Chess is the game used to train military officers in tactics.
The most important concept in chess is centerboard control, which teaches us that whoever can control the center of the board, can win the game.
Iraq is centrally located in the Middle East. It dominates the region, geographically.
Of course, in context, it is invalid. The US is not up against a single player/opponent, but is protecting its intrests in an unstable and chaotic region. It is a Cold War era concept, but many senior Cabinet officials and Presidential Advisors are old Cold Warriors.
Is this concept of centerboard control driving the policymakers in Bush’s Cabinet?
In a full-on conventional world war, such an idea might have relevance. Here, it is rather misplaced I feel.
…made all the more unstable and chaotic by its unsanctioned invasion, one could argue, and not “protecting its interests” but “taking direct control of assets it did not formerly possess”.
Or was it to do with liberating the Iraqi people? I forget. In any case, unless the US plans to directly dictate Iraq’s policy for the next decade or more, then I would suggest that the metaphor is a little strained.
I know it’s common knowledge around here that we’ve begun an imperialist march through the middle east, we have a long list of countries yet to do…this is a silly idea though, I don’t put much stock in it. It makes way more sense to divest of the region wherever we can. We’re worried about the strategic importance of oil, yes…so is everyone else when it’s in the hands of a thug and his cartel. The UN controlled it previously and probably will go right on doing so. They’re not stupid.
I like the idea of the chessboard…but in reverse. Ending the US military involvement with that country leads to progressively less involvement with the rest of the region. JMO.
The reasons given for the war last spring (WMDs, humanitarian concerns, UN resolutions) were basically a smokescreen for the real objective: the creation of a democratic Iraq allied with the U.S. to further our interests in the region.
A friendly, prosperous Iraq would yeild lots of good results for the US:
Place a large reserve of oil in friendly hands.
Allow us to pull troops out of Saudi Arabia (which is one of the things that pissed of Osama Bin Laden in the first place).
Put pressure on Jordan and Syria to play nice with Israel.
Clamp the extremists in Iran between U.S.- friendly regimes Iraq and Afghanistan, containing their radical influence.
Demonstrate the power of western secular values and the U.S. in particular.
All of these would be Good Things. Unfortunately, the current administration doesn’t seem to have a plan for actually achieving this objective – other than “wishing will make it so”… .
I know that. Yes, the chessboard might be a good physical description of the motivation. The motivation might be to untangle ourselves from the place. That’s all.
Enemy? Hmm…our own hegemony? The sociopolitical Islamic theology, in which American influence is a blight on the ME? I don’t know.
Which brings up an interesting observation I had made…a few weeks back…around the time of the power outage in the east…one of Bush’s statements was that the war in Iraq has brought terrorists to the region…iraq metaphorically spekaing being “fly paper.” And elluded to this being part of the Admisitration’s agenda on the War on Terror.
Well is that a good stragegy? If you believe there are weapons of WMD in Iraq…and you know that it will bring further terrorists…and your administration has NOT openely stated (or otherwise) that there have been “no WMD found” or “it was a mistake”…then why the hell would it be a good thing to attract terrorists to that region in order to kill them? For damn sake, they might find the weapons first…after all they were working under Saddam’s regime and under his thumb…they would have a better chance of finding them first than US soldiers.
There was an article in the Atlantic Monthly which discusses the question, is the US an empire? The article showed the map of the world as the US military sees it. The world is divided into commands: North American Command, South American COmmand, Pacific Command, European Command, etc. The Command which is responsble for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of Central Asia is called, interestingly enough, the Central Command, which is based at MacDill AFB in Tampa Bay. I thought the central in Central Command referred to its place in the US military hierarchy, not its geographical location. So, to answer your question, yes, the US military empire views that part of the world as the center of the Grand Chessboard (Brzezinski’s geostrategic nomenclature).
The world is not a square (or a circle) with finite edges. If you want to put your chessboard with Iraq in the center, I can very easily move my entire board 800 miles northeast so that your "center’ is now in the very southwest corner of MY “chessboard”.
To me, seems like someone who’s bored and reaching. Not an insult, just an observation.
I noriced the position of the ME while playing Axis and Allies as a kid. It is the center of the world. Well except for NA and SA. But, since we won’t be basing large amounts of troops there, the advantage of being able to get to Europe, Africa or Asia in two moves isn’t of particular value. What’s that? Oh, apparently we have more than half of our active duty combat troops in the ME.
Still, the logistics are difficult and very expensive. And, unfortunately, I don’t think that we will be moving them from Iraq anytime soon, even though Syria and Iran are just a few hours’ drive from Baghdad.
While it is customary to think ahead in chess it is also customary to keep your opponent in the dark about your plan. Maybe, the administration is working on a different level and does not want to share its plan with everyone. In chess you must manuever your pieces into key positions while keeping your opponent off balance. Could this be the case here? By having no discernable plan you keep your opponent guessing and possibly make a mistake. It has been made clear that if the armed forces are tasked with an operation they will be succesful in its overall execution.
While Saddam and likewise Bin Laden cannot be accounted for, they are off the radar screen right now either dead or hiding in their foxhole somewhere while the US armed forces are still operating and searching for them. Just because you don’t know the plan or can discern the plan doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Just that you can’t see one.
In WWII, the general public had an idea there would be an invasion of France but no one outside the military really knew the plan. The allies even went as far as creating a decoy army with Patton as the commander just to throw off any suspicions of their true plan.
While it may seem unsympathetic to say, it is a forgone conclusion while on this course casualties will result. Just because we sustain casualties on a daily basis does not affect the overall goals. If we allowed casualties to dictate our actions then we would have never prosecuted WWII.
Why then should this situation warrent a different approach? Does anyone understand the term “crazy like a fox.” Maybe the administration wants to appear at a loss while working on a new future operational plan.
There was planning for the post-war period, dadgubmint. I’m tired of saying it. Now that december’s gone, I guess I’ll have to remind everyone that despite what the Liberal Media[sup]TM[/sup] would have you believe, the Bush Admin Pentagon planned very thoroughly for the post-war period.!
It seems it involved some other country though. One that could generate $50 billion to $100 billion of oil revenue over the next two to three years. “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,” Mr. Wolfowitz said. It was a country that could be rebuilt for a mere $2.5 bil. This country would be full of people who’d welcome the American troops as liberators. In this country, we’d be able to reduce troop levels to 30,000 or so by September.
Oddly enough, the DIA and the CIA and the State Dept all noticed that the Pentagon had used plans for some other country. They all sent messages to the Pentagon. I guess the Pentagon was busy talking with Chalabi and the Iraq Planning Office, I mean the Office of Special Plans to heed the messages from the pros.
It turns out that we accidentally invaded Iraq instead of the country we planned to invade.
