Foreign Digest: Mali and Iran

Mali: Russian mercenaries supported by the Kremlin were forced by Islamist terrorists to retreat last week from Kidal, one of the three main cities in northern Mali. The terrorist and guerilla rebels are affiliates of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on America. As I have posted, there was a series of military coups in West Africa in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, that were justified by the coup leaders on the basis that the previous governments were ineffective against the Islamist insurgency. The West African States switched their alliance from the West, forcing out French and American troops, to Russia, but have been no more effectivene against the terrorists, as I have posted. Russia also has sent mercenaries to the Central African Republic and Sudan. As in Ukraine, they commit human rights abuses everywhere they go, just like the Russian Federation, led by tyrant Vladimir Putin. Iran: Although the more hardline isolationist Trumpists are opposed to the Trump Administration’s military operation against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weapon program, others are rightly justifying it on the basis that “Iran has been at war with us for 47 years” since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, as I have observed. The reference is to Iran’s confrontation with the United States in one form or another, directly or indirectly, such as hostage-taking, sponsoring terrorists and guerillas who have attacked Americans, or even military clashes. The U.S. and the Islamic Republic have been engaged in combat since 1988, in sporadic campaigns or incidents. But the pro-war Trumpists are thus rightly contradicting the false statement that they repeat from the professional media that the Afghan War was “the longest in American history.” As I have noted, the Afghan War was a major war from 2001-2002, and then a minor war thereafter, dwindling to a non-combat advisory and training mission the last several years before the disastrous Trump-Biden withdrawal in 2021, for a total of 20 years. The U.S. had overthrown the Afghan Taliban de facto regime because it has harbored al-Qaeda’s leadership, which the Americans decimated, but the Taliban returned to power immediately upon the American and allied withdrawal. Even counting the entire Aghan War, which was the first major battle of the overall Global War on Terrorism, as a major war, labeling it the longest would be based on a false comparison. As I observed, the Korean War lasted as a major war from 1950 to 1953, but Communist North Korea continued to clash military with the U.S. sporadically until 1985, for a total of 35 years, as the two Koreas have remained legally at war and often have clashed with each other. Moreover, a reasonable argument could be made that the Cold War was a series of major and minor wars with international Communism, including with the Soviet Union directly at times, from 1946-1991 that were battles, like the Korean War, instead of a series of discrete wars. The Americans clashed with the Libyan dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi sporadically for 30 years from 1981 to 2011. Furthermore, I note the U.S. has occasionally engaged in combat with terrorists in Libya for many years since. But the U.S.-Iranian conflict has exceeded even both of these conflicts at 38 years and counting. As with Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002, these wars were sporadic, with gaps of years or even decades between incidents. But the point is that even Trumpists admit that the Afghan War was not the longest war. Furthermore, the complaint by isolationists on the left and far right about “endless” and “forever” wars acknowledges the persistence of enemies such as Islamists like the Iranian regime, more than constituting a legitimate criticism of continued American vigilance against this mortal threat. Complaining about the fight against Islamists as endless represents a lack of understanding of the enemy’s determination and is akin to complaining about crime or piracy as never-ending. Indeed, the U.S. has been combatting jihadists for over 200 years since the Barbary Wars with the Arab Islamist North Africans who were demanding the payment of tribute from merchant vessels. The U.S. defeat of the Barbary Pirates established the principle of freedom of navigation, which is the same principle currently at stake with Iran’s current actions choking off the Strait of Hormuz and demanding tribute. As I have noted during the War on Terrorism, Islamists can and must be defeated, but because Islamism is a religious ideology, it will continue to arise in one form or another and thus necessitates prudent policies and a strong defense.