I’m glad that others besides myself in this case David Ignatius are making the point I did about limited war:

Here’s President Obama’s dilemma in a nutshell: He has proposed a strategy for dealing with the Islamic State that is, in the words of Harvard professor Graham Allison, “limited, patient, local and flexible.” This calibrated approach makes sense to Allison, one of America’s most experienced strategists, because it limits U.S. exposure in fighting an adversary that doesn’t immediately threaten America.

The problem is that military history, since the days of the Romans, tells us that limited war is rarely successful. Policymakers, when faced with a choice between going “all in” or doing nothing, usually choose a middle option of partial intervention. But that leads to stalemates and eventual retreats that drive our generals crazy. The warrior ethos says, “If you’re in it, win it.” The politician rounds the edges.

Sadly, I fear he’s more likely to draw the conclusion that, since limited war is rarely successful, we should practice unlimited war rather than limiting our waging of war to cases in which we can’t do cost-benefit analysis.

In his most recent column Fareed Zakaria draws an incorrect or at least incomplete conclusion from a correct observation. Here’s the observation:

There is a cancer of extremism within Islam today. A small minority of Muslims celebrates violence and intolerance and harbors deeply reactionary attitudes toward women and minorities. While some confront these extremists, not enough do so, and the protests are not loud enough. How many mass rallies have been held against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in the Arab world today?

His false conclusion is here:

That is not how Christianity moved from its centuries-long embrace of violence, crusades, inquisitions, witch-burning and intolerance to its modern state. On the contrary, intellectuals and theologians celebrated the elements of the religion that were tolerant, liberal and modern, and emphasized them, while giving devout Christians reasons to take pride in their faith. A similar approach — reform coupled with respect — will work with Islam over time.

It is false for two reasons. The first is that we simply don’t have time for Islam to work through its own internal contradictions. I could list a half dozen reasons why we don’t have the time but I’ll restrict my explanation to one reason: individual empowerment. Today’s technology acts as a force multiplier and potentially gives a single individual or even a small group of individuals the killing power of an army of the 6th, 13th, or 19th centuries AD. As a matter of simple self-defense we can’t allow people with as murderous intent as some Muslims possess to gain control of that sort of technology. Yes, innocents will be caught up in the struggle.

The second reason he’s wrong is that he’s swallowed a fiction made up by 19th century mostly Protestant historians hook, line, and sinker. The Enlightenment, what he’s referring to when he writes of “how Christianity moved from its centuries-long embrace of violence, etc.”, did not grow from the so-called Reformation. Protestantism began as a fundamentalist movement. The Enlightenment on the other hand grew from Italian Humanism which in turn was fostered by the most structured and hierarchical wing of Christianity.

In Islam that structuring principle is completely absent. There is no hierarchy. Anyone who can attract a following is an imam. Anyone who accepts the five pillars of Islam is as good a Muslim as any other.

Is there any reason to believe that something analogous to the Enlightenment can take hold in Islam as it did in Christianity? I don’t see the institutions, structures, and principles that would make that possible. Quite to the contrary I think that remaining decentralized and diverse is inherent in Islam. And as long as that decentralization and diversity exists there will continue to be “Islamic States”.

Today is the centenary of my father’s birth. Had he lived he would have been 100 years old today.

I plan on writing a more extensive tribute to him later today but I didn’t want to let the morning go by without mentioning the occasion.

Pat Lang is wargaming the situation with the “Islamic State”, Syria, Iraq, the U. S., etc. going on now and you might want to follow along or even participate.

The first move, “IS/Coalition War Game – Move 1, The Situation as of 7 October 2014”, is here.

The second move, “IS/Coalition War Game – Move 1b – Forecast of events until 5 November 2014”, is here. It closes tomorrow.

My guess as to what will happen between now and November 5 in the conflict is that we’ll continue bombing, IS will expand its territory a bit but mostly continue to consolidate its present holdings, the Arab states who’ve been participating in the bombing will begin to pull back, having reached the limits of their resources, and the Syrian government will continue to very, very slowly push back the rebels.

Now that Leon Panetta’s book has revealed the inner workings of White House policymaking the demonization has begun but, more importantly, the crack in the dike is widening. Jonathan Alter remarks:

Panetta confirms what has been whispered about for years—that Obama shows “a frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause.” The president often “relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader,” Panetta writes. In reflecting on the president’s habit of bitching privately about obstructionist Republicans without cleverly confronting them, he notes that Obama “avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.”

Panetta is particularly concerned that Obama didn’t fight harder on the sequestration cuts that Panetta believes were harmful to national defense. But the criticism, now hardening into the conventional wisdom among Democrats, also applies to a variety of other issues, where the president had a habit of leading the Democratic troops into battle with a few speeches but not adopting the single piece of advice Oliver Wendell Holmes gave Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first week in office: “Form your battalion and fight.”

The arsenal of tools available to politicians is large. There’s dealmaking, logrolling, compromise, enlisting allies, cultivating friendships, threatening, shaming, cajoling, and persuasion. Sadly, the only device this president seems to be comfortable in employing is the blunt instrument of politics, power politics. It’s understandable for a politician who honed his craft in Chicago but it’s too limited a repertoire for the national scene, especially when you don’t have the votes for it.

Thomas Eric Duncan has died:

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person ever diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday morning, according to the hospital in Dallas that had been treating him.

Duncan’s death came eight days after his diagnosis, which set off a panicked search for anyone who may have had contact with him and sparked new fears over how ready hospitals and government agencies are for any additional Ebola cases in the country. He died at 7:51 a.m., Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said.

Ebola is a deadly disease, killing half or more of those who contract it. Attributing recoveries to palliative care received in U. S. hospitals or experimental therapies administered is premature to say the least. Many will die; some will recover.

What must be noted from Mr. Duncan’s experience and that of the Spanish nurse who contracted Ebola is that doctors and nurses make mistakes. They make mistakes even when lives are in the balance. Even when their own lives and those of their loved ones are in the balance. Any protocol that depends on perfect compliance is doomed to failure whether it’s applied in the United States or in Liberia.

If we wish to mitigate the risk of an Ebola outbreak beyond West Africa, relying on protocols that require perfect adherence is a forlorn hope.

I found this post on a little-remarked upon feature of the PPACA very interesting. Apparently, the structures established by the law create a repeating condition of ferment in healthcare plans:

But at least grandfathering cancellations are time-limited; once grandfathered policies are gone, the problem is over. But metallic-tier cancellations will be a permanent fixture, re-emerging every year.

Here’s why: Under the ACA, insurers must restrict individual and small-group policies to four narrow tiers of “actuarial value” (AV) — the average percentage of medical expenses a plan pays. The ranges are bronze (58 to 62 percent), silver (68 to 72 percent), gold (78 to 82 percent), and platinum (88 to 92 percent).

[…]

With narrow tiers, AV drift forces insurers to either cancel policies or undergo considerable effort to push them back into compliance. Adjustments may render policies unprofitable. “Fixing” a plan means a new actuarial analysis and a costly, time-consuming process of submitting the amended plan to state and local officials for approval.

In other words under the law health insurance plans have short shelf lives. For some, this ongoing creation of new plans is a feature of the PPACA. For most people who don’t make picking insurance plans a life’s work it’s likely to become a blamed nuisance.

If you do not will the means, you cannot will the ends. That is the message from the editors of the Washington Post on the president’s current bombing campaign against the “Islamic State”:

TWO MONTHS after the United States began airstrikes in Iraq, and two weeks after they were extended into Syria, the forces of the Islamic State are still advancing. Last week they captured the Iraqi towns of Hit and Kubaisa, northwest of Baghdad. On Tuesday they appeared close to overrunning Kobane, a strategic city on the border between Syria and Turkey that is populated by Kurds. The enemy victories are happening in spite of U.S. and allied airstrikes and resistance from local forces. They suggest that the U.S. air campaign is failing to achieve the minimal aim of stopping the expansion of the Islamic State — much less “degrading” and “destroying” it.

Why can’t the U.S.-led coalition prevent a ragtag insurgent army from overrunning large towns? The answers speak to the limitations imposed on the military campaign by President Obama as well as the continuing political complications of fighting the Islamic State. Military analysts point out that U.S. strikes on Islamic State forces around Kobane have come late and in small handfuls — not enough, as of Tuesday, to turn back thousands of fighters armed with tanks and artillery. In contrast with the successful 2002 air campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. pilots cannot rely on Special Forces spotters to identify targets. Mr. Obama has ruled out such ground personnel despite requests from military commanders.

They conclude:

The restrictions Mr. Obama has imposed on his commanders are not compatible with the objectives he has asked them to achieve.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal concur:

The Turks and friendly Arab are looking for American leadership in Kobani and beyond. The Syrian city needs weapons and fuel supplies, a more intense bombing campaign, and maybe U.S. Special Forces to end the ISIS siege. This early crisis in the Obama campaign exposes flaws in his strategy that will continue to undermine the military effort and the anti-ISIS regional alliance.

No successful war plan is static, and Mr. Obama needs to adjust his now if he wants to stop a massacre in Kobani and the continuing march of ISIS.

To clarify my own views on the campaign, I believe that our interests in opposing the “Islamic State” do not at this time reach the level of war, that the means by which the president has elected to oppose it are insufficient to achieve his stated goals, but the real goals—domestic political ones—have already been accomplished. I don’t believe the president will adjust the tactics being used to put more Americans in harm’s way. That would undermine those domestic objectives. I think it’s far more likely that he will reframe his objectives to lower expectations, blaming the Turks, Syrians, Iraqis, and, probably, the Republicans.

I’m not pro-war. I’m anti-bluster. I think that setting objectives you cannot hope to achieve by the means you are willing to utilize undermines the U. S. deterrent.

What’s the most likely resolution of the demonstrationss in Hong Kong? I can imagine:

• Tiananmen II. The CCP puts the hammer down.
• The CCP agrees to the demonstrators’ demands.
• Nothing. The demonstrations become a more-or-less permanent aspect of Hong Kong life.
• The demonstrators give up.

I don’t have any real insights into what the outcome is likely to be although I think that the first and third are probably the most likely.