And of course, for the writer of the article, the most horrible possible outcome might occur: Iraq could become a free nation, followed by others in the Middle East.

So: an opponent of the way America is prosecuting this war is, de facto, an enemy of democracy and freedom.

Here is today's opponent:

Martin van Creveld, born in the Netherlands, has lived in Israel since 1950. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He is the author of fifteen books on military history and strategy, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War (1977), and The Sword and the Olive (1998) are among the best known. Professor van Creveld has lectured or taught at virtually every strategic institute, military or civilian, in the Western world--including the U.S. Naval War College, most recently in December 1999 and January 2000.

"Bio: Creveld, Martin van". Naval War College. http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2000/autumn/CreM-bio.htm. Accessed: 19 Nov 2003.

He doesn't sound to me like someone who'd be interested in an American defeat in the area. He sounds a lot like an expert in military strategy, though. Apparently the Navy thinks so too. It could be that the DoD doesn't agree, but they have been not agreeing with their own military experts for a while now, so this would not surprise me.

Here is an example of another analysis of his, this time of the Palestinian situation, exerpted from a transcript of an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Byrne: What options does the Israeli army have, do you think?

Van Creveld: Nothing will work.

Byrne: Nothing at all? Do you think there’s no change of strategy?

Van Creveld: No. There is one thing that can be done – and that is to put and end to the situation whereby we are the strong fighting the weak, because that is the most stupid situation in which anybody can be.

Byrne: And how do you do that?

Van Creveld: Exactly. How do you do that. You do that by A, waiting for a suitable opportunity... B, doing whatever it takes to restore the balance of power between us and the Palestinians... C, removing 90% of the causes of the conflict, by pulling out... and D, building a wall between us and the other side, so tall that even the birds cannot fly over it.... so as to avoid any kind of friction for a long long time in the future.

Byrne: Well, that’s a tall list. Let’s start with the last one – the wall... I mean, when I was there last month people were talking about a wall but you’re seriously saying this is an option, to build a gigantic wall.... what.... on the old green line, basically – there’s Gaza – there’s the West Bank – and there’s Israel proper, and they shall never be combined?

Van Creveld: “Never” is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever. But history proves that walls work. The Roman wall – the Limus(?) – worked for hundreds of years... the Great Chinese Wall worked, not forever, but for hundreds of years... the wall in Korea has been working for fity years... the wall between Turks and Greeks in Cyprus is working.... the Berlin Wall worked beautifully.... Unfortunately, the Israeli army insists against all military logic on being present on both sides of the wall. We could formally finish the problem at least in Gaza, in 48 hours, by getting out and building a proper wall. And then of course, if anybody tries to climb over the wall we kill him.

Byrne: What about the many thousands of extremely belligerent Israeli settlers that would be on the wrong side of the wall?

Van Creveld: If it were up to me, I would tell those people – and you’re quite right, many of them are quite belligerent – look, ladies and gentlemen, you have been magnificent, you have served us well, you have protected us all those years, but this is coming to an end. If you choose to stay, it’s your problem – you are on your own. My guess is that 95% of them will come home.

Byrne, Jennifer. "Interview with Martin van Creveld." Foreign Correspondent: World in Focus. Austrailian Broadcasting Co., 20 Mar 2002. http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s511530.htm. Accessed: 19 Nov 2003.

He sounds pretty hard-nosed to me. He has the additional qualification of living under the gun.

Perhaps he's applying his professional expertise to the situation he addresses in the article Raoul cites as an objective professional, without letting his personal feelings or any opinion columnists' rants get in his way. I find his analysis scary, because he's turned the cold silver eye of prophecy upon the situation. I believe you find it scary too, which is why you degrade it, but maybe your reasons are different.

I know nothing about his personal politics, but my best guess is:

Professor: Yes
Marxist: No

Unless one believes that the United States Naval War College would not vett its instructors carefully or would not care if any of them were Marxists.

Re: the portion of your observation, above, "Iraq could become a free nation, followed by others in the Middle East.":

The Domino Theory of spontaneous Communist domination was wrong. The domination happened, all right, but it wasn't spontaneous. We had to destabilize Southeast Asia to make it happen.

The Domino Theory of contagious Middle Eastern democracy is still a domino theory, and an even more tenuous one. The most important thing to remember about "government of the people, by the people, for the people" is that it must be discovered by and come directly from the people. We cannot "install" a democracy, for it by definition is supported by the popular will. The peoples of the Middle East must choose it themselves. If and when they do, we had better keep our hands in our pockets and not take it away if their elected government decides to nationalize their oil companies. Again.

Regards--
Mary Anne