Iranians would rather settle their own differences. I'm not sure, but I am under the impression that Iranians make up the largest mid-East represenation of descendants within the United States. Those that wish for more freedom "back home," generally like the soft approach. So, again, without an overt act by Iran, we wait for them to "shoot first."
Yet, I must say, that as I look back on certain events of Year 2000, I wondered then, about the sudden rise in arrogance that could be found, here, among the students at university who were allegedly from Lebanon.
They were definitely overt, so to speak, and they were arrogant, and they were then, already acting like conquerors. I wondered what was up.
I was given to understand that President Clinton had ordered U.S. Marine officers to train certain parties under the auspices of the government of Syria, done to demonstrate an act of faith by him, that he was "neutral" in regard to the Arab/Israeli conflict. Sounds like one of his "military agreements," such as that whereby we were also training Red Chinese military "operatives." Something that Anthony Lake & Co. probably approved/promoted.
Which reminds me of the aid given to the same Red Chinese by Israel.
Not to mention the other cockeyed schemes of Morton Halperin.
You might say, that the lawyers have the thing so entangled, that the lawyers still have the thing entangled, because un-entangling is not their nature.
Because President Bush is determined to do things upon the advice of lawyers at each step, well, there's your answer.
You might have wondered why we did not invade Lebanon, so that our forces would be on the west and on the east of Syria, just in case, when we went into Iraq?
Yet the planners looked upon Lebanon as being, what indeed, Iraq has become, and so they demurred.
Lack of resources, yes, but the problem is, that combat power is not patrol power, and the Defense Department is a much tougher nut to crack than apparently any of the countries in the gunsights --- DoD, as we have seen, has not figured out the manpower requirements for patrol power.
The efficiency experts have entangled so much of what "the Pentagon does." At the core, the problem is that in peacetime, in order to procure, you must have a doctrine upon which to justify expenditures.
In wartime, a lot of that doctrine is discovered to be ineffective, wasteful, and sometimes harmful, as the training that accompanied the doctrine, is "all washed up." Suddenly you have equipment that must meet demands outside the peacetime doctrine; and many other plans that are "scrapped."
Mr. Rumsfeld, to his credit, is trying to resolve that nightmare come to life, yet again; but his Robert McNamara-ish tendencies are selling wartime expectations very, very, very short.
Lack of resources, yes; and, a lack of giving the arts of deception and surprise, not to mention other capabilities of the enemy, enough credit, such that, we find ourselves wrapped up in the "new paradigm" zeitgeist at the expense of several lessons learned the hard way, that are thrown out because they are errantly confused with "being part of the past" and "being part of the old ways" simply because on a sheet of paper, on a memo, the lessons learned are from the "old eras."
We continue to fail to plan for heavy losses of material, something that Pearl Harbor taught us the hard way, and the modern leaders have chosen to ignore.