January 2012 - Foreign Policy

In the January 7, 2012 New Hampshire debate of course everyone wanted to bring our troops home as soon as possible. Romney said he would get guidance from the commanders on the ground and others before pulling troops out of Afghanistan. Huntsman said in 1967 we got bad advice from the ground commanders in Vietnam; he sees civil war coming in Afghanistan and thinks we should accept what we’ve gotten there and get out by 2013. Gingrich thinks Afghanistan is a tiny piece of a gigantic mess. He talked about Pakistan, Iran, the Muslim brotherhood winning elections in Egypt and we don’t know who’s in charge in Libya. Gingrich said we need a new strategy comparable to our strategy to fight the cold war; we aren’t going to solve the problems/civil unrest in South Asia with a military solution, Iraq started deteriorating 24 hours after our troops left. Santorum said he wouldn’t send troops back to Iraq now but the problem is the President has made the wrong moves and shown the people of that region that we are the weak horse and the President did that by pulling our troops out of Iraq. Santorum told Huntsman that is what happens if we pull our troops out of Afghanistan; we need to wait until the security of our country is ensured; the American people need to know the dangers of the radical Islamic. Perry said we should’ve already negotiated with the Iraqi to send troops back; Iran already has a foothold and everything we’ve done would be for nothing. Gingrich doesn’t agree with sending troops back as yet; if we’re worried about the Iranians than we need a plan to eliminate its leadership and Iraq will be fine; we need an energy plan so we don’t bow down to a Saudi King (for oil) and then put pressure on the Saudis to stop this. Romney didn’t answer what the trigger would be to send troops back; he thought that every few months the President should’ve explained our interest and our measurement of success to the American people (I don’t think any President has ever done this). Paul said we need a declaration of war before going into another country, he brought up ping pong got us to talk to the Chinese, he said the saving of the Iranian fishermen is what we should deal with - sanctions always lead up to war, they have a lot of blowback, eastern Europe will be affected without oil and it pushes the Iranians into the hands of the Chinese. Santorum told Paul that if we had his policy there wouldn’t have been a fleet to pick up the Iranians; he also said the President didn’t support the Iranian people during a revolution when thousands were killed in the street and he supported Iran’s elections. Santorum also said when he was in the Senate he pushed to give Iranian revolutionist resources because the Iranian people love America.

I couldn’t remember hearing of a revolution in Iran so I checked everything I had that related to them. I found in November CIA operations in Lebanon were severely damaged after Hezbollah (a militant group with ties to Iran) identified and captured at least a dozen US spies in Lebanon and Iran and the CIA admitted they made mistakes and is flying blind in Lebanon. Late November 2011 the US, Britain and Canada announced new financial sanctions against Iran due to growing concerns for over an Iranian nuclear program. On November 29 Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran; angry over British support of the sanctions. In December an unarmed US stealth reconnaissance drone crashed in western Afghanistan on the Iranian border; its skin and advanced sensors, cameras and listening (intelligence) could put the US at risk and on December 8 the US asked for it back. Radioactive sodium was found in a Russian suitcase headed for Iran (on January 11 Russia expressed concern with Iran’s uranium enrichment). In January Iran said it had produced its own nuclear fuel rod; they made several threats to close the Strait of Hormuz; test fired a long-range missile in the Strait and said they captured an American spy. On January 9 we find out the spy is a 28 year old ex-Marine born in Arizona who was visiting his grandmother; he’d been held since August, is sentenced to death and has 20 days to appeal. The kicker here is that the Iranians make this announcement after the American destroyer, USS Kidd, spotted Somali pirates holding a fishing boat hostage and rescued 13 Iranians who had been held for nearly 2 months; their Foreign Minister said he welcomed the rescue as a humanitarian gesture but does not release our guy even though we say the accusation is false. We also heard that diplomats confirmed Iran has been enriching uranium in a bunker style facility which can easily change the uranium for use in nuclear weapons; a second facility was found and folks said it would take Iran 1–3 years to build a weapon. On January 10 the US Coast Guard rescued 6 Iranians from a sinking boat. On January 11 a young Iranian nuclear scientist (Deputy Director of the Natanz Nuclear Enrichment Facility) is killed in broad daylight in Tehran (the 4^th nuclear scientist to die in the last 2 years); Iran blames the US and Israel (on the 14^th they also blame Britain); Israel’s Minister of Defense said there are countries that impose economic sanctions and countries that act in other ways. On January 12 on the internet I found that the last Iranian uprising was in 1979, an Iranian court of revolution in August sentenced to death the terrorist who assassinated Ali Mohammadi in 2010 and Iran’s President had gone to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to gain support against the US. I have no idea what Romney (see discussion on the commander-in-chief a couple of blogs ago) or Santorum (in this blog) got the idea that there was a recent revolution and I don’t think Paul’s suggested talks without sanctions is going to get us anywhere with Iran.