An interesting question

In the midst of all its other troubles, why is the Assad regime now attacking the Kurds ... again:

The murder this month by the Assad regime’s security forces of Syrian Kurdish leader Mashaal Tammo is the latest act of unprovoked brutality by this most cruel of regimes. Tammo was killed in his own home in the northern Syrian town of Qamishly by regime gunmen. Afterwards, Syrian security forces opened fire on a crowd of 50,000 at his funeral procession. Two more Syrian Kurds were killed and many more wounded. Tammo, leader of the Kurdish Future Party, favored non-violent opposition to the Syrian regime.

The killing of Mashaal Tammo might at first glance appear to be just the latest atrocity by a regime whose hands are deeply stained with the blood of its own citizens. About 2,900 Syrians are estimated to have been killed so far as Assad fights for his political life against his own people.

Yet Tammo’s murder also contains within it a mystery. Kurds represent between 10-15% of the population of Syria. They have been perhaps the most harshly oppressed section of the population since the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party came to power in 1963. Many Syrian Kurds have been deprived of citizenship. Others were expelled from their homes in the early days of the regime, as the Ba’athists created a belt of Arabic speaking communities along the Syrian-Turkish border.

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Victor Davis Hanson is on a roll

At his usual hangouts.  Pajamas Media:

In 2008, the following was the general right-wing argument against Obama’s candidacy:

a) The self-professed “uniter” Obama had, in truth, little record of uniting disparate groups. From community organizing to politics, his preferred modus operandi was rather to praise moderation, but politick more as a radical, and sometimes go after opponents as unreasonable or illiberal. Thus the most partisan voting senator in the Congress, who talked grandly of “working across the aisle,” also urged supporters to “get in their faces” and “take a gun to a knife fight.” Acorn, Project Vote, and SEIU were not ecumenical organizations.

b) Obama knew very little about foreign affairs, or perhaps even raw human nature as it plays out in power politics abroad. At times, he seemed naive about the singular role of the U.S. in the world, especially his sense that problems with Iran, the Middle East, Venezuela, Russia, and others were somehow predicated on American arrogance and unilateralism (and neither predating nor postdating George Bush) — to be remedied by Obama’s post-racial, post-national diplomacy.

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New additions to the library

Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific, by Michael Sturma;
Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire, by James Romm; and
Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride at Gettysburg, by Eric J. Wittenberg and David Petruzzi.

It may seem strange today, but during the First and Second World Wars, submarines usually had deck guns to engage in limited surface warfare.  The Germans actually preferred the use of deck guns until the arly part of World War II, when advancements in anti-submarine measures rendered the tactic too dangerous.  The US did use deck guns in the Pacific on a limited basis.

While Alexander the Great has been covered (and covered and covered and covered and ...) by authors over the centuries, the wars of his successors, called the Diadochi, have gotten relatively little, even though one of the Diadochi was Ptolemy, son of Lagos, who would start the Egyptian Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty that would produce the famous Queen Cleopatra.  (Truth be told, the Ptolemaic Dynasty produced multiple Cleopatras.)  I'm anxious to leard more about the Diadochi through Ghost on the Throne.

As for Gettysburg, I have never found that battle as interesting as the Vicksburg Campaign or the Chickamauga-Chattanooga Campaign, but Plenty of Blame to Go Around sounds like a great "sniper" book that I almost always find appealing.

What to do about Iran?

Haven't we been asking this question for more than thirty years now? As Power Line says to Obama about the latest outrage, "This was an act of war, pal. Ralph Kramden radiated more more menace than you.
One of these days…."

(And while this is indeed an outrage, let's not lose sight of the fact that, whatever diplomatic law and custom has been over the millennia, diplomats have always been targets.  Remember the case of Benjamin Bathurst, a British envoy to Austria who disappeared in Perleberg in 1809.  Initial suspicions were that he had been kidnapped and murdered by French agents.  Turns out Bathurst was likely just a victim of a mugging.)

James Jay Carafano is in a similar mood to Power Line:

It’s just that talking about states that foster and fund the slaughter of innocents is much too inconvenient a truth for the administration.
The president came into office with a plan to make nice with evil regimes (which won him the Nobel Peace Prize after just months in the White House). The Obama Doctrine called for engaging with America’s enemies. Little foibles -- bankrolling terrorists, or trampling the human rights of their own citizens -- would just have to be overlooked.

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Where are Muammar's missing missiles?

ABC News reports that many of Muammar Gadhafi's missing MANPADs have been found -- on the Gaza border:

Some of the thousands of surface-to-air missiles that have gone missing since the collapse of the Gadhafi regime in Libya have now turned up just miles from the Israeli border.
U.S. officials say there were 20,000 Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles in Libya before the uprising, and thousands have disappeared in the looting of Moammar Gadhafi's arm caches. According to the Washington Post, many of those Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons are being sold in Egyptian black markets, and so many are available the price has dropped from $10,000 to $4,000.
Egyptian officials told the paper they have intercepted looted Libyan weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, missiles and artillery, on the road from Libya into Egypt, in black markets on the Sinai Peninsula, and in the smuggling tunnels between the Sinai and Gaza.
The heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, most of them shoulder-fired, have a range of two miles and would pose a threat to Israeli helicopter and planes on either side of the Israel-Gaza border.

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Was Ahmadinejad the real target?

About that Iranian terror plot ...

Yes, I know the proper response to that is "Which Iranian terror plot? They have so many ..." But you know which one I'm talking about.

There are a lot of disturbing facets about this case.  The big issue I am having: plausible deniability.

When you get right down to it, we went to war with Saddam Hussein to avoid the issue of plausible deniability.  After 9/11 -- and remember that the Taliban denied involvement in 9/11 -- the new reality that terrorist groups could be the delivery vehicles for weapons of mass destruction was obvious to everyone, including state sponsors of those groups. 

The nightmare scenario was that someone like Saddam Hussein, who had extensive ties to just about every terrorist group in the Middle East (yes, including al Qaida) and bragged about it, handing off WMD to one of those groups, who would then detonate it in, say, New York City.  The US would look to take out those responsible and Saddam Hussein would say, Who? Me?"  Plausible deniability.
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New additions to the library

Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II, by Barrett Tillman.

The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (2nd ed.): A Study of the Chilling Criminal Phenomenon, from the "Angels of Death" to the "Zodiac" Killer, by Michael Newton.

The "Marianas Turkey Shoot" is another name for the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which the US 5th Fleet was responsible for defending US landing sites in the Marianas from Japanese attack.  The Japanese launched a series of air attacks on our carriers, but their pilots were so deficient in training that the vast majority of them were easily shot down, just like on a turkey shoot, from where its nickname comes. 

A rather odd battle, which attracts my interest because of the odd, somewhat mysterious circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Japanese aircraft carriers.  The US Navy did not launch a carrier air attack until very late in the battle, claiming the Japanese not-quite-fleet carrier Hiyo. 
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