(The defaced Great Seal of the United States at the gate to the former US Embassy in Tehran. Photo Wikipedia).

I have been all over the map this morning with the usual suspects.

There’s all kinds of interesting stuff going on. The number one thing was the result of the Big Game in The Big House in Ann Arbor, and it was the first thing I looked for, having fallen asleep in my chair trying to watch the second quarter broadcast from under the lights in Ann Arbor.

Then I checked the papers. I have yet to hear anything from the Mainstream Media about the changing of the guard in the Australian Government, and don’t expect to. It doesn’t fit the narrative, and that, sadly, is how we get our news.

Then there was talk about the two-dozen private yachts stuck in the resurgent arctic ice. The historic low ice-level that happens at this time of year was widely expected to have most of the Arctic Ocean wide open for navigation. Apparently not the case, and the boats are going to need rescuing by Canadian ice-breakers.

A noted climate scientist a few years ago had predicted that the North Pole would be ice-free by now, but apparently Mother Nature has a few tricks up her voluminous sleeves.

Other old pals are drafting letters to their elected fools about Syria. I joined in the fray, contributing this: “What will history make of the twin phrases that sum up the Administration’s policy-making process and it’s entirely predictable consequences?”

“Lead from behind,” and then, “What does it matter?”

But I have to confess my ambivalence about all that, and I don’t know if I will be sending any letters to anyone.

There is a compelling national interest in this crisis, beyond the beheadings by the rebels and indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians by a government armed with poison gas.

That national security interest is the long war with the Iranians.

I was thinking about that, out loud, at Willow last night. Mac’s sons were there, good guys as you might expect, and the Macaroon Lady. We sorted through the grab bag of events that have had me waxing hysterical over the course of the last five years: the economy, the real unemployment numbers, the wacky foreign policy, the even wackier domestic policy stuff, and now Syria.

“The problem is not which of the bloody actors in Syria we are supporting. The Assad Regime is guilty of war crimes. The Rebels are guilty of atrocities, and toppling Assad is de facto handing over the weapons of mass destruction to other bad guys who have attacked us here in the homeland, almost a dozen years ago to the day,” I said.

“It is the Iranians with whom we have been at war since the illegal occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran on the 4th of November, 1979.” We agreed about that- or I think we did- most people are wary about talking about it in public.

Then we went on to discuss the reasons we were meeting, which was the War College Symposium and the research into the real- and lost- story of the blunders that led to the Pearl Harbor attack.

There are some troubling parallels. When I got home I was still thinking about Iran. I thought back to the days when it began. We were steaming somewhere in the Indian Ocean that November, and when news came to the taking of the Embassy, the big ship heeled over as the Admiral directed her to strike a northerly course.

The Carter Administration did not want to be perceived as over bellicose at the time, and we were shortly directed to continue to a planned port visit in Africa. But we were back, soon enough, and then gone again by the time Operation EAGLE CLAW launched from the decks of the USS Nimitz to meet in disaster at DESERT ONE.

It is interesting. Nimitz and her embarked air wing are again Johnny on the Spot in the Red Sea, in position to support whatever it is we may or may not do.

Anyway, some of that accounts for my ambivalence about all this.

I am not a supporter of the Administration, but I do support the institutions. I am reluctant to see much more sawdust run out of the Presidency. And there is more, if anyone ever gets to it.

The Syrian horror is part of a proxy battle between the House of Saud (Sunni and Arab) and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (Shia and Persian).

It is much more complex than those simple cardboard cut-outs. But those are the two major sources of funding, and of course the Saudis can squeeze the West (and us) with oil. I do not like that, any more than I like the zealous Wahhabi orthodoxy the Saudis are planting in new mosques all over the world.

But there are all sorts of players are involved in this conflict; private jihadis eager to fight the infidel, whoever that is, Hezbollah, the al Quds force, various ethnic and religious factors undigested from the end of the Ottoman Empire.

The fight is in Syria at the moment, but could, with the right provocation, spill in unexpected directions. Our friends in the neighborhood are alarmed, and rightly so. The Israelis and Jordanians are likely to be caught in whatever frag pattern happens with the onset of military operations.

The Turks are squirming a bit, having supported some of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist elements in their long slide from secular to Sharia state.

I do not have any bright ideas on what to do about it. Maybe the President will come up with something suitably martial in appearance to allow the participants to slaughter each other with only conventional weapons.

But it does occur to me that maybe we ought to consider where this all started and come to grips with reality: how about putting Tehran and Riyadh at the top of the target list? I mean, if we are going to go it alone, why not go for Big Casino?

I mean, it is no further-fetched than what we are talking about now, incredible options designed to improve credibility.

It appears we are going to get there eventually, so why not cut out the middle-men? I mean, it is not any more ridiculous than anything else about all this, is it?

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303