Theatre. Pure theatre.

It should be filmed and sent to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ever since the Manley Report was issued the question was out there. Would Canada receive the 1000 troop reinforcement the Manley Report demanded as a condition for continuing the Afghanistan mission past 2009?

The answer had to be "yes".

Harper is making a big deal about how he spent, well, days on the phone talking to the leaders of NATO allies looking for the magic 1000.

Harper said that he never doubted Canada would get the support it was seeking from its allies. He began a round of telephone diplomacy directly to world leaders in late February after the report of the independent panel led by John Manley recommended that the prime minister lead the diplomatic push for more military help.

"I've never been in any doubt of this ever since my very early discussions," Harper explained. "Not that I had been given precise commitments since Day 1."

No precise commitments, however, there had already been word from the Pentagon that they were planning an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan. Harper and company are trying to feed you a line. This is pure spin designed to make Harper look like an international man-of-action and a tough negotiator who gets results.

First though, one has to ask where Manley came up with the magic 1000? Manley says it was based on advice from Generals Rick Hillier and Guy LaRoche. That's quite likely, but in the Manley Report the number "1000" is an approximation. The actual recommendation in the Manley Report is a Battle Group. That would suggest a mixed tactical force of infantry, artillery and armour built around either a full strength infantry battalion or armoured force. What Manley never specified in his report is what that battle group is supposed to be. In short, it's nothing without further definition. And Canadians have been led around with the magic 1000 figure as the government translated the approximation into a final figure.

Manley never footnoted his report but he did include lists of persons he spoke to. Given that he actually spoke to several highly placed NATO commanders, coming up with one battle group to reinforce an area with high-intensity fighting seems a little skimpy. Those same NATO commanders are calling for reinforcement across Afghanistan ranging from 4 brigades to 4 divisions. They say Afghanistan can't be won with piecemeal troop increases.

What is even more curious however, is the fact that Manley never spoke to the Commander US Central Command. Why not? Central Command is responsible for prosecuting the war in Afghanistan.

Canada maintains a liaison staff at Central Command known as Task Force Tampa on Operation Foundation. Manley never spoke to any of them according to his list. In fact, there is no indication he even set foot in the offices of USCENTCOM. That's a little strange considering the prominence that USCENTCOM has in relation to Operation Enduring Freedom and the fact that the commander of Task Force Tampa is charged with keeping USCENTCOM apprised of Canadian activities and intentions in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

The fact is, the Bush administration has been talking about a troop increase in Afghanistan since January. In fact it extended the tour of the 10th Mountain Division by 4 months as a part of a visibly permanent increase.

Things don't happen in a vacuum.

Today the US announced a significant increase in US troop levels in Afghanistan. No one is yet sure what the numbers will look like.

Gates said he believed it was too early to decide how many additional combat forces the United States should plan on sending in 2009. He said it would depend on several things, including the extent of U.S. and NATO success on the battlefield this year, as well as the impact of a new senior U.S. commander taking over in coming months. Gen. David McKiernan is due to replace Gen. Dan McNeill this spring as the top overall commander in Afghanistan

McNeill has said he believes he needs another three brigades — two for combat and one for training. That translates to roughly 7,500 to 10,000 additional troops. The Bush administration has no realistic hope of getting the NATO allies to send such large numbers.

McKiernan on Thursday told Congress that while he can't yet say how many more troops he would want there, he believes he needs additional combat and aviation forces, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, and training and mentoring teams.

In remarks to reporters after Bush made the statement at the summit Thursday, the president's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said any extra U.S. combat troop deployments would be in southern Afghanistan, where fighting is heaviest.

Gates said he believed that was a logical possibility but that it was too early to say they would go to the south.

That's today. This was yesterday.

Harper confirmed that France's proposal — which would free up U.S. soldiers to go to Kandahar — along with "considerable" progress in acquiring unmanned surveillance drones and large helicopters, met the demands Canada had set out to extend its mission to 2011.

Ambiguity, meet Steve Harper.

Any US troops redeployed in Afghanistan, regardless of what banner they are operating under, would come from USCENTCOM's order of battle. Just planning it would be a detailed undertaking. If the US is really planning on moving troops, the idea was spawned months ago and it would have been the result of some serious and tough negotiations. Canada would have been screaming about the disproportionate casualty rate being endured before the last rotation.

And why didn't Manley visit CENTCOM? We may never know for sure, but consider that if Canada had been raising hell in Tampa about combat losses and a force stretched to the limit, there is a very real likelihood that the Americans had already agreed, once there was a reduction in the number of brigades in Iraq, to bolster the Canadian force in Kandahar. The caveat the Americans would likely have attached is that every attempt be made to find troops in NATO. In any case, a discussion with the Commander USCENTCOM would likely have revealed a commitment in principle to provide an equivalent battle group.

Of course, the American commitment depends entirely on somebody other than Bush and his administration. The final decision will rest with a new US president.

In the meantime, the best we can do is sit back and watch the theatre.

Fallon falls on his sword

Admiral William "Fox" Fallon, Commander of US Central Command, has just resigned.

Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, has resigned, citing a magazine article which suggested he was at odds with President Bush's policy toward Iran.

US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates says nothing will change.

When asked if today's announcement might be interpreted as a move closer toward military action against Iran, Gates said, "that's ridiculous, just ridiculous. ... The notion that this portends anything in change of Iran policy is, to quote myself, ridiculous."

Watch the Bush rhetoric very, very closely.

H/T liberal catnip and reader Cat.

The Urusov Gambit: Attacking Iran

Yesterday I pointed out that the appointment of a navy admiral to head up US Central Command was providing a hint of things to come. There's more. In fact, there's a lot more happening.

Tossing a naval aviator into a command which is occupied by two ground campaigns, Afghanistan and Iraq, is out of symmetry with the command's focus -- right now. Central Command's area of responsibility includes Iran and, while Fallon would be somewhat removed from the tactical events, his background makes him well suited to provide the strategic construction of forces necessary to attack Iran.

Fallon, at least publicly, comes off as a Bushite. He has quite openly stated that Americans have missed the point. The "War On Terror" is bigger than Afghanistan and Iraq.

I get the feeling that the majority of American people don't quite get it. This is not a slam, it is not an indictment or accusation, it is just an observation. While there is a lot of talk about the war, I don't think most of us truly understand what it is that we are involved in.

Then there is the "Long War" of Donald Rumsfeld.

This confrontation in which we are engaged is not going to be over any time soon. No matter how fast the Iraqi and Afghan security forces can pick up the burden to defend themselves, these are only two battlefields in this war.

That was from June, 2006. Whether he was simply projecting the Rumsfeld doctrine of war without end or whether he truly believes that the United States can endure a hot conflict that extends into the next decade is impossible to say. He is promoting the Bushco idea of a continuous and undefined war.

Israel is getting antsy about Iran. Via Huffington Post an article by UPI Editor at Large Arnaud de Borchgrave lays out the level of rhetoric being spread by uber-hawks like Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israelis are now reminded daily that the Iranian president is a new Hitler who has to be terminated "with maximum prejudice" before a Persian nuclear weapon terminates Israel. The existential threat to Israel looms even larger, in Netanyahu's view, with the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. His critique's main points:
• The ISG report smacks of rank appeasement when it recommends talking to Syria and Iran at a time when Iran has been handed the whip hand in Iraq by the U.S. with a U.S.-facilitated, pro-Iranian Shiite-led government.
• ISG says a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a sine qua non to stabilizing the rest of the Middle East. The implied suggestion that it's now up to Israel to make further concessions to the Palestinians is yet another manifestation of appeasement. Israel must reject any perceived sign of weakness.
• In reality, if the problem of Iran, which Israel's enemies call "the strategic backbone of Hezbollah and Hamas," were solved by the forceful elimination of its nuclear facilities, or a highly unlikely voluntary return to nuclear power for peaceful purposes under U.N. inspection, the conflict with the Palestinians would become easier to tackle.
• Hezbollah and Hamas are rapidly arming themselves thanks to the Israeli government's decision to refrain from further action against them. Since the cease-fire was declared, dozens of Kassam rockets have been fired at targets in the western Negev.
• If Olmert's government reacts limply to Iran's statements about its intentions to destroy Israel, "why should we expect the world to act against them?"
• ISG says, "The majority of the political establishment in Israel has grown tired of a continuous state of a nation at war." When even Israel's leadership sends out a message of fatigue and weakness, "why should we be surprised that the world agrees?"
Netanyahu then said Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."

That, as De Borchgrave points out, is already happening.

Anticipating the new line, Sen. Joe Lieberman (Independent-CT) referred to "Iran and al-Qaida" on Wolf Blitzer's Sunday program on CNN. That Iran is Shiite and al-Qaida Sunni becomes irrelevant in the new game plan that will most probably lead to U.S. air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2007/08.

Would Bush do it?

Do we really need to ask that?

He would if he could get away with it. The truth is, he has the authority under two umbrellas: The Authorization for the Use Of Military Force which flowed from the September 2001 attacks and the War Powers Act of 1973, which gives him 60 days to do whatever he wants. The AUMF is weak in that it specifies the power is to be used to go after the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

That would be why Lieberman is suddenly making linkages between al Qaeda and Iran. It was the same lie that got Bush his war in Iraq.

This is looking more and more like Iran is in the gunsights of neo-cons, a country with which the Bush administration won't even hold a discussion.

"... we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Condoleeza Rice. September 8th, 2002.

Indeed we don't.

Moving the bishops and the knights: Get ready for an attack on Iran

This could have been expected given that so many of the current US generals in charge of the Iraq war have opposed Bush's "surge" of anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 troops.

It is proof of at least one thing: Bush is going to ignore any and all advice and go for a massive troop escalation in Iraq.

But the one change that shocked me, and I mean shocked, was the appointment of Admiral William Fallon to command Central Command. From the US Defense Secretary: (Emphasis mine)

I am proposing to the President that Admiral William Fallon succeed General John Abizaid as commander of Central Command.
"As Commander of Pacific Command, Admiral Fallon oversees military operations and security relationships in an area encompassing 43 countries and approximately 60 percent of the world's population. Admiral Fallon's tenure in Asia has been characterized by an extraordinary level of innovation and strategic vision in dealing with a range of political, economic and security challenges. He has forged new partnerships to help combat the influence of violent extremist networks and ideologies that threaten the moderate Muslim nations of the Pacific. A naval flight officer who flew combat missions in Vietnam, Admiral Fallon combines nearly four decades of military experience with a fresh perspective to the challenges America faces in the Central Command's area of operations.
"Fox Fallon is one of the best strategic thinkers in uniform today and his reputation for innovation is without peer. Subject to confirmation, he is exactly the right person for this most challenging assignment.
"I believe that it is essential to have individuals of experience, skill and creativity in key national security positions. However, it is also critical to have a team of individuals whose mix of experience, skills, creativity, and strategic vision make the whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. I have recommended these three men to the President for these positions because I am convinced they have these talents.
"We are engaged in three wars - in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against jihadist terrorism worldwide. As secretary of defense, and as a citizen, I firmly believe that Generals Petraeus and Casey and Admiral Fallon, as individuals and as a team, bring to the challenges that face us the qualities necessary to be successful in war and to protect the American people. After detailed discussions of these prospective appointments with the President, I have recommended these three officers to him for nomination to the U.S. Senate."

Central Command has wars going in Afghanistan and Iraq. The major contribution to those wars is ground forces. Fallon is already the commander of a US unified command. His next move up would be into the Pentagon as the Chief of Naval Operations. This is a lateral move. Fallon is a naval aviator.

How would the US fight Iran? From the Persian Gulf, with naval aviation.

Get ready for it.

More later.