-
The Cable
Rand Paul: You’re Arming al Qaeda’s Allies
-
War of Ideas
No, 3-D Printing Won’t End Hunger
-
Passport
Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - 12:23 PM
Share
One of the things that gets in the way of conducting good national security policy is a reluctance to call things by their right names and state plainly what is really happening. If you keep describing difficult situations in misleading or inaccurate ways, plenty of people will draw the wrong conclusions about them and will continue to support policies that don't make a lot of sense.
Two cases in point: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are constantly told that that "the surge worked" in Iraq, and President Obama has to pretend the situation there is tolerable so that he can finally bring the rest of the troops there home. Yet it is increasingly clear that the surge failed to produce meaningful political reconciliation and did not even end the insurgency, and keeping U.S. troops there for the past three years may have accomplished relatively little.
Similarly, we keep getting told that we are going to achieve some sort of "peace with honor" in Afghanistan, even though sending more troops there has not made the Afghan government more effective, has not eliminated the Taliban's ability to conduct violence, and has not increased our leverage in Pakistan. In the end, what happens in Central Asia is going to be determined by Central Asians -- for good or ill -- and not by us.
The truth is that the United States and its allies lost the war in Iraq and are going to lose the war in Afghanistan. There: I said it. By "lose," I mean we will eventually withdraw our military forces without having achieved our core political objectives, and with our overall strategic position weakened. We did get Osama bin Laden -- finally -- but that was the result of more energetic intelligence and counter-terrorism work in Pakistan itself and had nothing to do with the counterinsurgency we are fighting next door. U.S. troops have fought courageously and with dedication, and the American people have supported the effort for many years. But we will still have failed because our objectives were ill-chosen from the start, and because the national leadership (and especially the Bush administration) made some horrendous strategic judgments along the way.
Specifically: invading Iraq was never necessary, because Saddam Hussein had no genuine links to al Qaeda and no WMD, and because he could not have used any WMD that he might one day have produced without facing devastating retaliation. It was a blunder because destroying the Ba'athist state left us in charge of a deeply divided country that we had no idea how to govern. It also destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and enhanced Iran's regional position, which was not exactly a brilliant idea from the American point of view. Invading Iraq also diverted resources and attention from Afghanistan, which helped the Taliban to regain lost ground and derailed our early efforts to aid the Karzai government.
President Obama inherited both of these costly wars, and his main error was not to recognize that they were not winnable at an acceptable cost. He's wisely stuck (more-or-less) to the withdrawal plan for Iraq, but he foolishly decided to escalate in Afghanistan, in the hope of creating enough stability to allow us to leave. This move might have been politically adroit, but it just meant squandering more resources in ways that won't affect the final outcome.
More broadly, these wars were lost because there is an enormous difference between defeating a third-rate conventional army (which is what Saddam had) and governing a restive, deeply-divided, and well-armed population with a long-standing aversion to all forms of foreign interference. There was no way to "win" either war without creating effective local institutions that could actually run the place (so that we could leave), but that was the one thing we did not know how to do. Not only did we not know who to put in charge, but once we backed anybody, their legitimacy automatically declined. And so did our leverage over them, as people like President Karzai understood that our prestige was now on the line and we could not afford to let him fail.
The good news, however, is the defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and make no mistake, that is what it is -- tells us relatively little about America's overall power position or its ability to shape events that matter elsewhere in the world. Remember that the United States lost the Vietnam War too, but getting out facilitated the 1970s rapprochement with China and ultimatley strengthened our overall position in Asia. Fourteen years later, the USSR had collapsed and the United States had won the Cold War. Nor should anyone draw dubious lessons about U.S. resolve; to the contrary, both of these wars show that the United States is actually willing to fight for a long time under difficult conditions. Thus, the mere fact that we failed in Iraq and Afghanistan does not by itself herald further U.S. decline, provided we make better decisions going forward.
The real lesson one should draw from these defeats is that the United States doesn't know how to build democratic societies in large and distant Muslim countries that are divided by sectarian, ethnic, or tribal splits, and especially if these countries have a history of instability or internal violence. Nobody else does either. But that's not a mission we should be seeking out in the future, because it will only generate greater hatred of the United States and further sap our strength.
The United States rose to world power by staying out of costly fights or by getting into them relatively late and then winning the peace. It won the Cold War by maintaining an economy that was far stronger than the Soviet Union's, by assembling a coalition of allies that was more reliable, stable, and prosperous than the Communist bloc, and by remaining reasonably true to a set of political ideals that inspired others. Its major missteps occurred when it exaggerated the stakes in peripheral conflicts -- such as Indochina. Fortunately, the Soviet Union made more blunders than we did, and from a weaker base.
Since 1992, the United States has squandered some of its margin of superiority by mismanaging its own economy, by allowing 9/11 to cloud its strategic judgment, and by indulging in precisely the sort of hubris that the ancient Greeks warned against. The main question is whether we will learn from these mistakes, and start basing national security policy on hard-headed realism rather than either neo-conservative fantasies or overly enthusiastic liberal interventionism. Unfortunately, the first shots in the 2012 presidential campaign do not exactly fill me with confidence.
Getty Images
EXPLORE:AREA STUDIES, THUMBS, CENTRAL ASIA, MIDDLE EAST, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, BUSH'S LEGACY, DISASTERS, IRAQ, MILITARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
The only part that I would add to the equation is the intellectual gap---there was abundant knowledge and wisdom to understand the end result.
So, what was the big strategic gap, at a national level, that led to this inevitable result?
Sounds like the fundamental problem was a military and foreign policy establishment incapable of dealing with reality, speaking truth to power, or just the hubris that even though their part would fail, something will happen somewhere else that will lead to US victory.
Too much is reminiscent of Rory Stewart's comment about being invited to contribute to planning in Afghanistan: 'Should we wear seat belts, or not, when we drive off this cliff!"
I won't go into the motivations behind the Iraq war that was a Neocon enterprise that happened to fit in with Bush's inferiority/father complex, but the motivation for the Afghan war was rather different. After 9/11 when the US was at sixes and sevens and didn't know quite what to do, Henry Kissinger stepped in and with his growly voice, heavy with authority, proclaimed that we had to attack and bring to heel any nation that harbored "terrorists". That this would turn into a futile and endless affair never seemed to dawn on him or those who promptly followed his advice and so here we are today. I haven't heard Henry opine much about terrorism or Afghanistan for a very long time. I gather he has run out of solutions.
We make an error when we conflate the interest of our leaders with those of the country as a whole. Every one of the President's advisors--either party, either pres. can say that war is in our best interest. Not in the country's best interest, but those war profiteers, specifically Kissinger, the think tankers, and those in the Carlyle Group.
Further, the media is populated with obsequious sycophants who have no interest in challenging or confronting these "experts." I think this is why Ron Paul is so ignored, his policies step on too many toes.
But, the whole of Walt's piece comes down to these media whores unwilling to report accurately or truthfully. I expect craven politicians to be true to their nature, but our media is severely broken. I've enjoyed putting the screws to "journalists" who were reflecting on their Iraq war coverage, and how shocked they were about being lied to.
The upshot of all of this is that a democracy can't function without an informed populace. There are so many shibboleths that pass as "conventional wisdom" that we're all good Germans now. If you tell the truth in common company, a half will have already tuned you out, for not talking entertainment news, American Idol or some other pablum, 1/3 will consider you a Taliban supporter, and the remaining 15% are likely to be too cautious to be seen as so radical, even though they quietly agree with you.
Perhaps the Evangelicals have it right, cause the only hope we have left is to pray. Not that that will do any good.
To answeryour question....to quote "So, what was the big strategic gap, at a national level, that led to this inevitable result?"
The answer is that the "big strategic gap" is the space between George Bush's ears. The man quite obviously did not know any Muslim history or culture. He was obsessed with being a "John Wayne" type shoot first and ask questions later sort of leader. The American people should have paid more attention to the man's intellect or lack thereof before electing him....then again...Did we really elect him???? Something funny happend in that election.
...."Sounds like the fundamental problem was a military and foreign policy establishment..." But how about the media not doing its job, whether the corporate mainstream media or even National Public Radio. And how about the "voters" who continue(d) to support the failed policies, or even, rewarding the candidates who practice the failed policies?
The blame is to be spread much much broader than just the military and foreign policy establishment
I don't think they citizenry has quite reckoned with the structural changes in the press field.
I grew up on the likes of a Baltimore Sun (with a strong local press competitor) with a heritage the likes of HL Mencken and his later compatriots writing opinions on the kinds of deep journalism and research done by the Woodwards and Bernsteins.
Now, it's Wolff Blitzer breezing over the google newswires for topical quotes and flash journalism, while the more and more folks turn to other flash journalism sources for instant but very shallow coverage of limited topics within major subject fields (strategy versus tactics stuff).
Or the flash fear mongers or instant solution think tankers, all with a very specific agenda.
Some folks look to the Prof and his compadres for more insights, but even they are often limited to what data and research is available now, versus truly in-depth research.
Our democracy was essentially built around the assumptions of pamphleteers and an engaged citizenry both of which go through cycles, and the cycles have not been very good for the last few years.
The great expectations of an internet-fired world of free exchange of global awareness is very much an emerging vision, but far from realization, unfortunately.
What to do in the meantime?
I don't disagree with your points; however, I was unconvinced that Kerry could've extracted us from these wars any quicker than Bush--who must've known he was in a quagmire. We saw the same phenomenon with Obama, who had to ramp up to prove he wasn't a pussy, Kerry would've been in the same boat. I didn't vote for Bush, I voted libertarian (Bednarik) not that I had a vote being in TX.
Forgetting the signs of victory
Here's what happens when you win a war: there's a defined military force that's the enemy or else drops its weapons and wilts in the field. It quits under the instructions of its national government. The winner (used to be us, or in 1940, the Third Reich) occupies the defeated nation. There's a victory march on a main street of the capital of the defeated nation, whose citizens either watch apathetically or weep. or in some few cases, cravenly offer flowers to the conquerors. Contrast this with the pseudo-victory ceremony conducted a couple of years back inside a former Saddam Hussein palace well inside the heavily fortified Green Zone inside Baghdad -- safely away from the Iraqi people. Then leaving behind an estimated $100 billion of war materiel in Iraq, apparently because there are no funds to repatriate them.
Mr Walt is too kind in his description of the gap between what's going on in the current wars, and what leading officials choose to lie about it. The outstanding recent example was provided by former vice-president Cheney, who blandly eyed the civil war in Iraq, denied there was a civil war there, then said that whatever was going on at the time was in its last throes. Half a decade has passed, the civil war continues, and somewhere around 50,000 resident US military seem to hang around there, watching more or less impotently and to little apparent benefit to the United States.
In Afghanistan, according to a horrifying Op-Ed in The New York Times this week, "America has narrowed its goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a single-minded focus on eliminating Al Qaeda." This is "fought" mainly through the assassination tool of drone attacks on Pakistan, an American ally.
Who wrote this startling piece? Dennis C. Blair, a retired admiral and retired director of national intelligence from 2009 to 2010 -- not some know-nothing. His piece includes this extraordinary claim: "The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May showed Pakistan that the United States would respect its sovereignty only so far." No, it showed Pakistan that the United States did not respect its sovereignty at all.
In any case, this "war against al-Qaeda" comes after sundry official claims in recent months that al-Qaeda is just a shattered remnant of whatever it was in September 2001, nothing to worry much about at all. And the war in Afghanistan follows the same path as that mess in Iraq -- not so much mission creep but a never-ending search for mission justification.
The president some weeks ago declared the mission was to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but wasn't that what the military achieved in November 2001? And what's the sensible basis for believing al-Qaeda plans to go back there, or would be accommodated by anybody if it tried? The ex-admiral, ex-director's prescription for victory is for the Pakistani government to help out by changing the way it does just about every damn thing in running its own nation, "pursuing the sort of comprehensive social, diplomatic and economic reforms that Pakistan desperately needs and that would advance America’s long-term interests."
Superb. Fairyland. Pakistanis, transform your nation to help out America. Consider the perfection Afghanistan';s government has achieved since 2001 under American guidance -- under the pretence that it was all for Afghanistan's benefit. Without that, there can be no American victory.
The issue seems not that the American people are possibly being lied to, but drawing up a list of elected officials and hirelings who have been doing the lying. Little reason to believe this would be a short list.
Civilian Blair's effusion is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/drones-alone-are-not-the-answer.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
If everything he calls for is achieved, where exactly would the victory march be held?
great stuff.
Very well written. We can brace ourselves for articles of that sort, for they are going to appear more frequently as the day of withdrawal (day of defeat) approaches. If a lie is told enough times, it becomes a truth. It took great many books, articles, movies to convince at least part of the American public that the Vietnam war was in fact a victory. It will take even more (and on more media platforms!) to convince them that the US returned victorious from Afghanistan and Iraq as well.
Looks like the main war-goal was to evict OBL from his cushy cave in Afghanistan. The US succeeded in that, he was murdered in Pakistan. Victory! Victory! Victory! All was worth it! Now on to the next engagement.
I'd say we HAVE ALREADY lost, big, in both places. Iraq was a disaster that cost us billions and billions and did us not one iota of good, quite the opposite. (Israel may think it benefitted since a regime it considered a potential threat was crushed). And we still linger on for reasons mysterious. As for Afghanistan, after ten years of attempted occupation via a puppet regime we are still no further along in getting control than we were at the beginning. And yet we linger on and on and on. Nobody seems even to have the energy to explain why and few even bother to ask. It's a war from habit being run on autopilot. And a stellar example of US national stupidity and the paralysis of decision making when decisions are needed.
because it would make perfectly clear to every sentient being on this planet that the US just lost those two wars. As long as these wars continue our propaganda can claim that victory is just around the corner. It will also allow the brain dead patriot brigades to proclaim that we are fighting them over there so we do not have to fight them over here. Once we withdraw and there is no one fighting over here, then that will eliminate that argument.
It seems clear that the most potent force in the US arguing that the wars must continue is the US Army. Our armed forces was in tatters after Vietnam, and the current leaders remember that well. They would just as soon see the US go into financial bankruptcy than lose face of another lost war.
Do they remember the lessons of Vietnam? It's hard to imagine there is a single soldier serving that was in boot camp in 75.
The current senior officer core were attended military academies in the 70 and early 80s. Vietnam was very much on everyones mind then. The military was undergoing post-Vietnam reorganization at that time. So yes, the current senior leadership would be aware of defeat in that war.
Clearly, TOIVOS, you are not a Buddhist
In that code of belief, sentient beings include hamsters, cockroaches and myriad other forms of non-human life. Your argument that withdrawal is unacceptable, or wrong, on the basis that "[I]t would make perfectly clear to every sentient being on this planet that the US just lost those two wars. As long as these wars continue our propaganda can claim that victory is just around the corner" probably limits the idea of sentient beings to human beings alone.
I think you would find that most of that part of humanity that concerns itself with current affairs in Afghanistan -- a smaller share than you might expect, TOIVOS -- decided some years back that in both Iraq and Afghanistan American forces had either lost or were on an irreversible path to loss. Clouding the issue for some years was that quite a lot of foreign nations sent military forces to Afghanistan because of the rather blood-curdling threat uttered by George W Bush to a joint session of Congress -- and satellite-borne TV worldwide -- in September 2001. On that evening, he promised to rain hell on America's enemies, and that any nation "not with us is against us". Sending troops to Afghanistan has widely been seen as showing their nations were with, if not America, then certainly with the Bush administration. Some of these foreign forces were sent in the understanding that they would conduct no hostile forays against the Afghans, and several of those postings have ended, and the foreign troops have gone home.
As to claims that US victory is just around the corner, the Woodward "Obama's Wars" offers fascinating insights into this. Senior military officers while trying to bully the administration through secret PR activities into surging troops into Afghanistan tried to justify this by claiming that it would provide victory. Alas, they could not provide much of a definition of what victory might mean, and so, their efforts at putting this claim just dribbled away. I might be wrong about this, but I don't think any senior military officer has claimed to be heading toward victory since 2009. They're heading toward something else. The Woodward book in hardback now costs about $9 in hardback. A must-read for interested persons.
The TOIVOS claim raises an interesting issue: do the American people believe that military victory is available in Afghanistan at any time -- not just round the corner? Where is the polling organization that dares to put this question to the American people? Little point in putting a similar question about the Iraq engagement, since most citizens seem to think that war ended some years back, and all the boys then came home. A propaganda victory over truth.
I find your comments very thoughtful. If the senior military command believes that victory is not possible have difficulty defining a victorious outcome, should by definition be evidence for failure. I do not believe that they are willing to accept failure so they will continue to lobby for more war even if they have completely lost sight of any goals. It is tragic that this vain attempt to save face will just lead to more death and financial destruction.
With respect to what Americans believe, I think I saw that nearly 60% of those polled felt it was time to end the war and bring the troops home. Since then the 30 dead soldiers in the helicopter shoot-down have been eulogized with the stirring words "they did not die in vain" and "we will not abandon their sacrifice". In the face of that level of propaganda it is very difficult for the average American to say, oops, they died in vain, we lost, let's get out of there now.
but, they were offered the rationalizations and justifications as to why we lost, not the real reasons. They were no doubt told the blame lay with the media and the wishy washy public. They've yet to understand the impossibility of the mission--being it's impossible to win hearts and minds when you're pointing a gun at their head. So, we get embedded journalists and some truly clever, meta media exposure that reinforces the subjective perspective of the military.
Something unexpected surprise...
http://www.aimengcrystal.com
into the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico (Wilson of all people wanted to "reform" Veracruz), now Iraq and Afghanistan, all with disastrous results.
The point being, when it comes to foreign policy and national security, we lie to each other all the time. Read Obama's and Clinton's articles on American foreign policy published in 2007 and you'll see what I mean. Their's are "enlightened" views of American foreign policy, too. Anne Marie Slaughter thinks we can keep faith with our values in a dangerous world, but we've never been all that willing to sacrifice for principle. Chollet, Lindberg and Shorr think that bridging liberal and conservative views is possible. Who cares. As we've seen in the last 20 years, neither pole of the political spectrum has the faintest clue.
And it's not just the politicians. I read the flagship publication of American foreign policy faithfully and I note it in every single issue: Our supposed apolitical elites aren't any better than the pols.
History appears to tell us that State has always operated most effectively as the national Chamber of Commerce, and is only very rarely effective in any other endeavor (and with decidedly mixed results - the Five Power Treaty was certainly a major triumph of American diplomacy, but in the end, it didn't do a thing to curb the national rivalries which brought on WWII). As representative of the interests of the US overseas, the military doesn't do much more than enforce, or threaten to enforce, cooperation. Dollar diplomacy has always backfired badly as well.
In other words, the US acts just like any other great power.These days we tell ourselves that democracy and development are worth it. Well, in another age, it was freedom from tyrannical royals, and earlier than that, religion. There's always an excuse.
The US hasn't lost either war. Nonsense.
Well what do you consider a success? Please tell me what benefits the US (not Israel) gained from the war in Iraq? And tell me how we have won in Afghanistan. I am all ears (or eyes).
are the wars in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Eritrea. What have we wrought in Sudan? Bahrain? and Jordan? I'm convinced that Jordan is more shaky than anyone has let on. We've really stirred up a hornet's nest. How do any of these endeavors find a more satisfactory result? After Vietnam we cut our foreign endeavors dramatically. Are we gonna cut and run from all these other places as well? We've multiplied the 1980's Afghan time bomb, this time in a more proximate, more important areas. Afghanistan has long been an irrelevant backwater. These other countries are at the intersection of Three Continents. They will be harder to contain, harder to track and harder to resolve.
"We will stand down when the Iraqi army stands up". That's victory. And that's what has happened. Iraqi Shia and Sunnis are not the best of buds - big suprise. But they have settled down into a multi-party democracy -- a democracy which has survived longer than I'm sure that Mr. Walt expected. Each democracy is unique to itself. Iraqi democracy has found its equillibrium. Nor does it seem that it is either a puppet of the US or Iran. It is Iraqi. Again, that's victory.
Bill Clinton nearly invaded Iraq a few years after the first war against Iraq. But the reason was not due to the presence of WMD at the time (there probably wasn't any significant amount at that time) but because of Saddam's recalcitrance against inspections. That in and of itself would have been been sufficient justification for Clinton to invade.
A few years later and nothing changed. Saddam kept portions of Iraq off limits from inspectors. He didn't divulge about the hidden biologic labs which DID exist. He had failed to adequately account for growth media, 30,000? chemical weapons, VX, and (IIRC) sarin. Saddam had already failed to meet the terms of his probation (full cooperation) and that was the legitimate justification for the Iraq War. But anti-Americans of all stripes were willing to let Saddam get away with the violation of his terms of probation. That is why the Bush administration went for the argument of existing WMD when failure to cooperate fully should have been sufficient justification.
Regarding Afghanistan, the moderate surge there has worked in that it has reversed the momentum of the Taliban and has struck at the heart of their base (Kandahar). If the surge were greater, there would probably be greater results. Just as in Iraq, more time means a stronger Afghan army which means that the central government can hold more of its own territory. Remember when people were badmouthing the Iraqi army? No longer. They are holding their country.
True, the Afghan government is not the Iraqi government. Afghanistan has no oil income to pay their army (though they could have mineral income). But, now that the focus and effort is on Afghanistan, let's give it enough support and see if the Afghan army can handle more and more of its provinces. As in Iraq, the cut-and-run people might turn out to be wrong.
"We will stand down when the Iraqi army stands up".
Gosh!
In which case who was the damn fool idiot who decided to completely dissolve the Iraqi Armed Forces following its defeat by the US Army in 2003?
Oh, yeah, that's right, that would be the USA.
No wonder this war has lasted longer than World War Two i.e. this is a war that has pitted US government policy against the policy of the US government.
Which says it all, I suppose.......
"A few years later and nothing changed. Saddam kept portions of Iraq off limits from inspectors. He didn't divulge about the hidden biologic labs which DID exist. He had failed to adequately account for growth media, 30,000? chemical weapons, VX, and (IIRC) sarin. Saddam had already failed to meet the terms of his probation (full cooperation) a"
You're wrong. Flat wrong. You should read what the inspectors said, not the Bush admin. The inspectors were running all over the country following the admin's directives. Remember, they said they knew where these labs, and facilities were. The inspectors rushed there and found nothing.
Further, you're foolish is you think, despite our no-fly zone that we didn't have considerable surveillance of the country. It's inconcievable that any weapons would be spirited away to Syria--think we didn't have that highway monitored? We can tell the payload of any truck, the density...
Those Chemical and Bio weapons Saddam had, "would have been inert" by that time, according to the inspectors. Google the Aluminum tubes. Condi's claims contradict nuclear physicists. Those tubes were ordered through the UN, and approved by the US dept of energy. Powell's every point was destroyed in the Weapon's inspector's rebuttal. You likely didn't hear their testimony. I did hear it, on NPR, though they didn't repeat the claims, no one in the media did. But, the Bush admin's claims were utter lies.
to say we won is like police boasting that they won by entering a home and achieving superiority of forces in a domestic dispute. We lost cause we stayed in the home. Now husband and wife agree on one thing, they hate us, and they're still fighting. Now, we're mired in the fight and can't extract ourselves. Do you know what a tar baby is? We're all messy and sticky. That ain't victory, it's a quagmire.
Take one comment by the above well informed commentator above as a test of his/her views.
Kandahar-would an intelligent person walk the bazaars of Kandahar today except in the company of 6 SEALS full body armour and a few snipers on neighbouring roof tops?
No of course not-we are not just fighting the Taliban or that mythical Al Queda we are fighting the whole of the nation -talking to an Afghan yesterday he bitterly complained why the US had done nothing about improving the infrastructure of the country which would have been at a cost of a few per cent of the trillion so far spent.The US Corps of Engineers gained widespread gratitude when about 60 years ago they dramatically improved drainage and water systems in Afghanistan.
While the Pentagon is out of control the US will continue to lose friends (if any are left outside the Likud Party) throughout the world.The Pentagon and its over exercising and over PRing General officers have corrupted US foreign policy
the US has flexed its muscle overseas for democratic ideals for a just about a century now (beginning with an intervention by Woodrow Wilson in the Mexican Civil War) and never, not once, attained the stated goals of bringing a just, democratic society to anyone.
As soon as we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, the knives will come out, as they always have whenever we pull back our troops. What a total, tragic waste. We got bin Laden, time to let them work out their own destinies. We can't stop them from doing so in any case.
The purpose of a war is to gain something by winning it. Not simply to wreck a country, unless that is a gain. Wrecking Iraq may have been a plus for Israel but it has done nothing for the US. So what, I repeat, has the US gotten that is positive from the war in Iraq? Other, of course, than thousands of Americans dead and crippled for life, and billions and billions of extra debt piled up, and the contempt of even our allies, since UK opinion has turned very sour on the war.
I'd like to start by pointing out that none of my responders have denied the key point that the Iraqi army has successfully stood up (with our help) and that Iraqi democracy has been operaing for years now. Both of these deserve to be recognized as success.
Also, there has been no response against the argument that Saddam's historic failure to abide by the terms of his probation (full cooperation) justified the resumption of hostilities.
Finally, there are predictions of failure in Iraq and Afghanistan but no acknowledgement of any gains. And no acknowledgement that (as had occured in Iraq) national armies strengthen with time.
Now, responding to some of the comments:
"You should read what the inspectors said...The inspectors rushed there and found nothing."
No, you're the one who hasn't read the report. Just Google: "clandestine laboratories and facilities within the Iraqi Intelligence Service" to see what I was talking about.
"who was the damn fool idiot who decided to completely dissolve the Iraqi Armed Forces"
Several things. The Iraqi army troops smartly dissolved themselves though there was the official US order affirming the dissolution. Secondly, it was not clear at the time that an army was needed as evidenced by few Democrats saying, "Dont do that". The insurgency was pretty weak initially as evidenced by the low US casualty rate. Third, and importantly, it probably would have been impossible to get the Shiite political parties on board if the US kept a Sunni-led army in place. Also, the US had our successful history of Japan and Germany (e.g. de-Nazification). But, History isn't always the best teacher. Finally, I believe that even if the army had been kept, all parties would have still played their same role until they realized the new reality.
> It's inconcievable that any weapons would be spirited away to Syria--think we didn't have that highway monitored? We can tell the payload of any truck, the density...
After Iraq, I have little faith that any intelligence service has a great understanding of hidden things. Density is mass / volume. That doesn't tell specifics. But if you are talking clandestine x-rays, that's difficult to ensure it us never uncovered. I am unaware that our airborne sensors can penetrate thick metal. Perhaps you could elucidate.
> Those Chemical and Bio weapons Saddam had, "would have been inert" by that time
If stored at room temperature which the wouldn't have. Chemical weapons are still being disposed of from the '50s.
johnH you convince me of your sincerity
but you are badly deluded. It is very difficult to believe strongly in a cause and then see it collapse into failure. In many patients they respond with what is called cognitive dissonance. That is when an abstract belief confronts a reality that is totally inconsistent with that belief and one responds by believing even more intensely in the belief and dismissing reality.
One of the major outcomes of the war in Iraq is that the new government we installed is now an ally of Iran. That cannot be defined as a victory for US interests.
"When the Iraq army stands up, the US can stand down. That is victory". Besides being a totally empty slogan, do you realize that the army standing up is going to be allied with our enemy Iran. This is what I mean about delusional, to call that outcome victory.
This is what Blix and Baredei said. You're so wrong it's sad.
Evaluation. Much of the speculation about Iraq's mobile production facilities began from the statement from Lt. Gen. Amer Al-Saadi that the creation of such facilities was once considered. However, he - and the Iraqi government - have denied that any mobile biological weapon agents facilities have ever been built. Iraq did have 47 mobile storage tanks participating in its biological weapons programme; UNSCOM has accounted for the destruction of 24 of these tanks, but its January 1999 report (Appendix III) notes that the unaccounted for tanks "can be used for long-term storage of agent under controlled conditions or modified to function as fermentors suitable for the production of BW agent". However, there has been no independent confirmation that any tanks have been modified in this way.
Much of the further alleged information about Iraq's facilities has come from defectors from Iraq, who claim to have witnessed such facilities: four such defectors are described in Secretary Powell's statement of 5 February 2003. This is a notoriously unreliable source.
The claims of the first defector described by Powell are perhaps the least credible. Raymond Zilinskas, a microbiologist and former U.N. weapons inspector (now director of Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies), was reported in the Washington Post as saying that a 24-hour production cycle was insufficient for creating significant amounts of pathogens such as anthrax.
"You normally would require 36 to 48 hours just to do the fermentation. The short processing time seems suspicious to me. [..] The only reason you would have mobile labs is to avoid inspectors, because everything about them is difficult. We know it is possible to build them -- the United States developed mobile production plants, including one designed for an airplane -- but it's a big hassle. That's why this strikes me as a bit far-fetched."
The Washington Post further reported that:
"Zilinskas and other experts said the schematic presented by Powell as an example of Iraq's mobile labs was theoretically workable but that turning the diagram into a functioning laboratory posed enormous challenges -- such as how to dispose of large quantities of highly toxic waste."
"Despite Defectors' Accounts, Evidence Remains Anecdotal", by Joby Warrick, Washington Post (6 February 2003).
The second source seems to be Adnan Saeed al-Haideri, whose standing is discussed above. It seems that he did not make any claims about mobile facilities in his first press conferences - none of the reports on those press conferences mention mobile facilities. Instead, he only began to refer to them in mid-2002, some six months after his first accounts. This would automatically cast some suspicion on the reliability of the new information that he is now providing.
Hans Blix has warned against attributing significance to UNMOVIC's inability to find any mobile facilities:
"We do go around and we check into industries, chemical industries, for instance, or pharmaceutical industries, into military installations. And so we can check a good deal. But you cannot check in every nook and corner of a large country. Above all, there's difficulty of course in finding things underground or anything that is mobile."
News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 19 December 2002
However, in his 7 March 2003 statement to the Security Council, he gave an account of investigations that have taken place:
"Several inspections have taken place at declared and undeclared sites in relation to mobile production facilities. Food testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities has so far been found. Iraq is expected to assist in the development of credible ways to conduct random checks of ground transportation."
http://grassrootspeace.org/weapons.html#bprodmobile
But Bill Clinton did not invade ...
Big difference in thinking about the deed and doing it - especially when it's a question of war. These two have diminished the USA in so many ways we are yet to understand.
Not so in the war against Japan
After the victory over Japan the US retained the Japanese military in North Korea leading to a justified resentment and distrust of the US lasting to today-with stunning results!!
Professor emeritus Richard Falk has written an analysis, "Why the Afghanistan war won't end soon", available at English Al Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201181592644232878.html
Original Iraq strategic goals as a metric
In March 2003, the Office of the Secretary of Defense produced a memo outlining 8 strategic goals for US efforts in Iraq, listed below with my hasty evaluations.
End regime of Saddam Hussein – Successful.
Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraq’s WMD – Successful, though they also didn’t possess them before the invasion.
Search for, capture, and drive out terrorists – It does not appear as though we’ve driven terrorists out of Iraq based on the continuation of attacks on all parties. The war and aftermath stimulated anti-US sentiment and terrorist recruiting in a much larger area. I would consider this a failure.
Collect intelligence related to terrorist networks – We have generated a great deal of intelligence on terror networks, but have also stimulated the growth of many new networks and the expansion of Iranian activities. I see this as likely a long-term failure based on the continued and increased terrorist threat to the US.
Collect intelligence related to global network of illicit WMD – Successful, though to what extent I’m not qualified to say.
End sanctions – Successful, though the benefit to the Iraqi people did not come as quickly as perhaps expected.
Secure oil fields and resources – Marginally successful in a general sense as 8 years later production levels continue to slowly rise. I’m not sure the US economy and US companies have gotten quite the boost that some people expected.
Create conditions for transition to representative government – Possible failure. The government is more representative now though also rather dysfunctional. Key groups with access to power seem dedicated to ensuring others are marginalized and suppressed. Those groups are employing some of the same tactics as Saddam’s regime. Their ability to conduct a (mostly) peaceful transfer of power in the future without US presence may be the key metric to assessing this goal.
I would say that failure to achieve 2 or 3 out of 8 strategic objectives makes it difficult to claim a victory even on these narrow grounds. Evaluating the war against its overall impact on US foreign policy goals and regional power structures may take a generation to produce clear answers, but the early trends are troubling.
an important piece of the puzzle.
thanks.
In fact, most of the goals for the war came afterward, as excuses for the war. It has been made clear through the hearings in the UK that there really were no "goals" in the beginning, other than to please Israel and demonstrate that the US had the ability to do anything it wanted in the world ("we make our own reality," was one of the ideas popular among the imperial warmongers at the time). Indeed, if I recall correctly, one of the Neocon warmongers who has more or less vanished from public view, Paul Wolfowitz, when asked what the war was about, said it was because of WMD. The later he said that was merely a "bureaucratic" excuse for the war, something pointless invented in lieu of a genuine reason. In short, it was a war in search of a justification. And the Neocons then got busy to find them, one spurious one after another.
While American complaints about Saddam Hussein's 2007 "recalcitance" about international WMD inspections crop up from people who weren't those inspectors, the former inspectors tell a different story. In the months before the 2003 invasion, the inspectors fled Iraq, and this was portrayed in the news media as Hussein's kicking them out. Not so, the former inspectors say, we left because it was clear that the US was likely to kill us in the clearly imminent invasion. Before this, the inspectors had been allowed to visit and examine any place they asked for.
DOUG KRUGMAN's tally of US military aims for Iraq provides a moment of low comedy. One of them, I'd forgotten and I'm glad he reminded us, was "ending sanctions". Hilarious, if it hadn't involved killing people. The sanctions were enforced by the US military, and the US military then invaded Iraq so it could cut off running the earlier sanctions, and this would be victory? Hard to describe that politely.
But going back to this Hussein "recalcitrance". One reason given for the 2003 invasion was that the Iraqi government was concealing all information it held about any WMD activities, present or past. Bowing to the inevitable, several weeks before the invasion the Iraqis then hastily amassed and shipped 30,000 pages, and perhaps more to the American government. George Bush publicly took offense at this,and the papers apparently were never examined. Two grounds: 1. They were untidy; 2. They were in Arabic. Those sneaky rascals had not been doing this stuff in clear English, understandable to a man who thought nukular meant nukes.
Washington's wilfully know-nothing stance continued for years after the Iraq invasion. Soon after 9/11, the FBI advertised for staff who had grown up in households where Arabic was the main language spoken at home. Applications were many, and according to an intelligence agency director some years later, either all or all but one failed because, oh no, you couldn't give security clearance to anybody who had grown up in a home in which Arabic was the main language, either in America or elsewhere. Possibly things have improved since then. Let's hope so.
The Never Ending Arab War Saga . . .
Regarding our superpowers, why is it taking so long? Is it Obama?
I'm sure the generals want to hit hard with speed and win. So what's the hangup?
Is it the American Public? I get that the real reason we're there is not a world police mission. It's probably siezing control of the oil - we are going to be having an oil shortage and soon, so I get it.
Is it that we don't know that we must support some awful dictator that will give us this control of the oil? Is it that we can't bang, bash kill on a covert mission?
No. So again why is it taking so long?
Let's agree to at least think about it and have fun in Las Vegas! http://lasvegastvl.blogspot.com/
china got access to those oil resources, and china doesn't have to have the vast security contingent that us forces do. We do have some contracts in the Kurdish region, but all in all a vast disappointment.
China has done well for itself in Iraq. The country eased into a cozy relationship with Iraq by writing off 80 percent of its Saddam Hussein-era debt.
In 2008, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) successfully renegotiated a contract originally signed by the previous regime to develop the Ahdab oilfield, becoming the first country to sign an oil service contract in Iraq under the new U.S.-backed regime.
CNPC completed construction of the first phase of the oilfield in June this year, and it is also developing Iraq’s Halfaya oilfield. CNPC also has a 37 percent stake in a service contract to develop the Rumaila oilfield, which pumps out almost half of Iraq’s total oil output.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al Dabbagh hinted also that the country might buy weapons from China, necessitating the need for PLA trainers to visit Iraq.
Peter wemeantwell.com/blog/2011/07/20/china-ascendant-in-iraq/
Did the US lose the Iraq War ?
Did the US surrender ?
to whom ?
on 18 Nov 2008, under the direction of President Bush, Ambassador Crocker signed a new "security agreement" with Iraqi PM al-MAliki.
In it, Iraq dictated terms that went against what Bush wanted.
We all understand that "surrender" means that one side dictates terms to the other.
WHy is it so hard to understand that the US surrendered to the puppet we installed as Iraqi PM ?
Right now, CJCS Mullen is apoplectic at the prospect of the US complying with the demand in that Security Agreement that the US pull out this year. He doesn't want to be forced out.
But we are being forced out.
Our goal was to effectively colonize Iraq, even if we didn't use those terms. We have colonized Iraqi Kurdistan. That's a partial victory.
Not all wars are neatly ended with one side surrendering to the other. With Germany and Japan, yes. In Vietnam on the other hand, there was no surrender to North Vietnam. What happened was simply that the government of South Vietnam collapsed and disappeared. In Iraq we simply smashed the regime and left a vacuum in its place.
At a Ground Zero ceremony to honor the ninth anniversary of September 11th, President Obama took a detour from the traditionally commemorative rituals of prayer and mourning to address a threat to our country—the frightening, increasingly pertinent problem of Islamophobia. With a strong voice and assertive spirit, he conclusively maintained that, as Americans, “We are not, and never will be, at war with Islam.” Yet with the emerging dichotomy between Muslim Americans and their more radicalized counterparts, one must ask, does America agree with her president? Does she remember her principled foundations of justice and equality, that all men are endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Or have these foundations been obscured by fear? The people of America, nevertheless, cannot allow themselves to be governed by fear, for it inevitably leads to intolerance, hatred, and bigotry.
In 2009, Feisal Rauf, the Imam of a mosque in New York’s financial district, and his wife, Daisy Khan, announced plans to construct an Islamic community center (commonly referred to as “Park51”) in Lower Manhattan. Although the building will be located two blocks away from the location of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the “Ground Zero controversy” has generated enormous tension among thousands of Americans, and has enraged Muslims around the world. Opponents of the $100 million project argue that such a center will offend the families of the 3,000 people murdered in the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin effectively embodies this opposition, demanding that the center be moved elsewhere out of sensitivity for the victims, labeling Park51 an “unnecessary provocation.” On the other hand, the project’s supporters, including New York City’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, defend the construction of Park51, contending that the building will be no different from a YMCA or a Jewish community center, and will serve as “a symbol of America’s religious tolerance.”
The particular nature of the 9/11 terrorist attacks makes the “Ground Zero controversy” a complicated one at best. To be sure, the sentiments of fear, honor, and patriotism surrounding September 11th are ones that should never be violated or defamed. It remains a day that will be forever memorialized in our hearts, woven into the fabric of America’s past, present, and future. In their endeavor to respect the victims’ families and preserve the sanctity of Ground Zero, the opponents of Park51 have a legitimate claim to their argument and thus have every right to vocalize their opinions.
The real problem emerges, nevertheless, when Islam as a religion—as opposed to Al Qaeda as its distorted, largely extraneous affiliate—becomes a threat to these endeavors to preserve the sanctity of Ground Zero, when hatred and intolerance, instead of respect and sensitivity, become the root of our opposition to Park51. As President Obama declared on this year’s anniversary of the terrorist attacks, “It was not a religion that attacked us that September day; it was Al Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion.”
When those opponents of Park51, who have been persuaded and radicalized by Islamophobia, dogmatically render Islam a scapegoat, they distort their constitutional right to freedom of speech into a vehicle of hatred and aggression. Perhaps the most notable example of such radicalization is the Reverend Terry Jones. An evangelical pastor from Gainesville, Florida, Jones threatened to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and retaliate against the plans for Park51 by destroying, with members of his congregation, more than 200 copies of the Koran. Although his threats never materialized, Jones maintains that his “bonfire” has been merely “suspended.” Indeed, with the increasing feasibility of Rauf and Khan’s project, Jones believes that his intended desecration of an Islamic symbol is critical, even necessary, to preserve the sanctity of Ground Zero, declaring that, as an American and Christian, he holds an unequivocal right to burn the Koran.
After hearing of Jones’ bonfire, General David Petraeus issued a public statement, “Images of the burning Koran [will] undoubtedly be used by extremists…to inflame public opinion and incite violence.” Petraeus’ words proved to be true as Jones’ threats of Koran desecration fostered enormous friction here and across the Middle East, endangering innocent civilians and American soldiers alike. In Iraq, extremist gunmen, in response to Jones’ threats, stormed a church filled to capacity during a Sunday service, taking close to 100 hostages and killing at least 37. Nearly a week after the date of the proposed bonfire and the subsequent church raid, several Afghans in Kabul were killed in another protest involving the alleged Koran burnings.
In light of its domestic and international repercussions, we as a country must consider whether Jones’ bonfire should be permitted. To be sure, the lives of hundreds of people have been adversely affected by Jones’ threats and other similar manifestations of Islamophobia. Although Jones continues to maintain that he holds an unequivocal right to burn the Koran, we cannot deny that the nature of a right significantly changes when its procurement compromises the lives or freedoms of other individuals. In its 1942 case, Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire, the United States Supreme Court arrived at this very point, reasoning that certain “fighting words” fall outside the protection of the First Amendment. Words that do not constitute an “essential part of any exposition of ideas”—words “which by their very utterance inflict injury”—do not merit constitutional protection. Later in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court confirmed this ruling, holding that the government can punish “inflammatory speech” when “it is directed to inciting” or “likely to incite lawless action.”
Inarguably, the objective of Jones’ bonfire is to “inflict injury,” injury that will generate and nourish “lawless action.” Considering this, how can we, as a people who pride ourselves on ideals of freedom and equality, as a people whose very creed encourages us to adopt a more comprehensive outlook and overcome the fears that all too often pave the way for narrow-minded dogmatism, condone his actions? How can we permit such a demonstration of hatred and intolerance?
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Jefferson did not write these words with the hope that they would one day be obscured by ignorance or perverted by hatred and bigotry—or that such hatred and bigotry would be permitted by moderate observers. He wrote them to create a better world defined by respect, freedom, and mutuality.
Ultimately, what Jones, his intransigent adherents, and, to a certain extent, all opponents of Park51 need to understand is that American citizenship entails a unique duality. With every right comes responsibility. As Americans, we hold not only a natural claim to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but also an obligation to protect and preserve them for all of our country’s people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Taking this into consideration, we should be protecting Rauf and Khan’s project, a project neither rooted in hateful sentiments nor insensitivity for the victims of September 11th, but rather in a dream to provide the Muslims of New York with a venue for celebrating their religion and culture.
Whatever their opinions may be concerning the “Ground Zero controversy,” the people of America need to listen to their president and his words of wisdom: “Just as we condemn intolerance and extremism abroad, so will we stay true to our traditions here at home as a diverse and tolerant nation.”
Indeed, the people of America need to realize that we are not at war with Islam. The people of America need to realize that we must protect the “unalienable rights” of all of our country’s citizens, and not the misconstrued, demoralized actions of hateful perpetrators of intolerance and bigotry.
if we are NOT at war against the Muslim religion, ...
then why are we detaining 88 men at Guantanamo for no other reason than that they are Muslims ?
Those men are POW's in the US war against Islam.
They are often lumped together with the actual and suspected Terrorists at Gitmo, but they are a separate group of Detainees. These particular men have been investigated for possible ties to terrorism and, finding them innocent of those suspicions, they have been "Cleared for Release."
We demand that they renounce Islam in order to go home (that's actually secret information.)
If that doesn't prove we are at war against the Muslim religion, nothing will.
"To be sure, the sentiments of fear, honor, and patriotism surrounding September 11th are ones that should never be violated or defamed. "
Actually, once we can make jokes about it will be the sign that we've recovered, gained some insight and have healed. How long did it take for us to suggest that Pearl Harbor might have been an acceptable provocation, a pretext to enter the war FDR so wanted to enter? We can finally discuss the oil embargo on Japan. Many of the Jurists in the Asian equivalent of the Nuremberg tribunals found Japan justified in attacking us (way back then) as the oil embargo was an existential threat to the Island nation--an embargo itself being an act of war.
When we can, as a nation acknowledge our own hand in 9/11 (in our neo-colonial antics in the Arab and Muslim world before 9/11,) we will be wiser, stronger and recovered. Clearly, for many we aren't there yet.
Of course we are at war with Islam. Our significant military actions have all clearly been directed at Muslim nations. Why? Israel has been very busy to work up the anti-Muslim paranoia in the US for its own purposes. As long as we are at war with Islam Israel feels secure. True, we ought not to be, but we are. Israel has far more influence on US world affairs than is acknowledged, or understood by most, or than is appropriate. What purpose does the Israel Lobby serve but to set the US vs. Islam? As Walt and Mearsheimer pointed out, the Lobby is necessary exactly because it is not in our national interest to be at war with Islam. We have to be lobbied and pressured into it.
Walt says it's important to call it what it is or risk drawing the wrong conclusions. Well I agree and I think the win-loss narrative, which has mostly been used by hawkish neocons to dangle a threat in front of anyone considering withdrawal, is inappropriate in this case. A word's definition is really whatever the speakers of that language say it is. But if we begin to use it as a metaphor for every struggle (War on Drugs, War on Poverty) then it ceases to have any meaning, the way "terrorist" no longer has meaning.
We defeated the Iraqis within weeks, the "prize" for this victory was a dysfunctional post colonial dump. Saying we are losing only implies there is something to be won if we just knuckle down and push through. It's even less applicable in Afghanistan, which is has always been an unorganized mob.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
Read More
May/June 2013
-
Profile
-
FP Power Map
-
Think Again
Follow us on Twitter | Visit us on Facebook | Follow us on RSS | Subscribe to Foreign Policy
About FP | Meet the Staff | Foreign Editions | Reprint Permissions | Advertising | Writers’ Guidelines | Press Room | Work at FP
Services:Subscription Services | Academic Program | FP Archive | Reprint Permissions | FP Reports and Merchandise | Special Reports | Buy Back Issues
Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Contact Us
11 DUPONT CIRCLE NW, SUITE 600 | WASHINGTON, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-728-7300 | Fax: 202-728-7342
FOREIGN POLICY is published by the FP Group, a division of The Washington Post Company
All contents ©2013 The Foreign Policy Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
(83)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE