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Archive for the ‘foreign policy’ Category

White House War Aims Remain Unclear

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq on November 27, 2005|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

For anyone paying close attention to events in Iraq, Vice President Cheney’s speech on November 21st to the American Enterprise Institute was not only alarming, but also very troubling.  It is troubling in the sense that Cheney continues to illustrate the inescapable fact that the Administration’s policy in Iraq is motivated by as yet unclear and unarticulated goals and that he continues to use unsupportable analysis and scare tactics as part of the Administration’s campaign to keep us interminably in Iraq.

Cheney says clearly in his speech, “The terrorists want to end American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to gain control of a country so they have a base from which to launch attacks and to wage war against governments that do not meet their demands”.

This is a perfect example of  long employed Administration rhetoric – the use of the word “terrorist” in a non-specific, all-encompassing and alarmist fashion.  The fact is that there are two main kinds of “terrorist” in Iraq, Zarqawi’s “Al Qaida in Iraq” and the Sunnis who are running the Iraqi insurgency.

The only thing these two organizations have in common is their desire to see American troops gone from Iraq.  Theirs is a marriage of convenience motivated not by any kind of love, but by a single common interest and we Americans are that interest.  As long as we are there on the ground, there will be a tolerance of each group for the other.  Apart from that, they have nothing in common.

The Sunni “terrorists” in the insurgency are, as the Secretary of Defense has said, “dead-enders” whose sole goal is to get American troops out of their country. They are holdovers from the pre-invasion Baathi regime, which makes them nationalist, secular and focused primarily on the welfare of their own country as they see it.  They are practitioners of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) – roadside bombs – that are aimed at American troops.

On the other hand, “Al Qaida in Iraq” is made up primarily of Al Qaida members and recruits who are totally disinterested in Iraq and the real long-term goals of the Iraqi people.  In direct contrast to the “dead-enders”, they are in their own terms, internationalist and theist.  They represent the radical Muslim holy war against the secular West.  They are In Iraq primarily to cause as much trouble for the Americans as possible and to do it by creating as much internal Iraqi ethnic and religious strife as they can.  They are the suicide bombers whose goal in bombing a mosque is to turn Shia against Sunni.  Only through promoting this kind of devisiveness can they hope to be able to foment and maintain Iraqi instability.

These two groups are clearly not compatible in the long run.  What they have in common is short term at best – get America out.  In the long run, “Al Qaida in Iraq” has to see these “dead enders” for what they are, secular nationalists who represent, in their own way, just as much of a threat to radical Muslim goals as the Americans do.

Whether the Administration wishes to admit it or not, American troops on the ground in Iraq are the glue that keeps these two groups together, keeps them from turning on each other.  In the absence of our troops, it is infinitely more likely that they will turn on each other than that they will join arms in a larger jihad against America and the secular West.   Anyone paying attention in Iraq will see that struggle as the far more logical outcome of American withdrawal.

In a broader sense, American withdrawal will probably precipitate other ages-old grudge matches between Shia and Sunni, Kurd and Arab. Since the British forced it on the world, Iraq has never been a State in the truest sense of the word.   It was, rather, a British convenience.  Because those religious and ethnic frictions have always been present in Iraq, there is simply no way to avoid them short of voluntary cooperation between the parties or the imposition of order from above, neither one of which can be accomplished by American troops.

For those paying attention to Iraq realities, the disturbing factor here is why the Administration is taking this position on Iraq.  Because the logic is so flawed, it appears that it represents an attempt to justify the continued presence of American troops on the ground in Iraq, not as a policy designed to forward any goals that have been articulated by this Administration to the American people.  To “see it through” to victory, whatever that may mean, is simply not good enough.  That leaves America wondering what those goals really are.

Haviland is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.

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Iraq Withdrawal isn’t an Option, Change in Policy is a Must

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq on June 5, 2005|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

Falling poll numbers for the president and Congress and growing discontent with the Iraq war have breathed new life into what was recently a moribund anti-war movement. This will certainly bring joy to those who oppose all wars on moral grounds, but American pragmatists might better look more deeply into the potential outcomes of an early and precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq.

The arguments for and against the invasion of Iraq have been made. The invaders won, despite considerable evidence that argued, apparently correctly, against that invasion. But only history will ultimately show whether the decision to invade was folly or genius.

The fact is that we did invade and, right or wrong, we are now stuck with the reality of having dropped the plate at Pottery Barn. The only thing that is truly important for America right now is to sort out our future Iraq policy on the basis of today’s facts — and on the national interests of our country.

Iraq probably was never meant to be a country and has never been inherently stable. It is populated by people who share little in common. Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites have coexisted with minimal peace only because it was forced on them by a strong, ruthless and murderous central government.

Even more important, those disparate constituencies have supporters elsewhere in the region. The Saudis and other Sunni governments support the Sunnis; the Iranians support the Shiites; and millions of fellow Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Central Asia support the Kurds. None of the region’s undemocratic countries is likely to welcome a truly representative Iraqi democracy into their midst. Further, even democratic Turkey has major reservations about the creation of any kind of autonomous Kurdish Iraq, fearing its potential influence over a widely discontented Turkish Kurdish population. Iraqi Shiites have Iran as their main ally, and Iran is no friend of our Middle East policies. It is almost certainly not in the self-interest of those undemocratic regimes to support self-determination in Iraq.

Through our invasion, America has taken over the mantle of power from the Saddam Hussein regime. It is probable that age-old hostilities among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds have not emerged more violently only because we are there in the position of enforcer. To test that probability by pulling out would be folly.

What do we want for Iraq, and what can we reasonably hope for? The only realistic answer is simple: We want stability because instability would most likely involve far too many other nations in the region. Iraq will probably not emerge as a recognizable democracy, but if we do it right, stability there will flow from self-determination.

We want to leave an Iraq that is stable on its own terms rather than ours ó not necessarily in deference to Iraqi sensibilities, but in recognition of our own self-interest. Perhaps this can be achieved through an Iraq government that is a federation. Such a government would grant autonomy to the three major groups, but would not be fragmented to the point where the central government was in danger of losing control over its territory, bringing civil war, regional unrest and even more terrorists than we are creating with our current policies. None of this may work, but we have to try.

For any new policy to work, the Bush administration needs to start out by acknowledging that things are not going well, by making the case that changes must be made and by explaining why Americans need to support that change. Once Americans understand and sign on, we will need to enlist the support of other nations and entities such as NATO in the training of Iraqi police and military personnel. Finally, we need to say clearly that we have no plans to establish U.S. bases, reserve oil rights or make any other sort of claim on Iraq.

Of course, the ultimate question is whether the Bush administration is up to the task, politically or psychologically. After all, it does not have a good record of admitting it was ever wrong about much of anything.

This is a time for patience. Our 2003 invasion is history. We need to develop a plan for establishing stability in Iraq and stick with it. A precipitous withdrawal would likely be a disaster, not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East, causing far more problems for us in the long run.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Beirut and Tehran and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.

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Maybe Neocons were right about unilateral preemption

Posted in foreign policy on March 5, 2005|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

The twin tactics of the Cold War – containment and alliances – really helped me mature politically.  The policy showed me the advantages of having real constraints on both America and the USSR from their adversaries and allies. In the end there was no hot war and the tactics did succeed: The Soviet Union failed, and America prevailed.

As one who accepts containment and alliances as the absolute best way – the only way – to deal with enemies, I have found President Bush’s implementation of the radical new foreign policy of pre-emptive unilateralism frightening, wrongheaded and doomed. Along with others who have studied the Middle East, I couldn’t have imagined a more dangerous or less promising place than Iraq to try out this strategy. The objective conditions there could not have been more hostile to this foreign policy revolution.

Those of us who believe in containment and alliances quickly took over the winning side of the argument. Everything that could have gone wrong in the aftermath of a brilliant and imaginative military invasion did. Chaos reigned. Our generals and many military, political and foreign policy writers, myself included, said we needed more troops on the ground and that establishing peace would be the problem. The primary rationale for the invasion — the threat of weapons of mass destruction ó proved to be a farce. I am among those Americans who believe the WMD rationale was duplicitously fed to us when some other darker and far less acceptable reason was probably the real reason we went to war.

As our casualties mounted and the insurgency grew, I clung to containment and became more angry at this administration and more convinced that America, as we had all predicted, had made the first truly horrendous foreign policy mistake of the 21st century. The Bush administration had violated its own injunction against nation building by now asserting that the ultimate goal of the invasion had been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. That, administration officials argued, would introduce democracy into the area and undermine all of the repressive regimes in that part of the world. But the situation in Iraq steadily deteriorated, and I found myself watching my old predictions come true.

Recently, however, it has become increasingly clear that things are not going as badly in Iraq as I feared and, to be brutally honest, not as badly as some had hoped. Yes, some Americans clearly hope that we will fail in Iraq. However, they have been disappointed by a successful election in Afghanistan, which now seems reasonably calm. The election in Iraq has been an unexpected success and that has had an almost immediate positive impact: It is possible that Iraq may move toward a peaceful solution of its ethnic and religious issues.

And as administration officials predicted, the repressive rulers of the Muslim world are clearly concerned. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, who earlier eschewed WMD, now looks more compliant than ever. The Saudis and Egyptians are opening the door a crack to free elections. The Israelis and Palestinians are talking. Lebanon seems to have finally risen up against its Syrian yoke. Under increasing international pressure, the Syrians have just turned over Saddam’s half brother to U.S. forces in Iraq, potentially a major blow to the insurgency.

Even though these changes do not dictate that we will end up being successful, they are positive signs for America. I go to bed at night with the nagging worry that the crazy neo-con fathers may conceivably have been right in pushing pre-emptive unilateralism. Have I been stubbornly and stupidly wrong?

This is far from over. Pre-emptive unilateralism may still prove to be the curse of the 21st century. Virtually every Middle East expert I know believes that the inherent contradictions that have always existed in Iraq eventually will bring that country to civil strife. Powerful forces in the Middle East don’t want us to succeed in bringing democracy to the Muslim world. Supporters of the repressive regimes in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Persian Gulf and Africa have the wherewithal and motivation, either because of their oil wealth or because of their simple desire to stay in power, to continue to support the Iraqi insurgency and try to disrupt any Iraqi move toward democracy. It is clearly in their own narrow self-interest to do so.

Frankly, I don’t know if this adventure with pre-emptive unilateralism has all been a horrible mistake, as it may ultimately prove to be. Certainly a successful outcome would be the best possible turn of events for the United States. But is it worth the monumental risks and costs involved? Perhaps. The conditions that support terrorism might begin to fade away with the departure of the region’s repressive rulers. The conflict between Israel and its neighbors could disappear with the creation of a Palestinian state and the resulting dissipation of Arab anger that supports terrorism. We could even withdraw our troops from the region, thus removing the last factor that supports terrorism, the stationing of “infidel” American troops on holy Islamic ground in Saudi Arabia. Success might conceivably even justify the costs. It is clearly in our national interest not to fail in Iraq.

On the other hand, I constantly ask myself if such success would embolden the Bush administration to engage in further such adventures, each time making all our military, economic, international and political problems worse and bringing the potential of further disaster. Any way you slice it, this incredibly revolutionary Bush foreign policy is a monumental gamble, with every facet of our national treasure at stake.

No one, least of all I, knows what is going to happen in Iraq. All we can do is wait and see. Only history can be the final arbiter of our success or failure. In the meantime, it does seem somewhat unseemly that so many Americans are waging their own battles against a policy that, although a long shot, could radically alter the situation in the Middle East in our favor and deal a major blow to those who would continue to try to do us harm.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Lebanon and Iran and as chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston, Vt.

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Neoconservatives’ Intellectual Arrogance Exacts High Price

Posted in foreign policy on April 6, 2004|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

With the Bush administration’s justifications for the war in Iraq not having stood up to post-invasion examination, the question arises: What was the real reason for removing Saddam Hussein from power?

The policy of invading Iraq clearly belongs to the administration’s neoconservatives who occupy prominent positions in the White House and Pentagon. Many neocons – including Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and Director of the Office of Special Plans Adam Shulsky – trace their philosophical roots to Leo Strauss, a professor and philosopher at the University of Chicago. Some observers view Strauss as essentially benign, but others see him as an intellectual elitist who believed that he and his followers had the duty and the right to rule the unwashed masses of the world in a cynical, Machiavellian fashion.

According to Shadia Drury, author of Leo Strauss and the American Right (1999), Straussian elites believe “the masses are too ignorant to comprehend what’s happening, so lie to them. Actually it‚s more than OK to lie to them – and herein lies the true joy of Strauss for the neocons – Strauss said lying to the masses protects them”.

That may prove crucial to understanding how the administration sold the invasion of Iraq to the public. It’s now clear from former administration officials such as Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke that the White House decided to bring down the Bath regime in Iraq long before discussing it publicly. Their true goal, if not their method, was noble. It seems likely that they truly believed that the only important goal in Iraq was to install a representative democracy there and use that change as a catalyst for  transforming the Middle East.

According to that scenario, the many repressive, undemocratic, Arab regimes would fall in classic domino fashion to the legitimate aspirations of their people. In the long run, Israel would be far less threatened, and the funding of terrorist organizations would become much more complicated and therefore easier for the United States to deal with. Democratic regimes replacing repressive Arab regimes would no longer take a hands-off attitude toward the support and funding of terrorist organizations, as Arab regimes do out of practical necessity today. With restive, angry, anti-Israeli and anti-American populations, today’s regimes would likely be overthrown if they were to crack down on the indigenous support of terrorism.

There is nothing wrong with any of those goals. What is missing, however, is a heavy dose of objective reality and a shot of humility. Many government experts who are steeped in the realities of the Middle East see the Arabs as among the world’s most unlikely candidates for representative democracy. Even if the old, repressive regimes are overthrown, who can guarantee that they will be replaced by regimes favorably disposed toward the United States?

If the neocons’ policy proves wrong, it is most likely because their intellectual arrogance didn’t permit them to sufficiently consider the views of the many experts who disagreed with them. The neocons apparently relegated these analysts to the ranks of the unwashed masses – simply because the message they brought to the table contradicted what the neocons wanted to do in Iraq. In retrospect, though, the experts’ many warnings about the pitfalls of reconstructing post-war Iraq have proved prophetic.

Certainly humility is not a characteristic of the neocons. They are intellectually arrogant (watch them on TV) and, in the case of Iraq, strikingly uninterested in the views of others with a stake in the matter. Given their elitist philosophical roots and their political proclivities, it is a small wonder that they led us into Iraq for all their “noble” reasons.

The negative ramifications of our invasion are real and measurable. The costs in blood and money are frightening. The damage to our existing international alliances has been bad and is getting worse. Our reputation has been severely damaged. We are no longer admired or trusted. In the Arab world, we are even more reviled. Few want to emulate our democratic model.

Worst of all, this adventure has contributed nothing to the war on terrorism. It has distracted us from the real issues – hunting al-Qaida and its allies through the strengthening of international alliances. Finally, it has given a major boost to terrorists’ recruiting efforts.

Only time will show who is right, but the evidence so far has not been favorable to the neocons’ side. Iraq is and will continue to be an incredibly expensive and potentially disastrous experiment. This is one area where the neocons and the Bush administration might well have heeded the word of the experts who had been dealing for decades on a practical level with the Middle East and terrorism.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Beirut and Tehran and was chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston, Vt.

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Iraq Realities vs. Neocon Dreams

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq on November 15, 2003|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

Judging from the recent pronouncements of the Bush administration, our major goals in Iraq are to hold free elections, set up a government and establish a representative democracy. The ultimate aim is to create such an exemplary model of democracy that it will threaten and ultimately undo the repressive, undemocratic regimes in the Middle East. However worthy those goals may be, it’s important to judge our prospects for accomplishing them.

The opening reality in the Middle East is Islam. Islam, as embodied in the Koran and its amplifying writings, the Hadith and the Shariya, provides not only a belief structure, but a blueprint for all facets of life. Islam is more than a formal belief system; it is an all-encompassing guide for thought and action that has no parallel in the Western world. The system itself is theocentric, moralistic, simple, lucid and positive and is as much concerned with man’s behavior on Earth as it is with his fate in the afterlife. As in any of the great religions, practices and even beliefs vary from sect to sect and individual-to-individual, nevertheless, the blueprint for all those sects in Islam is the Koran.

The three major Islamic writings provide the Muslim ethical code, which covers virtually every form of human behavior from the appropriate conduct of business affairs to nursing and weaning babies. Islam leaves little to the discretion of the believer, for whom religion and life, faith and politics are inseparable. Political beliefs stem from the theocratic imperative of Islam as embodied in the Koran and the Shariya (Islamic law), which is considered to be the embodiment of the will of God. There is no section in the Koran or the Shariya that supports or even covers representative democracy. It is rather an alien philosophy to the any Muslims, particularly the Iraqis. who have never had any experience with it and most of whom, outside their intelligentsia, are only vaguely aware of its workings.

Iraq has three main ethnic and religious groups; the Kurds (15 percent of the population) in the north, the Sunnis (20 percent) in the middle and the Shias (60 percent) in the south. Of these three groups, the Shias are religiously allied with one important Shia-governed country, the fundamentalist regime in Iran. There have always been established religious ties between the Iraqi and Iranian Shia clerics. Little information is available about the inclination of Iraqi Shias to replicate the theocracy of their coreligionists in Iran, but the tendency is there and will grow as our occupation continues and security disintegrates. Note that they would have an absolute majority in any truly democratic election in Iraq.

Given the democratic pressures building in their own country, Iranian clerics would regard it as unfortunate and even threatening to have a successful, democratic Iraq on their western border. The same can be said of virtually any of the repressive, undemocratic Muslim regimes in the region. It would be unsettling, for example, for the Saudi Royal House to have a functioning representative democracy to the north.

In short, there is little appetite in that region for democratic change and a lot of power and resources to throw against it. For these undemocratic regimes, their own national interests do not lie in the spread of democracy in the area and it is simply not in their own narrow interests to support our efforts.

The dilemma here is that the only viable alternative to our current unilateral occupation is the internationalization of the effort through the United Nations. If we leave Iraq to a U.N.- sponsored administration, we will create a situation in which there will be almost immediate elections that will have roughly zero hope of establishing any sort of representative government.

On the other hand, if we continue our unilateral occupation, what will really matter is whether we can improve security enough to hold elections that will promote the political transformation of Iraq. Because of the continuing deterioration of the security situation in Iraq, it is more likely that we will be faced with the choice of either running democratic elections that will have no hope of installing democracy or of putting those elections off in the hope that the situation will become more favorable to achieving our goal. The latter choice will provide yet another pressure on an already deteriorating situation, one that likely will lead to more discontent, more violence and less hope for a favorable political transformation. That is likely to leave us with no viable alternatives for democracy and no exit strategy.

The most critical factor is the good will of the Iraqi people. Once they turn against us psychologically and emotionally, it will be too late. If we have not done so already, we will soon pass that critical point of no return. In short, the current American occupation of Iraq (and it is the fact that it is American that the Iraqis so resent) represents a gigantic gamble by the neoconservatives who designed this policy.

The neoconservatives’ dream of creating a model democracy in Iraq is just that – a dream. Political and religious realities in Iraq are disrupting that plan. It seems unlikely that any democratically elected government in Iraq will be secular or even pro-American. Would the Bush administration accept free elections in Iraq if the result were a theocratic, non-secular state?

There is still time. It is the American occupation of their country that the Iraqis resent. The United Nations remains ready to take on this task, if terms can be arranged to its liking. All of the realities in the area argue against the success of our current policy. The best we can hope for in these circumstances is a Muslim Iraq favorably disposed to the West.  The alternative may be another Iran or Taliban-dominated Afghanistan.

Our continued insistence on unilateral, American control of Iraq is very likely to end in disaster.  This will complicate our real problem – the war on terrorism, which seems to have gotten lost in the ideological adventurism of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in Beirut and Tehran and was Chief of the CIA’s Counter-terrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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We Can’t Abandon Iraq, but we can Drop Unilateralism

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq on October 4, 2003|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

The fact that al-Qaida has not hit us here at home in the past two years does not mean that we are any more secure now than we were the day before 9/11. Al-Qaida is an experienced, competent, organized, compartmentalized terrorist organization that considers us, and no one but us, its prime enemy.

That makes what we have done in Iraq even more problematical. After all the administration’s claims about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, not one of its allegations has been substantiated. What we have done in Iraq is revolutionary and far reaching. We have undertaken a unilateral, unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation for the first time since the founding of the United Nations and continue to claim the right to conduct pre-emptive attacks. That tells other countries that it is OK for them to do likewise. In the process, we have renounced the primacy of the United Nations, an organization that we set up to try to maintain world peace. We have done this at the same time that we have demonstrated in Iraq that we cannot maintain peace by ourselves. We also have scorned our traditional allies in Europe and Asia who got us through the last half of the 20th century, including the first gulf war, telling them that we are not interested in what they have to say about international affairs.

What have we accomplished? We have lost our real allies, perhaps for a very long time. We are stuck in Iraq without a clue about what to do next. We are getting our troops killed in a chaotic environment to which we clearly are unable to bring even the most rudimentary order. Worst of all, we have lost our focus on the real terrorist target. We have not destroyed al-Qaida, and it is probable that our attack on and occupation of Iraq will bring al-Qaida more recruits than it could possibly have gotten on its own.

It is really hard to see any good having come from our actions except for having done in Saddam Hussein.

Developments since we “won” in Iraq have been so unnerving that the Bush administration is clearly rethinking its unilateralist policies. It is admitting that the United States cannot pull off its goals, whatever they may be, without help from those countries we have already told to get lost. Perhaps as a gesture to Secretary of State Colin Powell and his belief in multilateralism, George Bush seems to be saying we will try it again. However, the real issue here is what he is prepared to give up and what our scorned former friends and allies will demand. What’s in it for France, Germany and Russia to sign on as second-rate partners in this endeavor? Why should they see it in their national interest, even though they probably understand the ultimate importance of a stable Iraq?

If Bush’s attempts to enlist other countries’ help in Iraq on his terms results in impasse, he will be able to say he tried multilateralism and that it failed. No doubt that will please administration hardliners who initially championed unilateralism, but it will leave us in a terrible bind because we really cannot afford to bail out of Iraq, however wrongheaded the decision was that took us there in the first place. The fact that we have gotten ourselves into this mess is no argument for withdrawing from Iraq. Quite the contrary, the consequences of withdrawal would be grave.

Iraq truly must be stabilized. With three competing national groups, Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis and their dozens of subsets, this will not be easy. Iran supports the Shiites, the Saudis support the Sunnis, and Turkey will not allow the Iraqi Kurds to have autonomy for fears about their own Kurds. Historically this geographic area has been ruled successfully only by force. If we are unable to stabilize Iraq, chaos will reign and we will find that we have replicated pre-9/11 Afghanistan in Iraq as a training ground and safe haven for terrorists.

It will take massive resources to stabilize Iraq. Many doubt that we can do it alone. Even if we try, most of the rest of the world, including the Iraqis and the other Middle Eastern countries, do not want us to do this unilaterally.

The only practical way out of this mess is to internationalize the problem, put the United Nations in charge and reconstitute our old alliances. In other words, the Bush administration is unlikely to succeed in this part of the world without abandoning its failed notions of unilateralism and getting back into the world’s good graces. At this point, America needs to decide what face it wants to present to the world.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Beirut and Tehran and was chief of the CIA’s counter-terrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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Three Complex Mideast Problems, All of them Intertwined

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East on August 28, 2003|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

The United States is living on the edge in the Middle East.  Right now, when time is of the absolute essence, the Bush administration seems interested only in its own internal realities – disinterested in the objective realities on the ground in the area.  There are three hotspots that illustrate the predicament we are in.  They are all quite different, requiring different approaches and different solutions, but all intertwined and demanding a level of attention and commitment they are not now getting.

The oldest issue is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Given the tenor of the recent visit of House Majority Leader Tom Delay to Israel, it is probably safe to say that the positions of some fundamentalist American Christians, known as Christian Zionists, are a major factor in the Bush Administration’s policy.  The conviction that the continued Jewish occupation of historic Palestine is one of the necessary stages leading to the second coming of Christ is very much part of their motivation.

Right wing Israeli politicians led by Sharon and the Likud Party seem uncomfortable following our “road map” and may opt instead for the continued, permanent occupation of the West Bank. Their unyielding position on settlements and on their new Berlin wall give hints at their real goals. It would appear that the Bush administration is quietly going along with Israeli policy as has been strongly suggested by knowledgeable commentators with close Israeli ties like Zev Chafets of the NY Daily News.  If this proves to be the case, that part of the world will very likely enter into a protracted conflict starting with a renewed Palestinian Intifada slowly spreading chaos across the Middle East.  If Israel were to confront its right wing demons right now and give up the West Bank in return for peaceful, secure borders, the situation might turn out quite differently.

Afghanistan is a wholly different matter.  We are there because it was clear that the Taliban regime had enabled the 9/11 attacks by giving sanctuary to Al Qaida.  We went there to deny them that sanctuary and to destroy Al Qaida.  We clearly have accomplished neither.  We have not done away with the top Al Qaida brass, which is said to remain in Afghanistan, and there is apparently a resurgence of the Taliban in the remote tribal regions of Afghanistan.

It is clear that the only Kabul and its immediate surroundings have even been modestly tamed. Neither the Afghan government nor the US military has been able to pacify the rest of the country or wrest power from tribal warlords.  No one, most prominently the United States, has provided the wherewithal needed in terms of troops and assistance that would enable the pacification of the country. If it is not in our interest to succeed in Afghanistan, then where is it?  After all, this is a country where we enjoyed UN approval and support of our invasion.  A failure to carry through with our previously formulated plans and goals could cause us terrible future consequences.

Finally, we are mired in an extraordinarily difficult situation in Iraq.  We are working there on a very tricky timetable.  Our troops are getting killed.  That means they are defensive, anxious and trigger-happy.  Who wouldn’t be?  We are shooting at Iraqis and killing them. We have not been able to restore even the most rudimentary elements of the Iraqi infrastructure.  No reliable power, oil or gas.  We are not only unable to restore the old infrastructure, but seem unable to defend what is left of it.  Power lines, pipelines and now, waterlines are not defended.  No police force, therefore no order. We are methodically alienating the Iraqis. How much time do we have before things turn even more sour?

Further, the Sunnis who supported Saddam have absolutely no future in an American model of Iraq.  They are the remnants of the old regime and they are worried about Shiite ascendancy and Kurdish revanchism.  They have nothing to lose and provide the largest numbers of those who attack our troops.  That’s bad enough, but if things don’t get better in a hurry and we can’t stop alienating the Iraqis, others will sign on.  Note the recent widespread Iraqi rejoicing at our misfortune with the Northeast power outage.  We also have to be concerned with Shiite fundamentalism.  Shiite fundamentalists are not persuaded that democracy is any kind of answer, as the Koran does not promote it.

Finally, there seems to be evidence of anti-American, non-Iraqis joining in on attempts to kill our troops in Iraq.  Our presence in Iraq represents an irresistible opportunity to every crazy who would like to kill Americans.  Iraq is a target-rich environment not terribly hostile to the killers.  We can probably count on that increasing as long as we have not truly pacified that country and solved our other dilemmas in the area.

Through all of this, Bush administration officials maintain that everything is OK and getting better.  The objective facts support that, they say.  On the other hand, Iraqis do not share that perception and we must remember that perception often becomes reality.  That means that as long as the Iraqis think things are bad, they are, even if we think the opposite. No matter how often our officials say things are going well, if the Iraqis say they are not, that perception will shape the future realities of this irregular conflict.

Our handling of these three issues – The Palestine problem, Afghanistan and Iraq – will have a profound effect on our success in the area, whether we like it or not or whether or not we think it is fair.  We will not be able to fail at one and succeed at the others. Middle East realities will not let us do that.

One of the many points made during the run up to this US invasion of Iraq was that the Middle East is a very complicated part of the world where a real objective understanding of local realities must be part of any planning processes.  That observation seems to be borne out today.  We face horribly complicated circumstances on the ground in three disparate countries, with a one size-fits-all policy molded by a naïve, simplistic, fundamentalist view of the world. The Bush administration seems philosophically disinclined to acknowledge objective realities in the area.  In addition, our frantic policy implementation suggests an administration suffering from collective Attention Deficit Disorder without benefit of Ritalin.  This is a prescription for disaster.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who, inter alia, served in Beirut and Tehran and was Chief of CIA’s Counterterrorism Staff.  He lives in Williston, Vermont.

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Intelligence Customized to Fit a Policy

Posted in foreign policy, intelligence, Iraq on June 14, 2003|

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

During the period between the Second World War and 9/11, the United States pursued a policy of containment toward unfriendly governments. That worked remarkably well in the bipolar world of the Cold War. Now, in the absence of the practical constraints imposed by the Cold War, the Bush administration has moved completely away from containment to a unilateral, pre-emptive policy toward governments it sees as unfriendly. That changes everything in the provision and use of intelligence.

There are two kinds of intelligence. There is raw, unevaluated intelligence that comes from spies, technical intercepts or overhead collection systems. Raw intelligence is provided to analysts with only a source description and evaluation. Second, there is finished intelligence, or raw intelligence that has been analyzed, compared to all other like information available from all sources and evaluated for its accuracy. This analysis is conducted in the intelligence community by analysts, many of whom have spent entire careers focused on one country and who are truly experts in their fields. It is their finished intelligence that is provided to policy makers.

The purpose of providing intelligence to policy makers is to give them a basis for the formulation of foreign policy. If the intelligence is accurate, it can give indications of policies that might be valid for any given situation. It is important to note here that intelligence is not always acted upon or even accepted by administrations. On many occasions, administrations have formulated their policies not on the basis of objective facts and professional analyses, but on the basis of their own internal political needs. A perfect example of this has been the policy of virtually every post-war American administration toward the Israeli-Palestinian situation, which has ignored analysts’ warnings that the Arab and Muslim perception of U.S. policy as one-sided could create problems.

In the past, when an administration chose not to act on intelligence analysis, more often that not it simply ignored what had been provided. There are relatively few instances where an administration has gone to its own analysis to support a policy or policy change. The Tonkin Gulf incident during the Vietnam War has some elements of that.

Now, however, in the face of growing criticism, the Bush administration finds itself in the position of having to defend itself against the allegation that it has provided itself with its own analysis of raw intelligence in support of the policy it presumably had already decided to undertake, but needed to justify. At issue are the claims that the Bush administration used to justify the war. The Iraqi government’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and its connections with the al-Qaida terrorist network were the rationales used, and at this moment it appears that both were and still are lacking substance.

If this is true, it would be a clear-cut example of the politicization of foreign policy. That happens when a policy maker rejects analysis from the apolitical, professional intelligence community and sets up his own unit to “re-look” the raw intelligence and find “other meanings” for it. One has to look only to the Defense Department’s recently created Office of Special Plans to see the likely embodiment of that approach. Various administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz have acknowledged that OSP has done precisely that, “re-looked” the raw intelligence prior to the invasion.

The administration clearly did not like the analyses it was getting from the intelligence community. Those analyses did not support their allegations of substantive Iraqi-al-Qaida ties and was lukewarm on the weapons of mass destruction threat. “Regime change” was not an acceptable rationale during the run-up to the war. OSP “re-looked” the old raw data and said the professional analysts were wrong. In doing so, it appears to have relied in a large measure on information provided by emigres and defectors.

The CIA learned about such sources the hard way during the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Such sources, more often than not, have axes to grind and self-serving agendas. They are not above fabricating when it suits their interests. It takes a great deal of patience to sort them out, unless you are a policy maker looking for “information” to support or justify a policy you have already decided to undertake. Then you might be inclined to accept the information at face value. We have always called that French reasoning, or the act of making existing facts fit a predetermined conclusion.

The Pentagon, including OSP, bought Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, hook, line and sinker, even though the CIA and the State Department had long gravely mistrusted him. He is the “Pentagon’s boy” (read OSP) and is presumably one of those who told us that we would be welcomed by the population, that the Iraqis would throw down their arms without a fight and dozens of other truth-mitigating tidbits that in the aggregate would persuade us to go ahead with our invasion. That’s what the Iraqi National Congress wanted, but could never accomplish on its own – the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent opportunity for the INC to gain power in Iraq.

With luck we may be able to sort out the issues in Iraq as well as those in the world brought on by our unilateralism and bring some sort of stability there. If we do, it will not be because we had good intelligence, analysis or policy. If nothing else, the events surrounding the run-up to Iraq as well as the war and the aftermath may give good, pragmatic reason to rely on facts and professional analysis for the intelligence input on future, significant foreign policy decisions. This is particularly important in an era of unilateralist intervention in which all the external constraints that would be placed on an administration by internationalist coordination, cooperation and containment have been removed. French reasoning is trouble all the way.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Lebanon and Iran among other places and was at one time the agency’s chief of counterterrorism. He lives in Williston.

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A revolution in foreign policy

Posted in foreign policy on January 7, 2003|

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

The Republican Party has long said that the Democrats are uneasy with power and disinclined to use it. There is probably some truth in that. However, until now, there has been no absolute truth about the Republicans’ claim of their ability and inclination to use power. From Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush, Republican presidents have been spotty in that arena – until George W. Bush.

Many administrations come into power in the United States married to their own concept that those who came before them were fools and that they alone know what really has to be done and how to do it. Fortunately, in the post-war era those administrations came to power in the middle of the very stable Cold War. That gave them time to reflect and learn after coming to power unpressured by world events, and to incorporate some realities into their policies. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had no such luxury. The events of 9/11 have accelerated world events and taken from this administration the opportunity to learn through the safety of inactivity and innocuous experimentation.

The Bush administration’s foreign policy reflects some very hard-nosed underlying attitudes about the United States and its newly aggressive role in the world. On the surface, it would appear that this administration has decided that whatever is good for America is good for the world. If the Kyoto agreement, land mine treaties and expanded World Court jurisdiction are bad for America, don’t sign them, whatever the rest of the world seems to want. This president has said that the only successful model in the world is the American model with its reliance on free enterprise and elective democracy. Any country that has that system is OK. Those that haven’t, unless you need them for the moment (as in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan) are bad.

We are clearly embarked on a revolutionary new foreign policy based entirely on this administration’s definition of American interests and essentially oblivious to the needs and desires of the rest of the world. If it’s good for us, we’ll do it. The companion to that is that in the case of terrorism, if it’s good for us, you do it, too. That would seem to be the primary area in which coalition-building is part of administration foreign policy.

American foreign policy in the post-war period was characterized by coalition-building and containment. We built NATO and SEATO specifically to contain the challenge of communism from the USSR and China. Even though our communist protagonists, particularly the Soviets, were armed to the teeth with “weapons of mass destruction,” preemptive military attack against our enemy was never seriously considered. We tacitly accepted mutually assured destruction (MAD) as both sides knew they could not survive the guaranteed retaliation after a first strike. It worked throughout the second half of the century, and it worked in an environment which had its share of murderous dictators, Stalin being the preeminent example.

This approach seems no longer acceptable, despite the fact that it served us so well. Apparently, we are now living in a preemptive world. This represents the most revolutionary change in U.S. foreign policy in the past hundred years. The United States is on the threshold of becoming an aggressor nation. We are about to attack Iraq because of something they may be able to do to us in the future and the same may prove true of North Korea and even of Iran, the third member of the “axis of evil.” Will Americans be comfortable in the role of arrogant bully to the world?

How did we get here? The enabling factor was 9/11. Unqualified support for the president in the aftermath of 9/11 has emboldened him to go ahead with a number of very conservative agenda items that might well not have flown in a different environment. Having been successful in the move to label anyone who disagreed with administration policies as unpatriotic, the scene was set, among other things, for this revolutionary change in American foreign policy, all undertaken as part of the “war on terrorism.”

The Democratic Party has absolutely disappeared – abdicated in the face of this conservative Republican onslaught. Because of this abdication, we have not been given the opportunity to discuss and debate our radical, new foreign policies.

It has never been healthy or successful in the past for foreign policy, or for that matter, any important policy to change radically without public discussion and debate. Perhaps such a process would have ended with Americans convinced of the need for such changes. Perhaps the new world we live in, populated as it is by terrorists and rogue nations armed or soon to be armed with terrible weapons, is justification enough for this revolution. Perhaps it is not.

This is a situation in which mistakes carry the potential to plague us for generations to come. It is no time for bravado. It is a time for caution and careful reflection. We are not getting that now, and all too few people are calling for it.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who lives in Williston.

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Middle East ‘Allies’ Guided by Self-Interest

Posted in foreign policy, Israel/Palestine on January 2, 2002|

[Originally published in the Burlington Free Press.]

Even when things are going well, the Middle East is an extraordinarily complicated place. Things are not going well there right now.  The situation has become much more complicated for us since the beginning of the War on Terrorism.  If we are to succeed in this war, America absolutely needs to keep “moderate” Arab states involved in the coalition. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have told us the coalition is in jeopardy if we are not able to calm down the violence and to get the Palestinians and the Israelis into meaningful negotiations

Keep in mind that the “moderate” Arab states do not include one elected, representative democracy.  They all have homegrown, fundamentalist movements intent on overthrowing their rule.  If we alienate those uneasy governments or force them to do things in the War on Terrorism that favor our policies over the perceived Arab interests, we stand the very real chance of losing any ability whatsoever to influence them and of making them more vulnerable to revolution.

So, what are the issues here?  Why can’t this region achieve some sort of peace, get on with life and permit us to pursue our other national interests?

The root problem is that both the Palestinians and the Israelis feel aggrieved and neither is in a very good position to accommodate the needs of the other.  In their official positions, the Palestinians seek the return of the land occupied during the 1967 War and the Israelis seek peace.  Why can’t they simply trade land for peace?

Let’s take Palestine first.  If they only have to give peace to get back their land, why doesn’t Yassir Arafat stop the killing and make the trade?  This raises two questions:  Does Arafat even want to make the trade and if he does, is he capable of stopping the violence?  These two questions really divide the experts.  Some say he is capable but doesn’t really want peace, others that there is no way he can shut down the violence without signing his own political and perhaps personal death warrant.

The Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizballah (all funded largely by Syria and Iran) are the organizations most responsible for the violence against Israel.  They are dedicated to destroying Israel and reoccupying a land they consider to be rightfully their own.  Palestinian suicide bombers and their murderous mentors do not want any peace at all.

These organizations have the support of enough Palestinians that Arafat may very well feel that he does not have the power to really crack down on them.  It is equally possible that he does not wish to do so.  In either event, it seems unlikely that Arafat is really going to make such a move.  Whatever his motivation, it would appear that the suicide bombings will continue, thus inviting Israeli retaliation and prolonging the impasse.

On the Israeli side, Ariel Sharon has shown little interest in a peaceful solution. He has moved only under extreme pressure from the Bush Administration.  His governing coalition includes the far right parties that openly advocate the annexation of Samaria and Judea (biblical provinces of pre-Christian Israel which are now part of Palestine), all hopes for which would be precluded by a peaceful settlement. They also are among those who have supported the Israeli settlements in Palestine which are seen by the Palestinians as the first step toward the eventual annexation of their land.

Even if Sharon does not share the goals of his conservative coalition partners, he is highly unlikely to act against them as that would quickly end his coalition. Besides that, his position appears to represent the desires of better than half the Israeli population.  He has no reason at this time to give up land for peace.

Palestinians and Israelis now seem committed to continued violence.  Yet, there is no solution in violence.  Despite their relatively massive military power, there will never be a military solution for Israel.  If they kill a hundred suicide bombers, a hundred more will appear from the ranks.  There are 3.5 million Palestinians.  Nor, for that matter will the Palestinians succeed with their suicide bombers.  The western world will never and should never allow the destruction of Israel.

Whether the combatants like it or not, and not all of them do, there need to be two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace.  Negotiation toward the trade of land for peace is the only answer.  It would appear that as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestine land, the Palestinians will continue their suicide bombings and Israel will retaliate.  One would think that with all the bloodshed and misery created on both sides, some accommodation could be reached.

It’s difficult to see how this situation serves or will serve either the combatants or any interested parties.  In America’s case, the violence impacts our relations with the “moderate” Arab states which in turn may impact our prospects for success in the War on Terrorism.  The moral here is that Americans should never believe that their allies share our national interests, but that they often have and pursue their own to our disadvantage.

It is frustrating for us to see that, despite the billions of dollars we have poured into the area, most notably to Egypt and Israel, we appear almost incapable of influencing anyone to do much of anything that is in our national interest.  Getting Egypt and the other “moderate” Arab states which benefit directly from our protection and beneficence to pressure Arafat, or moderating our old friend and protégé Israel’s reactions, seem out of our reach.  But then, that’s the Middle East!  This is not the first time we have been confounded there.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in Beirut and Tehran.

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