"Reconcilable Differences" with Iran

This is an interesting article addressing US foreign policy toward Iran written by Jon B. Alterman, Ph.D., Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Alterman provides some great food for thought regarding how to actually respond to Iran in a more flexible manner without compromising US interests. I have added a related note of a more historical nature at the end of this posting.
___________________________________

The Arab Gulf States and the United States are adopting increasingly contradictory positions on Iran. Each side seems bent on undermining the other, potentially leading to precisely the outcome that each side is trying to prevent. Here’s how.

There is a strong tendency in the Gulf Arab states to try to co-opt adversaries. The most famous example may be King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud’s propensity for marrying the daughters of rival tribes of the Arabian Peninsula in the early twentieth century, but there are many others. The United Arab Emirates exists as a country in part because the richest emirate, Abu Dhabi, both subsidizes the other emirates and exercises a light hand over federal rule. The Saudi government responded to radicals’ 1979 takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in part by pouring money into the religious establishment, not only despite of, but indeed because of seemingly lukewarm support among leading clerics for the Saudi royal family. Just last spring, when Qatar brokered a Lebanese peace deal, rumors flew that the Qataris had paid off the adversaries. A well-placed Lebanese source told me that wasn’t true at all; instead, the Qataris had created a $5 billion investment fund and offered to let Lebanese leaders become partners—provided that the leaders resolved their differences under Qatari tutelage.

Money is not the Gulf states’ only tool, but it is a powerful one. Vital to its effectiveness is the idea that wealth be used not for a one-time payoff but as the beginning of an annuity. A one-time payment is merely a bribe, but creating a longer-term partnership is an investment in future good behavior—not just for years, but for decades.

This is not to say, of course, that the Gulf Arab states are above coercion. In particular, they have a history of cracking down on their own internal dissent, and they not so privately subsidized Saddam Hussein’s bloody war against Iran for the better part of a decade. But these states keenly appreciate the limits of their power, and the power of their wealth, in shaping the actions of others. Lacking the capacity to coerce Iran, they seek to co-opt it.

The United States often approaches matters differently. With a much broader array of concerns and a broader array of countries with which it is concerned, the U.S. predilection is often to fix problems rather than manage them indefinitely. The United States rarely goes out of its way to make mutual investment attractive; to many Americans, the desirability of economic partnerships with such a large and wealthy country as the United States is self-evident and need not be explained. The incentives are there for all comers, who are invited to compete on a level playing field.

More simply put, for many Americans the idea that every country in the world would want a close relationship with the United States is obvious.

Seen this way, the most powerful tool in the U.S. arsenal is not greater engagement, but the threat of less. The United States put restraints on trade with the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War; now Cuba, North Korea, Iran and others remain under sanctions as punishment for their policies. It is with Iran, in particular, that the Gulf strategy and the U.S. strategy come into conflict. Iran has been the Gulf states’ neighbor for hundreds of years, and will be for hundreds more; they see little point in antagonizing such a powerful country so nearby. Rather than isolate Iran, they seek to deepen their ties with Iran so as to protect their interests and increase their leverage. In so doing, they attempt to make Iranian aggression unthinkable, much as the post-war order in Western Europe brought peace to the long bloody continent.

The United States seeks to isolate Iran, holding out the promise of closer ties as an incentive and the threat of warfare as a deterrent. U.S. policy tends to take Iranian unpredictability as a constant; Gulf policy tends to take it as a variable. While each side sees an underlying Iranian hostility and aggression, Iran’s neighbors are more optimistic about the possibility of redemption.

Each approach has its weaknesses. The drawback in the Gulf’s strategy is that, by itself, it creates few reasons for the Iranians to change their overt behavior. The drawback of the U.S. strategy is that as U.S.-Iranian bilateral ties weaken, so too do the incentives for Iran to reverse its behavior.

What is ironic about this growing divergence is that the Gulf states and the United States differ not in their goals, but rather in their means to achieve them. Equally ironic, those differences in means may provoke a crisis, as the United States considers coercing allied governments to adopt the U.S.-led isolation strategy through threats of its own, and those governments seek relief from U.S. pressure by undermining the U.S.-led isolation.

In point of fact, not only is there wisdom in both approaches, but they are far more effective if applied in coordination than if pursued in competition. Iran has not recklessly acted against its own interests, and greater engagement in the Gulf would indeed introduce more stability to the region. At the same time, Iran is in difficult financial straits despite high oil prices, and skillfully conditioning fiscal relief on a less impetuous foreign policy would calm regional fears significantly. The key to making these policies work in tandem is that the United States has to ensure that the offer to engage is credible, and Gulf states need to see their goal as influencing decision- making in Iran rather than merely paying protection money. Not only are the stakes too high for the United States to get this wrong; they are too high for U.S. allies in the Gulf as well.

—Jon B. Alterman, Ph.D., Director, Middle East Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 2008

_______________________________
With respect to Reconcilable Differences, I find it interesting that a different American attitude is what led to the creation of the first US Navy, and that this attitude has significantly colored the US perspective of foreign relations ever since. The 18th Century Barbary pirates would have been happy to receive some form of tribute from the US just as the European powers had been paying to insure their own shipping from raids. Clearly, the US leaders at the time were not motivated by the thought of everyone wishing to have a relationship with the greatest world power—that would have been the British or French (who often paid tribute). Rather, the upstart Americans were outraged because they understood from experience that any tribute would never be enough.

Rightly or wrongly, the revolutionary Americans predominantly believed that no one should be allowed to push around a free people who had offered them no offense. Tributes were the norm, and have been in many societies for centuries, but flush with independence (internal foreign policy debate notwithstanding) this was simply too much for the new nation to bear. An absolutely terrific book on this subject is "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America and the Middle East 1776 to the Present" by Michael B. Oren.

Given the history of the US and the world since then, Dr. Alterman is right on the mark with regard to our current approach to foreign policy. Self righteousness has been both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness ever since. Unfortunately, we still have not learned when to apply it properly.

-Matthew B. Rowe
Executive Director
WinTheGWOT.org

Read more...

Winning The GWOT in a Paragraph

People often ask us, "What exactly would you change about the current war on terror?"

Nonetheless, they rarely have the attention span or interest level to listen and discuss the issue in detail, so here is a concise, though admittedly simplified answer for them.

"The essential problems facing the world today are highly unlikely to be resolved by conventional military operations…especially when conventional military leaders imagine themselves to be operating in an unconventional manner. International and local political capacity, robust counterinsurgency operations led by local law enforcement agencies and supported by relatively limited military action is the answer.

Free the oppressed, respond to the needs of those who support the bad guys for lack of a better choice, and destroy those who do not accept rational political discourse as an alternative to violence against society."

Read more...

Schisms Emerging Among Saudi Arabia's Islamists

Jon B. Alterman, Ph.D., Director, CSIS Middle East Program provides two documents that should be of interest to WinTheGWOT readers. The first is a summary of an unusually interesting talk at CSIS about the schisms emerging among Saudi Arabia's Islamists, and Congressional testimony Dr. Alterman delivered recently regarding Iran's activities in the Levant.

Video of the testimony is available at http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/sub_mideast.asp.

Read more...

Is A Day of Honor Too Much to Ask?

Let Us Remember Them
By Colbert I. KingSaturday
Originally published in the Washington Post, May 24, 2008

Have I got news for you!

In honor of this weekend's great occasion, you can:

· Save an extra $50 on any purchase over $500 with a newspaper advertisement for teak, wicker or wrought-iron patio furniture.

· Get $40 off plus free delivery and interest-free financing on the purchase of treadmills, ellipticals and home gym equipment.

· Enjoy storewide savings and values through Monday, and get an extra 10 to 15 percent off with your shopping card or pass if you buy dress shirts, pleated or flat-front casual pants, handbags and cosmetics cases, camis, tanks and tees.

· Indulge in a sidewalk sale at a Virginia shopping area that features 110 premium outlet stores .

. . all because this is Memorial Day weekend.

Yes, here comes Memorial Day, another day off the job and the official beginning of the summer cookout season. The time to gas up the car, hit the road and go somewhere fun.

But, boo, this year there's a spoilsport in our midst -- an interloper out to ruin our shopping, barbecuing and traveling pleasures: price.

Prices are rising fast on just about everything we think we want or need. Gotta pay more for those hot dogs and sodas and potato chips. Filling the tank brings tears to the eyes, causes pressure to rise and teeth to gnash.

Well, what's an American to do?

Here's a thought. How about turning our attention back to the reason Memorial Day was created? In case some of you have forgotten -- or don't know -- Memorial Day is set aside to honor the men and women in uniform who gave their lives in service to their country.

As you lament the costs of vacationing, it's worth remembering the 4,563 American servicemen and women who won't be able to take advantage of those weekend holiday sales. Or join in backyard cookouts. Or go anywhere fun. Those 4,000-plus souls were killed after answering their country's call to leave home for Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's also worth reflecting on the fact that across the Potomac River at Arlington National Cemetery are tombstones for multitudes of veterans of past and present wars, fallen warriors buried over 600 acres of hallowed ground. Down on the Mall, not far from the Washington Monument, is a wall with the names of more than 58,000 Americans who lost their lives in the Vietnam War.

No road trips for them. Or picnics. Or family get-togethers. Maybe, if someone remembers, there will be a graveyard decoration, a flag, a flower, a note. In some places in America, here and there, maybe a parade. There will be fitting observances at Arlington Cemetery and on the Mall this weekend. But not in the minds of those looking for good sales.

I date myself, but when I was growing up, the holiday in the King household was called "Decoration Day," although that designation had been changed to Memorial Day many decades earlier. What can I say? In some households, old habits die hard.

In my day, it was also a time to decorate the graves of close family members, regardless of whether they wore the uniform. Grateful survivors knew they had sacrificed and given their all raising families and putting food on the table.

Okay, I have weighed in on this subject before. I'll probably do it again next year, if I'm still around. Because it is unseemly to race out of the house for door-buster sales, auto showrooms and the smoking grill when the day is set aside to honor those who gave their all.

Maybe it's a good thing that rising gas prices and hefty airfares are going to keep some people closer to home this year. Maybe, just maybe, there's something better to do than planning a getaway.

What's so wrong about remembering men and women who paid the ultimate price for decisions made by authorities whose paths they would never cross?

True, the dead are out of sight. But they shouldn't be out of mind. When alive, they heeded the call when others their age, and just as able-bodied, closed their ears and averted their gaze.

War took them from us without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, age, gender or sexual orientation.

On Memorial Day -- as every other day of the year -- they will be mourned by wives, husbands and lovers; parents; brothers; sisters; sons and daughters; cousins; nephews and nieces; neighbors; and that special group among the heartbroken -- grandparents.

The fallen deserve more. The nation, in whose name they died, has a debt to pay. Feed those cash registers and down those beers another time.

A day of honor is not too much to ask.

Read more...

If I Were General Petraeus…

If I were General Petraeus I’d be pretty fed up with the Bush Administration and Congress…in fact, I’d be tired of all the politicians who still believe after all of these years that the war in Iraq can be won by military might alone. I’d be pretty fed up with the fact that no one is publicly articulating exactly what the conditions for US withdrawal are, and I be equally frustrated by the fact that I could not publicly state what the key milestones toward that end point and their estimated timelines are. I would want everyone to know how well I was progressing.

Why? Because like any good general—and General Petraeus is a good general, he knows full well that the key milestones and the estimated timelines for achieving them are critical to actually getting them done. At the very least, this can be done at a meaningful high level, but for whatever political reasons the Bush Administration has decided that this should remain a closely held secret. You can bet that if President Bush asked the generals for a timeline they would provide one pretty quickly. The administration claims that "arbitrary" timelines allow the enemy to know our plan and facilitates their attempts to foil it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any experienced leader understands that a plan must have a clearly defined end point, an owner who is responsible for it, and a due date—otherwise, it is just a fantasy. There can be nothing arbitrary about it.

The fact is that the goal of the plan and the key milestone objectives along the way can be better articulated, measured, and reported on without increasing the danger to its success. All one has to do is think about it and the goals should be obvious.

For example, the obvious strategic objectives are to create a stable government that enjoys a reasonable amount of credibility with some majority of the population regardless of ethnicity or region. In the US, it took from about 1774 to 1787 to ultimately create and ratify the US Constitution (we happened to be at war for a period of that time too). Slavery is one example of a huge compromise that had to be made for the sake of unity. Therefore, we cannot expect immediate perfection from Iraq, though we should not let the government off the hook with respect to Human Rights. Of course, this political task falls well outside the scope and capabilities of General Petraeus’s forces in Iraq. Ambassador Crocker should be responsible for driving this part of the strategy with support from the US State Department. We certainly need to hear the key milestones and estimated timeline for his strategy since it is the foundation of any success.

Another goal must be to establish a truly national military capable of defending Iraq from various threats. What is required here can be easily quantified and a timeline developed. All one has to do is estimate the numbers and types of troops and equipment required, and then estimate how long it will take to train and equip them. This assumes that all we intend to do is replace our own forces in Iraq and leave the rest up to the Iraqis. It is complicated by the fact that some serious integration of local factions must take place, but this portion of the plan can be articulated too. Further, this plan must be subordinate to, and support the overall political plan. General Petraeus even supervised the creation of the new Army and Marine Corps Field Manual on counterinsurgency which plainly states that “…political capacity is the exit strategy.”

So we find ourselves involved in helping establish local security in Iraq…something best left to the local police who also happen to need serious reorganization, integration, equipment, basic law enforcement training, and specialized training for counter-insurgency. Again, these needs can be quantified, a plan created, and a timeline estimated that does not threaten the plan’s success.

As we all know, the “Devil is in the details.” It is in these details that we find potential opportunities for our enemies to exploit. For example, we do not need to publish the graduation dates of new police officers, or who they are, or the curriculum they are taught with respect to COIN. We don’t need to publish how well they can shoot or the types of armor they wear or put in their vehicles. We don’t have to publish in advance where they will be stationed, or that we will also coordinate the movement of a new Iraqi army brigade into that same area that can support them. Some of these things can be kept secret and others can become public only once they are operational and it is too late for the enemy to interfere with them.

What we can report is how many troops we expect to have trained, equipped, and operational by certain dates, and subsequently we can then predict that a complimentary number of US troops are no longer necessary and can be withdrawn (though we don’t have to say who or how in advance). Either we make those planned dates, adjust them for good reason, or fail to meet them. It is that simple. Progress, obstacles, and reasonable changes can be publicly reported on and the people responsible held accountable.

But perhaps that is exactly what the Bush Administration fears. Given its blind acceptance that we will ultimately be successful, the Administration should not be at all concerned about reporting progress. With such confidence reporting should be easy. Failure, however, is still a very real possibility, and though quite tragic, it is no more than that—a failed plan, which could occur whether we report or not. The difference is that key milestones are predictors of success or failure. At worst, we would know that we are not making the progress we need to and could withdraw much earlier. At best we could demonstrate realistic progress or adjust the plan to changing events. This would improve morale, increase Iraqi faith in the effort, decrease resistance to it, and take a lot of pressure off of the people who are doing the hardest work.

It appears that the Bush Administration still fears failure and cannot risk making any failures along the way public—therefore, no timeline is forthcoming. Unfortunately, this also means that the people doing the work cannot be sure that they themselves are making any progress, which is especially difficult for soldiers living at high risk in the field. Soldiers rotating out of Iraq must settle for completing relatively vague or less important goals rather than citing the more significant contributions toward a better future state they are likely making, but cannot articulate. If I were General Petraeus and his troops I know I would be very frustrated at this political spinelessness—especially if I knew we were making progress and I wanted the support of the people I needed to complete the mission that so many people are blindly calling for us to halt.

______________
Matthew B. Rowe
Executive Director

Read more...

The Enemy Does Not Need Another 911 Type Attack

According to a White House press release, President Bush commemorated the 5th anniversary of the Department of Homeland security by saying, "When this department was established following the September the 11th terrorist attacks, it was hard to imagine that we would reach this milestone without another attack on our homeland. For those of you who were here five years ago, you think back to that time -- I don't think we would have predicted that five years later there had not been another attack on us. And it's your vigilance and your hard work that have helped keep this country safe."

Although no one doubts the hard work that various agencies and individuals at DHS have put into securing our country, I think President Bush greatly over simplifies and overstates the level of security that we in the US currently feel. Let’s look at some assumptions. First, the President assumes that it took less than 6-years for the 911 terrorists to conceive, plan, recruit, prepare, and then execute their attacks on 911. It also assumes that the terrorists were simultaneously planning a follow-on attack of similar intensity. It is much more likely that the terrorists were planning how to avoid whatever form of retaliation the US came up with. Although one can look at the chronology of Islamic extremist attacks against the US and see a pattern of an attack every 3-5 years or so, the level of sophistication, planning, and execution of those attacks were primitive in comparison to 911. Only one of those attacks took place in the continental United States. As a result, one cannot say that we are overdue for another 911 style attack.

In fact, one could argue that from the terrorist point of view the 911 attack has been more successful than they could have ever hoped. Since the attack, the US has launched two counterinsurgency based wars relying upon woefully inexperienced and conventionally trained “cold war” military forces. These wars are unpopular around the world and to a significant degree right here at home. The cost of these wars is at the expense of future generations of Americans in terms of social security and Medicare, and no one can predict the future cost of injured and traumatized veterans over their lifetimes.

Our international reputation as the bastion of democracy, hope, and good will in the world has been damaged tremendously by a war predicated on misinformation and possibly outright lies. The inhumane actions at Abu Ghraib, the ruthless and counter-productive de-Baathification policy in Iraq, and the issues arising out of the treatment and due process of detainees at Guantanamo Bay have provided the world with examples of just how evil we can be. These short term and relatively extreme activities are generating more distrust and hatred in the world for the US…especially in the very countries from which the Islamic extremists originate.

At home we have come to the point where we actually debate the forms of torture we will allow instead of how we will prevent human rights abuses. We debate the level of government monitoring of private phone lines we will allow as opposed to protecting our Constitutional rights to privacy, and we have begun combining the intentionally separated security powers of various agencies…all in the name of increased security from future terrorist attacks. It is by taking advantage of conditions such as these that people like Saddam Hussein first came to power.

Financially, the US dollar is weak…weaker even than the Canadian dollar…the housing bubble has burst, and average homeowner equity has dropped below 50% for the first time since World War II. Manufacturing and technical jobs are leaving the US in droves, and the price of oil is through the roof. Whether or not the attack on 911 precipitated the burst of the housing bubble doesn’t matter. It only matters that our enemies believe it and that the US is feeling pain since 911 that we have not felt in decades.

The US sponsored NATO alliance is slowly weakening as its longtime member nations debate their roles and the strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Our moral position versus Russia and other former Soviet Bloc States has all but evaporated. US politicians and politics in general appear to be polarized more than ever, and the two major political parties have presidential front runners who advocate either an all out and dangerous withdrawal from Iraq or continuing on with more of the same flawed military based strategy.

Osama bin Laden and his supporters don’t need to attack the US again like they did on 911 since we are continuing to play right into their hands. In other words, we aren’t making them mad or desperate enough to attack us again. As perverse as this may sound, another attack on the US itself might actually be a sign that we were doing something right.


________________
Matthew B. Rowe
Executive Director

Read more...

Waterboarding is Illegal: A Blind Step in the Right Direction

The US Justice Department has finally indicated that the torture technique known as waterboarding has been eliminated from what is now legally allowed for use during prisoner interrogations.

"The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding," said Steven Bradbury, acting head Legal Counsel of the Justice Department. He added, "There has been no determination…that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law."

We must applaud this decision which appears to have been made based upon the moral outcry of many people in the US and the world. The decision comes in spite of some senior officials of the Bush Administration who fully support the use of this and other torture techniques. It is very discouraging that the impact of waterboarding and other forms of torture and Human Rights abuses are still not being considered with respect to their detrimental effect on the Global War on Terror.

It is important to understand that the actual perpetrators of terrorist and guerrilla attacks make up only a very small percentage of any society. The socio-political networks that help them consist of active supporters, sympathizers, and neutral people. By far, the largest proportions of people are in the sympathizer and neutral categories that need only ignore terrorist or guerrilla activities in order to support them. Every time the US allows a prisoner to be tortured, we decrease our rapidly weakening moral position in the eyes of the world. At best, this actually reduces the motivation for neutral portions of the population to stay neutral. At worst, this increases the ranks of active enemy supporters and sympathizers. In other words, the use of torture at the tactical level works against us at the strategic level.

The strategy for winning an insurgent conflict specifically requires that we win over the people to our cause. We can only win an insurgency if we can truly erode the enemy’s support networks by taking away his legitimacy in the eyes of the population. The catch is that legitimacy must be transferred over to the local government and any foreign governments/forces supporting it. If we are successful on both counts, the active insurgent eventually has nowhere to hide, nowhere to get support, and cannot continue the fight without great risk of compromise and destruction.

Until it becomes the norm for the US to shun any form of torture or Human Rights abuse, we will not gain any moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world—and especially in the eyes of our enemies and their supporters. For any form of genuine peace and stability to develop, the people must have the opportunity choose who they support based upon the basic needs, safety, and security that the government provides. Lasting peace and stability will not be established if they must base their choices upon which government they fear the least.

Read more...