It is autumn's first festival of incompetence. Like the President-in-council surrounded by high-level blockheads vainly searching for their first clue. Like the Joint Chiefs Chairman insisting that more delays in the already belated US response to Syrian provocation will not present any intelligence or operational problems. He would be joking except that the administration's much beloved hi-tech pin-pricks may scarcely be noticed in an urban landscape long since hardened into a 21st century version of Stalingrad.
But if Congress is really serious about living up to its Constitutional role before the first shots against Syria are fired, then there are a host of tough questions to be asked. Like, whose side are we on and why? Answer that one and you're ready for Round Two: By what means and to what ends? Are there any essential American interests at stake here - any reasonable strategy to achieve them actually worthy of the name? The strategist's worst nightmare is that we will once again be reduced to" leading from behind" or left clinging to weak reeds like "responsibility to protect. " Even worse: "red lines." Red-lines inevitably seem clearer on Power-point briefing charts or large-scale maps than they ever do in desert conflict zones. Yet all three conceptual fallacies contributed directly to our present debacle in Syria where the options are equally unpalatable.
But the toughest test of strategy - in Syria or elsewhere - was brilliantly summed up by the great Prussian thinker Carl von Clausewitz. He taught that everything in war was simple; yet the simplest things in war were always very difficult. If your cruise missile attack is set to launch at 3 AM, then count on last-minute interference from dust storms, technical gremlins or a Red Crescent medical team wandering into the middle of the target area.
He called it "friction" yet those were only the normal challenges of the operational environment. What was far worse was the human dimension of confronting an enemy determined to thwart your every move and who might have more to lose than you. So go right ahead and fire that shot across your enemy's bow. But don't be surprised when he not only fires back but has had the foresight to sew a mine-field across your most likely line of retreat.
In Syria, for example, the main enemy is not the Asad regime but its Iranian ally. President Obama glibly assured us during last year's campaign that Iran would be deterred from developing nuclear weapons by another of his elastic red-lines. Hedging his bets, he also launched the Stuxnet virus to destroy Iranian centrifuges, best understood as industrial sabotage - and an act of war. We know these things because the always helpful New York Times made headlines last year by publishing the full operational details of that program.
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