the Strait of Hormuz to cushion the impact of a double Iranian-Syrian campaign on oil trade and the global economy. Fallon is a known naval strategist, learned in the doctrines of joint operations, principally the use of air power to support naval campaigns. For a military man, he is curiously astute in political dealings and compromises and knows how to effectively use military leverage for political gains - just think of calling the bluff on the Balikatan exercises in the Philippines to save the back of one horny US Marine. He is also a principal figure in the behind-the-scene negotiations with India, which by now we know has forged a milestone nuclear technology exchange agreement with the United States sometime last year - a not-so-subtle gesture to Pakistan that Washington is not very happy with the way Pervez Musharraf is handling his war on terror on his home front. Former US Ambassador to Manila John Negroponte's demotion as Madame Rice's deputy is certainly a punitive message to moderates within the Bush Administration that mis-marching with the political cadence of the neo-conservative White House would be dealt with unflaterringly, especially when as former Director of National Intelligence, Negroponte echoed a very cautious and conventional estimate that Tehran is years away in acquiring nuclear capability. I think Dubya is more convinced of the Israel' Mossad estimate of 2-3 year timeframe, than with the CIA's own study -- which I think is not very outrageous if one cares to find out that the Americans really have no ground HUMINT in Tehran because almost all of them were massacred during the time of Clinton because of a combination of mismanagement and ill-conceived priorities (granting of course that the Israelis did not deliberately skew its estimate to prod the American Leviathan to war). And while Bush paid lip-service to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, it is clear as sunlight that he is more convinced of a parallel study released by the unofficial think tank of neo-conservative leaders - the American Enterprise Institute. Authored by one of the ideologues of neoconservativism, Frederick Kagan, "Choosing Victory: A Plan For Success in Iraq " outlines the "surge" of troops to secure Baghdad . It also cautions against talking to Iran and Syria because even though both support violence in Iraq , they do not have control over them, which is in direct repudiation of some of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. All it takes to make "Muddled East," as you call it, to light up like a flare is for the Kurds in Northern Iraq to declare independence cause Kurdish minorities from Turkey to Armenia will certainly find a political cause to instigate an irredentist union with the new " Kurdistan ". From Muddles East, it will be Murdered East. Cheers! Ibn Khaldun, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Your observations and projections do give us readers a good warning. Actually, there is now a growing and significantly massive public objection to the thrust of Bush in Iraq and to his questionable military supporters. Things may still take a surprising turn, such as maybe, an emergence of public clamor against the perceived inclination of the US towards favoring Israel . Furthermore, the new Democrat power in Congress has Bush et al on their toes. Good luck in your amazing way of analysis of the US position in the Middle East . What would be the extrapolations of these views of yours on East Asians? Lourdes Ceballos, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 MY REPLY. An Israeli-US attack on Iran would certainly impact on the supply and price of crude worldwide. Muslims who are not Arabs (Indonesians, Malaysians, Bangladeshis, etc) would likely react more passionately to it than would Arabs, who are now being courted by Sec. Rice for their tacit acquiescence.) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thanks Tony, that was an interesting presentation and insight. Abrazos, Jaime Calero, [email protected], Sydney , Australia , Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Antonio, You make many very good points in this piece. Sending Kurdish Iraqi army units into Sadr city is another strange way of working against sectarianism. Many in Tehran are starting to think this is getting towards crunch-time, although there are many trying to repair relations with the Saudis. Gareth Smyth, [email protected] Tehran , Iran , Jan. 12, 2007 Financial Times correspondent, Tehran wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Is Israel doomed? Is the world doomed, Mr. Abaya? What else can one say? Cesar Torres, [email protected], San Francisco , CA , Jan 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, A lively analysis of the Muddled Middle East courtesy of Bush. He misled his country on WMD, exposed a CIA agent, 3000+ US soldiers killed, Billion Dollars spent on this war and still counting. Destruction of historic Iraq aka Babylon , thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded.....with no end in sight. He should be impeached. If US impeached a popular president for sexual misconduct, why can't they impeach this one? Israel Doomed = USA Doomed. It will never happen. USA is Jew country. Just look at New York and Financial Markets. They are the Chosen People. You name any activity in life....money, arts, science, technology, etc. and you will see a Jew is always among them. As the Holy Book sez.....there will be peace when Israel is accepted in that part of the country. But Muslims see Israel as the Eternal Thorn....it will not happen in our generation. Muslims are funny people too....Shites vs. Sunnis....like the Catholics vs. Protestants in Ireland ? KILLING EACH OTHER IN THE NAME OF GOD/ALLAH!!!!!!. Keep Well. Ernie Aragon, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thank you for your current historical update and analysis. From what I gather from your paper, it is more of the question "Is the world doomed?". However far we think each human being is from the site of destruction, nature will cause all to be affected. I believe that present diseases, and new ones seem to be appearing, are all caused by past destructions by nuclear means. Thanks to the winds and the world made smaller by travel. We will never know what radioactive elements stick to our luggages and our shoes. But how can one clear the evil minds of those openly declaring intentions of world destruction? At least the fear you have planted in us takes our mind off the tragic comedies happening in our own country where too many people with trivial and selfish personal agendas are doomed to self-destruct! Pura Flor Isleta, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It depends on what "doomed" means. To be destroyed totally by WMDs or drowned to the last man in the Mediterranean , probably not. To be over a barrel or be caged inside a reduced territory in Palestine , probably yes. Some people even suggest relocating the Istaeli state to Utah or Saskatchewan . In the long-run, Israel won't be able to maintain its dominant position in the region if countries like Iran , Iraq , Saudi Arabia , Syria , Egypt , and Libya want to punish it. If peak oil is a reality, which I suspect it is, the balance of economic, political, and military power would shift towards Israel 's enemies. The beneficiaries of peak oil and the period leading to it would be Russia and the oil exporting Islamic nations. This condition is actually the primary reason why the US had been targetting Iraq , Iran , Central Asia , and Eastern Europe . The whole idea is to pin down Russia while controlling Middle Eastern oil/gas bearing countries and the pipeline systems in Central Asia and Eastern Europe . Israel and the US using nuclear weapons against Iran and others may not be a real prospect. Nukes are used when the other side does not have them. Iran is de facto a client state of Russia and a preferred partner and ally of China for commercial and possibly strategic reasons. The other side has nukes too. The US is a $13 trillion GDP economy and it has a world financial empire. The US would be the first country to avoid a nuclear exchange. Would Iran and other Islamic countries obliterate Israel with nuclear weapons assuming they could? I doubt it. The US and Britain have nukes too. No, the war would be conventional. And the Islamic world would cage Israel , the way Israel has done to the Palestinians. Sure President Bush seems short of brains and critical thinking ability. But the captains of the military industrial complex are not similarly handicapped. Tony Anciano, [email protected], Jan. 12, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww NewsMax has the same opinion and predictions, too, although their's is not on the first three months of the year. Thanks. Bert Celera, [email protected], Jan 13, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony Thank you for the email on the "chess play "of America in the Arab world. Maybe the word chess is not accurate because the Americans and Israelis have already completed the game. Any way, Tony, above all what do you think the Israel approach to the Philippines is. Are they interested to be in this region by using the Philippines as gateway to Southeast Asia ? Or maybe they have tried or they are already here. I wish to hear your comments. I am very glad to receive your articles. I never miss reading them. Warm regards Chekhasnah Cheman, [email protected], Jan. 14, 2007 Embassy of Malaysia wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to us by a Lebanese reader at [email protected]). Addicted to war By Robert Scheer Here we go again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House? Even as government statistics now show marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop, it is important to remember that militarism is the most dangerous drug threatening our sanity. Yet even formerly sober folks�first Colin Powell and now new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates�get a contact high from cozying up to the walking hallucinogen that is our President. Succumbing to the Bush fantasy that freedom is fertilized by firepower, a vision that has mucked up Iraq beyond recognition, Gates told CBS that "as the President has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for generations to come." This from a man who recently made sense, during his confirmation hearings, when he told members of Congress that we are not winning this war, despite having committed, proportionally, as many troops as we did in Vietnam. But now, as a rising chorus of obsessed hawks calls for a "surge" in US troop deployment in Iraq�a call echoed even by some prominent Democrats�Gates endorses the staying-the-course strategy for compounding the Iraq failure rejected by the voters. A member of the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) who had apparently supported its unanimous findings that the military strategy was bankrupt is suddenly blinded by Bush's Iraq victory myopia. In a sign of just how out there Bush is on Iraq, the Washington Post reported Tuesday that the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff are in "unanimous disagreement" with "White House officials aggressively promoting the concept.... [T]he Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission [in Iraq]." All this despite the fact that the ISG report correctly underscored that the real failures in the Mideast have clearly been political, not military. The accurate subtext of the report is that the continued US military presence in Iraq is the key source of chaos in the region�inflaming religious fanaticism from Beirut to Baghdad and leaving the United States dependent on Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to now bail us out. So with Bush rejecting the sage advice of a commission headed by his father's Secretary of State to cut our losses, is there any hope the Democrats who now control Congress will stop playing the role of enabler to these war junkies? After all, it was the Democratic congressional leadership that provided Bush with bipartisan cover for his irrational "anti-terrorism" invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some, like John Kerry, now recognize that folly, and even Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, in her appearance on NBC's Today show Monday, finally expressed her regrets for supporting the war and opposed a "surge" in US troops for Iraq. But other Democrats continue to play the dangerous game of supporting Bush's escalation. Particularly alarming were the remarks on Sunday of incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsing a buildup as long as it aims at getting the troops home by 2008: "If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that." Reid's strategy is as obvious as it is opportunistic: This is a Republican war, goes the thinking, and the Dems will give the Republicans all the rope they need to hang themselves in '08. This seems a deeply cynical position, when you consider that the Pentagon just announced that attacks on American and Iraqi targets are at their highest levels, with a 22 percent leap from just this summer. The difference between taking a position and positioning oneself is what determines leadership; if the Dems fail to provide real leadership on ending this war, they will deservedly lose the next election. The convenient lie behind all of this is that US military occupation is the indispensable agent of Mideast enlightenment. No, we have become the enablers of Iraqi madness, be it in the form of torture or the ascendancy of religious tyranny in Iraq, where daily life has been reduced to an unmitigated horror. Yet, like a junkie who needs one more hit to get his life in order, Bush is hooked on the drug of military might. If the Democrats continue to feed his dangerous habit they will only help Bush visit greater mayhem upon Iraq while undermining the core values of our own country.� The Nation Addicted to war -- http://www.star.com.jo/viewNews/DetailNews.aspx?nid=3815 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to us by Carlos L. Agustin, [email protected], president of the National Defense College of the Philippines) Iraq Will Be Petraeus's Knot to Untie General Known to See Peace as Still Possible By Rick Atkinson Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 7, 2007 Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is President Bush's choice to become the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, posed a riddle during the initial march to Baghdad four years ago that now becomes his own conundrum to solve: "Tell me how this ends." That query, uttered repeatedly to a reporter then embedded in Petraeus's 101st Airborne Division, revealed a flinty skepticism about prospects in Iraq -- and the man now asked to forestall a military debacle. Long recognized as one of the Army's premier intellectuals, with a PhD from Princeton to complement his West Point education, Petraeus, 54, will inherit one of the toughest assignments handed any senior officer since the Vietnam War. He takes command of 132,000 U.S. troops in a country shattered by insurgency and sectarian bloodletting, with a home front that is divided and disheartened after 3,000 American combat deaths. If his riddle of 2003 remains apt, so does the headline on a Newsweek cover story about Petraeus in July 2004: " Can This Man Save Iraq?" Skepticism is rife, inside and outside the Army. "Petraeus is being given a losing hand. I say that reluctantly. The war is unmistakably going in the wrong direction," retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said in an interview yesterday. "The only good news in all this is that Petraeus is so incredibly intelligent and creative. . . . I'm sure he'll say to himself, 'I'm not going to be the last soldier off the roof of the embassy in the Green Zone.' " Petraeus, if controversial among some peers who deem him arrogant or excessively ambitious, is seen by many others as perhaps the last, best hope for success in Iraq. "If anyone can pick up the baton and run with it, it is David Petraeus," said retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, a former Army chief of staff. After spending 2 1/2 of the past four years in Iraq, as a division commander and then as the officer overseeing the initial reconstruction of Iraqi security forces, Petraeus is known to believe that a stable, pacified Iraq is still possible -- if not probable -- but not without dramatically improved security. Having also served in Bosnia after the catastrophic civil war there, he has told friends that he sees troubling parallels between that country and Iraq. Two months ago, he said, "I actually stay awake occasionally at night trying to figure out the path ahead." Upon Senate confirmation and the receipt of his fourth star, making him a full general, he is expected to spend some weeks assessing conditions in Iraq and drafting a strategic plan that goes beyond the current debate over whether to increase U.S. troop levels by up to five brigades, roughly 20,000 troops. That "surge" is consistent with the military's new counterinsurgency manual, much of which Petraeus wrote, which stresses protecting the indigenous population and imposing security as a condition for stability. One of Petraeus's longtime Army patrons, now-retired Gen. Jack Keane, has advocated an even larger deployment this spring. But many strategists say such an increase is pointless without a sweeping economic reconstruction program and a robust rearmament of the Iraqi army with artillery, attack helicopters and other heavy weapons. Many also say the additional forces to be used in any troop increase are already badly worn down by the military's intense operational tempo since the first deployments to Afghanistan in 2001. The new Democratic leadership in Congress on Friday pointedly rejected even a short-term escalation in U.S. forces in Iraq. These problems and more confront Petraeus, who has told friends that he has no illusions about the complexity of the job at hand. Unaccustomed to failure, he is, in the words of one former aide, "the most competitive man on the planet." The son of a Dutch sea captain who took refuge in New York during World War II, Petraeus grew up in Cornwall on Hudson, a few miles outside the gates of the U.S. Military Academy, which he entered as a new cadet in July 1970. "A striver to the max, Dave was always 'going for it' in sports, academics, leadership, and even his social life," the West Point yearbook noted in 1974. A month after graduation, he married Holly Knowlton, the daughter of the academy superintendent. They have two grown children. As a young lieutenant, Petraeus entered an Army battered by defeat in Vietnam and badly frayed by drugs, lack of discipline and the American public's diminished esteem for the military. Accolades and achievements followed as he moved from post to post. Petraeus received all three prizes awarded in his class at Ranger School, perhaps the Army's toughest physical and psychological challenge, and he later won the George C. Marshall award as the top graduate in the Army Command and General Staff College class of 1983. As he rose through the ranks, Petraeus alternated command and staff assignments with duty as an aide to several of the Army's most prominent four-star generals, a pattern that caused one envious peer to call him a "professional son." At Princeton University, Petraeus's dissertation, "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam," examined the caution that seized the high command after the war. His intensity, cutting intellect and competitiveness have rubbed some officers the wrong way. Muttered jibes about "King David" have been heard around his command post. He remains obsessive about what he calls "the P.T. culture" -- physical training -- and has been known to challenge soldiers half his age to various athletic competitions. "If anyone beats him in the shorter runs, four miles or so, he takes them out for 10 miles and smokes them," a staff officer observed several years ago. At 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds, Petraeus evokes George Bernard Shaw's description of the British general Bernard L. Montgomery: "an intensely compacted hank of wire." Twice, accidents almost ended his career, or even his life. In 1991, as a battalion commander at Fort Campbell, Ky., he was shot in the chest with an M-16 rifle when a soldier tripped during a training exercise. Rushed into surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he underwent five hours of surgery by Bill Frist, who a decade later became Senate majority leader. While skydiving in 2000, Petraeus survived the abrupt collapse of his parachute 60 feet up. His shattered pelvis was reassembled with a plate and long screws. As commander of the 101st Airborne, Petraeus saw combat for the first time during the division's drive up the Euphrates Valley, with sharp firefights in Najaf, Karbala and Hilla. But it was during the division's subsequent occupation of Mosul and northern Iraq that he won widespread acclaim by resurrecting the local economy, restoring services and preserving order with strategic force, which included killing Saddam Hussein's two sons. Posters in the division bivouacs read: "What have you done to win Iraqi hearts and minds today?" More than 60 soldiers from the 101st died during the deployment, and upon bringing the division back to Kentucky in February 2004, Petraeus remarked, "It's been a long, tough year, and I am older in more ways than just age." His subsequent service as commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command, responsible for training Iraqi security forces, was another long, tough year -- that stretched to 15 months. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police were trained, with concomitant efforts to supply infrastructure, equipment and procedures. But the project at best remains an imperiled work in progress, with alarming signs of sectarian fractures spreading through the Iraqi security institutions that Petraeus is known to consider as crucial to restoring stability there as any additional coalition forces could be. Both long stints in Iraq have given Petraeus an intimate knowledge of the country's ethnic fractures and the limits of American influence. "A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing," he once told a reporter. "There aren't always a hell of a lot of absolutely right answers out there." His cordial relations with the media, and the Newsweek cover story that depicted him as a potential savior for the Bush administration, rankled some of his superiors in the Pentagon, according to two now-retired senior generals. When Petraeus was sent to command the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in 2005, some of his peers wondered whether his career was in eclipse. In asking that nettlesome question four years ago -- "Tell me how this ends" -- Petraeus alluded to the advice supposedly given President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the mid-1950s when he asked what it would take for the U.S. military to save the beleaguered French colonial empire in war-torn Vietnam: "Eight years and eight divisions." With only ten divisions now in the U.S. Army, and the American public's patience ebbing, Petraeus recently acknowledged that such a prescription is not likely to be any more acceptable today than it was in the 1950s. Conrad C. Crane, a West Point classmate of Petraeus's who last year helped him write the new counterinsurgency manual, said: "There have been situations in our history where American generals were given tough problems to resolve, like Lincoln grabbing U.S. Grant in 1864. Those situations have all demanded steadfastness, fortitude, initiative and creativity. It will take all those traits in Baghdad. "We've got a big problem," Crane added. "He's the right guy to fix it. If anybody can fix this, he can." Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. � 2007 The Washington Post Company wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: An Israeli preemptive strike against Iran 's nuclear facilities can happen only with the consent and support of President Bush, VP Cheney and their cabal of neo-cons. This time, however, the U.S. Congress will very likely no longer supinely agree to a White House usurpation of its constitutional authority to declare war.The U.S. is bogged down in Iraq and it is not in a position militarily to go to war against Iran . The American people will have none of it. Mariano Patalinjug, [email protected], Yonkers , NY , Feb. 021, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww HELLO TONY FROM CITA @HARVARD, I'VE SEEN BOTH WARS AND THE TRAGIC LOSS OF LIVES. IT HAS MADE ME REALIZE THAT THERE EXISTS EVIL MEN WHO ARE SO TERRIBLE AND BAD TOWARDS THEIR FELLOW MANKIND, AND WE, THE LUCKY ONES, (BY ACCIDENT OF BIRTH, AS KENNEDY SAID, OR GENES, OR SITUATION, ETC) WHO CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN, SHOULD TRY TO PREVENT THE EVIL ONES TO TRIUMPH. UNFORTUNATELY, SOMETIMES, IT TAKES A WAR TO DO IT. MORE POWER TO YOU AND YOUR NEWSPAPER Cita Abad Dinglasan, [email protected], Feb. 03, 2007 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |