Kim Jong-Il’s death may be unexpected but it hasn’t been unanticipated.

It’s not secret that Kim has been sick for several years. A year ago he designated his youngest and favorite son, Kim Jong-un as his heir apparent.

Kim’s father and son were expected to formalize the succession in 2012, on the 100th birthday celebration of grandfather Kim Il-sung, founder of the North Korean state.

The two had hoped for a several year transition period for Kim Junior to learn the ropes.

The question now will be can the twenty-something Kim consolidate power quickly and win over the North Korean generals of the ruling elite. It won’t be easy.

Kim Jong-un is young, inexperienced and has no military background, despite being designated a four-star general last year.
He’s got two older brothers who were passed over for the job, too. He’s got an aunt and uncle who were thought to be close to Kim Jong-Il but who seem recently to have fallen out of favor.

He’s got to provide for the some 40% of North Koreans who will need food, fuel and gasoline subsidies to make it through the winter.

He’s got to juggle relations with China, which provides some 75% of North Korea’s aid donations.

And he’s got to keep all those generals happy.

So what now and what about the United States?

Here are three big issues to watch on the Korean peninsula in the days and weeks ahead:

1. Will Kim Jong-un manage to consolidate his position? How will he do it? Will he try to prove he’s tough enough to fill his father and grandfather’s shoes by provoking a military incident with South Korea?

A year ago, when he was designated heir apparent, the North Koreans sunk a South Korean ship, killing over 40 people, and shelled an island; analysts suggested Kim Junior was signaling that he would, like his father, put ‘military first.’
And, while it may be unrelated, the North Koreans tested a short-range missile a day after they announced Kim Senior’s death.

2. What will South Korea do if tensions rise? A year ago South Korea’s President Lee didn’t retaliate against the North Korean provocations. He was roundly criticized for failing to protect the South Korean people and his popularity plummeted.
President Lee can’t risk looking weak again, especially if another incident results in South Korean casualties. He has put his forces on high alert.

3. What is the greatest risk to stability on the Korean Peninsula? Miscalculation on both sides of the border.

Last year I met with the outgoing U.S. commander of our forces in South Korea who said one of the biggest problems was that North Korea’s self imposed isolation makes them hard to read, and they have trouble reading us. What might be a minor incident could quickly escalate into something much more dangerous.

Even North Korea’s most senior leaders have little contact with the outside world. They have no Internet, no Facebook, no blogosphere and they’re not on Twitter.

North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world, and governed by an insular group of military leaders.

North Koreans don’t travel abroad and foreigners don’t go to North Korea. Yet on their southern border, just across a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, lies South Korea — an open, democratic society, and one of the world’s economic miracles.

So why does America care what happens to a small dictatorship half way around the world? Because North Korea has nuclear weapons and we have a mutual defense treaty with South Korea.

The United States has some 28,500 military personnel in South Korea, many serving as a tripwire at the demilitarized zone between North and South.

Our navy recently completed a joint military exercise with the South Korean Navy. There is no doubt that a military conflict between North and South Korea would involve U.S. troops.

As 2011 comes to a close, and just as America is exiting one war zone, things may start heating up in another one, half way around the world.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/20/three-things-to-watch-on-korean-peninsula-in-days-ahead/#ixzz1iKCumN14

Navy Midshipmen and Army Cadets spend their entire four years of college saying, “Beat Army” or “Beat Navy” dozens of times a day.

In the weeks leading up to the contest both Academies wage mock war against each other – with pranks, commando raids and high jinx. On game day the Armed Forces network broadcasts it around the world. Soldiers will listen in from their posts in the war zones. Sailors will tune in from the high seas.

Not only is the Army-Navy game one of the oldest college football competitions in the nation, in many ways it is one of the best.

It’s not that the football is great, because it’s usually not. The young men who play for Army or Navy weren’t recruited by the top university teams – they’re too small, or too light. They aren’t semi-professional football stars, living, eating and studying apart from their college classmates.

The men who play at West Point or Annapolis major in physics or electrical engineering and spend more time doing homework and marching in drills than at football practice. When they graduate they won’t be drafted by the NFL.

It is the last organized football game most of them will ever play. In a few months time, they will be ensigns standing watch on ships in the Pacific, marine lieutenants flying helicopter reconnaissance missions, and army lieutenants in remote, forward operating bases in Afghanistan.

So why is the Army-Navy game one of the best in college football? Because it is a metaphor for what is best about America. It shows us that we are at our best when we fight ferociously in the game, but afterwards, no matter who wins or who loses, we come together as brothers.

The finest moment of the game comes after the whistle blows. At the end, no fans rush onto the field. Nor do they head for their cars to get ahead of the traffic. They stand at their seats, take off their hats, and put their hands on their hearts. The entire stadium is silent, respectful, alert.

The players didn’t do war dances or whoops of victory, either. Both teams meet at the 50-yard line, shake hands and pat the backs of their opponents. They take off their helmets, tuck them under their arms and walk together to losing team’s side.

Last year it was a Navy victory, so both teams sang the West Point to Alma Mater to the entire 4,000 Corps of Cadets. Then they all turned and walked over to the Navy side of the field and sang to the 4,000 Brigade of Midshipmen.

If you looked up at the stadium screens you could see that many of the players had tears in their eyes. If you looked at your neighbors in the stands, they did too. Because what everyone in that stadium witnesses at every Army-Navy Game is the miracle that is America – that after the fiercest of contests we can rise above the victory or the defeat and come together as one nation. Regardless of our religion, family heritage or political affiliation, we are first and foremost, Americans. As much as our differences matter to us, our shared patrimony matters more.

Today the Army Navy game is being played in Washington, D.C. rather than its traditional home in Philadelphia.

All the senior leaders of government will be there. The president and vice president will attend, as will the leaders of Congress from both parties and all ends of the political spectrum.

Let’s pray they get more out of today than a good football game. Let’s pray that they will take to heart the miracle of the game, and follow the example of the cadets and midshipmen and realize that it is possible to lay down our rivalries and animosities and suspicions, and realize that we’re in this together — and that what is more important that being a Republican or a Democrat is being an American.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/10/miracle-army-navy-game/#ixzz1iK9PeoYb

We, like the battered wife, need to face the reality that things are only going to get worse, and it’s time to walk away and make some new friends. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be without major risks.

For ten years we have had a tortured relationship with Pakistan. We’ve needed their help in the Afghan War, and they’ve wanted our money. We’ve needed Pakistani supply routes to get our equipment and material into landlocked, mountainous and roadless Afghanistan. We’ve needed Pakistan to help take out the Taliban safe havens in the tribal areas inside Pakistan. We’ve needed Pakistan to help us find Bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda. And we’ve given them some $20 billion in military and economic assistance as an incentive. And they have helped us….just enough…. to string us along and keep the relationship going.

But they’ve never been committed enough to the relationship to go all in. Why? Because they see things differently than we do and have different goals. Above all, they want a pro-Pakistan, government in Afghanistan after our inevitable departure, to give them strategic depth against their arch-enemy India. If we leave and the Karzai government stays in power, fine, Pakistan has helped achieve that outcome. But if we leave and the Karzai government falls, as looks ever more likely, the Pakistanis are hedged because they have given safe haven to the Taliban group most likely to succeed Karzai.
Sound complicated? Not really. They’re just doing what they think is best for them.

They did the same thing with Usama bin Laden. For years the government denied that the terror mastermind was in Pakistan. Yet Bin Laden was found in a safe house near in a military complex in… Pakistan. Shocking? Hardly.

The Pakistanis were in the “finding” Bin Laden business. Once Bin Laden was found — dead or alive — they’d be out of business. So they did the sensible thing — from their perspective — and kept him alive and hidden. They pretended to help us look for him and they continued asking us for more aid to do so.

From our viewpoint, they’ve been double dealing. But from Pakistan’s viewpoint, they’re only doing what is in their best interest: hedging their bets against our departure, hedging their bets to get our assistance.

But we’ve got to do what is in our best interests, too. Those in favor of sticking it out with Pakistan cite three reasons:
First, if we don’t Afghanistan will descend into chaos and Al Qaeda will come back. Phooey. Al Qaeda has already moved on….to Yemen….to Somalia…. we don’t have 100,000 troops there. Who needs Afghanistan if they have all of cyberspace?

Second, they point to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal and say if we sever ties with Pakistan those nukes could fall into the hands of terrorists. Yet, by that logic we have just as much to fear from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and from Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Even our most militant neo-cons don’t think we should invade Iran.

To a certain extent, we’ve been Pakistan’s enablers. Hasn’t our military assistance allowed them to devote more of their own resources to their rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal? Wouldn’t it be better for us to take those billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and put it towards intelligence gathering and covert operations so we can know where those nuclear weapons are and if need be stop them from falling into the hands of terrorists?

Finally, some of the aid we give Pakistan ultimately ends up supporting the Pakistani intelligence services which give safe haven to and work with the Taliban. As former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mullen said, the Haqqani Taliban network is a virtual arm of the Pakistani intelligence services. — This is the same group responsible for a number of the recent attacks on NATO military and civilian targets.

Isn’t it unconscionable that we are paying Pakistan to kill our people in Afghanistan? Don’t we owe it to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country and who are still in Afghanistan to walk away from this abusive relationship?

None of them “won” or “lost” and they’re all getting better it debating. Come the election season, anyone of them will fare well against Obama because the dirty little secret is that while Obama may deliver a great TelePrompTer speech, he’s a lousy debater.

The big picture story is the nature of primary campaigning has changed, probably forever. In years past candidates ran state-by-state campaigns. They raised money, built ground teams, and camped out in the early primary states. If they won, donors sent in checks and the candidate could on going to the next primary state. If not, he had to quit. No money, no campaign. No ground game, no votes.

This time around retail campaigning, has given way to America’s newest reality TV series, the weekly Republican debates. Because candidates have to be sharp and well-rested or risk ridicule on “Saturday Night Live,” they’ve not had much time for chicken dinners in Iowa or diners in New Hampshire. Instead they’re running national campaigns by going on Fox News Channel and showing up at the debates. They’re reaching far more voters on national TV than they could at the pancake house in Cedar Falls. Which also means they don’t have to raise tons of cash. And that levels the playing field — all a candidate needs is a plane ticket and a hotel room and snappy debate performance. Will this translate to votes in the states? We won’t know if this strategy works until the primary states head to the polls starting in a few weeks time

There are not a lot of foreign policy differences between the candidates – except for Ron Paul. Sure Romney and Huntsman disagree on Afghanistan. Perry and Bachmann disagree on immigration. Gingrich disagrees with everyone about amnesty.

The biggest contrast will be later, between Obama and the GOP standard bearer. They will disagree on issues like how to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, how to end the Afghan war, and defense cuts. But at the core, Americans want to know which candidate can restore America’s faith in itself.

When Obama took the oath of office in January 2009 America was the undisputed leader of the world. That’s no longer the case today. Friends no longer seek our advice, foes are willing to challenge us, and worst of all the American people no longer think we’re just going through a temporary bad patch, but that we’re in an inevitable and permanent decline.

President Obama is fond of saying we’ve never been through such perilous times. He’s wrong. We’ve been in far worse places before and survived and thrived. Think of Lincoln trying to hold the Union together by having to sacrifice 600,000 lives. Or FDR dealing with the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and World War II. In spite of the crises they faced, they never doubted our ability to get through it and climb to even greater heights. And we knew they believed it, not just with pretty speeches but at the core of their beings, and so we believed it too. Lincoln talked about preserving the ‘last best hope of earth.’ FDR said the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Reagan talked about that shining city on a hill.

Obama believes in global solutions, and that American exceptionalism is no different from British exceptionalism or Greek exceptionalism. He prefers to lead from behind and thinks America should just be one among many. He says the problem is we’ve become lazy. And because he doesn’t believe in us, we’ve started to doubt ourselves, too.

In the end this is the only issue that matters. Most Americans believe deep in their hearts that we have something special here and we’re in danger of losing it. We think Washington is broken, and the country is on the wrong track. We can’t understand why there are no jobs, we’re looking for the candidate that can get us to believe in ourselves again, the one who believes deep in his heart that we are different from every other country in the history of the world; that we have been blessed by God and our founding principles like freedom and self reliance and equal rights have made us unique and exceptional.

“It’s a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s longstanding use of violence … We are committed to holding the Iranians accountable,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.

For now, Carney said the Obama administration is focusing on pressuring Iran through economic sanctions and diplomatic coalition-building. But emerging details suggest a potential strategy shift in Tehran’s quest for influence in the Middle East could require a new level of vigilance.

Some have questioned whether the plot was crafted under the guidance of top-level Iranian leaders. The names dropped so far by the Obama administration are no small fish. Among the individuals sanctioned Tuesday by the Treasury Department for alleged ties to the plot were Quds Commander Qasem Soleimani and Abdul Reza Shahlai — a Quds official notorious for his alleged role planning a 2007 attack which killed five American soldiers in Iraq.

A 2008 statement from the Treasury Department, announcing an earlier set of sanctions, had cited Shahlai for his role in planning the attack, as well as in helping supply weapons to and coordinate training for anti-U.S. groups in Iraq.

Shahlai’s background underscores the kind of shift the latest plot could signify, if the information spilled by the lone suspect in custody is correct.

Whereas Iran had previously kept its international meddling to isolated attacks and coordination with militias in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempted assassination would have been an unprecedented strike inside the United States aimed specifically at its dominant neighbor, Saudi Arabia.

Analysts said the plot shows how Iran is ratcheting up efforts to outflank the Kingdom as other nations in the region regroup following the Arab Spring.

“Together with Egypt, these are three countries that fervently believe that they should be the leaders of that region,” said P.J. Crowley, former assistant secretary for public affairs at the State Department. He noted Egypt is “distracted” by its own political transition, leaving Saudi and Iran to duke it out.

“There is a definite connection in terms of the Arab Spring. How these transitions are playing out, it’s raising the stakes for leadership in the region,” he said on Fox News. “I think within that context, you see this plot between Iran and Saudi Arabia play out.”
Crowley questioned whether the plot was a “rogue operation” by Quds-tied officials, or a “strategic decision” by top brass in Tehran to target Saudi Arabia “first and foremost.”

Vice President Biden, in an interview on CBS’ “Early Show,” said it appears the perpetrators wanted to “punish the Saudi Kingdom.”
KT McFarland, a former Defense official and Fox News national security analyst, said Wednesday that a plot against Saudi Arabia would point to another phase in the long-standing enmity between Iran’s Shiite leaders and Saudi’s Sunnis.

“What’s brewing in the Persian Gulf is a fight of some sort between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” she said. “Those tribes have been fighting each other for millennia and what you’re seeing now is whose going to have dominance in the Gulf region.”

Top U.S. officials described the plot as a threatening development. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday called it a “dangerous escalation” of Iran’s terror sponsorship.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he wasn’t surprised, given Iran’s past activities, ranging from support of Hezbollah and Hamas, U.S.-designated terror groups closely tied to the Iranian regime, to its nuclear program to the export of weapons into Afghanistan.

Still, some questioned the claims of high-level involvement, which seem to derive in large part from the confession of the lone suspect in custody, Manssor Arbabsiar.

According to the Justice Department, Arbabsiar said he was “recruited, funded and directed” by apparent senior Quds officials.

Two former senior intelligence officials said that something about the plot doesn’t sit right, and that it seems to go against Iran’s pattern. One questioned why the Iranians would have allegedly tried to work through a Mexican drug cartel, as the Justice Department claimed, rather than Hezbollah.

But John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran may have taken the “seemingly incredible step” of going through a purported cartel representative so that they would leave “no fingerprints” on an attack that even by their standards would have been “very brazen.”

The Libyans, and their new government, are the ones who need to own this war. They don’t need the death of Qaddafi to have happened courtesy of the United States and or NATO.

The most pressing question now is what’s next for Libya?

We can only hope that the long-suffering and courageous people of Libya can put the hunt for Qaddafi behind them and get on with forming an effective government.

The future is murky but a new chapter is already underway. The hard part is that we”re still not sure who these rebels are and what their connections might be to radical Islamists.

So what does today’s news mean for the United States?

First, for President Obama it means that, for better or worse, the White House will take the news of Qaddafi’s death as vindication that “leading from behind” works.

Then there’s the War on Terror. If you look at the big picture, I’m less concerned with Qaddafi and much more concerned about his weapons of mass destruction. The Libyan strong man reportedly hid WMD around the country. — I’m thinking of the roughly 20,000 shoulder-fired RPGs and manpads that can take out helicopters and commercial aircraft, whatever fissiles materials are left over from his already dismantled nuclear program (that could still be used to make dirty bombs), and any chemical weapons (for example, could there be mustard gas stockpiled somewhere?) that might be left. These are valuable items for looters and could end up in the international black market, where terrorists go shopping.

Okay, maybe that’s taking it too far, but we are taking out Al Qaeda senior leaders, one after another. First it was Bin Laden, now it’s Al Awlaki, and countless Al Qaeda middle level managers in between.

We’ve got the momentum, and every Al Qaeda operative has to be looking over his shoulder wondering if he’s next. If they’re busy scurrying for cover, their ability to recruit, train and launch new attacks is greatly reduced. Many will go silent, and off the grid, worrying that they will be tracked by cell phone calls or e-mail traffic. And a terrorist network in disarray is terrorist network that is vulnerable — these guys will scatter like cockroaches.

The strategic implications are profound, especially in light of the Arab Spring.

If you’re an angry, young, disaffected Muslim in the Arab world, you’ve got two narratives bouncing around your head. Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Al Awlaki, September 11. But what has Al Qaeda done lately? Failed underwear bomber, failed Times Square bomber, dead leaders, but not a lot more dead Americans. And how does Al Qaeda make your life better?

The other narrative is the Arab Spring – Muslim youth organizing, demonstrating, and forcing out long time dictators in their own countries. The Arab Spring may ultimately turn into the winter of their discontent for young people in the Middle East, but for now it looks to have a bright future. And it’s a cause that, for now, you figure could make your life better.

Usama Bin Laden was the founding father of Al Qaeda. Even though he was hiding out in a safe house in Pakistan when the Navy SEALs killed him, the intelligence cache captured indicates he was still plotting attacks and in touch with the network.

But no matter how revered he was in the international jihadist movement, he was the past. He was a pathetic old man, sitting in dirty clothes, in a windowless room in a safe house in Pakistan, watching pornography and old videos of himself. Al Awlaki was the next generation, he was the future.

Al Awlaki was the crown prince, he was the future of the international jihadist movement. He was a cyber-warrior – younger, Internet saavy, inspirational and a master recruiter.
And his bona fides were unshakable.

The 9/11 hijackers met with him. He was connected to the Fort Hood shooter Maj. Hassan, the so-called “Underwear Bomber,” the Times Square Bomber, and the UPS cargo plane dry run bombs.

He was an American citizen, educated in the U.S., fluent in English and founder of the popular online jihadist lifestyle magazine Inspire.

And most important for the future of Al Qaeda, he specialized in recruiting homegrown terrorists in the English speaking world, the lone wolf American or Brit, inspired by Al Awlaki could tplant bombs on himself, in trucks or in public places.

Killing Al Awlaki not only settles a score, but like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” killing him is also a massive blow to the future of Al Qaeda. We have demonstrated that Americans do not forget, that terrorists may run, but they can’t hide forever. And while they may not yet be finished, they are seriously wounded.

Act One: The Fall of the Dictator. Sometimes this act is quick, bloodless and easy, as it was in Egypt when President Mubarak was pushed aside. Libya has taken longer, six months of fighting, with a major and critical assist from NATO forces.

Act Two: The Rebels Rule. With the Dictator gone, it’s the Rebels’ turn to try their hand at governing. This is where everything starts to fall apart. The rebels, who had been united in their opposition to the hated Dictator and his gang, now start falling out amongst themselves. All the ancient animosities the Dictator had kept under wraps, are now unleashed in Act Two, as we saw in Iraq.
The Rebels have never had leadership roles, yet they’re now expected to run the country.
In Libya, Qaddafi, his relatives and his tribe, had their hands on all the levers of power for forty years. Now those hands are gone. But can the rebels take their places, and quickly enough to restore order before chaos ensues?
Act Two usually ends with everything up for grabs, and it’s likely to be the same with Libya.

Act Three: Where Everything Gets Resolved. Either the rebels find a way to get their act together, unite the country and establish security and order, and get civil society going again.
If they can’t, there is civil war, and the well meaning reformers are thrust aside by the more ruthless, violent, committed group willing to do anything to gain power. That’s what happened with Iranian revolution when the Shah of Iran fell in the late 1970. By 1980 the Ayatollahs were in charge and we all know how that turned out.
Today and for the next few days watch these main players in the Libyan drama. The next 72 hours will be crucial in whether this play is ultimately a drama, tragedy or farce. How they respond during the opening scenes of Act Two will determine how this play ends.
And, as the world watches this unfold, don’t forget the players. Here’s a look at them:

The cast:

The Rebels: Who are the rebels? Are they Islamists thirsting to establish a strict Sharia state? Are they western-educated secularists who want democracy and self-government? Are they bureaucrats who know how to run things? Are they warriors who love to fight, but don’t have a clue what to do when the fighting stops? Or…..as is more likely…..all of the above?
Will the Rebels stay united? Can they govern? Will they break along tribal, ethnic, and religious fault lines? When things get difficult — and they will — do the rebels start blaming each other? Will they spend their energies settling scores with the remnants of the Qaddafi clan, pushing for justice for the men who murdered their families and friends? Or will they get on with the rather boring business of governing — making sure the streets are safe, the water is running and the electricity works?

Clan Qaddafi: Do the extended members of the Qaddafi clan flee or stay and fight? Do they flee abroad? If so, will they be granted a safe haven or be turned over to the International Criminal Court or arrested at home for trial and probable execution, Mubarak-style? Do they go underground, Saddam-style, and lead an insurgency? Do they regroup and come back to fight again, Taliban-style?

NATO: We helped deliver the Libyan rebels a revolution with our drone strikes and behind the scenes special forces. Will we stick around to help them form a government, or breathe a sigh or relief with the fall of Qaddafi and head for the exits?

Will this be Iran redux, where the Carter administration helped push out the Shah but then failed to help the Iranian Revolutionaries form the post-Shah government — and ended up with an radical Islamist government far worse than the Shah’s ever was in Iran. Or will NATO and the United States offer technical assistance as Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush did to Eastern Europe when the Iron Curtain came down, and see an entire region become pro-Western and self-governing?

Months ago the Arab spring opened to a sense of wonderment and euphoria. But once the opening night enthusiasms faded, the Arab Spring has had very mixed reviews.

Egypt’s revolution will likely end in the election of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Bahrain’s revolution is on hold for now, but Iran would like to see it play out again.

Morocco is turning out well so far, with a rapid transition to democratic government, but this is only at the beginning.

Syria is a simply a bloodbath.

The Arab Spring started out to cheers that the Arab Muslim world was throwing off the shackles of dictatorship and oppression. But as the season has worn on, the initial enthusiasm has given way to a harsher

The Libyan and Syrian dictators have almost always worked against our interests and objectives in the region. Libya’s Qaddafi has exported terrorism. Syria’s Assad has been Iran’s cats paw in the Middle East. Both nations have long histories of brutality against their own peoples.

But from the outset of the Obama administration, the president treated them differently. He saw Qaddafi as a pariah beyond redemption, but Assad as a reformer he could work with to create peace in the Middle East.

When the Arab Spring broke out, President Obama committed the U.S. to joint military operations against Libya, a country which is not a vital U.S. interest. He did so without a clear goal, against the advice of the military and intelligence communities, and without the consent of Congress.

Now that the Libyan war has dragged on….and on….and Qaddafi has hung on….and on…the United States and our allies look weak, indecisive and feckless. Even if rebel forces manage to push Qaddafi out, it doesn’t look like a victory so much as a long and bloody siege that finally starved him out.

We’re now faced with the crisis that does matter to us – Syria – and, thanks to the missteps with Libya, have less credibility or leverage than we would have if the Libyan war had unfolded differently.

Yet, all along Syria was the country that mattered. It has worked against Arab-Israeli peace accords, and supports terrorism. It has in the past and may in the future have nuclear weapons programs. But perhaps most threatening, its close alliance with Iran gives the world’s most dangerous and anti-American country a toehold in the most volatile region on the planet.

President Obama has finally given up his stubborn insistence, against all logic, that President Assad was a reformer he could do business with. He has finally called for Assad to step aside, and has frozen Syrian government assets. He has banned U.S. citizens from operating or investing in Syria. He’s imposed sanctions on Syrian petroleum products. Those are all good things, and long overdue.

We can only hope that the sanctions Mr. Obama announced Thursday will eventually force Assad out. Then we can look to the future: and a Syria without Assad opens up the possibility of pulling the country out of Iran’s orbit and reversing its expansion into the region.
Yet, one can’t help but wonder whether the president’s most important sanction, encouraging Syria’s major trading partners to do the same, wouldn’t have had far more effect if President Obama hadn’t first flubbed things with Libya.

If and when the national security budgets are cut, let’s do it like grownups and swallow the medicine. The defense budget isn’t a number the military pulls out of thin air, it’s a carefully arrived at aggregate number based on the forces and weapons deemed necessary to achieve the military missions the nation deems essential. Can that number be cut? Sure. Are there some gold plated weapons systems that can be eliminated? Probably. Can we reduce the number of contractors and consultants? Definitely. Indeed, we should being doing those things even if we weren’t facing budgetary Armageddon.

But the cuts being contemplated by some are too sharp and significant to do what previous administrations have done – cut down on readiness, training and spare parts or stretch out procurement lines of new weapons systems. We can’t cut hundreds of billions of defense dollars by merely eliminating ‘waste, fraud and abuse’. We can’t even get there by pulling all US forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense cuts on the levels being contemplated means we will need to radically rethink our entire approach to national security.

We’re talking about options like greatly reducing the size of our military to one which is not ready to deploy immediately, but is ready to mobilize; defense expert Richard Betts calls it a “readiness to get ready”. We would have to dramatically reduce our standing armed forces, and go back to a pre-World War II system of a small, well trained officer corps able to train and lead a quickly mobilized force of draftees in case of crisis. We would continue with research and development, but rather than build large numbers of state-of-the-art weapons systems, we would build a handful of prototypes that our professional military could hone and train on in peacetime, and build many more of if a major world power threatened war.

Another option to achieve draconian defense and intelligence budget cuts would be to decide which missions the United States is willing to give up. Are we willing to pull the U.S. Army out of Europe and Korea?

Or the Navy out of the Persian Gulf or Japan? Or the Marines out of the Philippines?
Or get the Air Force out of the bomber business, or give up its nuclear missiles?
Or for the Navy to no longer control the world’s sea lines of communication and trade?

These are the sorts of missions the U.S. would have to give up, and reduce our forces accordingly in order to make up hundreds of billions of dollars in defense cuts.

Whatever happens, keep in mind two things.

1) We cannot do to our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans what we so shamelessly did to our Vietnam vets. During that war we dishonored the men and women who served, somehow laying blame for an unpopular war on their shoulders. That was shameless enough. But the unconscionable thing we did was after the Vietnam war ended, when we turned our backs on the veterans and their families. We did not adequately care for the wounded, nor provide adequate support for the families of the dead.

2) We cannot expect our reduced military a few years from now to do the impossible.

When the Reagan administration came into office in 1981 and I joined Defense Secretary Weinberger’s Staff at the Pentagon, we saw what the post-Vietnam defense budgets had done to our military. We had ships that couldn’t sail, and planes that couldn’t fly because they didn’t have the fuel to operate them, or the spare parts to repair them. For every tank that was operational, there was an incapacitated one right parked right next to it, to be cannibalized for parts. We had pilots and sailors and soldiers and marines that hadn’t trained with real weapons or ammunition. We had some enlistees whose salary was so low they qualified for food stamps.

And what was that hollowed out military capable of after a decade of neglect? Operation Eagle Claw, a mission to rescue the American diplomats held hostage by the Iranian government. Of the eight helicopters that set out in April 1980, two couldn’t make it through a fine sand cloud. A third one had damaged hydraulics. The missions aborted, but not before another helicopter crashed and the rest were left behind when fire destroyed two other aircraft.

The failed Iranian hostage rescue mission became a symbol of the failed Jimmy Carter presidency, and President Carter himself believes it contributed to his defeat that November and the election of Ronald Reagan.

So, President Obama, take note. You can gut the defense budget. But it will come at a great cost, not just to the nation, but perhaps to you, too.