Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Middle East’ Category

U.S. Dilemma: How Can We Court Muslim Moderates?

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East on May 27, 2010|

[Originally published in The Herald Of Randolph.]

In late March, a little noticed, almost unreported event took place in the Middle East. The government of Qatar forced out the moderate leadership of one of Islam’s most popular, moderate websites and is reshaping it into a religiously more conservative media outlet. They have started by running news releases instead of the moderate and diverse content that the site, IslamOnline, was known for.

The outcome of our ongoing struggle with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism lies with the moderates of Islam. They are the swing vote in the fundamentalist conflict with western advocates of liberal democracy. Unfortunately, as a result of our own policies, the Muslim world is now becoming more hostile to us.

The Koran stipulates that “The only reward for those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land….”

Moderate Muslims today are faced with a real dilemma. The Koran explicitly forbids the murder of Muslims. Thus, killing a believing Muslim in a terrorist attack would constitute “corruption on earth and war against Allah”. Al Qaida members could be penalized under the Koran for making war on Allah.

One of the main reasons Al Qaida’s reputation has declined in the eyes of moderate Muslims is that they have killed Muslims both purposefully and indiscriminately, in violation of the Koran. The perfect example of this decline is the Sunni Awakening movement, which began in Iraq’s western Anbar Province in 2006. One of the main motivating influences behind that movement was Sunni revulsion against the Muslim-murdering activities of Al Qaida in Iraq.

We Americans should hope that this fact would turn moderate Muslims throughout Islam against Al Qaida. Unfortunately, that has not been the case, simply because it is clear to those moderates that American forces have also been killing Muslims since they invaded Iraq in 2003, a practice equally condemned by the Koran.

Add in the permanent grievances of most moderate Muslims against us—the military invasion and occupation of a Muslim country, American support of corrupt and brutal Muslim regimes, and their perception that we are biased against them in favor of Israel, and the Muslims are in a quandary. Whom should they condemn? If we could mitigate or remove those grievances against us, the moderates would be free to turn completely against the Al Qaidas of the world. And they almost certainly would.

The real problem right now is that almost everything we are doing in the Middle East increases moderate Muslim anger and resentment against us.

We are occupying Iraq and trying to do the same in Afghanistan. Our primary tool for these activities is our military establishment, which, however mightily our military leaders try, and they are trying mightily, is a very blunt instrument in those two countries. There is nothing rapier-like about a 19-yearold marine who is being shot at! Artillery and drone aircraft are indiscriminate weapons. They kill non-combatants, which has a particularly provocative effect on Muslims.

We are trying to “export democracy” to countries where there are already functioning systems of governance, very different from ours, that are reflections of the belief structure provided by Islam. We continue to insist that “free elections” as in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow evidence of the inexorable march of democracy across the world. That is self-delusional.

At the same time, in direct and observable contrast to our lofty pronouncements about the spread of democracy, we support regimes across Islam that are repressive, brutal and exploitative of their people. How can we look anything other than hypocritical to Muslims, particularly those moderate Muslims who, under more benign American policy, could be in our corner?

Finally, America has pursued a foreign policy that has supported Israel to Israel’s own detriment. We have provided an impermeable umbrella to Israel with cash, armaments and UN vetoes that have permitted Israel to develop its own policies without any consideration of the realities that exist in her neighborhood.

The result has been an Israeli population, reinforced by emigrants from the former Soviet Union, that has grown increasingly distant from the democratic, Jewish state envisaged by Israel’s Zionist founders and closer and closer to a demographic reality that, without a two-state solution, will eliminate either Jewishness or democracy.

Our policy in the region is not working for us or anyone else. It never has because we see the world as we would like it to be, not as it really is. As long as that continues, we will never get it right.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He is a former longtime resident of Brookfield.

Read Full Post »

Untangling the Muslim web

Posted in Middle East, terrorism on April 25, 2010|

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

There really are only three available solutions for our problems with terrorism in the Muslim World: (1) we can respond to all such situations with military power, (2) we can disengage militarily from the Muslim world or (3) we can try to implement a hybrid of the first two. Under the Bush administration, we were totally married to the military solution. Under the Obama administration, it would appear we are flirting with the hybrid. No one has tried disengagement.

What we know is that a decade of military confrontation has created at least as many problems for us as it has solved, largely because it has alienated, infuriated and neutralized moderate Muslims, our major hope and potential ally against fundamentalist terrorism. It seems highly unlikely that the ongoing hybrid Obama approach will be any more successful, as the same issues of alienation and hostility still exists.

Yet, a careful examination of the realities of the Muslim world and our relationship with it will argue favorably for our complete military disengagement from the region. That act would effectively remove the primary motivation of present and future moderate Muslims who, as a result of our ongoing policies, have come to support, or at least not actively oppose Al Qaida.

To survive, Al Qaida must have an external enemy and we have turned ourselves into Al Qaida’s enemy of choice. If we disengage militarily from their battlefield before the majority of moderate Muslims turn against us, they will have to deal immediately with all those unavoidable, intractable, internal Muslim issues that have made our lives so complicated since the Iraq invasion. Religious, ethnic and national differences, rivalries and conflicts will be Al Qaida’s to deal with in their quest for the Caliphate. They will loose.

There will be major concerns here at home that our military disengagement from both Iraq and Afghanistan will precipitate internal strife in those countries, or worse yet, a general conflagration in the Middle East. Almost all of the disparate ethnic and sectarian components in each of the countries there have external advocates or protectors in the Muslim world. Iraqi Shia have Iran, the Sunnis have Saudi Arabia and Syria, etc.

It does not appear at this time that any of those “protectors” actively seeks to precipitate strife either in the countries involved or in the greater region. Quite the opposite, they have every reason not to seek regional strife. It is far too destabilizing and threatening to governments now in power.

However, if such strife does come on the heels of U.S. military disengagement, it will be the endemic hatreds and rivalries that will precipitate it, whether we leave now or 50 years from now. These divisions and hatreds have existed for millennia. How long are we prepared to stay?

It will be argued that military disengagement will jeopardize the West’s energy supplies, but oil is fungible and only has value when pumped out of the ground and traded. It is also the only major economic asset most of those countries have with which to satisfy the needs of their peoples.

Are we deserting our friends? Who are they and are they really friends, or are they in it simply to get whatever support they can from us for their own narrow national goals, without making more than a minimal commitment to us and to our needs?

Some will say Israel will be jeopardized, but despite the fact that we have been their primary protectors for 40years, they seem recently to have ignored our needs in the region in favor of their own, calling into question their previous contention that our national interests are identical.

The fact is that our recent military-based and spearheaded policies in the Muslim world have exacerbated our problems with terrorism, added endless new terrorists to our enemies’ ranks, filled their coffers, sullied our previously good reputation with Muslim moderates, maintained and encouraged despots in power and accomplished very little positive for us.

If nothing else, it’s time to consider change. In that context, it might be a profitable departure for America to see the world as it really is, not as we would like it to be. Only then will we get policies that are in harmony with the existing facts on the ground.

Military confrontation has rarely successfully been used with insurgencies, it has never succeeded against terrorism. A far better result against terrorism has been achieved with police and intelligence operations.

Within the framework of our national interests, there is no viable military solution for terrorism in any part of the Muslim world. Everything we do militarily is directly contradictory to our national interests. The reason for that lies partly in the fact that Muslim terrorism seems to regularly morph into or become absorbed by insurgencies as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More importantly, it stems from the critical, decades-old complaints that Muslims have had about American policies and activities in their region. What Americans need to understand is that as long as those American policies continue, we will be dealing with terrorism and rejection in the Muslim world. They are the causative factors behind the fact that, “they hate us for what we do, not who we are”.

If, on the other hand, we were to modify those policies, Al Qaida would not last long in an increasingly moderate Muslim world hostile to terrorism’s extreme, un-Muslim philosophies and activities. Without the United States as an intrusive, compliant, external whipping boy, Al Qaida would be forced to deal with the realities of their own diffuse and fragile Muslim world, a world largely hostile to them.

But this is a suggested policy built on the realities on the ground in the Muslim World and we all know that U.S. policy is more often built on the internal political needs of the Administration in power, in this case, the Obama administration.

President Obama is faced with unhappy choices. If he were to see merit in military disengagement from the Muslim world, he would face onslaughts that he is “weak on terrorism” from Republicans and from all those who see advantages in the “long war”. That would include those people and organizations that benefit politically, emotionally and economically from its continuation. Disengagement might just be enough to do him in.

On the other hand, if he can make up his mind to consider what truly is in our national interest and is prepared to suffer the potential negative political consequences of going against the supporters of the “long war,” he could, at minimum, begin the process of solving our most basic problems with the Muslim world and with terrorism.

Haviland Smith is a former counterterrorism expert and station chief for the CIA.

Read Full Post »

Muslims hate our deeds, not us

Posted in Middle East, terrorism on March 7, 2010|

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

This is the second of a four-part series on United States counterterrorism policy in the Muslim world. It will run regularly in Perspective.

“Muslims hate us for who we are and everything we stand for” was an almost constant mantra of the Bush administration. But it is simply untrue. Muslims admire our standard of living, our entrepreneurial spirit, our business acumen and our creativity. Many actually like us as individuals. Those Muslims who hate us – and today they come in ever-increasing numbers – hate us not for who we are, but for what we do. They hate our policies.

Unlike al-Qaida fundamentalists, moderate Muslims, while they may have serious complaints about American policy, are not enthralled by the thought of fundamentalist Islam taking over their lives. Moderates represent our greatest potential allies in this struggle with al-Qaida, but they are also easily turned against us.

What turns all Muslims, including moderates, against us is that:

  • They are offended by the stationing of non-Muslim, foreign (American) troops on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia;
  • They resent the American history of supporting and maintaining powerful despotic regimes that rule Muslim people by force and intimidation;
  • They hate us for killing Muslims, waging war in and occupying Muslim countries;
  • They would like to see Palestinian aspirations treated with the same respect and care by America as the United States treats Israeli aspirations.

Al-Qaida’s primary goal is the re-establishment of strict Islamic rule in a new caliphate modeled on the eighth-century caliphate that stretched from Spain through North Africa and the Middle East to the eastern border of what is now Iran, and which held sway over what was then the entire Muslim world.

The establishment of this new caliphate is designed to rid the Muslim world of what al-Qaida sees as the corrupting influences of the West. An established caliphate would diminish the power of all those elements in the Muslim world that would today be opposed to al-Qaida goals. That would include virtually all the regimes now in power there, including those that al-Qaida considers to be the corrupt secular Muslim regimes supported by the West.

In 2005, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago analyzed more than 500 suicide or martyrdom attacks around the world that had occurred over the past quarter century. He concluded that “what over 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world since 1980 have in common – from Lebanon, to Chechnya, to Sri Lanka, to Kashmir, to the West Bank – is not religion, but a specific strategic goal: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists view as their homeland, or prize greatly.”

It follows that the activities of groups that use such tactics are directed toward local, not international, goals. Al-Qaida is focused on re-establishing strict Islamic rule in a new caliphate. To that end, al-Qaida is doing everything it possibly can to keep the U.S. militarily involved in the Muslim world in the short run. They know that the Muslim world is not yet ready for their fundamentalist caliphate. Al-Qaida “martyrdom attacks” are designed to create and maintain an unstable situation, which, in the short term, the United States will find difficult to leave. They need us to stay in the Middle East in the short run because our military presence daily coalesces more and more moderates against us – and for al-Qaida.

Moreover, they would be absolutely delighted to see us involved on the ground in Somalia, Yemen or any other Muslim state. Our continued presence and military activities provide them with critical advantages they would not have in our absence.

Direct al-Qaida attacks in the West are designed to show the Muslim world how all-powerful they are. They even claim unsuccessful attacks. Such attacks also increase Western insecurity and disrupt their resolve to maintain their long-term interests in the Muslim world. These attacks are not designed to take over the West or any part of it. For that reason, the old Bush notion that “we will fight ’em over there, so we don’t have to fight ’em at home” has no basis in fact.

The key to the future of Islam lies in its moderates. Whoever secures their allegiance and cooperation, secures the region. Unfortunately, today’s moderates are less offended by al-Qaida’s taking of innocent Muslim lives than they are by U.S. military activities and policies.

When America no longer poses a threat to al-Qaida, that is, after American military disengagement, which will come sooner or later, the moderates will become the primary counterbalance to the radical excesses of al-Qaida. Until then, with our military present, killing Muslims and trying to keep the despots in power, we will exacerbate tensions with the moderates and drive them toward al-Qaida.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Read Full Post »

Are there solutions?

Posted in Afghanistan, Middle East, terrorism on February 16, 2010|

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

Al Qaida has a major, long-term, existential problem in the Middle East and the greater Muslim world. It is a problem that they certainly cannot fix on their own. However, America’s counterterrorism policy has given Al Qaida hope for the short-term and if we continue that policy, it may well assist them in their ultimate goal of establishing a hegemonic Caliphate in the Muslim world.

The U.S. policy for the Muslim world that evolved after the events of 9/11 was crafted by policy makers who honestly believed that the solution to US problems in the Muslim world, or for that matter, anywhere else, lay in the swift application of American unipolar military might. That position might have worked in other parts of the world, but its application in the Muslim world has brought with it problems that its authors probably had not envisaged and for which they clearly had not planned.

U.S. interests in Islam

Years ago it was said that, “The United States does not have a Middle East policy. That is probably a good thing, because if it did, it would be the wrong one.” That reality has not changed much in the last half century, which underlines the politically partisan difficulties involved in constructing a precise definition of our national interests. Nevertheless, it is impossible to talk about solutions to our problems in the Muslim world without first broadly defining those interests. That said, it is probably safe to settle on the following generalities:

  • Stability or the absence of armed conflict.
  • The maintenance of U.S. commercial interests.
  • An end to being viewed as the enemy of the Muslims.
  • Realizing our National Security interests, i.e. inhibiting the growth of terrorism by marginalizing secular and religious extremists and supporting Muslim moderates.

U.S. and terrorism

After 9/11, the Bush Administration established fundamentalist Muslim terrorism as our primary concern in the Muslim world. The Obama administration appears to be following that

Bush program and for the last eight years, we have chosen military confrontation as our primary tool for dealing with terrorism.

At the same time, largely because of our choice of military confrontation, the nature of the threat we have faced has changed. Iraq was never a terrorist problem before our 2003 invasion. It became one solely because we were there militarily. We provided Al Qaida with an opportunity for first-rate live training, a target-rich environment and excellent prospects for recruiting. They moved in under the cover of the Iraq insurgency against our troops.

The Afghanistan situation began as a struggle with terrorism and has since morphed into a counterinsurgency. Today, there are hardly any Al Qaida fighters left. Again, we are dealing with an insurgency. Unlike terrorist movements, which are often overcome, insurgencies are extremely difficult to snuff out.

So, we start out with a major contradiction. We want to fight terrorism, but we are fighting insurgencies. The nature of the Muslim world is such that virtually any time we choose to go after Al Qaida militarily, we will end up fighting insurgencies, whether in Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria or Pakistan. All of those countries, like much of the Muslim world, have built into them the kinds of internal ethnic, tribal, religious and political contradictions that make general civil strife a perpetual nightmare waiting to happen. All it takes to push it over the edge into insurgency is something foreign, like American military involvement.

It would be nice, however irrational, to believe that one day we could actually conquer Al Qaida and bring an end to the terrorism that has plagued us for over a decade. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. If we are ultimately to rid ourselves of this terrorist phenomenon, it will be because the terrorist movement itself dies, as has been the case with most of the terrorist organizations that have not survived during the past half-century.

According to a 2006 Rand Corporation study, in the past fifty years, the tactic least likely to succeed against terrorism is military confrontation. The Rand finding is supported by Israeli experience, which says that wars against terrorism turn into extended counterinsurgency operations which are seldom won.

Our goal in this ongoing struggle with terrorism is clearly to figure out how to help Al Qaida die.

Al Qaida today

The methodical decimation of Al Qaida leadership over the past few years, mostly by drones and covert operations, has resulted in the franchising of their terrorist operations. Al Qaida’s leadership has been sharply reduced and inhibited by unconventional attacks. With its surviving leadership concentrating almost entirely on its own survival in Waziristan, there is little if any central command and control left for their operations.

National franchises have sprung up around the world. They operate in Yemen, Somalia, the North African Maghreb, Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere. They are even currently advertising for a start up in Muslim north Nigeria. The scene is further complicated by the arrival on the scene of the new phenomenon of self-motivated singleton volunteers who present a very difficult counterterrorism problem. There is a new air of unpredictability in the counterterrorism field. As these terrorists get more efficient and change their tactics and targeting, which they certainly will, we will have more difficulty anticipating their activities.

Al Qaida goals

“Muslims hate us for who we are and everything we stand for” was an almost constant mantra for the Bush Administration. That is simply untrue. Muslims admire our standard of living, our entrepreneurial spirit, our business acumen and our creativity. Those Muslims who hate us, and today they come in ever increasing numbers, hate us not for who we are, but for what we do. They hate us for our policies.

Unlike Al Qaida fundamentalists, moderate Muslims, where they may have serious complaints about American policy, are not enthralled at the thought of fundamentalist Islam taking over their lives. Moderates represent our greatest potential allies in this struggle with Al Qaida, but they are also easily turned against us.

What turns all Muslims, including moderates, against us is that:

  1. They are offended by the stationing of non-Muslim, foreign (American) troops on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia.
  2. They resent the American history of supporting and maintaining in power despotic regimes that rule Muslim people by force and intimidation.
  3. They hate us for killing Muslims, waging war in and occupying Muslim countries.
  4. They would like to see Palestinian aspirations treated with the same respect and care by America as the US treats Israeli aspirations.

Al Qaida’s primary goal is the re-establishment of strict Islamic rule in a new Caliphate, modeled on the Eighth Century Caliphate that stretched from Spain through North Africa and on through the Middle East to the eastern border of what is now Iran and which held sway over what was then the entire Muslim world.

The establishment of this new Caliphate is designed to rid the Muslim world of what Al Qaida sees as the corrupting influences of the West. An established Caliphate would diminish support of elements in the Muslim world which would today be opposed to Al Qaida goals. That would include virtually all of the regimes now in power there, including those that Al Qaida considers to be the corrupt secular Muslim regimes supported by the West.

In 2005, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago analyzed over 500 suicide or martyrdom attacks around the world over the past quarter century. He concluded that “what over 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world since 1980 have in common – from Lebanon, to Chechnya, to Sri Lanka, to Kashmir, to the West Bank – is not religion, but a specific strategic goal: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists view is their homeland, or prize greatly.”

It follows that the activities of groups that use such tactics are directed toward local, not international goals. Al Qaida is focused on reestablishing strict Islamic rule in a new Caliphate. To that end, Al Qaida is doing everything it possibly can to keep the US militarily involved in the Muslim world in the short run. They know that the Muslim world is not yet ready for their fundamentalist Caliphate. They want us to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan because our military presence and activities strengthen their position with their co-religionists.

Al Qaida “martyrdom attacks” are designed to create and maintain an unstable situation, which, in the short term, the US will find difficult to leave. They need us to stay in the Middle East in the short run because our military presence daily coalesces more and more moderates against us and for Al Qaida.

Moreover, they would be absolutely delighted to see us involved on the ground in Somalia, the Yemen or any other Muslim state. Our continued presence and military activities provide them with critical advantages they would not have in our absence.

Direct Al Qaida attacks in the West are designed to show the Muslim world how all-powerful they are. They even claim unsuccessful attacks. It would also increase western insecurity and disrupt their resolve to maintain their long-term interests in the Muslim World. Such attacks are not designed to take over the West or any part of it.

The old Bush notion that “we will fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them at home” has no basis in fact.

Thus, it is in Al Qaida’s interest to keep America on edge at home. When and if airplanes become less vulnerable targets as a result of western countermeasures, Al Qaida will switch to softer targets; ships, subways, buses, trains, etc. They will do this until they believe America no longer represents a long-term threat to their goals in the Muslim world, when we have withdrawn, or when they have died a natural death.

To survive, Al Qaida must have an external enemy and we have turned ourselves into Al Qaida’s enemy of choice. If we disengage from their battlefield before the majority of moderates turn against us, they will have to deal immediately with all those unavoidable, intractable, internal Muslim issues that have made our lives so complicated since the Iraq invasion. Religious, ethnic and national differences, rivalries and conflicts will be Al Qaida’s to deal with in their quest for the Caliphate.

Al Qaida and its fundamentalist allies are no more likely to succeed in this than America was in attempting to forcibly install democracy in the Muslim world.

The key to the future of Islam lies in its moderates. Whoever secures their allegiance and cooperation, secures the region. Unfortunately, today’s moderates are driven more by their hatred for US policies than they are about Al Qaida’s un-Islamic excesses. They are less offended by Al Qaida’s taking of innocent Muslim lives than they are by US military activities and policies.

When America no longer poses a threat to Al Qaida, that is, after American military disengagement, the moderates will become the primary counterbalance to the radical excesses of Al Qaida. Until then, with our military present, killing Muslims and trying to keep the despots in power, we will exacerbate tensions with the moderates and drive them toward Al Qaida.

Failed states

Much is made of the necessity for us to pay attention to and “do something” about failed and failing states. Taking Taliban Afghanistan in the pre 9/11 period as our national model, we have apparently decided that the elimination of failed states is the answer to our problems with terrorism.

In the real world, that does not compute, a fact that is perfectly illustrated by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber whose terrorist odyssey was focused largely on the UK, hardly a failed state. Other Al Qaida affiliated operations have been planned in the UK, Spain and other non-failed states.

All an enterprising terrorist organization needs to carry out a shoe bombing or an underwear bombing is a reasonably secure safe house in a country where not too much attention is paid to people who mind their own business and thus do not come to the attention of local internal security authorities. The 9/11 attacks could easily have been planned in New York City itself and, significantly, required that its participants get their flight training in America.

Such conditions exist all over the world and provide Al Qaida affiliates with all the options they could need to plan their operations. However, even if it were not the case, the issue of dealing with failed or failing states presents an entirely different set of problems and pitfalls for American policy makers.

The Muslim world is comprised of a number of “nation states” that were more the creation of Western imperialist powers than the result of natural cultural, political, and economic evolution. The result can be seen in Iraq where there are two major interpretations of Islam, Shia and Sunni, plus two major ethnic groups, Arabs and Kurds. In Iraq, as in all the other “failed and failing states”, those divisions and conflicts are at the root of our difficulties in trying to find solutions to problems there and that are in keeping with our goals and values.

How can we solve our problems with Al Qaida when the host governments of countries where we have tangible military goals are not sufficiently helpful. They are either uninterested in our problems, as in Somalia, so busy trying to deal with their own that they have no time for our issues, as in the Yemen, or actually have reasons of their own not to help us out, as in Pakistan with the Taliban. In effect, we are left competing for the time and attention of the reluctant or incompetent governments on which our own policies have forced us to rely. That is not a good formula for success.

Solutions

There really are only three available solutions for our problems with terrorism in the Muslim World: (1) we can respond to all such situations with military power, (2) we can disengage militarily from the Muslim World or (3) we can try to implement a hybrid of the first two. Under the Bush Administration, we were totally married to the military solution. Under the Obama administration, it would appear we are flirting with the hybrid. No one has tried disengagement.

What we know is that a decade of military confrontation has created at least as many problems for us as it solved, largely because it has alienated, infuriated and neutralized moderate Muslims. It seems highly unlikely that the ongoing hybrid Obama approach will be any more successful, as the same issues of alienation and hostility still exists.

Yet, a careful examination of the realities of the Muslim world and our relationship with it will argue favorably for our complete military disengagement from the region. That act would effectively remove the primary motivation of present and future moderate Muslims who, as a result of our ongoing policies, have come to support, or at least not actively oppose Al Qaida.

There will be major concerns that our military disengagement from both Iraq and Afghanistan will precipitate internal strife in those countries, or worse yet, a general conflagration in the Middle East. Almost all of the disparate ethnic and sectarian components in each of the countries there have external advocates or protectors in the Muslim world. Iraqi Shia have Iran, the Sunnis have Saudi Arabia and Syria, etc.

It does not appear at this time that any of those “protectors” actively seeks to precipitate strife either in the countries involved or in the greater region. Quite the opposite, they have every reason not to seek regional strife. It is far too destabilizing. However, if such strife does come on the heels of US military disengagement, it will be the endemic hatreds and rivalries that will precipitate it, whether we leave now or in fifty years. These divisions and hatreds have existed for millennia. How long are we prepared to stay?

It will be argued that military disengagement will jeopardize the West’s energy supplies, but oil is fungible and only has value when pumped out of the ground and traded. It is also the only major economic asset most of those countries have.

Some will say Israel will be jeopardized, but we have been their primary mediators for forty years. What Muslims view as our totally biased involvement has led only to a deterioration of the situation there. Demographics argue for a two-state solution for both Israeli and Palestinian survival. It may be time to let them sort it out themselves for their own survival. Our disengagement should help mitigate the participants’ excuses for not really negotiating.

Are we deserting our friends? Who are they and are they really friends, or are they in it simply to get whatever support they can from us for their own narrow national goals, without making more than a minimal commitment to us and to our needs?

The fact is that our recent military-based and spearheaded policies in the Muslim world have exacerbated our problems with terrorism, added endless new terrorists to our enemies’ ranks, sullied our previously good reputation with Muslim moderates, maintained and encouraged despots in power and accomplished very little positive for us.

If nothing else, it’s time to consider change. In that context, it might be a profitable departure for America to see the world as it really is, not as we would like it to be. Only then will we get policies that are in harmony with the existing facts on the ground.

New policy

Within the framework of our national interests, there is no viable military solution for terrorism in any part of the Muslim world. Everything we do militarily is directly contradictory to our national interests. The reason for that lies partly in the fact that Muslim terrorism seems to regularly morph into or become absorbed by insurgencies as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More importantly, it stems from the critical, decades-old complaints that Muslims have had about American policies and activities in their region. What Americans need to understand is that as long as those American policies continue, we will be dealing with terrorism and rejection in the Muslim world. They are the causative factors behind the fact that, “they hate us for what we do, not who we are”.

If, on the other hand, we were to change those policies, Al Qaida would not last long in an increasingly moderate Muslim world hostile to their extreme and un-Muslim philosophies and activities. Without the United States as an intrusive, compliant, external whipping boy, Al Qaida would be forced to deal with the realities of their own diffuse and fragile Muslim world, a world largely hostile to them.

But this is a suggested policy built on the realities on the ground in the Muslim World and we all know that U.S. policy is more often built on the internal political needs of the Administration in power, in this case, the Obama administration.

Whatever happens, whatever decisions are made, we will not “win” our struggle with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism with our military establishment. Quite the contrary, as long as we are militarily involved, we will lose far more than we will gain and we will see no end to this terrorism.

Finding himself in a recently weakened position today vis-a-vis the Republicans and facing disapproval from elements of his own party, President Obama is faced with unhappy choices. If he were to see merit in complete military disengagement from the Muslim world, he would face onslaughts from Republicans and from all those who see advantages in the “long war”, including those people and organizations that benefit politically and economically from its continuation. That might just be enough to do him in.

On the other hand, if he can make up his mind to consider what is in our national interest and is prepared to suffer the perhaps dire political consequences of going against the supporters of the “long war”, he could, at minimum, begin the process of solving our most basic problems with the Muslim world and with terrorism.

Read Full Post »

Stumbling in the ruins

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq, Middle East on January 29, 2010|

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

In his 1993 article in Foreign Policy titled “The Clash of Civilizations?” Samuel Huntington posits that “in the future … countries with large numbers of people of different civilizations … are candidates for dismemberment.” In this context, “civilizations” are defined by language, history, religion, customs and institutions.

Much of the world is made up of individual countries that contain people of such different “civilizations.” Iraq and Afghanistan are on our plate on an unremitting basis today, but the fact is that much of the world, particularly that part of the world that once existed under the arbitrary and self-interested umbrella of imperialism, is made up of “countries” that contain populations of people from different civilizations that generally have little in common and that often are overtly hostile to one another. Ultimately, we will not be able to keep them all intact.

The Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, China and much of Asia fall into this category. With their origins based on early and competing tribal societies, these civilizations might never have coalesced into “countries” without the controlling intervention of imperialism.

Nevertheless, it is what it is. As the world’s only current superpower, we have to live with this complicated situation. So how does this translate into the world of American foreign and military power?

We are on the horns of a nasty dilemma. We live in a world that is less than a century removed from centuries of imperialism. That’s barely a historical heartbeat, and the result is that many of the world’s peoples have not achieved their societal goals in that period.

Most Middle Eastern and African countries have rid themselves of imperialism but now have repressive regimes that continue to deny their peoples’ aspirations for a freer, better life, however they may define that. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran cover the spectrum. Saudi Arabia has evolved from imperial Ottoman occupation to its own anti-democratic kingdom.

Egypt has shed the British imperialists for a regime that is probably more repressive and antidemocratic than were the British. Iran progressed from imperial Russian and British occupation, to a repressive kingdom under the shah, to an even more repressive Islamic government that usurped power after his fall.

We Americans need to know precisely what it is we want for the world’s former imperial colonies. When we say we want democracy, we are simply pushing our own American exceptionalism. “Democracy” may be well suited to us, but close examination of the world as it is, rather than as we would like it to be, will show the difficulties in exporting it lock, stock and barrel to countries with no experience in self-rule, no free press and no rule of law.

What America should be interested in is stability through self-determination. We need a world that is not constantly in turmoil. The way you reach such stability is to make as many people as content as possible.

Yet our foreign policy over the last 50 years has been to create “stability” by keeping repressive rulers in power.

Just now, we are seeking an end to today’s halting attempt at self-determination in Egypt. We seem guided by a “better the devil you know” foreign policy that concludes that iron-fisted repression or control of populations is better than allowing their people to choose the form and nature of governance under which they seek to live, if we fear it will not be “democratic.”

So, we continue to support Mubarak in Egypt, the royal family in Saudi Arabia, dictators in Central Asia and Africa, impotence in Yemen and Afghanistan, ambivalence in Pakistan and chaos in Somalia, perhaps as an alternative to our concerns about the possibility of radical Muslim theocracies taking over.

As a nation, America has not, as Huntington says, “develop(ed) a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations and the ways in which people in those civilizations see their interests.”

Over the last 50 years, Americans as a group have not been able to develop a sufficiently broad and deep grasp of the complexities involved outside our own ethnocentric world to permit such understanding. Since most foreign-policy decisions are based on the domestic political needs of our elected leadership (their view of what we want), our policies will not change until Americans in general have attained a more nuanced grasp of world complexities.

In the meantime, we will flounder about the old colonial world, making mistake after mistake by applying our political and military power in defense of repressive, unwanted regimes.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff

Read Full Post »

Are Americans the new crusaders?

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East on July 26, 2009|

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

On the Fourth of July, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he is optimistic that, unlike the Soviet forces that were driven from Afghanistan 20 years ago, U.S. forces can succeed there.

“The Russians were sent running as they should have been. We helped send them running. But they were there to conquer the country. We’ve made it very clear, and everybody I talk with in Afghanistan feels the same way: they know we’re there to help and we’re going to leave. We’ve made it very clear we are going to leave. And it’s going to be turned back to them.”

Leahy, as a senior senator, is normally very much in tune with Obama administration policies, but if this position accurately reflects President Barack Obama’s policy, and the rationale behind it, the president is on shaky ground.

Why the Soviets and America got involved in Afghanistan is clear. The Soviets were there at the request of the then-ruling government of Afghanistan, the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan to fight against the Islamist mujahideen resistance, which was trying to take over Afghanistan. The Soviets did not enter Afghanistan to conquer it, they went in to destroy the government’s enemy and maintain the PDPA in power. They failed.

And why are we there?

America first invaded Afghanistan because much of the planning and training for 9/11 was carried out there. We have just recently stepped up our troop levels and military aggressiveness in order to conquer the current government’s enemy (the Taliban) and turn the country over to its current leaders (Hamid Karzai and Co.). We probably will fail.

From the Afghan perspective, apart from the fact that we represent democracy and the Soviets represented Communism, there is no difference in our motivation. We both invaded for our own political reasons. After “victory,” we and the Soviets planned to hand the country over to our respective “friends.”

The situation is complicated by what Afghans and other Middle Easterners think really motivates us. They are used to having Russia as a neighbor. It’s déjà vu. As a country with no winter access to the oceans because it has only northern ports, Russia has been trying for centuries to force its way into warm water ports to its south.

America is a totally different matter. With very little history of military involvement in the region, suddenly we are seen invading Afghanistan and Iraq. The only conclusion Islam can make is that America is the new crusader. This is simply because the most memorable and formative thing that has come at them from Europe and points west has been the Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.

During the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, there was much discussion in Republican and neoconservative circles about bringing democracy to Iraq. What do you suppose the difference is between a Muslim being brought Christianity in the first crusades and democracy in the current crusade? There is no difference. Make no mistake about it, the prevalent opinion in Islam, specifically including Afghanistan, is that Americans are the new crusaders.

The real question here is why we think we are going to be successful when no other country has succeeded in conquering Afghanistan? Anyone who reads history knows the odds against success are unlimited. There are a lot of reasons for that history: inhospitable terrain, tribalism, xenophobia, corruptibility, bellicosity, and more.

All those foreign invasions of Afghanistan over the centuries failed because they were undertaken for the benefit of the invaders, not the Afghans. Ours is no different.

Historically, counterinsurgencies seldom win because the insurgents hold most of the cards. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says we will require a five- to 10-year timeline to defeat the Taliban insurgency. Any U.S.-run and financed counterinsurgency is viable only as long as American voters support it. That support will require visible, sustainable progress of the type we are unlikely to see.

American public support, weary after six years of questionable military involvement in the region, will wane. All the Afghans have to do is successfully avoid final defeat, which they certainly can do.

Like George W. Bush, all this president will have accomplished is to kick the Afghan can further down the road for a future administration without solving anything.

That cannot be a legacy President Obama would seek.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East, as chief of the counterterrorism staff and as executive assistant in the director’s office. He lives in Williston.

Read Full Post »

Having and keeping power

Posted in Middle East on June 21, 2009|

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

Iran has announced the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by an overwhelming majority of more than 62 percent of the popular vote, cast by a record 85 percent of Iran’s eligible voters. The Iranian reform candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, on whom the United States had pinned much hope for a change for the better in our bilateral relations, garnered a measly 36 percent.

Was there election fraud at work here? One would suspect so, but what we think is clearly irrelevant to Iran’s leadership. What matters to the leadership – the only thing that really matters to them – is that they have maintained and continue to maintain power. That is a truth that America needs to understand and accept. If their power is threatened, the Ayatollahs will pull out all the stops to end the threat.

If you doubt that, look at the content of the Supreme Leader’s speech to the faithful on Friday the 18th.  As far as he is concerned, everything is OK with the election and any future trouble will be blamed on the protesters.

It is clear, particularly if you believe that fraud decided the election, that the specter of a popular, liberal candidate like Mir Hossein Mousavi was simply more than the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Council of Guardians could stand.  It is important to understand that a change to Mousavi would not result in a new Iranian revolution.  Whoever becomes the president, it is highly unlikely that there will be changes in nuclear or foreign policy.  What the Iranian protest marchers want is some liberalization in social and economic policies, not a wholesale change in government.  Despite that, the Supreme Leader and his allies clearly saw sufficient potential disaster peering at them over Mousavi’s liberal shoulder to take matters into their own hands.  The numbers of voters alone must have jarred the leadership. In short, they are not about to give up power through any means, let alone democratic elections, irrespective of whatever propaganda damage may accrue to them as a result.  In that regard, the Supreme Leader’s recent call to investigate the allegations of fraud my simply be an attempt to mitigate such damage.

The re-election of Ahmadinejad, whether legitimate or fraudulent, will have some major regional and international impacts, but most importantly, it will highlight all the negatives that we Americans see in current Iranian policies. In this context, it is completely irrelevant whether or not the election was fraudulent, and, if so, whether or not Ahmadinejad knows it. What matters is that he will base his future policies on the overwhelming 62 percent “mandate” he received from his countrymen for his past policies. That will make him more difficult, more combative and more cantankerous in his dealings with us. Liberalism and the possibility of change are the real losers in this election.

In purely Iranian terms, this new “mandate” will exist as reality as long as a Supreme Leader of Iran is in place and as long as the Ayatollahs retain power. That power, despite post-election street demonstrations, will not be seriously threatened as long as the police force, the Army and, most important, The Revolutionary Guards are on their side. There is no reason today to think that they are even close to losing control.

The election results will exacerbate Israel’s paranoia about Iran as an existential threat. It will make them more inclined to undertake military action against Iran and that will further complicate their relationship with us. Americans who do not support military action against Iran will see Israel as unnecessarily aggressive. Americans who believe that Iran really does represent an existential threat to Israel will see increasing Israeli bellicosity toward Iran as completely justified. That deepening divide will make decisions on all aspects of our regional policies even more difficult than they are today.

Under Netanyahu, Israel has said clearly that it does not want a two-state solution. In his speech on June 14, his demands for Palestine to have no arms, no control over its airspace, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and no consideration of the long cherished Palestinian “right to return” or hegemony over any of Jerusalem, he managed to hit just about every button that is unacceptable to Palestinians and, by extension to Muslims in general. At the same time, his only concession to the Palestinians was the creation of a politically gutted state. It would seem that his formulation was consciously designed to preclude any serious future discussion of a two-state solution.

In response to President Obama’s resolve to pursue that solution, Netanyahu’s coalition will likely do everything possible to avoid any negotiations that would bring down their government and, in their eyes, threaten their national interests. Substantive discussions of Jerusalem, settlements, border adjustments, Palestinian repatriation do not appear to be on his agenda.

The new Israeli awareness of the American position and their own still-evolving attitudes, hardened by Ahmadinejad’s reelection and Obama’s speech, will make a solution to the Palestine problem even more difficult. Everything the Israelis say about Palestine and a two-state solution will be couched in terms of the “existential Iranian threat”. We saw the beginning of this in the Iran-centered reaction of the Israelis to President Obama’s Cairo speech. The result of the Iranian reelection will only harden that position, making any constructive approach to the Palestine problem even more difficult.

Netanyahu’s intransigence stems from his having welcomed the right wing, pro-settler political parties into his coalition government. Absent a change of heart in the more liberal Kadima Party of Tzipi Livni and their willingness to join in a coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud party, the Likud must keep those parties on board or lose power.

All of these issues will complicate the delicate balances and incipient conflicts that have always existed in the region. The tensions, problems and centuries-old conflicts between Arabs and Persians, Sunni and Shia, and Kurds with Turks and Arabs will become exacerbated. Even those farther afield; the Taliban with Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the issues between Pashtuns and Punjabis in Pakistan will have their negative impacts.

Unfortunately, given our extensive involvement in and commitment to the Middle East, they will all make our already almost insolvable tasks even more problematical. More proof positive that in that complicated region, we are at the mercy of things over which we have no control.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Read Full Post »

Everyone’s talking in the Middle East — but us

Posted in Middle East on May 28, 2008|

[Originally published in Nieman Watchdog.]

A former CIA station chief writes that in Lebanon and elsewhere, consequential conversations are taking place that are critical to our national interests. But because we refuse to talk to such major players as Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, we’re not involved.

The Lebanese tell a story about themselves that is ironically revealing of the virtually constant troubles that have plagued their country since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

It goes as follows:

When God created the Earth, he saved what is now Lebanon for last. He threw up magnificent, snow-covered mountains, cedar, apple and pear trees and flowers. He added crystal clear rivers and streams filled with fish and a beautiful high desert. In the west, along the bountiful Mediterranean Sea, he created beautiful white sand beaches and majestic rocky cliffs rimmed by date palms.

God stood back and looked. He thought that such beauty and bounty, when compared to the rest of the world, simply wasn’t fair. No other place on the face of the earth was as special, so to compensate for that, he installed the Lebanese people as its residents.

It’s hard to know what God meant by that, but the practical reality is that Lebanon is populated by virtually all of the factions that are at such odds today in the rest of the Arab world. Sunni, Shia and Christian with small sprinklings of Jews and Druze are among the sectarian groups that remain in Lebanon.

Lebanon is a political and sectarian microcosm of all the issues that have ruled in the Middle East over the past 50 years and is, sadly, not immune to any of them. When the Middle East falls apart, Lebanon falls apart internally with it.

Lebanon has been settled for over 5,000 years. Byblos is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world, having existed since before 3000 B.C. In more recent times, under the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon was a part of Greater Syria. At the end of World War I, Lebanon became a part of the French Mandate of Syria and remained so until 1926, when the French created the Lebanese Republic. Lebanese independence was gained in 1943.
Because of the pressures caused by its religious diversity, Lebanon has long had an unwritten political agreement. The national pact establishes that the president of the republic will always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, the president of the national assembly a Shia and the deputy speaker of the parliament a Greek Orthodox. In addition, representation in the parliament has to be maintained at six Christians to five Muslims.

Clearly, the Christian French Republic had a large hand in this, virtually guaranteeing that Christians would be in charge of Lebanon long into the future. It is said that in the early years of the Lebanese Republic, when many Christians were emigrating to the West, the Christian majority, which has for some time been doubtful, was maintained along with the validity of the national pact by counting the overseas Christians as citizens of Lebanon. This has not eased tensions in Lebanon, because Muslims, the real majority in their country, have increasingly felt disenfranchised.

Recent events have finally threatened the accepted political structure. Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, had its origins in Shia Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion. It is trained and funded by Iran. However, rather than evolving into a strictly terrorist organization – and it certainly does conduct terrorist operations – Hezbollah has firmly planted its roots in the large Shia community of Lebanon. It runs clinics, radio and television stations and welfare operations. It takes care of its people, is widely supported by the Lebanese Shia community and holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament, although far fewer than true per capita representation would probably bring it. Today, Muslims hold 64 seats in the parliament and Christians 64.

The population of 4 million Lebanese breaks down roughly into 1 million Shia, 1.4 million Sunni and 1.6 million Christians, comprised of Maronites (Catholic), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Greek Catholic, Coptic and Syrian Orthodox.

The endemic, Muslim-wide, Shia-Sunni tensions are very real in Lebanon. The profusion of Christian sects has often resulted in shifting, often unpredictable alliances between various Christian and Muslim factions which have further complicated the situation.

In addition, Syria has always felt that Lebanon should be part of Syria. Their irredentist passions have often caused them to interfere in Lebanese politics, causing immense internal political pressures there. Then there is the wild card of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, particularly given its immense hostility to Iran and Hezbollah.

The current Lebanese government is strongly supported by the United States. Apparently concerned about Hezbollah preparations for another war with Israel, it recently provoked a showdown with Hezbollah, probably with urging from the Bush administration. The government tried to preempt Hezbollah’s dedicated communications network and removed both a Hezbollah surveillance camera and the Lebanese installation commander, a Hezbollah sympathizer, on whose turf it was installed. Hezbollah responded by taking to the streets. In short order, they controlled much of Beirut and met with virtually no resistance from the Lebanese Army which clearly saw it could not win such a battle.

The important fact to remember is that Hezbollah is Shiite and supported by Iran. Add to that the fact that Hezbollah embarrassed the Israeli Army last summer in Lebanon and you can see that it is a total anathema to the Bush administration which has refused any kind of substantive contact with Iran or Hezbollah on these issues.

Today, Europe is conducting talks with Hamas, which Iran also supports. The Arab League is actively involved in Doha, trying to mitigate Lebanese violence. The Lebanese factions have already reached some political accommodation in talks in Doha. The Syrians are holding Turkish-mediated “indirect talks” with Israel on a “comprehensive peace agreement.”

All of these discussions are taking place without the involvement of the United States. This fact underlines our almost total isolation in the Middle East. We are isolated because we have no leverage in the area. We have nothing we are prepared to give up that anyone wants. What is wanted from us is: the end of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq; the end of U.S. support of repressive, non-representative Arab regimes; the removal of U.S. troops from holy Muslim ground in Saudi Arabia and a just peace for Palestine.

There is a lot of political movement taking place in the Middle East right now. Just about everything that happens there will affect us directly. It is most certainly in our national interest to see that we have our input.

Yet, we refuse to talk to the real players in the area – Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria – who will directly affect the outcome. If what little leverage we have offers the hope of a positive outcome for us as well as the region, why are we not more heavily involved?

Playing our hand according to our own national interests would ease many of our current political, military and economic troubles. It is a national shame that we are not involved in these processes and using what leverage we have. It may be a very long time before we get another shot.

Read Full Post »

When Middle East falls apart, Lebanon falls with it

Posted in Middle East on May 25, 2008|

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

The Lebanese tell a story about themselves that is ironically revealing of the virtually constant troubles that have plagued their country since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

It goes as follows:

When God created the Earth, he saved what is now Lebanon for last. He threw up magnificent, snow-covered mountains, cedar, apple and pear trees and flowers. He added crystal clear rivers and streams filled with fish and a beautiful high desert. In the west, along the bountiful Mediterranean Sea, he created beautiful white sand beaches and majestic rocky cliffs rimmed by date palms.

God stood back and looked. He thought that such beauty and bounty, when compared to the rest of the world, simply wasn’t fair. No other place on the face of the earth was as special, so to compensate for that, he installed the Lebanese people as its residents.

It’s hard to know what God meant by that, but the practical reality is that Lebanon is populated by virtually all of the factions that are at such odds today in the rest of the Arab world. Sunni, Shia and Christian with small sprinklings of Jews and Druze are among the sectarian groups that remain in Lebanon.

Lebanon is a political and sectarian microcosm of all the issues that have ruled in the Middle East over the past 50 years and is, sadly, not immune to any of them. When the Middle East falls apart, Lebanon falls apart internally with it.

Lebanon has been settled for over 5,000 years. Byblos is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world, having existed since before 3000 B.C. In more recent times, under the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon was a part of Greater Syria. At the end of World War I, Lebanon became a part of the French Mandate of Syria and remained so until 1926, when the French created the Lebanese Republic. Lebanese independence was gained in 1943.

Because of the pressures caused by its religious diversity, Lebanon has long had an unwritten political agreement. The national pact establishes that the president of the republic will always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni, the president of the national assembly a Shia and the deputy speaker of the parliament a Greek Orthodox. In addition, representation in the parliament has to be maintained at six Christians to five Muslims.

Clearly, the Christian French Republic had a large hand in this, virtually guaranteeing that Christians would be in charge of Lebanon long into the future. It is said that in the early years of the Lebanese Republic, when many Christians were emigrating to the West, the Christian majority, which has for some time been doubtful, was maintained along with the validity of the national pact by counting the overseas Christians as citizens of Lebanon. This has not eased tensions in Lebanon, because Muslims, the real majority in their country, have increasingly felt disenfranchised.

Recent events have finally threatened the accepted political structure. Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, had its origins in Shia Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion. It is trained and funded by Iran. However, rather than evolving into a strictly terrorist organization – and it certainly does conduct terrorist operations – Hezbollah has firmly planted its roots in the large Shia community of Lebanon. It runs clinics, radio and television stations and welfare operations. It takes care of its people, is widely supported by the Lebanese Shia community and holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament, although far fewer than true per capita representation would probably bring it. Today, Muslims hold 64 seats in the parliament and Christians 64.

The population of 4 million Lebanese breaks down roughly into 1 million Shia, 1.4 million Sunni and 1.6 million Christians, comprised of Maronites (Catholic), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Greek Catholic, Coptic and Syrian Orthodox.

The endemic, Muslim-wide, Shia-Sunni tensions are very real in Lebanon. The profusion of Christian sects has often resulted in shifting, often unpredictable alliances between various Christian and Muslim factions which have further complicated the situation.

In addition, Syria has always felt that Lebanon should be part of Syria. Their irredentist passions have often caused them to interfere in Lebanese politics, causing immense internal political pressures there. Then there is the wild card of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, particularly given its immense hostility to Iran and Hezbollah.

The current Lebanese government is strongly supported by the United States. Apparently concerned about Hezbollah preparations for another war with Israel, it recently provoked a showdown with Hezbollah, probably with urging from the Bush administration. The government tried to preempt Hezbollah’s dedicated communications network and removed both a Hezbollah surveillance camera and the Lebanese installation commander, a Hezbollah sympathizer, on whose turf it was installed. Hezbollah responded by taking to the streets. In short order, they controlled much of Beirut and met with virtually no resistance from the Lebanese Army which clearly saw it could not win such a battle.

The important fact to remember is that Hezbollah is Shiite and supported by Iran. Add to that the fact that Hezbollah embarrassed the Israeli Army last summer in Lebanon and you can see that it is a total anathema to the Bush administration which has refused any kind of substantive contact with Iran or Hezbollah on these issues.

Today, Europe is conducting talks with Hamas, which Iran also supports. The Arab League is actively involved in Doha, trying to mitigate Lebanese violence. The Lebanese factions have already reached some political accommodation in talks in Doha. The Syrians are holding Turkish-mediated “indirect talks” with Israel on a “comprehensive peace agreement.”

All of these discussions are taking place without the involvement of the United States. This fact underlines our almost total isolation in the Middle East. We are isolated because we have no leverage in the area. We have nothing we are prepared to give up that anyone wants. What is wanted from us is: the end of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq; the end of U.S. support of repressive, non-representative Arab regimes; the removal of U.S. troops from holy Muslim ground in Saudi Arabia and a just peace for Palestine.

There is a lot of political movement taking place in the Middle East right now. Just about everything that happens there will affect us directly. It is most certainly in our national interest to see that we have our input. Yet, we refuse to talk to the real players in the area – Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria – who will directly affect the outcome. If what little leverage we have offers the hope of a positive outcome for us as well as the region, why are we not more heavily involved?

Playing our hand according to our own national interests would ease many of our current political, military and economic troubles. It is a national shame that we are not involved in these processes and using what leverage we have. It may be a very long time before we get another shot like this.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief, who served in Eastern and Western Europe, Lebanon and Tehran and as chief of the counter-terrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts