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We can’t govern Syria

Posted in Democracy, ISIS, Middle East, Syria, Uncategorized, United States on December 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald on December 10,2015

There is one basic reality in the Middle East. The region contains a number of “countries” that were created out of whole cloth during the 19th and early 20th centuries by European colonial powers to suit their own purposes. The artificiality of those “countries” makes for a very unstable region.

Those “countries” are not in any sense internally cohesive, and many contain the seeds of their own disintegration. Historically, those “countries” have been governed repressively simply because the tribal, sectarian and national mixtures of residents are sufficiently volatile to require relatively strict repression for the maintenance of cohesion and public order.

The divisions that exist within those “countries” go back decades, centuries and millennia. Internal conflicts now exist where central, often repressive control has disappeared, as in Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Where open conflict has not broken out, some form of repression continues in force, as in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt (for the moment) and the Gulf States.

The American compulsion to export democracy and concomitant peace to that world has been proven incredibly naïve, largely because the only elements in the region that matter — tribal, sectarian and national — have no experience with democracy and are largely unprepared for and do not seek its introduction.

And in the midst of this instability, we find ourselves required to deal with ISIS. Some Americans believe that we are capable of “beating” ISIS and its allies and support boots on the ground. That may or may not be, but that is not the real issue. The real issue is, what comes after the defeat of that enemy?

An examination of Iraq shows that tribally, Iraq has approximately 150 groups; Nationally, 72-75 percent Arabs (Palestinians, marsh Arabs, Bedouins), 20-22 percent Kurds (Feylis, Yazidis, Shabaks and Kakais), 2 percent Assyrians, 2 percent Turkmen and 1 percent Armenians, Circassians, Persians, Sabians, Baha’is, Afro-Iraqis and Doms; and most important, the sectarian split between Sunni (35 percent) and Shia Muslims (65 percent).

An absence of conflict between all these groups has existed only when Iraq has been governed repressively, and that most emphatically includes the period, 2003-2011, when American troops supplied the muscle. Now that we have largely left, Iraq is settling into a period of internal conflicts between inimical groups.

Let’s assume that we send American troops into Syria and that those troops ultimately “beat” ISIS. What happens then? Syria is not populated by a cohesive or happy bunch. Nationalities present in Syria include Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians, Greeks, Kurds, Mandeans, Turkmen and Turks. Religions include Alawite, Christian, Druze, Mandean, Salafi, Shia, Sunni and Yazidi. There are tribes aplenty, particularly Bedouin.

On the issue of religion, it is worth noting that the Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam, who have repressively governed Syria for decades, represent about 12 percent of the population, while their rivals, the Sunnis, comprise around 75 percent. This situation is opposite to the one in Iraq where a minority of Sunnis governed repressively over a majority of Shia. The ongoing result in Iraq has been internecine warfare featuring the Shia who clearly seek retribution for decades of mistreatment by the Sunnis. It is not at all unlikely that the same would happen in Syria if the minority Alawites were to lose power to the majority Sunnis.

The way things now stand, with a majority of our 2016 presidential candidates favoring military intervention in Syria, it would seem that American boots on the ground in a struggle against ISIS, even if successful, could have some very unpleasant long-term results.

First, If we destroy ISIS, many of those “volunteers” now fighting with ISIS will more than likely go home and become self-motivated terrorists. The only likely difference between them and folks like the San Bernardino pair is that the new ones will be better trained and motivated and far harder to neutralize.

Then, assuming we are successful, who will govern? Russia, Hezbollah and Iran want Assad. We seem to want anyone but Assad. If we decide to impose a solution, it will be up to us to police it in a hostile and highly unsettled environment, which our boots on the ground will have created. The tribal, sectarian and national frictions that exist in Syria have been there and may remain forever. In short, the success of an American invasion, if we hope to change anything, will depend on our willingness to accept that there will be no predictable end to our occupation.

American boots on the ground is insanity. It’s simple: We can’t afford it. Let it be carried out by the neighbors, with our direct support, but without our direct involvement.

 

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Democracy cannot be imposed

Posted in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Middle East, Uncategorized, United States on October 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald on October 07, 2015

Our military involvement in the Middle East began with Operation Desert Shield in 1990. At the end of that invasion, we did the only intelligent thing we have done in that area, we withdrew without ending Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq.

In the 15 years since then, we have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We have been militarily involved in Syria, Yemen and Libya. The purpose of this involvement clearly was a desire to bring democracy to the Middle East, based on our idea of American exceptionalism.

Thus, we effectively ended the reign of the existing governments as the first step in establishing democracy. However hard it was pushed by the neoconservatives as part of a “regime change” policy during the administration of President George W. Bush, democracy was a goal we never reached. It never took because the countries and people in question had never had any exposure to democracy and had none of the prerequisites for reaching it successfully.

What we did was remove or try to remove the repressive governments in question. We succeeded in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and essentially, brought chaos to those countries, which previously had enjoyed stability brought on by repressive governance. We created that chaos by militarily removing those regimes and then not being able to install the kind of benevolent democratic governance we wanted to see in place.

Our current administration has been severely criticized by its political opponents for not having stayed on and maintained order in Afghanistan and Iraq. Theoretically, we could have done that. The problem is that there would have been no end to those occupations because the countries in question have inherent internal religious, tribal and ethnic conflicts that have never been fixed and that may never be resolved.

These are problems that have been contained over the past 14 centuries through repressive governance. Any continued successful occupation of those countries by U.S. forces would have had to have been repressive as well as open-ended. Under those circumstances, the result of our ultimate withdrawal would most likely have ended in instability as it has today.

Essentially, what we have done is destroy existing, repressive order expecting to install democracy. Democracy doesn’t take, and we end up, inevitably, with chaos.

Consider Egypt. The Arab Spring brought a revolution to Egypt. A military dictator was deposed and a new, allegedly fundamentalist government was installed. That terrified the military establishment, which engineered a coup and reinstalled a military dictatorship which in turn, reestablished stability on their own terms. Egypt went full circle from military dictatorship through free elections back to military dictatorship and imposed order.

It seemed to many that the Obama administration would have a different attitude toward the cycles described above. They would get us out of the convoluted messes that neoconservative policies had created in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Obama administration swapped their very own “liberal interventionists” for the Bush era neoconservatives. We began hands-off wars with drones and “clean” air power. No troops on the ground. We got involved in Libya, Yemen and Syria, adding to our declining popularity in the Middle East and to the mass exodus to Europe now under way.

Where are we heading in Syria? Our government opposes both Syrian President Assad and all the fundamentalist groups aligned against him. We have supported some of the groups opposed to the government and trained a pathetically small number of others, but we have frequently said that it is too difficult to identify those who are really sympathetic to our democratic goals.

To further complicate an already complicated scene, Libya and Saudi Arabia support the rebels (most of whom are Sunni) against the Assad government, which is Alawite (a branch of Shia Islam). On the other side of the issue, Shia Iran and Russia support the Assad government. Russia’s President Putin has said, somewhat cynically, that he is interested only in stability for Syria. It is difficult to say precisely what we seek for that same country, but let’s arbitrarily stipulate that it’s some form of democracy.

You can’t get there from here. If we depose Assad, whom do we support when he is gone? What we might consider, since our real enemy is ISIS and the other fundamentalist groups, is simply turning a blind eye, for the moment, to Assad and joining in a fight, which others are now conducting against those real enemies without moaning about Assad.

What we stand to gain from this is imposed, repressive stability, an end to the killing and to the terribly dangerous migration of hundreds of thousands toward our friends in Europe. Politically, Syria will have to evolve on its own through self-determination, not imposed democracy.

 

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The Syrian Gamble

Posted in foreign policy, Insurgency, Lebanon, Middle East, Syria, United States on March 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Rural Ruminations

by Haviland Smith

 

Before we adopt a new Syria policy, a quick review might be helpful in better understanding the endless confusion that rules over the situation in that region today.

Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turks make up about 72% of the Syrian population, Shia 13% and Christians about 10%. The Syrian government, its military and economy under Bashar Al Assad are dominated by the Alawites (Shia). Minority Alawites and their allies run everything important in Syria.

The current civil war in Syria began in the Spring of 2011 with the establishment of the Free Syrian Army, a group of Syrian Army defectors who are roughly 90% Sunni.

This struggle has been something of a proxy war with Iran (Shia) and Yemen (Shia) the main supporters of the Assad (Shia) regime with outside help from Russia. Arrayed against them in support of the rebels are Jordan, Saudi Arabia (the birthplace of Sunni fundamentalism), Turkey and Qatar (both Sunni) along with France, Britain and the US. The sectarian violence has spread to Lebanon where Hezbollah (Shia) has allied itself with the Assad regime and, additionally, fought with Lebanese Sunni groups.

ISIS began life as a fundamentalist Sunni organization. In effect, ISIS is a criminal organization populated by thugs for whom there are no rules of decency. Given sufficient exposure, it is highly likely that ISIS will completely alienate the Sunnis in Northern Syria and Western Iraq, as there is nothing in the Koran (as it is seen by the vast majority of its adherents) that justifies the murderous activities in which they have continuously been involved. Shia Iran is ISIS’ foremost committed enemy. Whose side are we on?

In addition, we have the new Iraqi army which is now being trained by the United States, but which has been referred to as “not so much an army as a vast system of patronage”. The Army, beholden as it is to the Shia government of Iraq, excludes from its ranks any Iraqi who might be opposed to that government. The army is widely said to have been infiltrated by local militias and foreign insurgents, resulting in secular killings and operational failures. It is, to all intents and purposes an inefficient, albeit Shia, operation. Further, current reporting indicates that much of the anti-ISIS opposition comes from Shia militia from Iraq. Do we want our boots on the ground with them?

Then we have the Kurds who are the largest ethnic group (28,000,000) in the world without a country and whose people are spread out over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They are estimated to represent 15-25% of the total population of Turkey. Even though they are Sunnis, like the Turks on whose land so many Kurds live, they are viewed with grave suspicion by the Turks as ongoing threats to the sovereignty of Eastern Turkey. In fact, they do find time to kill one another on a fairly regular basis. Whom do we support?

So we have this incredible mélange of ethnic and sectarian Middle Easterners involved either directly or indirectly in the Syrian insurgency. It is impossible at any given time, to predict just how they will react to the wide variety of scenarios that exist for the future. They are hardly the sort of allies that the US is used to and from whom we could possibly profit. Who are our friends? Our enemies?

Counterterrorism doctrine promotes police work, intelligence collection and Special Forces operations, never military. No matter what the Administration says, Syria is not a counterterrorism problem. It is a counterinsurgency problem. Some Americans openly promote American troops on the ground in Syria. US military doctrine dictates that in fighting an insurgency the occupying force must have one combatant on the ground for every 20-25 residents of the country involved. Even with all the Syrians who have left their country, there are probably around 22 million left. That would mean a force of 440-550,000 troops. Are we up to that? Who will pay for it?

And then there is the other reality. We have learned from our invasion of Afghanistan that if you overlook the rules and put American troops on the ground fighting against an organization that even the local residents hate, you present those residents with a dilemma. Do they support the invading Americans or do they support an indigenous group that they otherwise would hate? Our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq give us a pretty clear answer to that question.

These realities will not change simply because our policy makers want them to. And then, what is our goal? Even if we are successful in bringing down ISIS, what then?

We are so over our heads here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Wages of Fear

Posted in terrorism, United States on February 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times-Argus

 

If one looks back carefully at the post-9/11 period here in America, all related governmental activities are claimed to have been undertaken in the name of increasing the safety of the American people.

For its part, the press, probably because of the ceaseless demands of a 24 hour service, has been on top of any story that smacked of danger, terrorism or counterterrorism, to the point where terrorism was clearly their priority topic.

After 9/11, our lives were touched, not necessarily positively, by legislation on immigration, deportations, tourism and border security. Then, think of the NSA, warrantless wiretaps and covert intrusions into our lives. In addition, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act has turned air travel into a nightmare for passengers and cost us additional billions of dollars.

And consider the Patriot Act, which many believe has unnecessarily complicated the Federal response to terrorism and created counterproductive duplications and levels of authority.

In 15 years, over 250 governmental agencies were created or reorganized. Over 1200 government agencies and just under 2,000 private companies are now involved in counterterrorism.

And on the military side, estimates are that our military invasions in the Middle East have cost us multiple trillions of dollars. Apparently any money spent on counterterrorism is well-spent!

But then we are continually reminded that these post-9/11 defenses have prevented all serious terrorist attacks against us.

Yet, we have paid heavily in other ways. We have lived in an ongoing climate of fear and concern about future terrorism attacks here at home. If you don’t believe this, just look at the US press coverage of the terrorist attack on the publication “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris. It is, to say the least, pervasive.

On CNN, Wolf Blitzer exclaimed excitedly, “What a story this is”! For its part, just about every conceivable element of the Federal government is exhorting us to “be vigilant!”

A charitable soul would say that all the legislation passed, all the money spent, all the press coverage has been designed to somehow make us more safe. But it has also made us more afraid and more malleable, which is the goal of the terrorists. Nothing could possibly have made them more happy!

There is an alternate theory available that also fits all the facts of the past 15 years. That is that it has been a conscious aim of US Government, an aim augmented almost inadvertently by the US press, to keep Americans on edge about the imminent threat of terrorism.

When fear is a dominant factor in peoples’ lives, people change. They are more tolerant of policies they would normally never accept. They will put up with the loss of basic Constitutional and human rights for any sort of increased sense of personal security. In a “fearful” society, the people are more docile, more ready to accept a diminution of their rights.

What makes it all the more worrisome is that the Paris attack has brought a chorus of voices from our legislators which, if nothing else, have energized our press and their fellow politicians into fits of coverage.

In this context, it might be well for Americans to remember the judicious advice of Benjamin Franklin who admonished pre-revolutionary Americans that “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in its Reply to the Governor -11 Nov. 1755)

So, there is a move afoot, either spontaneous or, more likely, quietly encouraged by government and energetically pursued by the press, to persuade us that terrorist disaster is just around the corner. One of our august Senators just suggested that attacks like Paris could come as often as weekly!

Just what does our government mean when it encourages our “vigilance?” Are we to profile people we take to be Muslims? If so, what do they really look like? Are we to report to the authorities activities that we as uninformed and inexpert individuals decide are dangerous or suspicious by people we think might be Muslims? Should we keep an eye on the Mosques?

But then, if we are truly interested in the whys and wherefores of Middle East terrorism, and if we do not fear the truth, we might even take the time to ask ourselves honestly why the situation exists as it does.   What roles have our Middle East polices and our military invasions played in the Muslim view of and policies toward America? If we can’t do that as a nation, we will forever be vulnerable to the kind of fear that now grips the West.

 

 

 

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Dealing with ISIS

Posted in Insurgency, Syria, terrorism, United States on August 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in  SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

With its meteoric military rise, its leadership, management and financing, the newest terrorist scourge facing the world is ISIS.  Operating in what is clearly a political vacuum in northeast Syria and western Iraq and benefitting from the studied indifference of most of the Muslim world, Isis is clearly on a roll.

The chaos in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world is largely the result of a combination of incredibly bad United States military/foreign policy decisions and the concomitant disintegration or destruction of all those elements, both good and bad, that were in place and maintaining order in the region before we invaded Iraq in 2003.

And in the midst of all of this chaos, Americans are coming slowly to the realization that ISIS presents us with real, long run, existential problems and that we probably have absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation at the moment.

Our problem in policy formulation on this issue is also of our own making.  It comes as a result of the same horrendous decision to invade Iraq, for that invasion created two new realities for us.

First, it has made more than half of the U.S. population extremely wary about any further military involvement in the Islam.  We are war-weary to the extent that virtually no policy proposal for dealing with ISIS has failed to mention the guarantee that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground.

Secondly, that Iraq invasion, coupled with our endless stay in Afghanistan, has virtually guarantees that the re-commitment of American troops in uniform will have a unifying anti-American effect on Muslim populations, even though the radical ISIS is viewed with horror by most of those local populations.

If you doubt that, look first at the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 2003 which was driven largely by the fact that when the locals were faced with a choice between foreigners (Americans) and locals, they decided to back their own.  Or, look at the way Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, heavily influenced by hostile, unaccepting Shia governments in Baghdad and Tehran, have tolerated, even joined with ISIS in its fight for power.   The fact is that, particularly in Islam, given any need to choose between foreigners and locals, it is a rare thing that the foreigners will be favored.  All one has to do to understand that is read the history of the region.

So, what are our policy options?  The attitudes of both American and Muslim citizens toward the American military establishment, basically rule out the effective reintroduction of U.S. troops into the area, even if we had the necessary resources to do it.  Yet, if ISIS is to be neutralized, it will not be done without ground forces.  It’s not just the ISIS soldiers, it is the larger question of denying them control of the territory over which they now preside in Iraq and Syria.

Then we have Kurdish and Iraqi troops.  The problem there, accepting that they are ill-equipped, ill-trained and relatively ineffective, is that there are historical political reasons to worry about such confrontations.  We have ages old Kurdish/Turk frictions.  Additionally, any Iraqi army of the future is going to be Shia dominated in a struggle with Sunni ISIS.  That scenario bears the strong possibility that a Shia-Sunni conflict ultimately could easily embroil the entire region.

Needing foot soldiers and ruling out all non-Muslims, we are left with the rest of the Muslim world.  Note that none of them have so far rushed into the fray against ISIS, either because they are frightened to be seen to do so, because they prefer them to the alternative, or might even actually support them.  Why else would the Iraqi Sunnis, who are among the more secular Muslims, support a bloodthirsty bunch of zealots who want to install the most conservatively radical sectarian government imaginable? Perhaps as a counterbalance to Iraqi Shia forces?

We need to keep trying to find Muslims who disagree enough with ISIS to fight against them.  Barring such an unlikely find, we need to arm anyone – Kurdish, Iraqi or Shia – who wants to fight against them.  We need to keep US military uniforms completely out of the fray, but we might be well-advised to get ready for a protracted, completely covert or clandestine struggle against ISIS which would involve our intelligence resources as well as our black, paramilitary operational capabilities.

Or we can pretend there is not a real threat and wait until they hit us, which, absent meaningful U.S. involvement, they most certainly will do at some point in the future.

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A Positive Step with Iran

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, United States on December 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Rutland Herald and in the Barre Times Argus

Since November 4, 1979, when a group of Iranian students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and held its American employees captive for 444 days, America and Iran have been at total odds.

During those 34 years America and Iran have become increasingly mutually hostile.  A succession of American Presidents has instituted crippling sanctions against Iran. The Ayatollahs have responded in every way possible to make our lives increasingly unpleasant by supporting terrorism in the Middle East.  In short, both sides have done just about everything possible to maintain and even increase that level of hostility.

If you toss into the mix the important remaining countries in the Middle East, the situation becomes even more complicated.

Iran has been one of the dominant powers in the region for literally thousands of years.  With that dominance has come a sense of importance.  The Iranians believe they should be real players in their part of the world.

Iran is the largest Shia country in the Middle East.  As such, they are allied with other Shia elements in the almost 14 centuries old blood feud going on with Islam’s Sunnis. There are large Shia minorities in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The result is that there has been almost perpetual friction and occasional war between Shia and Sunni.

If you translate these realities into today’s world of P5+1 (US, Russia, China, UK, France plus Germany) negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, you will see immediately that there are a number of countries in Iran’s neighborhood who not only would not like to see Iran with the bomb, but would really like to see the country and it’s inhabitants obliterated simply because they are Shia.

Important Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia see Iran as a direct competitor for hegemony in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East.  Seeing a nuclear Iran as far too powerful a competitor, they would like to have someone (read the USA and/or even Israel) bomb the Iranian nuclear capability into oblivion.

So, the biggest wild cards threatening a successful outcome to these negotiations are the Sunni components in the Middle East and the Israelis who over the past three and a half decades have been constantly threatened by Iran.

In fact, Israel’s Likud Party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has pulled out all the negative stops on the ongoing negotiations, telling the world, particularly the US, that the interim deal they have reached is a bad deal, with the clear implication that any negotiated deal at all would be equally bad.  In pursuing this policy they have pushed every pro-Israeli button they could reach, not only here, but also in all the P5+1 countries.

So far, it hasn’t worked as can be seen in the interim agreement just now announced.  Nevertheless, they have not given up.  It is understood that if America or the P5+1 place additional sanctions on Iran, as some American congressmen wish to do, that simple fact will abrogate any agreement.  So, there is still room for Israel to manoeuver to kill this agreement.

Remember, Iran is desperate to end the sanctions.

There is one critical fact must be kept in mind.  If the opponents of this impending peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem are successful and Iran proceeds to develop a bomb, then the only alternative policy for the P5+1 is to militarily attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Will the difficult nature of the target require boots on the ground?

First, it has not been proven that Iran even has a nuclear bomb program at this time.  Many western analysts, including many of our own, have agreed on that. In addition, the Ayatollah has issued a fatwa (prohibition) against it.

Second, there is absolutely no guarantee that Iran’s nuclear facilities can be destroyed.  They are largely bunkered far under ground giving them high-level protection.  In addition, their heavy water reactor in Arak, which will produce plutonium useable in atomic weapons, will soon be un-bombable as it’s destruction would widely spread lethal radioactivity.

There is no such thing as a perfect agreement, but this one looks pretty favorable for the US.  The Iranian program will be stopped at a point of our choosing. All of the concessions we have made can be unilaterally reinstated if we feel the Iranians are not keeping their end of the bargain.  Further negotiations will continue with the aim of negotiating away any Iranian ability to create nuclear weapons.

A final thought:  The Iranians are anything but stupid.  The bomb is only valuable if it is not used.  They know that if they were to create and use a bomb, their country would be wiped off the map.

 

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Amateur Hour in the White House

Posted in foreign policy, intelligence, United States on November 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally appeared in The Rutland Herald

It’s hard to believe that anyone save the most rabid republicans, could have watched the goings on in the White House over the past few weeks and not be horribly disappointed in what has been revealed.

 

In less than a month, we have been informed that President Obama was unaware of the fact that the NSA was listening to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, as well as the phones of thousands and thousands of other friends and allies, or that the Affordable Care Act’s internet roll-out in early October was facing crippling problems and that more related problems would be revealed almost daily thereafter.

 

Something is gravely wrong here.  Either the President/White House is lying, or it is not in control of the Executive Branch of our government.  Either way, the situation is unacceptable.

 

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is President Obama’s most important legislative initiative.  It may well prove to be the foundation of his presidential legacy.  Given those facts plus the energy and attention he has paid to Obamacare and its implementation, the premise that he was not aware of the problems well in advance is simply unacceptable.  If he was aware, then his action in going ahead with the roll-out before it could be a guaranteed success was incomprehensible and inexcusable.

 

Of course, the other possibility is that the President’s staff did not keep him informed on the incipient problems.  If that’s true, then heads should roll, but none have.  How could a President sit idly by and not be intimately involved in his most important legislative initiative?

 

The third possibility is that the President simply does not have control over either the White House or the Executive Branch.  That could only be explained by the White House’s lack of experience in Washington.  For a President to be successful in this country he and his staff have to be on top of everything of any importance that’s going on in the government, particularly any issues that are directly threatening to the President himself.

 

Which brings us to Mr. Snowden, the former NSA contractor, and his revelations about American electronic intercepts.  First, for those readers who see him as some sort of admirable or heroic whistle blower, it seems more likely that his efforts will prove to be highly traitorous.   Only time will give us a definitive answer, but there is every likelihood that what he has done will prove to be one of the most devastating reverses ever suffered by our intelligence community.  In the process of telling our enemies precisely what we do, he will aid them immeasurably in helping them defeat our efforts to protect ourselves.

 

The first question one must ask is how an employee of a private US firm which contracted to the NSA got such incredibly broad access to extremely sensitive information.  At a minimum, existing clearance and access procedures need to be carefully examined by our security experts.

 

The root issue here is not when the President got to know about NSA’s programs, the issue is whether or not he was ever informed at all.  If he was informed, say about Chancellor Merkel, then he most certainly should have put a halt not only to that effort, but to all other efforts targeting the leadership of our important foreign allies.  When it comes to risk vs. gain, there would seem to be little argument in this and other similar cases in support of gain.  Only a President could make that kind of judgment.

 

The other possibility, however remote, is that his staff was aware of these NSA programs and chose not to inform him.  If that proves to be the case, then the responsibility still lies at the foot of the President. The first question any incoming President has to ask the leaders of his intelligence community is whether or not they are doing anything at all that, if made public, could seriously damage our security or our standing in the world.  At that point, risk vs. gain kicks in and any president is left with the choice of whether or not to continue the program.

 

In one month, we have seen two such programs, one that has damaged the President and the other our standing in the world.  As the President himself has said, quoting Harry Truman, “The buck stops here”.  And it really does.  And in doing so, it has made the President and the White House look like amateurs.

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Obama has no good options in Syria

Posted in foreign policy, Syria, United States on August 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Valley News

President Obama tells us he is in the process of deciding what measures, if any, the United States will take against Syria. This decision is based on a number of as yet unproven assumptions that are now being investigated by the UN.

 

Nevertheless, we are told that the Obama Administration will not necessarily wait for the results of the ongoing UN technical inspection of the site in question or for the formal agreement of our allies on a future course of punitive action, but that it feels free to act unilaterally whenever it pleases, with or without Great Britain.

 

We are told unequivocally that the Assad regime used the gas.  But what if it was the rebels?  The result of the gassing is likely to be American military action.  Who in Syria benefits from that?  Certainly not the Assad regime which, consensus says, already is winning the civil war.  Only the rebels could benefit and then only in direct proportion to the severity of our action.

 

In the meantime, just to further set the scene, the British have moved warplanes to Cyprus.  The US has four destroyers standing off the Syrian coast.  On the other side of the ledger, the Russians are moving warships to the Mediterranean basin.  Hezbollah has stated its readiness to become involved in any future military action against us.  Iran fully supports Hezbollah.

 

Our president proposes to “punish” the Syrians for the use of chemical weapons, not to weaken or destroy the Syrian military establishment.  He and his spokespeople have said a number of times that the purpose of what we finally do, whatever that may turn out to be, will not be regime change.

 

It all sounds sort of like trying to spank a lion.

 

We have spanked lions in the past, never to our ultimate benefit.  We have seen Pan Am 103 and the bombing of the Berlin nightclub as poignant examples of our inability to foresee or prevent retaliation against us for the kind of activity we are now contemplating for Syria.  And given the realities of geography, all we represent in the Middle East is a target rich environment.  With our diplomatic, business and educational assets spread out all over the region, they have more targets than any angry adversary could possibly need or want.

 

Obama, stuck with his ill-conceived Syrian red line, has nothing but bad options.  Option number one seems to be a slap on the wrist – something to persuade the Syrians never to use chemical weapons again.  What conceivable good will that do us, or more importantly, those Syrian rebels who do not support Assad?  What they want is American action that will destroy the Syrian regime’s ability to beat them.  A Syria-wide no-fly zone would be to their liking, or pervasive missile attacks on Syria’s military hardware.  Further, there is no reason to think that anything as minimal as this would bother Assad in any way.  Obviously, the deaths of this own people is of little concern.  The only thing that matters to him and his followers is the perpetuation of their own power which will not be threatened by such a slap.

 

Option number two is to undertake military action that is so destructive that the rebels will be able to defeat the Assad government.  What does that accomplish for us when we have little to no idea of what will follow Assad in power.  Will Al Qaida be in the mix?  Will today’s rebels turn on the Alawites in retaliation for Assad’s ongoing bloodbath.  Will that cause us to consider what we can do to save those same Alawites?

 

And, worst case scenario, will our action against Syria, whatever it proves to be, result in broader, more intense regional conflict?

 

Finally, it can be argued seriously that Syria and what goes on there is of no national strategic interest to us.  Those who call it a humanitarian duty to intervene fail to explain why we have not done so when thousands have been killed in their own African countries.   Given recent oil developments in the Western Hemisphere, there is no rational argument for national interest there, but then there never has been simply because oil is a fungible commodity that people who produce it will inevitably sell it to those who consume it.  Finally our decade long involvement in military activity in the region has ended whatever vestiges of influence we have left after decades of bashing the Arabs.

 

An American dog may well get mauled in this fight!

 

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Why we need to spy

Posted in CIA, intelligence, United States on August 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Perspective Section of the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times Argus

When Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the Central Intelligence Agency, it was the first time the United States had ever had a peacetime intelligence organization.

The concept of a secret U.S. intelligence organization had been widely publicly discussed between the end of the Second World War and l947.  Those who opposed the idea pointed out the dichotomy of housing such an organization in a liberal democracy.  Wouldn’t its existence go against the basic tenets of democracy?  It was a serious, prolonged discussion which was finally resolved in favor of the creation of the CIA.  The rise of the USSR and its acquisitive policies in Europe played a major role in forming a consensus that America would need the services of such an organization in the coming years.

So, the CIA was created to stand with existing military intelligence organizations and, in 1949, with the National Security Agency, as the United State’s primary espionage agencies.  This effort came to exist primarily because of the proclivity of other nations to guard their secrets, particularly when those secrets represented any potential threat to the U.S. and its citizens.

All of this discussion was open and public in nature.  None of it was classified.  Anyone who wished to become informed on the subject could find ample original source information in the public media.  The result was that anyone who chose to know could find out in short order that the United States was setting up a post-war intelligence structure to support foreign and military policy makers in the coming Cold War.

Now, suddenly, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have jolted us, as an amnesic nation, into re-opening the same conversation, proving, if nothing else, that

America has no corporate memory.

If you believe that serious threats to the American nation ended with the demise of the Soviet Union and that no other such threats exist against the United States today, then probably you don’t see any objective need for this country to maintain an intelligence gathering structure.

If, on the other hand, you are concerned with America’s ability to protect herself against non-state terrorism, nuclear proliferation and nations that might somehow wish to harm us, then perhaps you can see some advantage in our having an efficient, functioning intelligence collection system.

The sole purpose of such a system is to provide policy makers with accurate information on the capabilities and intentions of any group that might wish to harm us.  During the Cold War we benefitted from the fact that we knew pretty well precisely who and where those hostile groups were.

Today’s world is far more complicated and confusing.  We are faced with a fragmented, franchised terrorist enemy which comes at us not only from abroad, but from within our own country.  Unlike an enemy directed by the Soviet Union, today’s enemies are self-directed individuals and groups, often with no ties to any central organization.  In intelligence terms, this deprives us of the option of penetrating the main organization to learn what the affiliates are planning to do.

Then, strictly in support of foreign policy, we are dealing with regions like the Middle East where political stability is a thing of the past and where the main result of the “Arab Spring” has been chaos, which has made policy decisions extraordinarily complicated and accurate intelligence mandatory.  Further, the nuclear activities of countries like Iran and North Korea mandate intelligence input.  And because none of these countries and non-state actors is going to tell us what they are up to, covert intelligence collection is the only answer.

Intelligence collection was never designed to go unmonitored in America.  The 1947 Act and subsequent legislation creating the intelligence community have had built into them appropriate controls that mandate legislative and judicial monitoring.  In fact, today all we have are allegations that wrongdoing is possible, not that it is actually happening. That’s akin to saying that the US military shouldn’t have guns because they might one day aim them at their fellow Americans.

What that implies is that those Americans who are most agitated by information coming from today’s leakers and are most negative on intelligence collection are those who believe that those who work in the intelligence community or monitor their work are not to be trusted.

There are two keys here.  First, the overwhelming majority of employees in the intelligence community are honorable, patriotic, well-intentioned people.  When you combine their sense of right and wrong with solid, appropriate oversight, you minimize whatever problems might arise.

Second, without intelligence, we are blind in an increasingly hostile and dangerous world.

 

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Invade Syria?

Posted in Syria, United States on August 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Barre Times Argus and the Rutland Herald

It is quite clear that here in the US and in the West in general, policy makers are divided on whether or not the west should invade Syria. American “political realists” have pulled out the stops to show the dangers and stupidity of such an invasion, whereas American supporters of “permanent war” led by the same neocons that got us into Iraq are just itching to get us enmeshed in Syria.

 

The “discussion” of this issue has not always been on the up and up.  In fact, the potential for inserting disinformation into the equation is endless.

 

In a May 9 article, The Times of Israel ran an article laying out Israel’s suspicion that Syria is in the process of buying six S-300 missile batteries and 144 missiles from Russia.

 

Syria already has a highly advanced air defense system, one that has caused our military planners to be very circumspect about any sort of military adventure in Syria.  The addition of a Russian system that is capable downing both fighter planes and cruise missiles would represent a significant upgrade for Syria’s already highly effective air defenses.

 

Clearly, the purpose of the article was to warn the

United States that the sale could hamper efforts for

international intervention in Syria.  Were we being told that we should act sooner rather than later?

 

This suspicion had previously been reported in the Wall Street Journal.  The critical question here is whether or not any of it is true.

 

Then we have the issue of the use of poison gas in Syria.  The original accusation was that the Assad regime had been the culprits. Just now, we have learned that the UN says that the US-backed opposition used the gas, not the regime.

 

Of course, the poison gas would not have been a major issue had it not been for the inept and ill-considered presidential “red line” that has reduced US options in Syria and put presidential credibility at stake.

 

But we have the allegations of the poison gas and the unfortunate “red line”, so it really does matter.

 

Further, there have been constant allegations of atrocities committed by the government and the rebels since the onset of the Syrian insurrection.

 

The Assad regime is 100% sectarian.  Supported by a smattering of Christians and Sunnis, the Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam, have governed in Syria through fear and repression.  That is about all one can do when representing no more than 15% of the overall Syrian population.  Since the 1970 Assad coup against the Baath regime, the minority Alawites have ruled the majority Sunnis with an iron fist and have allied themselves with Iran and Hezbollah against Israel.

 

In short, with the exception of Shia Iran, there are few in the region who support the Syrian Alawites.
It is likely that Bashir Assad and the Alawites will only leave Syria in coffins.  They probably see no alternative but to stand and fight.

 

Like everything else in the Middle East, Syria is part of the detritus of colonialism – a “country” formed for the convenience and profit of the old western colonial powers.

 

With America set up as the main enemy for the Syrians, there is little wonder that we are besieged by all manner of horrendous stories about poison gas, missile deliveries and atrocities.  But keep in mind that we are looking at a soundly cynical world in which everyone and anyone is prepared to lie to forward their own interests.

 

Russia has long had a political stake in Syria and still has a naval base there.  The Syrian Sunnis (freedom fighters?) have always chafed under repressive minority Alawite rule.  The Alawites, seeing no reasonable alternative to staying in power, will fight on.  The Iranians see the Alawites as one of their few allies in a predominately Sunni world.  Hezbollah sees the Alawites as their champions in the Hezbollah fight with Israel.  Israel sees the Alawites as a constant irritant.

 

So, who really is behind the poison gas, the missile story and the atrocities?  To understand that, one has to look at who benefits from what course of action.

 

The Israelis, Sunnis, Lebanese, Turks, Saudis, Jordanians and some conservative Americans probably would favor US intervention in Syria if only in the name of stability.  These people clearly would try to pin any bad behavior on the Iranians, Shiites Alawites and Hezbollah, true or not, that might encourage US intervention.  Then there are the Russians, Iranians and Chinese who would avoid such an intervention.

 

But in the end, it will probably be U.S. public opinion that decides and there is a growing group of Americans who are exhausted by our wars of the past dozen years and understand the very real dangers in direct Syrian involvement.

 

With any real luck, they will prevail.

 

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