Iraq and Afghanistan

Blog Shift

2007-06-08T14:34:00.000-04:00

Because of editing problems with Blogger, I have decided to place all new blogs at an alternate site labeled Middle East. The Blogger site will continue to be useful as a gateway to archives for this blog and other links.

CSIS Report Excerpt

2007-05-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from
Cordesman's CSIS report on the future of Iraq, "Iraq's Troubled Future: The
Uncertain Way Ahead", revised April 13, pages 4-5 PDF document.

Under the heading, "The American Civil-Military Threat to Iraq", Cordesman makes
the following points (quoted verbatim or paraphrased):

1. The US invaded Iraq without a valid understanding of the Iraqi government,
economy, and sectarian and ethnic differences. It did not have plans, staff, or
aid money to deal with the situation; and did not have the force strength to
provide security.

2. Our reaction to the problem was incompetent and
misdirected. We focused on national elections and paper constitutions, rather
than effective governance, and a massive aid program to "reconstruct" Iraq in
American terms. It failed to recruit, deploy, and retain competent civilians.

3. It took too long to realize that creating effective Iraqi security forces was a
critical element of stability. It rushed ill-prepared Iraqi Army units into
combat and local security missions.

4. The US military was ill=prepared for its
new focus on counterinsurgency, stability operations, and nation building. Its
military have been pushed into a wide range of new training and civil military
roles. It remains short of experts and fully qualified translators (where it may
still have less than 25% of its needs).

5.The US is only now is beginning to
understand the full limits of Iraq’s oil "wealth," the depth of the structural
problems in Iraq's economy, and the need to "reconstruct" in ways that take
account of the need for money to flow to Iraqis, rather than foreign
contractors.

6. Tactical victories and military efforts are pointless without
political success. The US supported a form of deBaathification that was bound to
alienate the Sunnis, and removed much of the nation's secular core from power.
The US insistence on national elections in a country without political parties
left a legacy of government divided along sectarian and ethnic lines. The US
pressure for a new constitution helped make "federalism" a key issue. Political
conciliation has been far more cosmetic than real, adding Arab Sunni versus Arab
Shi'ite, Shi’ite on Shi’ite, and Arab on Kurd tension and violence to the threat
posed by hard core Sunni Neo-Salafi led insurgency.

7. The "surge" strategy in
Baghdad is little more than a repeat of previous tactical efforts to bring local
security to the capital city. If it succeeds, it will probably be because the
Shi’ite militias stand down, and the US effectively helps a Shi'ite dominated
government "win." If it fails, it will probably be because US military friction
with the Shi’ite militias becomes violent. It is far from clear that the US
Congress will give either the current or the next President the necessary time
and resources to exploit "success", even if we achieve it.

8. As in Vietnam, the
US has created reporting systems designed to report success, not real progress
or the lack of it, for its Iraqi force development and political and economic
aid efforts. This reporting has slowly improved in some areas under the pressure
of events, but much of the US reporting on Iraqi force development and economic
aid efforts still lacks meaning and credibility. This includes basic data like
Iraqi force manpower, unit readiness, aid efforts relative to requirements, and
reporting on aid based on meaningful measures of effectiveness.

American Irresponsibility

2007-05-17T17:34:00.000-04:00

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Nir Rosen had an excellent piece on Iraqi refugees. There are now about two million outside the country, nearly all in the Middle East, and nearly as many displaced persons still within the country. The largest number is in Syria, and here the refugees have found the most welcoming situation. Syria is the only major state that welcomes Shiites, and it is the only state that has managed to reduce hostilities among competing groups from Iraq. It does this by trying to remain friendly to all, and by strongly discouraging any talk of sectarianism (a stance that also fits its internal balance of power requirements).

There are fascinating glimpses of the approaches of the factional leaders now in Syria. Originally, they saw the enemy as the Americans. But over time this has been changing. Now their most intransigent enemies are the al-Qaeda and Jihadist groups who have no real interest in Iraq or Iraqis. They distinguish sharply between the "honorable struggle" that targets only foreigners and the al-Qaeda approach that targets civilians as well. They are also coming to see the Iranians as a common enemy of Iraq. (It must be said that most of the conversations are with Sunnis). They also see Iraq under Hussein as being essentially non-sectarian, pointing out that the coup attempts against Hussein were almost entirely by Sunnis.

But the most discouraging section of the piece is that on the American response. We have done almost nothing for the refugees and do not intend to. Our position is that of Bolton, former ambassador to the UN. He told the author that Americans have no responsibility for the refugee problem "Our obligation was to give them new institutions and provide security. We have fulfilled that obligation." Another high-ranking official in the Bush State Department agreed, pointing out that "Refugees are created by repressive regimes -- the refugee problem was caused by Saddam Hussein". Thus, when we got rid of him, we had essentially "solved" the refugee problem.

It would seem as though many in this administration live in an alternate universe. There is no recognition that the chaos has been caused by faulty decisions, no matter how well intentioned they might have been. We have produced a mess from which the Iraqis flee. Of course, they are partly responsible, but the world believes and I believe that we are also responsible -- for ending the war and for what it has produced.

Defending Honor, Distrusting Charity

2007-04-10T12:55:00.000-04:00

Two news items in the last few days have a deep psychological connection. The first tells of a Dutch force in Afghanistan in one of its most dangerous provinces that is trying to win the struggle with the Taliban by concentrating almost entirely on reconstruction projects. They are armed men, but their strategy is to use arms only when attacked, and to pull back out of a fight if possible. This way the people will see that they are positively affecting their lives and not negatively. Once they begin to trust the Dutch, they will get rid of the Taliban themselves. But today we read of a Dutch patrol nearly getting wiped out in an ambush. They are told that everyone in the village is with the Taliban.

The next item is a description of a huge Shi'a rally in Najaf demanding that the Americans get out of Iraq. Never mind that the Americans toppled their oppressor and set up a democratic system that will allow the Shi'a to rule Iraq. They want them out and now.

Why?

Two reasons come to mind. First, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq feel dishonored by having their country occupied by foreign troops. (To them, it seems like an occupation.) The fact that they have to live with the situation is unbearable, no matter what its advantages. Second, most people, and especially people in the developing world, simply do not believe in the goodness and well-meaning of others. Whatever they say or do, the Afghans are not going to be taken in. These Dutch have something to gain that we will eventually learn to our sorrow. We just haven't figured what it is yet. The Iraqis are even more sure that the Americans are up to no good. "They say they are here to project us. But who are they kidding? They are here to rob our oil or take away our religion or turn the country over to the Sunnis (Shi'a belief) or over to the Shi'a (Sunni belief)."

These are the realities. Outsiders can sometimes overcome them, but don't bank on it.

Short Blog Vacation

2007-03-24T18:28:00.000-04:00

Because of other commitments, the reader should not expect additional posts to this blog for the next two weeks.

American Strategy in Iraq

2007-03-24T18:25:00.000-04:00

Juan Cole reprints in his blog the opinion of Professor Kahl of Minnesota on the apparent counterinsurgency strategies of the United States since the beginning of the Iraq war. Let me summarize briefly Professor Kahl's points. He divides the COIN operations into four phases.

Phase 1: Denial. Until April 2004, there was a general denial that an insurgency existed. The result was that the different commanders were pretty much on their own. Some concentrated on providing the population with protection, while others conducted aggressive search and destroy operations. This phase ended with the Fallujah uprising and the revolt of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Phase 2: Learning Curve. The military woke up to a problem and began developing new strategies and tactics. It took more seriously training Iraqi forces. Yet the bulk of the effort still went in to alienating search and destroy efforts. Only in early 2005, did the leaders begin to systematically learn from their mistakes.

Phase 3: Getting it. The military now began a number of experiments, especially in Tal Afar and Ramadi to place the emphasis on the protection of the people. This effort was, however, compromised by two other factors. First, the military had begun in 2004 to consolidate its basing by closing many of its smaller bases in the countryside. The was a natural development of the idea that we needed to reduce the Iraqi perception that their country was under occupation. But it also meant that the forces were less able to implement the people protection mission. The other problem was that we simply did not have enough forces for the hold strategy. We attempted to fill the gap with Iraqis. But this effort took more time than had been imagined.

Phase 4: Doing it. In January 2006, Bush announced a new strategy that would make possible the achievements foreseen in Phase 3. We would bring in more troops and we would assign more to population protection. Kahl notes that this was not actually a new strategy. The strategy had been created in Phase 3. But it was an effort to provide additional forces that might make the "clear, hold, and build" option actually work. But as Kahl further notes, this might be too little and too late.

Iraqi Opinions

2007-03-24T17:48:00.000-04:00

Juan Cole leads us to consider some recent polls. A recent survey by the British Opinion Research Business (ORB) showed that Iraqis had remarkable confidence in spite of all that has happened. Support for Prime Minister Maliki was much more widespread than had been expected. In their polls, increase in support compared with September was quite dramatic. Not surprisingly more Shi'a preferred the present system to Saddam's, yet the difference was not as great as might have been expected (51% of Sunnis preferred the Baathist regime; 66% preferred Maliki). Only 15% of Shiites believed they were in a civil war, while 40% of Sunnis believed this. (I would note that this was a countrywide poll, and many of those reported as Sunni were in fact Sunni Kurds, a fact that should temper our surprise at the results.) Yet it might be discouraging to the surge folks that 53% nationwide thought that the security situation would improve after foreign troops left, while only 26% thought it would get worse.

According to Cole, the most recent USA Today poll showed that 83% of Shiites and 97% of Sunni Arabs oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq; 75% of Kurds support them. By more than 3 to 1, Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making the security situation worse. The respondents want the foreigners out, but only 35% want them to leave immediately, perhaps six months to a year would be best. 40% of Shiites want a theocracy governed by Islamic law. 58% want a strongman to rule. Even 34% of Kurds reject democracy. This seems to contrast remarkably with the growing support for Maliki, who is, after all, the first person to come to power by a more or less democratic process in a long time. I think the association of a foreign occupation force with "democracy" has given the system a bad name for the moment. In any event, few Iraqis are likely to be willing to fight for democracy. What they are willing to fight for, other than security, is still up in the air.

Tribals and Uzbeks in NWFP

2007-03-24T17:08:00.000-04:00

In the last few days reports have reached us that severe fighting has broken out along the Afghan border (South Waziristan) between the traditional Pashtun tribal groups and a large group of Uzbek jihadists who have moved in from Central Asia in the last few years. The Uzbeks have a force of as many as 2000 fighters; they are said to form the backbone of the al-Qaeda forces in the area. For years now the Pashtuns have supported them for religious reasons, because they brought money with them from Central Asia, and because of the tribals' legendary support for guests. But the guests have outstayed their welcome. They are said to have killed 200 tribal elders in the last few years. So far the Pashtuns seem to have been successful in their campaign to rid themselves of theit guests. These battles seem to reinforce the argument of Rory Stewart (see Wednesday post) that in Afghanistan less may be more. Many problems would be best left to the locals leaders to sort out. They do not so much support islamic jihad and the taliban as they hate and detest foreigners who try to tell them what to do.

Afghanistan: Less is More

2007-03-21T21:35:00.000-04:00

Rory Stewart, who works out of Kabul, is presently a guest Op-Ed writer for the New York Times. He has been making a concerted effort to tell us, and the West, to "back off"in Afghanistan. This is very counter-intuitive for me. I was one of those who counseled when we went to Afghanistan after 9/11 to be sure and "do it right" This meant to follow the post-World War II example of what we did in Germany and Japan: massive assistance, total occupation; reeducation on many levels etc. According to this analysis, we sent far too few troops to Afghanistan and spent far too little. We still might have been right, but Stewart makes one wonder. In the present environment of limited resources and reluctant publics in both Europe and America, he is certainly worth listening to.

His basic idea is that the Afghanis simply do not understand the priorities we place on our assistance. They increasingly feel that we have spent a lot of money and accomplished very little. Some are even nostalgic for the return of the Russians. "At least, they built bridges, roads and airports". Instead of talking in general terms about building democracy or reforming the economy, we should talk to the Afghans more, find out what they really want and need, and help them with that. He finds the Afghans have responded favorably to, "excellent models, from U.N. Habitat to the Aga Khan network, which has restored historic buildings, run rural health projects, and established a five-star hotel and Afghanistan’s mobile telephone network.". And he speaks of a functioning soap manufacturing business that an American woman has promoted.

In many areas we seem to be fighting the people instead of the terrorists. He finds that in many areas our opponents have no fixed political agenda; they are certainly uninterested in attacking Europe or the United States. He reports a Dutch experience in one area where they found that if left alone, the Taliban defeated themselves with their ideological preaching. He contrasts Dutch inaction to the British offensives in the South which accomplished little besides the alienation of large areas. He asserts that "Pacifying the tribal areas is a task for Afghans, working with Pakistan and Iran. It will involve moving from the overcentralized state and developing formal but flexible relationships with councils in all their varied village forms".

His conclusion is that we were more correct than we knew when we sent only limited forces into the country after 9/11. We may be making a mistake in trying to reverse this policy. I guess Afghanistan is not Iraq. (Or maybe it is?)

Iran in Iraq

2007-03-21T16:49:00.000-04:00

In the last few days the Times has given us a summary of the recent economic penetration by Iran into Iraq. We could view this negatively, as many in Washington are wont to do. But from the viewpoint of all but the hardest line Sunnis, it should be considered as a real harbinger of hope for the future.

The stores are full of Iranian produce, air conditioners, automobiles and much else. Several Iraqi cities, including Basra, depend on Iran for their electricity. Iran has loaned Iraq one billion dollars and is establishing a bank in Baghdad. Iran is helping to relieve a severe gasoline shortage in Iraq by bringing gasoline in from Turkmenistan. Iranian trade with the Kurdish region now amounts to one billion dollars a year. Iranian tourism, particularly to the shrines in Karbala and Najaf has added considerably to the economy in some areas. Iran has assisted in the building of tourist facilities in both cities.

Thoughts on Resolving the Democrat's Dilemma

2007-03-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, the only good strategy most democrats have for getting out of Iraq is a rewriting of the argument that we shouldn't have gotten in, and when we got in, we should have done x, y, and z. This is all true, but as David Brooks point out in today's Op-Ed, it doesn't add up to much. The Bush Republican's "more of the same" doesn't look that intelligent either, but at least it is a strategy that the observer can get his mind around.

The problem that Brooks points out is that the Democrats are looking for a middle strategy and the situation doesn't seem amenable to such a solution. Another problem is that there has been some improvement under the surge. Outside of Baghdad, Maliki has gone to Anbar Province for the first time and he seems to have one faction of Sunnis there that support the government. As strategies develop, mature and fade away, there will always be gains and losses, and at no time are we likely to be able to decide much more clearly than we do today.

Another difficulty is that those who want to leave, necessarily emphasize American losses. Losses, and grievous injury are always sad, but the number are still about a tenth of what happened in Vietnam when we had a smaller national population. This emphasis on American losses seems most hard-hearted in that it ignores the many many times greater Iraqi losses of life and property, losses that go on every day, and are likely to go on if we leave. No one can say whether this loss will be enhanced or reduced if we leave. And this inability necessarily holds the tongues of the democrats. The real possibility that leaving could make things worse, and they could certainly be worse, keeps the discussion returning to how many of our "boys and girls" have been damaged. This is not a very humane approach. If a Democrat could somehow come up with any strategy that guaranteed a reduction in these Iraqi losses, he or she should be canonized.

So what should the critic say and do? I do not know, but here are some points. We should agree:

(1) to emphasize the wishes of the Iraqi people, both as represented by the government and other political leaders, as well as regional, factional and militia leaders. Keep in continual contact with such leaders. Start to define and refine what we do in light of their feelings and desires. Do not take it upon ourselves, for example, to keep the Iranians out. If and when and where, Iraqis want help in keeping out Iranians, help them. If they want Iranian help elsewhere, welcome it.

(2) to let them structure their society as they wish. In particular, this means that we should not insist on the privatization of the oil industry. Most Iraqis see this as another plan to rob them of their heritage. It is not all that, but we should respond to their desires. More generally, we should not insist on a blueprint for the economy. They have a legislature. It is up to this body to make laws.

(3) Provide Iraqi institutions, civilian and military, with the best equipment as soon as we can -- and provide it with the maintenance facilities that go with it. For example, their troops should have our body armor and they should have the new trucks that cannot be blown up with roadside bombs. It would be best if such items were manufactured in Iraq.

(4) Encourage the operation of more government facilities and offices outside the Green Zone. It will be dangerous at first, but if they can develop with our assistance an ability to hold ministerial conferences and even parliamentary sessions outside this area, it would have great symbolic importance.

(5) Encourage agreements between violent groups and the government that will offer hope to the "enemies" that they can play a role in a new society. There are surely some enemies that this would not affect, but many others would no doubt be amenable to a believable offer.

(6) Accept and protect the separation of ethnic groups where this seems to be a better choice than trying to maintain mixed neighborhoods indefinitely. Help should be available for resulting redeployments of population, with some more creative solutions than simply refugee camps. Wherever possible work with the leaders of ethnic factions to define their minimum aims, so that they might be able to agree with their neighbors on "boundaries". Some groups will have no minimum aims, but many will.

(7) Encourage the development of protected zones in the less dangerous parts of the country which could serve as magnets for those Iraqis who would like to return to the country. Emphasizing using our forces to protect such areas.

(8) In general, deemphasize aggressive campaigns and air strikes where these serve the purposes of the Americans in terms of our concepts of how to fight the war. In many cases, where the Iraqis clearly want and need such support, it should be given, but this should be their responsibility, not ours.

Afghan Democracy

2007-03-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

In a recent Op-Ed, Rory Stewart who runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul and has been much involved In Afghan and Iraq affairs lashes out at what he sees as the foolishness and pretension involved in our project to make Afghanistan into a fully functioning democracy in the next few years. He claims that few Afghans have any idea of what democracy is, and even if they knew, they have many other items higher on their agenda. He is contemptuous of the frequent assertions that the people prefer democracy to shari'a law. Repeating the claim doesn't make it so. In many areas they prefer to have Taliban rather than foreign troops in control. Elsewhere, warlords are often in power locally because the people prefer them to the alternatives. He attacks our misconceptions only because they lead to poor policy.

This is not to say that the American amd NATO effort has had no achievements. The streets of Kabul are relatively quiet, the Hazara minority nearby is more secure and prosperous than it has ever been. With the right kind of international assistance the country can become more humane, prosperous and stable.

The difficulty with Stewart's analysis is that it leaves the United States and NATO with no overarching ideological objectives. We have defined success in terms of democracy. We have not given ourselves an alternative. As I have written elsewhere, such an alternative is badly needed. We need to realize that many countries in the world are much higher on the scales of human happiness without democracy than are others with democracy. We should not be apologetic about supporting Musharref, a military dictator next door in Pakistan. He deserves our support because he is able to hold a fractious country together and resist the siren song of Islamic fundamentalism. By doing so, he is able to support a higher level of human rights in many regards than would be possible if the true opinions of Pakistanis were to be heard through the ballot box. Likewise, we may well end up in Afghanistan with a "controlled democracy" that does not allow enough dissent to really become democratic, but which is able to preserve the peace, cut down on dependence on opium, and improve the educational standards of the people, particularly the women.

British Withdrawals

2007-02-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

The announcement that the British intended to evacuate nearly half of their forces cast a gloomy shadow over American plans. Commentators noted that several of the other coalition partners had plans to reduce their forces or leave completely in the near future. These were mostly small symbolic forces, but symbols are important.

Juan Cole tells us in the current Salon online magazine that in leaving Basra the British will be leaving a city that they have simply been unable to control. After a brave effort to bring the militias to heel early on, in recent months they have backed off and let the militias do most of the policing. Cole tells us that the Virtue Party (a Shi'a group with which I am not familiar) and SCIRI (whose leader's son the U.S. briefly detained on the Persian border) have both infiltrated the police to such an extent that they have divided up most of the city between their militias (in police uniforms). Both of these groups have enforced Taliban-like restrictions on dress, alcohol and so forth. The situation is complicated by the Marsh Arabs, many of whom have emerged in this area as criminal gangs. Most of Iraq's oil passes through Basra and its environs, and the local warfare is to a large extent over who gets the bulk of the massive pilferage of oil that goes on.

Basra is said to be a completely Shi'a area. Yet at least in the environs there is a tough Sunni community that has strived to preserve its own turf against repeated Shi'a inroads.

Cole points out that nearly all the supplies for the American army in the center of the country must come through the Basra area. As the British presence is reduced, the chance that the militias-police might gradually or abruptly choke off these supply lines must worry the Pentagon. It may force the Americans to place more troops along this supply line. In any event, holding power in this chokepoint increases the bargaining power of SCIRI and other Basra militias on the national scene. SCIRI is very close to the Iranians and is the most likely group to approve of increased Iranian involvement in Iraq. Some months back a reporter in Basra was telling us that the city was essentially in the hands of the Iranians through its client organizations. I have not heard this claim lately, but in the end it may come down to this.

In conclusion, the British withdrawal will be opening the country to even more Iranians presence and pressure. As I have said elsewhere, this certainly seems reasonable from their perspective, but, again, it is not reassuring to Americans who have a rather different perspective.

Viewing the Surge Positively

2007-02-23T16:02:00.000-05:00

Congress is intent on showing up the foolishness of the administration, as exemplified by the sending of more troops to Iraq. Many of my comments have suggested the reasons why the surge is a foolish gamble.

Yet recent reports suggest that there is a chance that I may once again be wrong. There seems to be some successes on the streets of Baghdad. The most likely explanation is that the insurgents and sectarian gangs are doing what always makes sense when facing a heavily armed regular force: get out of the way, lay low, find handy places to hide arms, and wait until the more powerful enemy goes away, as he must do sooner or later.

There are, however, other explanations or at least part explanations. I have repeatedly pointed out how our efforts are undermined by the growth of a natural hatred of the foreign occupier. Yet even this hate can burn out. I think I can detect a possible weariness of the Iraqi citizenry. They are tired of the killing. They want it to all go away. And if the Americans have been part of their problem, more may come reluctantly to agree that they can also be a part of their solution.

Let us break down the situation in terms of some hypotheticals. The population can be divided into activists and passivists. In most revolutionary situations the passivists are the larger group. This is often missed since by their nature they do not want to bring attention on themselves. Their actions and answers to survey questions depend entirely on who is doing the questioning. Their real opinions are kept very much to themselves. The population can also be divided into the Shi'a and Sunni, and lesser groups of Turkomans, Kurds, Christians, and secularists. The Kurds, Christians, and secularists (aside from Baath) have tended from the beginning to support the American cause. The attitude toward the American military of members of other groups will vary as situations vary. In many places, particularly in parts of Baghdad, the Americans have come to be seen by Sunnis as a necessary evil, for they alone are able to defend the Sunnis against the Shi'a, and Shi'a-infested Iraqi police. On the other hand, in some areas, particularly rural areas to the north and south of Baghdad, Shi'as have found themselves under heavy Sunni pressure, or even heavy extremist Shi'a pressure (north of Najaf). In these cases, it is the Shi'a who have been happy to see the Americans intervene.

So the Americans have a role to play in Iraq for those Iraqis who see no other way out of their difficulties. The problem for American commanders becomes then to expand this opening by setting aside larger goals of defeating "the enemy" while confining action to the narrower goal of protecting the people. There just might be a strategy here that would work..

Meanwhile . . .

Afghanistan: Our First Responsibility

2007-02-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

In the January/February Foreign Affairs Barnett Rubin has summarized in excellent and disheartening detail the problems we face in attempting to stabilize Afghanistan. He asserts that we have not lost yet, but the country is still ours to lose. The importance of winning goes beyond both the welfare of the Afghan people and the maintenance of America's position in the world. He points out that NATO is now intimately involved in the effort to turn back the Taliban. If it should fail, this will not only harm the United States and NATO, but also seriously set back the effort to make NATO an accepted and viable alternative for bringing order to future situations.

While it is impossible to separate the country from its context, let us begin with the challenges that would be faced even if there were no Taliban. Rubin finds only one major effective institution -- the army. Beyond that, the police and the judicial system and local government are all highly corrupt and incompetent. The lack of any believable security and justice for the average person leads to a crushing lack of confidence that makes reconstruction almost impossible. Pervasive corruption makes the distribution of security funds a losing proposition. The only cash crop many Afghans have is opium. It has become much more important than it ever was because of the impossibility of getting more bulky products to the market. This problem is exacerbated by the high price paid for opium because other countries have been much more able to reduce production. Rubin adds that the opium problem is essentially impossible to control as long as the developed world criminalizes opium. The inevitable result of criminalization is high returns for those outside the law, a sphere in which most Afghans reside and will remain for the foreseeable future. The result of the situation is the empowering of "warlords", which we might define as persons able to act without restraint against those under them. These warlords may be the old fashioned variety or the newer Taliban leaders.

Rubin points out some basic facts that it are easy to forget. The Afghans have been living through what is now a thirty years war. He also reminds us that Afghanistan has suffered from extreme poverty for generations, and it is this poverty that makes any effort by government, before or after this war, almost doomed to failure. Governments just cannot collect the funds that would allow them to do anything outside Kabul.

Yet with all this, his interviews suggest that the people do not want the Taliban back if there is a real alternative.

The other major thrust of Rubin's article is that no insurgency has ever been overcome when there is an outside country willing to maintain a steady supply of insurgents. No matter how many we kill, there will be more. He explains that Islamabad supports the Taliban as part of a long-term strategy that we at one time seconded of opposing India at every opportunity. Strange as it may seem, Pakistan's leading class lives in constant fear that India will "do them in". In this paranoid vision, India is continually trying to squeeze Pakistan in a pincher between Afghanistan and India. All this goes back to the time of partition when some leaders of the NWFP sided with India and tried to strike out on their own by creating "Pakhtoonistan". Pakistan saw the hand of India in all this. So its intelligence services took it upon themselves to block India. In recent years this has meant supplying and training the Taliban both within the country and in Afghanistan, as well as support for similar groups in Kashmir. To Pakistan, the American invasion of Afghanistan was a disaster -- Rubin reports Islamabad considered going to war with the U.S. to preserve their Taliban ally.

All of which illustrates again that we are mucking around in an area that is almost impossible to understand, with allies and friends all mixed up together in strange relationships.

Nevertheless, Rubin echoes the Iraq Study Group's call for negotiations with Pakistan, as well as the other players. As he points out, we may not like, understand, or agree with the positions of other players, but we cannot simply ignore them. For example, the only way to get the Pakistanis to change their behavior in regard to the Taliban is to give them assurances, even guarantees, that their worst fears will not be realized if they cooperate with us. Even then, we might not succeed, but this is the only shot we have.

Disengagement

2007-02-06T10:30:00.000-05:00

In a New York Times Op-Ed today, Edward Luttwak describes an exit strategy from Iraq that makes more sense than most. (Luttwak is a very well known military analyst, generally expressing a conservative slant.) He suggests that as soon as the Bush people get over their current infatuation with the surge, they can blame failure on the Iraqis and then begin to withdraw. But he suggests not just any withdrawal, but what he calls "disengagement".

Luttwak begins with the observation that American forces are apparently unable to do anything about the violence on the ground. They can reduce it for a while in one area, but then it will flare up elsewhere. The troops are simply far too few and far too ignorant of the enemies they face to be able to accomplish the pacification mission. We do not have enough intelligence capability for effective counterinsurgency and we are not about to obtain it. This being the case, his suggestion is that we phase out our national guard and reservists in Iraq, retaining only our regular forces. These would be given the mission of defending against major attacks, either coming from outside the country or from massed forces within the country. Most of the time, our forces would be restricted to bases, most of which would be located a ways from population centers. The street by street, town by town pacification would be turned over to the Iraqis. Whether or not what they do is what we would like them to do would no longer be our concern. But at least, their goals and methods would be Iraqi, and the results would mirror the balance of power in the country.

In another recent article, it was noted that in spite of considerable effort, the Iraqi airforce is nearly nonexistent, a situation that is expected to last for several years. (Much the same can be said of the Iraqi navy.) The article quotes a commentator to the effect that in this part of the world a country without an air force is a "protectorate". Protectorate has many meanings, but the one suggested here is that the country is under the protection of another, primarily against invasion from outside. What Luttwak proposes is that define our role in terms of protecting the state from major, particularly external, dangers, leaving the sorting out of internal security problems to the Iraqis. Given the situation, this seems to be a harsh decision, but it will be easier on the Americans and little if any harsher on the Iraqis than continuing indefinitely with the present approach.

We Must Negotiate with Iran

2007-01-31T18:28:00.000-05:00

In a recent New York Time Op-Ed (January 30), Viorst makes a case for involving the Arab League in efforts to end the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, he contrasts this suggestion with that of the Iraq Study Group that emphasizes negotiation with Syria and Iran, "the very countries", he asserts, "that have an interest in Iraq's instability." This mistaken contrast undermines what chances we might have for serious negotiation as a way out of Iraq.

Iran is the only non-coalition country directly involved in Iraq. Its interests in the country are manifold and have a much deeper historical background than our own. It never had a love affair with Saddam Hussein and spent millions of lives rejecting his advances. Recently, it has been developing peaceful and constructive relations with leaders throughout the region, including the Kurdish leaders in the north and Shi'a leaders in the south. Its political, religious, and business leaders are willing and able to play a major role in the reconstruction of Iraq, and are beginning to negotiate this role with these leaders.

Yes, the Iranians are bound to be particularly interested in the fate of their co-religionists in Iraq. But they know that the best path to assuring Shi'ite success is the stabilization of the present constitutional system that guarantees their interests. If the United States would abandon its rejection of Iranians as though they had no business in "our Iraq", then we could talk to them about how we might work together to achieve mutual goals. We might at last find a way to move beyond the chaos that our clumsiness has created.

Escape from Iraq Through Iran

2007-01-15T18:04:00.000-05:00

Many in Washington believe that the alternatives to a disastrous retreat from Iraq are few. One of the alternatives that some feel administration people are entertaining is a widening of the war to Iran. American statements in regard to Iran have been threatening since the "Axis of Evil" speech. Iran was never given credit for the help that they gave us in defeating the Taliban. Since the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are fiercely anti-Shi'a, one would think Tehran would have been a natural ally. Instead, the Iranians have been reviled for suspected attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, for their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and for supposedly sending weapons into Iraq.

Some month ago Seymour Hersh reported that American agents were being sent into Iran to help dissident movements in Iranian Baluchistan and Iranian Kurdistan. Scott Ritter, the former weapon's inspector and Hersh are all over the internet with statements about these agents, along with Israeli agents. Ritter has predicted war with Iran in the near future. Recently, we have announced that we are sending additional ships to protect the Persian Gulf against Iran. One of the greatest downsides to a war with Iran is that the Iranians could disrupt the movement of oil in the Gulf. Presumably the ships and their associated planes could reduce this danger. On two occasions recently we have arrested Iranians in Iraq. The latest event in Erbil in Kurdistan infuriated both the central Iraq government and the Kurdish regional government. We claim they are involved in bringing in weapons or explosives for the Shiite militias. Perhaps they are. In any event, we have signaled that we will be more active in the future in preventing such intrusions. We have repeatedly claimed that the Iranians are breaking the law in moving ahead with a nuclear enrichment program. The Iranians claim it is all for peaceful purposes, but even if not, after essentially approving the Indian, Pakistani, and Israel programs, we have a weak basis from which to criticize.

In any event, can one imagine a better way for the Bush people to reverse the Iraq disaster? After this new front heats up a bit, it can plausibly be argued that our problems in Iraq are due to Iranian intervention, that we have actually been fighting Iran all along without realizing it. I don't see a great deal of ground action, but there could be a lot of dead Iranians if we use our air power to "teach them a lesson". A new way to make friends in the region.

Ahmad Chalabi, Iran, and War in Iraq

2007-01-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

I have recently realized that the war in Iraq may have been carefully nursed into flame by the Iranian government as a means of destroying their old nemesis (Hussein) and weakening their neighbor to the west, so that it could never aspire to much more than satellite status

Ahmad Chalabi might be singled out as the person most responsible for this outcome. As the reader may know, Chalabi is a wealthy Iraqi who has spent nearly all of his life in exile. He is well educated, publishing several papers in mathematics. He has had numerous business dealings, some of which were questionable (for example, he had to flee Jordan because of apparent bank fraud). In any event, whatever his setbacks, he seems to always bounce back. He has a lovely home in London and has recently purchased a home overlooking Tehran. He also has an extensive family compound in Baghdad. For the last years of the Hussein's rule, he was known as a principal leader of Iraqi opposition, serving as the head of the Iraqi National Congress. He organized a resistance movement among the Kurds in the mid 1990s, fleeing after they were defeated. He then came to Washington where he became the idol of the neocons, the man who convinced them and many others that we should attack Iraq, and that the people were ready to transform their country into a democracy. His movement was well supported by the Americans.

After our victory, his Pentagon supporters managed to work him into top positions in the Iraqi government . He was appointed a member of the Interim Governing Council. But in 2004 his compound was surrounded by Iraqi forces. He was charged with grand theft and counterfeiting, and his nephew with murder. At about this time, the United States also accused him of passing U.S. government secrets to the Iranians. The Americans cut off his subsidy. But with the assistance of his friends, none of these charges were sustained. He had become one of Iraq's leading Shiite politicians, and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in April, 2005. Once again in the good graces of the United States, in November, 2005 he visited Washington for high level meetings with American officials and Congress. He followed this up with a trip to Tehran where he met with Ahmadinejad and other top Iranians. In spite of this international comeback, with Iraqi voters he seems to have lost any influence. He is now out of government

Juan Cole and the Middle East

2007-01-15T17:37:00.000-05:00

The reader of this blog can probably be as well informed as any about Iraq and its situation if he goes to Juan Cole's blog: http://www.juancole.com . The subtitle is "Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion". In spite of its broad range, in recent years the emphasis has been on the Iraq war. Cole is a history professor at Michigan who has written several books, one notable one of the history of the Shiites in Iraq. He seems to have many contacts within Iraq and in the Iraq-aware community throughout the world. His approach to the war and the Middle East has been that of a liberal professor, but a much better informed and thoughtful person of this breed than most.

But Cole is also much more than an ordinary professor. He is an authority on the Bahais (and may be a Bahai, I'm not sure). He has written widely on Bahais, Sufis, and other spiritual movements. His web site also has quite a bit on the Unitarian-Universalist movement.

But for our purposes, the most exciting initiative that he is now involved with is something called the Global Americana Institute of which he is president. He has set it up to fill what he feels is a serious vacuum: the lack of available translations of American authors into Arabic. He is thinking particularly of Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, perhaps a history of Jews in America. He has toured widely in the Arab world and visits bookstores wherever he can. It is amazing how little literature he finds. He finds a fair number of American authors in English or French. But for those who only know Arabic, there is almost nothing. He thinks it would help greatly if the Arab public had greater access to our writings and one can only agree. (He hopes to extend the effort, probably to Persian on the one side and to Hebrew on the other.)

It is interesting that many of the programs that we thought were helping with this problem a generation or so ago have either disappeared or been greatly scaled back. There is apparently no longer a Franklin Book Program. There is a small U.S. Government translation program, but very few of its works are available to the general public. The United States Information Agency has been reduced in size and folded into the State Department. Their once well-known reading rooms have largely disappeared. The emphasis of Cole's foudation will be on producing inexpensive paperbacks since connection to the internet is still rare and libraries are few and weak. American studies programs are almost entirely lacking in the area, and where they exist tend to be connected with the study of English. Some recent discussion of this initiative can be found at http://www.juancole.com/2006/04/americana-in-arabic-challenge-to.html.

Bing West's War

2007-01-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

In the latest Atlantic, Bing West offers his upbeat vision of how things might be turned around in Iraq. I mentioned the CAP or Combined Action Platoons in an earlier posting. Bing was the one who originally presented this idea to me and other researchers at the Hudson Institute in the 1960s. He had just come back from Vietnam where he had been involved with this Marine effort. One must at least give him credit for consistency. Of course, he is no longer the dashing, undaunted young man, but one can see in his TV and radio appearances these days that the commitment and enthusiasm is still there.

The concept as applied to Iraq is for the American military to break many of its units into small platoon sized advisory teams that would be embedded with somewhat larger Iraqi forces (perhaps in a ratio of one American to four Iraqis). They would live and patrol with the Iraqis for long periods. The Iraqis would identify the targets and the Americans would bring in the firepower that would lead to victory, victory in small increments, but consistently.

Bing gives some good examples of where particular officers in some cities have succeeded very well with versions of this approach. They combined this with making alliances with local tribes that then became the main backers of the local police forces. It has always seemed to me that this approach if carried out consistently and on a large enough scale would have real promise. The problem again is that it may be too late. And breaking up units for long periods in this way has never been popular with higher commanders.

Other aspects of the West approach are less satisfying. He is right that we need to treat the conflict as more of a police matter and we need to give the equipment and support to the police that they lack. But he combines this with a "get tough" approach that says in effect that we need to get the bad guys off the streets, no matter what doubts we may have about the legality of what we are doing. If the jails are not full, the Iraqi policemen are apparently not doing their job. He ignores what the Iraqis do to men in jails. He implies we pay too much attention to such details. We need to get the job done! He has little patience with coddling the Iraqis at any level or on any side.

This reminds me of what Brezezinski said tonight on a television discussion. "What we are doing in Iraq is going against history. We are fighting a colonial war in an era in which no one accepts colonial wars." Bing is still fighting a colonial war.

The Bush Plan for Iraq

2007-01-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

President Bush's long awaited plan for Iraq was followed on television by several, mostly critical remarks by political leaders, political analysts and military experts. The plan is essentially to send about 21,000 additional troops into Iraq, 17,000 of them to be used in Baghdad to establish firm control over the city in conjunction with Iraqi troops and police. Another part of the plan is to spend additional money to help restore basic services and increase the availability of jobs. All of this sounds good, and it may work out better than the critics believe. But then so many plans have sounded good.

The criticisms fall under several headings.

1) Several commentators criticized the Bush plan as essentially a minor tactical adjustment. The additional troops are too few, too late. His new strategy is not a major change. The biggest difference is that the Iraqis are supposed to take the lead. Something they have not shown themselves capable of previously.

2) General Odom and Jim Webb, the new senator from Virginia said in their comments that what was needed was a fundamental change of strategy. Specifically this means that more pages should have been taken from the Baker report. They believe we should promote a regional solution. The Persians, Saudis, Turks, Syrians, and the Gulf States need to be brought together in a common undertaking to develop and secure Iraq. There was nothing about the need for regional involvement in the speech. Instead, there were the usual negative statements about Iran playing a part in the terrorism. The fact that because of geography, history, and religious affiliation Iran has to be a part of the solution has simply never been addressed by this administration. The only alternative to taking it seriously would be for us to permanently station American troops on the Iranian border.

3) There is a persistent failure to understand the enemy we face. It is not that we face a few thousand rebels and terrorists living amongst an otherwise passive population. There are millions of people against us. And every Iraqi we kill increases the number. In addition to this general struggle against the foreigner that is managed by outside terrorists as well as Iraqi nationalist (Baath), Sunni, Shi'a and Turkoman militias, there are the struggles of the sects and their militias against one another and against the Kurds and Turkoman. And within each of these groups, there are power struggles that often lead to violent deaths. The most notable militias are the Mahdi army of the Shi'a leader Moqtada al-Sadr and the peshmerga of the Kurdish enclave (intent on defending their heartland and extending it in the Mosul and Kirkuk areas). Some believe the Mahdi army is as large as the national army.

4) We are expecting the government forces to help us destroy the Shi'a militias in Baghdad. These are the same militias that have penetrated the army and police forces and are strongly supported by the Interior ministry. Apparently Maliki recognizes that he cannot effectively attack his political allies, so, as I read, he is bringing in units of the Kurdish peshmerga to help the Americans. The commentator that made this report said many doubted that the Peshmerga fighters would show up, and if they did, would risk their lives. We can well ask why they would help secure Baghdad. The peshmerga were formed to defend Kurdistan and extend its borders. They know that a peaceful, united Iraq would in the end endanger their dream. So what is in it for them? 98% of Kurds say in polls that they want a separate state. The American government has just never faced the reality of what it is our Kurdish "allies" really stand for. There are no doubt many enlightened, westernized Kurds that want to see a peaceful, united Iraq emerge from the chaos. The President is, after all, a Kurd. Yet this is clearly not the view of the bulk of the Kurdish population who feel they have never had it so good. They have already gone their own way.

One of the most cogent comments made by an after-talk panelist (Odem or Webb) was that there would not be stability until American troops leave. He was emphasizing the point that the war has to a considerable extent been from the beginning a struggle against what is perceived as an occupying power. The longer we stay and the more Iraqis we kill, intentionally or not, the more this will remain a critical factor. Many Iraqis have believed from the beginning that we were there to stay, that talk of ever leaving was window dressing. Any more troops will simply reinforce this view in the minds of many, including many Shi'a. Of course, we could probably bring peace to Iraq with 400,000 troops. We would then be an occupying power and the decisions would all be ours. We would not have to negotiate whether or not we attack the militias.

One interpretation of Bush's plan is that it was an attempt to counter what Washington knew that the Maliki regime wanted. Its leaders had opposed more American troops in Baghdad. Instead, they had wanted the Americans to move their troops to the outskirts so that the Iraqi police and army would have a freer hand in putting down the violence (which appeared to mean in attacking Sunnis and not Shi'as). The American plan to have our soldiers work directly with the Iraqis is not at all what they wanted. Bush said that the Iraqis would be taking a leading role in securing Baghdad, but these commentators are saying that this is exactly not what Bush wants.

One last thought of the commentators was that the Bush strategy is actually designed as a means of opening the door for an exit from Iraq. They argued that his subtext throughout his talk was that it is now all up to the Iraqis. They can make it work. But if they cannot, then there will be failure and it will be on them. Maybe so, but whatever we say, the world will see Americans leaving a still chaotic Iraq as our failure and the disastrous consequences of failure that the Bush people keep talking about would not be avoided. I cannot imagine that the administration really has a fall-back strategy of this kind. But what is their Plan B?

University Projects in Iraq

2007-01-10T18:24:00.000-05:00

Recent reports are that the United States and the Kurdish enclave have developed a plan for an "American University" modeled on that in Beirut. Instruction will be in English. It is to be located near Sulaimaniya in eastern Kurdistan. There seems to be initial funding and the land has been staked out. The report suggests that many feel that such a university should be in Baghdad, where most of higher education is now located. But the developers of this idea think Baghdad is just too dangerous. Yet this should not be a consideration since we are talking about a project that will not mature for a few years..

There are several problems with the idea. First, although the aspiration is to create a major "Iraqi" university, the funding and support is Kurdish and American, which is fine only if it is to be a Kurdish institution. The plan mixes grand rhetoric with minor ambitions. The first students are expected to be a handful of Kurds, and they will not arrive for several years. There are projected to be 1000 students by 2011. In comparison, Baghdad University has (on paper at least) 70,000 students, and even Sulaimaniya University has 12,000. The American embassy believes there are 475,000 Iraqis pursuing higher education at the moment. The diplomats may be smoking something, but this gives some idea of the scale. Secondly, the intellectual and political figures supporting the project, Iraqi and American, are primarily those who supported the invasion -- likely not to be popular group for Iraq's next generation.

On December 12, I posted the idea of creating a major Iraqi University near Baghdad in the tradition of Jundi-Shapur and the Bayt-al-Hikmah of the Middle Ages. The concept was for a secular university that both Iran and Iraq could take pride in, binding the nations together in a positive manner that would avoid the sectarian struggles of the day. Obviously, this too is not something that will happen tomorrow. But it could be a major project for the future. The project for a new English language university in Kurdistan is an interesting one, but would see these as more complimentary than competing ideas.

Our Iraqi Allies

2006-12-23T21:49:00.001-05:00

Recently, security in the Najaf area was handed over formally from the Coalition forces to a unit of the new Iraqi army (NYT, December 20). Let me quote from the description of the ceremonies:

“The general public did not attend. Much of the audience was made up of powerful tribal leaders, who sat beneath a sign that read: ‘We are the sons of those who drove the British out in 1920.’
. . .
As soldiers paraded by a reviewing grandstand, commandos with their faces blackened gathered for a demonstration of their courage.

Each man reached into his right pocket, pulled out a frog and bit its head off. They threw the squirming legs to the ground as the group’s leader held aloft a live rabbit. He slit the belly and plunged his mouth into the gash. The carcass was then passed around to the rest of the soldiers, who took their own bites.

It was explained later that this practice was especially popular among Saddam Hussein’s feared Fedayeen militia, whose members had done the same thing with live snakes and wolves.”

Let me not comment on courage Iraqi-style. But it is instructive that this supposedly Shiite dominated army unit was more than happy to reflect in their actions the methods of the supposedly hated true believers in Saddam’s forces. One should also notice that their elders identify with the nationalist movement, when they say that they “drove out the foreigners in the 1920s”. Of course, the rebellion failed and they did not “drive out the foreigners”. Never mind. They want to believe it and we are now the foreigners. (And a faction in Washington suggests that we end the war by siding with the Shiites? The Americans appear to be truly lost in the desert.)

For an interesting comparison of British problems in the 1920s with our present problems the reader might be interested in comments by T. E. Lawrence. The reader should remember that the British were putting down their insurgency with 90,000 troops against a population of three million; we are trying to cope with 26 million Iraqis. When Lawrence writes, the British were planning on sending more troops. Of course, there are differences, but still worth pondering.

Negotiating with the Iranians

2006-12-23T21:01:00.000-05:00

Repeated suggestions that the United States should negotiate with the Iranians seem to come to naught. President Bush has somehow gotten it into his head that Iran is an "evil state" on a par with Saddam Hussein's Iraq before our invasion. He wonders how such an evil government can be negotiated with. Sometimes he insists that if Iran changes, or if Iran renounces its present policies, then perhaps we could have something to talk about. One suspects that his demonization of Iran is a reflection through intermediaries of the bitter hostility of Israel to Iran, because of Hezbollah and because of a real fear that Iran might develop a nuclear weapon that would threaten the existence of Israel. The close connection between the thinking of the neocons that has been so influential in this administration and support of Israeli objectives is well known. (Incidentally, it is odd that concern for Pakistan's already existing nuclear capability remains muted, in spite of the fact that Musharref might be unseated by an Islamist coup at any time and Pakistan has a record of sharing nuclear information with other states.)

Two recent events have affected the possibility and usefulness of negotiations. First, nationwide local elections including an election of the "experts" who choose the actual head of state has resulted in a setback for Ahmadinejad in Iran. The moderates and reformists have made critical gains. This would seem to offer an opening to any power that really wanted to engage the Iranians. Moreover, the exercise itself has once again shown that Iran is in no way in the league with North Korea and Saddam's Iraq. It is a much more modernized and vibrant state, with possibilities for real choice and discussion, in spite of the continuation of controls over the media and the jailing of opposition figures.

Second, and less promising, the United States and Great Britain have announced that they are increasing the size of their fleets in the Persian Gulf. This reversion to "gunboat diplomacy" will hardly make Iran's leaders anxious to negotiate about anything. Neither is it likely to be well received by the Iranian opposition that remains hotly nationalist in spite of everything.

At this juncture, two American diplomats who have participated in past negotiations with Iran have published an Op-Ed in the New York Times (December 22, 2006) that argues persuasively that the Iranians are never going to be willing to negotiate about particular items in an American agenda. They have been repeatedly disappointed by narrower agreements. For example, they cooperated with us in the defeating the Taliban, but in the end received nothing in return but hostility. Against this background Iran will need to be offered a broad and open agenda. In particular, it wants security guarantees from the United States and a guarantee that we will respect its borders, and no longer work for "regime change". (The authors of the Op-Ed tell us that what they print is a censored version of what they wanted to say. But for our purposes here, the question of censorship is irrelevant. Their main points get through.)

As Baker, in discussing his Report, has pointed out: "If you have problems in a relationship, you sit down and discuss them. And you cannot have such a discussion if you insist that your partner yield on major points before the discussion begins." One can only hope that this administration reconsider the Report's recommendations for talks, and not just talks to avert catastrophe in Iraq. Iran and the United States share many more interests than that.