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Freeing Pollard would be a terrible mistake

January 12, 2011 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Baltimore Sun.]

In September, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that filmmaker Michael Moore had launched a campaign to free Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been accused of providing most, if not all, of the classified documents being revealed on WikiLeaks. Mr. Manning has not yet been charged with a crime.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he will soon, again, seek the release to Israel of Jonathan Pollard, an American citizen employed by U.S. naval intelligence, who was convicted in 1987 of espionage on behalf of Israel and sentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Pollard has admitted that he received thousands of dollars in cash and valuables as well as a monthly salary from the Israelis. According to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent who led the Pollard investigation, interrogated Mr. Pollard and obtained his confession, Mr. Pollard sold or attempted to sell information to other governments (South Africa and Pakistan, for example). Ultimately, he accepted a plea bargain with the U.S. government that he would be sentenced to up to life in prison for “conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.”

Mr. Pollard was given Israeli citizenship in 1995. In 1998, the Israeli government confirmed Mr. Pollard’s activities. There is absolutely no question that he committed espionage. Clearly, he is a mercenary who was prepared to sell U.S. secrets to anyone who would pay.

Mr. Pollard’s case aside, we need to ask ourselves: Why are the Israelis running espionage operations against us? Are we not their absolute best friends? Do we not support them with every gift one nation can give to another?

The American intelligence community’s approach to Israel has been hands-off. From the creation of the CIA in 1947, CIA operations officers were absolutely forbidden to target or cultivate for recruitment any Israelis. We were their closest ally and friend on the planet. They kept nothing from us. There was, therefore, no need to collect intelligence clandestinely through human sources.

But Israel did not share that point of view. It clearly was running recruitment operations against us throughout the post-war period. FBI officers told us in the early 1970s that there were Mossad officers all over the country in official and non-official positions who were actively recruiting Americans. Numerous sources here indicate that Mossad is more active recruiting Americans today than ever before.

It seems logical that Mr. Manning will be prosecuted, despite what Michael Moore wants. This is an entirely internal U.S. matter.

The Pollard case is the same — yet it is totally different. Mr. Pollard is an American who broke U.S. law, was convicted and incarcerated. It is not an internal political group that seeks his release, as in the Manning case, but a foreign government that has acknowledged that it runs intelligence operations against us.

What would happen if the U.S. were to accede to Mr. Netanyahu’s request to free Pollard? This is not like the recent return of Russian national sleeper agents to Russia. Mr. Pollard is an American citizen. Among many negative repercussions, we would be telling any current Americans who either are spying for Israel, or contemplating that activity, that there may be a way out if caught.

For Mr. Pollard to be released to Israel, he would have to be pardoned by President Barack Obama. What would the rationale be for a pardon for a self-confessed, mercenary spy? How would our president look to the rest of the world in the aftermath of such an action?

The unspoken question here is whether either the U.S. or Israel sees Mr. Pollard a bargaining chip for progress in the Middle East. If that is the case and America agrees to swap Mr. Pollard for, say, a one-year moratorium on settlements, it would be a terrible mistake. We would be prostituting our legal system for questionable goals that so far have proved unattainable.

In the end, a settlement moratorium and the two-state solution represent the only course of action open to Israel if it wishes to preserve itself as a democratic, Zionist state. It is a course that Israel has to want to follow for its own reasons — not one that is worthy of blackmail or bargaining over Mr. Pollard.

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

Posted in intelligence |

Getting emotional about Yankee

January 2, 2011 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus.]

During this year’s biennial elections, the relicensing of Vermont Yankee became, cynically and unfortunately, a part of the political discussion. Quite probably, this was in the hope that it would boost the political prospects of some individual candidates and that its relicensing would ultimately succumb to negative political pressures.

Lodged somewhere in the collective psyche of many Americans is an almost pathological fear of all things nuclear. It may relate to anything as powerful or poorly understood as nuclear energy, or to the disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Or it may be part of collective American guilt over having razed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Many who share this aversion to nuclear enterprise in any form are unalterably emotionally committed to fighting everything nuclear from the production of weapons to the generation of electricity. With the possible exception of medical technology, there is nothing good for true believers in any nuclear application.

Whatever is behind it, the political, antinuclear mindset is playing a powerful role against the relicensing of Vermont Yankee.

On the other hand, America is a capitalist country in which profit and all its benefits play a critical role. It is in Entergy’s financial interest to extend its license to operate Vermont Yankee for another 20 years. In arguing its own position, Entergy cites the relatively low cost of electricity to Vermont, state taxes paid, jobs produced and, in terms of climate change, zero greenhouse gases. Vermont companies and individuals needing low-cost energy to remain competitive are clearly involved in a ramped-up TV campaign to support these positions. These arguments are valid. But are they really important?

In our current discussion of Yankee relicensing, we are playing a role in the ongoing debate about climate change. Whatever we decide to do, all of the economically feasible, green alternatives available to us can only provide, at absolute best, about a third of our energy needs. That leaves fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and nuclear as the only candidates to fill the remaining two-thirds.

This is not an argument for relicensing Yankee; it is a suggestion that nuclear is is a suggestion that nuclear energy is definitely in our future if we truly want to deal with climate change, our reliance on foreign energy sources, our balance of payments, our standard of living and satisfying our energy needs.

Yankee aside, would our anti-Yankee advocates be prepared to accept a new nuclear power plant in Vermont? How about on the shores of Lake Champlain or again on the Connecticut River, or one of each? Or would it, in true Vermont fashion, have to go into someone else’s backyard?

Coincidentally, with our NIMBY view of the world, how are we progressing on more benign green energy sources? Will the wind turbines prevail in Vermont? Will we license additional wood-chip plants? Will we continue to remove energy-producing dams in favor of migrating fish?

The problem with Yankee, and probably ultimately with any future discussion of nuclear energy, is that all the wrong issues are being raised. The real issue is not one of jobs or taxes or climate change or nuclear energy itself. The only real issue is one of safety.

Is any nuclear power plant safe? One answer to that would seem to lie in the fact that most of the industrialized world is increasing nuclear generation to the point where it ranges from around 30 percent up to 80 percent of total electric production. In contrast, the U.S. is at roughly 20 percent. Yet we are the world’s No. 1 per-capita user of energy.

Is Vermont Yankee safe? Our vision of safety is so influenced by the emotionalism and politicization of the issue that it is difficult to know. The only people capable of giving us a truly objective answer to that question are somewhere in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The views of “experts” on the evils of nuclear power simply cannot stand up to truly objective, current, professional scrutiny. They are simply handy shills for the naysayers.

What can be safely said is that Entergy Nuclear, the proprietor of Vermont Yankee, has not managed its plant or its relationships with the state of Vermont and its residents in an acceptable manner. Misstatements and omissions, conscious or not, have ruled the day.

It is perfectly possible that the real issue with Vermont Yankee is poor, inattentive management, rather than the inherent safety of the plant. In any event, we should not allow ourselves to be significantly influenced by emotional advocates on either side of the relicensing argument. Safety must decide that argument.

Haviland Smith lives in Williston.

Posted in United States |

The Real Reason Republicans Want the Bush Tax Cuts

December 23, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Herald of Randolph.]

The struggle between the Republicans and Democrats over the Bush-era tax cuts was most interesting in the context of the underlying reasons that the partisans have taken their chosen positions.

Many of the nation’s political observers have said that the primary reason the Republicans have clung to an extension of the entire Bush era tax cuts is that the beneficiaries of the top end of those cuts (over $250,000 a year) are important Republican constituents.

Statistics from 2008 show that there were 1,699,000 households in the United States that had earnings of $250,000 per year and above. That represents 1.5% of the nation’s households. The statistics further say that the mean size for such households is three people over the age of 18. That means that the total number of voters in the nation who live in such households totals just over 5 million of the 207,643,594 eligible voters in the US.

It’s really hard to believe that 1.5 % of the electorate represents anything more than a drop in the bucket in terms of its numerical significance to the Republican Party. After all, out of over 200 million eligible voters, they bring only 2.5% to the table—and some of them probably vote for Democrats, further diminishing their impact.

No, the only truly significant thing about this tiny group of voters is their income and their contribution to the federal coffers through taxation. They pay over 40% of all the income tax paid to the federal government. That puts the Republican Party’s interest in this group in a completely different light.

Since the metamorphosis of the Republican Party really got going during the 1960s, a number of hard and fast rules have inched into the Republican economic platform. The economic policies are most relevant here.

The fiscally conservative Republicans believe in free markets and a laissez faire approach to economic activity. That brings with it minimal regulation of business and financial markets, with an underlying belief that such markets should and can be selfregulating. Further, Republicans favor removing or mitigating impediments like estate, income and capital gains taxes.

The theory of supply-side economics also presupposes that by putting as much money as possible in the hands of corporations and the wealthy, as opposed to the federal government, that money will be spent creating jobs and wealth, and that the wealth will then trickle down to all economic levels in the economy.

Finally, there has long been Republican opposition to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and any other social program, like Obamacare, that is run by the federal government. It is the Republican conviction that the federal government should not and cannot efficiently run such social programs. If any social programs are to exist at all, and it is not clear exactly how the Republicans feel about that, they should be run by the private sector. That philosophy precipitated the discussion in the Bush II Administration about the privatization of Social Security.

If you put together the two basic Republican convictions: (a) that the federal government is not only incapable of running the social programs it runs now or in the future, and (b) that the only way to run the economy is to keep as many economic programs as possible in the hands of private enterprise, then you begin to see why the Republicans of 2010 are so fixed in their absolutely inflexible approach to tax legislation—tax cuts for all, including the richest, not just for the middle class! Reduce Social Security contributions. Remove the estate tax.

Their convictions absolutely demand that they do everything they possibly can to cut the flow of money to the federal government through as much reduction as possible in taxation. They need to starve the federal beast! The best way to do it is to cut taxes and put the money in private hands.

If you believe that man is perfectible and will act for the greater good, you could be a Republican. If you do not share that belief and contend that without oversight and careful regulations, man is in it solely for himself, then you may be a Democrat.

A close look at what has happened in the last two years in our financial markets might give some clues on what is needed here.

Haviland Smith is a longtime resident of Brookfield who now lives in Williston.

Posted in United States |

Little check on military influence

December 19, 2010 by Haviland Smith

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

Over the 40 years of its existence, there has been endless examination of, and commentary on, the efficacy of and prospects for our all-volunteer military force.

At the onset of the discussions in the early 1970s, it was said that the all-volunteer force could not be sufficiently effective and efficient, as it would inevitably draw on the most economically disadvantaged and poorly educated members of our society. There were issues of pay and overall costs, as well as the contention that our fighting capability would suffer.

There is very little on the record today that supports any of the early concerns about the all-volunteer force. Today’s soldiers are equally as trainable as their draft-era predecessors. In addition, they are better disciplined and present far fewer morale problems.

Although the cost of this fighting force has continuously risen, the equipment provided to it has improved at a remarkable rate, and its volunteer soldiers have proven capable of evolving into a highly technical force.

By all counts and analyses, they are a formidable fighting force, allegedly the best this country has ever produced, probably the best in the history of the world.

So, if there is a problem, what exactly is it?

The change to the all-volunteer force has diminished the ability of the American people to have much of any influence on the formation of military policy in this country, particularly in the short run. Some will say that this is a very good thing and that warfare policy should be left to the military, the White House and the Congress.

Others, particularly those who remember the Vietnam War and who are carefully observing our attempts at disengagement in Iraq and Afghanistan will say that the all-volunteer force diminishes the only direct, day-to-day potential for influence that citizens have on our war-fighting policies.

In Vietnam, major input toward ending our involvement came from fact that virtually every American voter had relatives, friends and neighbors in Vietnam. It was personal for all of us and when it looked as if President Johnson was never going to get us out of the endless abyss that was Vietnam, the protests began, the people were heard and we finally departed.

More recently, in Iraq and in our second invasion of Afghanistan, we have seen two different administrations do pretty much what they wanted to do with the all-volunteer force because most Americans didn’t have a dog in the fight. Unlike Vietnam, too many of us don’t know anyone who is there, so there is no cohesive opposition to the endless prolongation of those wars.

In addition and despite the fact that there was a great deal of well-founded skepticism about those invasions here at the time, the administrations in power were able to steamroller the Congress because, among other things, there was no counterpressure from the voters.

We now have a highly proficient and successful all-volunteer force with educated, intelligent military leadership. The attitude of those leaders is, as it should be, “we can do the job if you give us the time and resources to succeed.” The only problem with that is that those leaders are loathe to take into consideration the historical realities that exist in the countries where they seek to do battle.

With the exception of Gen. Shinseki, who warned against the Iraq invasion plan and lost his job as a result, our military leadership has not acknowledged either historical Iraq realities or the realities of internal U.S. politics and economics. In Afghanistan, Gen. Petraeus, in the face of harsh economic realities and a growing antiwar sentiment at home, has insisted that with time and resources, he can win. “Only” a decade or so more! And we have never been told what “win” really means.

In short, in the face of difficult realities, the military seems programmed to insist that they can win, whether that claim is feasible or not. And that’s what we pay them to do. However, given that fact, it is really important that the military run only our military operations, not our policies. Policy must be in the hands of our civilian leadership and for that to work properly, we must keep our electorate involved, aware and empowered. The all-volunteer force does not facilitate that process, but rather shortcuts it by not providing enough engaged constituents in the general civilian population to sufficiently effect policy. As politically difficult as it might seem to do, we need to discuss a return to some form of universal service.

If, because of our exclusive reliance on our all-volunteer force, there is only military-based input on policy, without balance from our American civilian population, we could be mired in wars forever.

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

Posted in foreign policy, United States |

Not as special as that

December 5, 2010 by Haviland Smith

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

There have long been theories that there is a predetermined sweep to history that is not subject to human input. History develops according to objective laws over which we have no control. In other words, history will happen irrespective of what we poor humans would like to engineer.

If you then consider the Marxist dialectical concept of “historical materialism,” you will learn that Marx believed that man can make history only within the limits set by the existing conditions of the society in which he lives.

This is clearly a philosophical argument. It has existed in various forms for centuries and will continue as long as we inhabit the earth. It is not the purpose here to enter substantially into that philosophical fray.

On the other hand, things happen in the world, particularly in our American world, that make one wonder precisely why we Americans continue to repeat the same things over and over when each action has successively and observably failed.

Why, since World War II, has America gotten itself into Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan when in each case there have been powerful contemporary arguments that doing so was not going to end in anything we could possibly call success? What is there about us as a nation that seems to predispose us to this sort of activity?

Some of the answer to this question lies in the world’s view of us. Since World War II, we have been viewed with increasing suspicion around the world. Our Cold War enemies were in the struggle with us for economic, geopolitical and philosophical reasons. They had their friends and allies, and we had ours. At least in the case of the United States and our allies, we were pretty well united in our belief that we were facing a truly evil power. That community of belief brought us together with our allies in ways that managed to overcome or set aside the inherent differences that existed between us.

Our friends followed us into Korea and tolerated us in Vietnam, both part of the Cold War. What has changed in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the foreseeable future is that this is no longer a bipolar world, which forces countries to take sides. In this new multipolar world, it’s every man for himself, and that makes it increasingly difficult for us to get others onto our side.

Look at our attempts to get China to support our policies and goals today in Iran. Or consider Pakistan’s ambivalence toward the Taliban. It simply isn’t in their national interest to buy into our goals.

To foreigners, America is increasingly looking like a willfully ignorant, insensitive, self-centered bully whose interests do not coincide well with those of the rest of the world.

On the other hand, some of the answer lies in our view of the rest of the world. As a nation, we are blissfully unaware of how the world sees us. We are mired in our notions of our own exceptionalism, which tells us that everything about us is better than anywhere or anything else: Our Constitution and way of life are the best; our social, political, military and economic structures and systems are superior. For most Americans, it is perfectly fine, even imperative for us to want to bring the wonders of our systems to everyone in the world, whether they seek it or not.

Although many Americans really do understand these new realities, it is unfortunate that for reasons probably rooted in our geography and past history, many if not most of us are blissfully unaware that the rest of the world may not love us or wish to emulate us or is even tolerant of what is really our benevolent desire to share with them the bounties of our system. We just don’t get it.

Maybe the determinists have put their finger on the pulse in the wrong way. Perhaps the only force that predetermines what is to happen historically and over which we have no control amounts only to ignorance on the part of ill-informed leadership around the world.

Certainly we could have avoided the downside of all of our recent invasions if we had listened to the better-informed experts in this country — those who told us unequivocally that, based on reality and history, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan would provide far less than successful results for America.

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

Posted in foreign policy, United States |

Not behaving like a friend

November 21, 2010 by Haviland Smith

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

Since Israel declared independence in May 1948 as a Zionist (democratic and Jewish) nation, the United States has been its most loyal friend on earth. As other nations have vacillated in their support, ours has never faltered. Since World War II, Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in the world. The U.S. has provided billions of dollars in grants to Israel.

U.S. bilateral military aid provides Israel with privileges unequalled by any other recipient country. Israel can use some U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the U.S. and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers.

In addition, all U.S. foreign assistance earmarked for Israel is delivered in the first 30 days of the fiscal year. Most other recipients normally receive aid in installments. Congress also appropriates funds for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs.

In August 2007, the Bush administration announced it would increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the next decade. The agreement called for incremental annual increases in foreign military financing to Israel, reaching $3 billion a year by 2012. The Obama administration requested $2.775 billion in foreign military financing to Israel for 2010.

Although we have provided assistance with nuclear delivery systems, France, not the U.S., was most heavily involved in supporting Israel’s development of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, we have had a consistent policy for Israeli nuclear activities of looking the other way. That policy, and the concessions we have made to Israel to persuade it not to use nuclear weapons over the years, have validated its nuclear arsenal’s existence.

In the international political arena, the U.S. has been unstinting in its support of Israel. In 1972, George H.W. Bush cast the first U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council. Between 1972 and 2009, the U.S. cast 48 vetoes and negative votes on every issue that was in any way critical of Israel.

We have vetoed resolutions proposed by our allies, Spain and France, and by our then enemy, the USSR, as well as resolutions with signatures from three to 20 nations.

This history reflects the fact that there are millions of Jewish and non-Jewish Americans, particularly those who were alive and aware of the Holocaust, who genuinely support the existence of a democratic, Jewish Israel and continue to do so.

The situation became more complicated in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, largely as a result of Israel’s West Bank and East Jerusalem settlement policies and by the political emergence in Israel of the Jewish emigration from the USSR, a country that, along with its citizens, never really understood much about democracy.

The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids resettlement by an occupying power of its own civilians on territory under its military control.

On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development [… and] have been established in breach of international law.”

By acceding to Israel’s every wish, the U.S. has enabled an Israel that believes it can act with impunity, without making any adjustment to the international, regional and national realities that face her. Her own imperatives far outweigh those of her neighbors and her people. This situation encourages aggressive behavior, as in the Gaza War and its aftermath, the ongoing settlement program, and a knee-jerk military reaction to perceived threats.

Although the Obama administration, doggedly searching for the elusive two-state solution, has slightly hardened the position of this government on Israeli settlement policies, all of the requests made by the administration have either been ignored, or flat-out rejected by the Netanyahu government.

But the two-state solution is the only one that preserves a Zionist (democratic and Jewish) Israel. Demographic realities show clearly that Jews in Israel will soon be outnumbered by Arabs, forcing Israel to choose between democracy and Jewishness. The situation worsens as the settlements absorb the West Bank and more and more Arabs. In the longer run, it is doubtful that Americans will support an expansionist, apartheid, and/or non-democratic Israel.

Our ongoing uncritical backing has enabled Israel to behave in a self-absorbed and counterproductive way. Israel lives in a “safe” world constructed with U.S. economic bricks and mortar, surrounded by a U.S. political moat and protected by U.S. military hardware. This uncritical support has permitted Israel to behave in ways that have weakened her morally in the eyes of the world, left her in a perpetual state of war with her neighbors and with a highly questionable Zionist future.

This is hardly what sensitive and thoughtful Americans would have done for Israel if we truly had cared about her future as Zionist state. In terms of Israel’s future viability, we have not behaved like her true friend.

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

Posted in foreign policy, Israel/Palestine, United States |

Leaving Iraq: It won’t be pretty, but it needn’t be disastrous

November 19, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Herald of Randolph.]

National Council of US-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) activities are sponsored by major US corporations, largely energy (oil) and defense firms, all of which have major direct and indirect stakes in the Middle East.

For the past 19 years, NCUSAR has sponsored and annual “U.S. Policymakers Conference”.  One of this year’s presenters was Ambassador Ryan Crocker who was US Ambassador to Iraq from 2007–09 during the US “Surge” and has been a vocal supporter of US policy in Iraq under President George W. Bush.

Crocker said, inter alia, that it is “quite likely that the Iraqi government is going to ask for an extension of our deployed (military) presence (there)” past our now stipulated 2011 withdrawal.  Although the last of our “combat” forces were said to have been withdrawn this past August, there remain roughly 50,000 “advisors” in Iraq as a part of “Operation New Dawn” which is scheduled to end at the end of 2011

During his presentation to the NCUSAR conference, he also predicted that the U.S. will be asked by the Iraqi government to provide them with heavy material and military weaponry and that this effort will probably start after 2013.

Iraq is our first, but not only, American tarbaby in the Middle East.  We are watching here the first salvo in the upcoming internal US political battle over our future course of action in Iraq and the greater the Middle East.

On the heels of the Crocker pronouncements we have seen a rash of sectarian bombings, almost certainly carried out by Iraqi Sunnis against the Shia population.  In addition, despite the recent announcement of the “solution” to the months-long political impasse between Maliki, whose political base is within the Shia community and includes the militant Sadrists, and his rival, Allawi, who represents secular Shia, anti-Iran nationalists and most Sunnis, the potential for it to fall apart always present.

All of these tensions are reflective of the one reality that our current policy refuses to acknowledge , that without repressive management, Iraq is not a viable state.  In fact, it is a patchwork of competing secular, religious, tribal, ethnic and political interests created over a century ago by Imperial Britain to suit its own needs and interests.  In addition, lurking in the background are the Kurds whose sole interest, as it has been for millennia, is survival, and the Iranians who seek to establish regional hegemony at the expense of the Iraqis.

It is difficult for Americans to acknowledge that we are facing a frightfully expensive activity in a region where our military presence and activities unite peoples against us.

It matters not when our troops leave Iraq.  Until we do leave, we will represent a damping factor, replacing the despotic and violent hand of Saddam Hussein.  But once we do leave, whether that is tomorrow or in twenty years, Iraq will likely devolve into its component parts.  That devolution may be violent or, with luck and good planning, almost peaceful.  There will be some sort of Kurdish area, a Sunni area and a Shia area.  They may end up as separate entities or in some sort of confederation, but they will not be a “state” as we know states today.

What seems increasingly hopeful about this miserable situation is that there seems to be little appetite in the region for a broader conflict.  The neighbors show no inclination to precipitate a wider blood bath.  Turkey has its issues with the Kurds, Iran has its ties with the Shia and Saudi Arabia, and Jordan with the Sunnis.  But there is no future for any of them in a broader conflict.  Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and the Gulf States are praying that this too will pass!

There is a very clear choice here.  As realists, we can get out of Iraq as planned and let political, religious, tribal determinism take over while we do everything we possibly can to insure that any conflict within Iraq not get any broader.  If we are going to take this course, we need to do it fast, before our military presence and activities in the region turn the entire region against us, which is where we are heading now.

Or as dreamers, we can hang in for 5, 10 or 20 years in the hope that things will get better, only to find that whatever would happen if we were to withdraw tomorrow, inevitably will happen in 5, 10 or 20 years.

Dreaming is one gigantic gamble.  Given our own current domestic and international realities, it is one we can ill afford.

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.  A longtime resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.

Posted in Iraq |

How U.S. policy defeats its own aims.

November 7, 2010 by Haviland Smith

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

Much is being made here in America of Iran’s provision of money to Karzai’s Presidential office in Kabul.  Some call it meddling in internal Afghan affairs, others call it a classic Iranian covert action operation designed to clandestinely undermine American interests in Afghanistan.  Some believe that these payments are really an expression of Iranian national interests in the region.

Most Americans approved of our 2001 invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that it was justifiable retaliation for 9/11. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there was some skepticism among the population, but a supine Congress went along.

The first analyses of the Invasion outcomes were pointedly critical in the sense that the results favored Al Qaida and Iran, not the US.

Al Qaida has a major problem in Islam. It is unacceptably radical and therefore, lacking general support from moderate Muslims, it is very likely to die on the vine.  What our invasion of Iran and subsequent reinvasion of Afghanistan have done is set up a Hobson’s choice for Muslim moderates.  Whom do they hate more, the invading foreign army (American) or Muslim apostates (Al Qaida)?  Without that invading, foreign army there would be no future for Al Qaida.

So, we have voluntarily entered into a policy the ultimate outcome of which is to strengthen Al Qaida in the Muslim World. Our hopes for stability in that region as well as our need to cope effectively with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism, will continue to be unachievable as long as that policy of military confrontation is in place.

As if that were not enough, our military-based policies in the region have accomplished just about all the goals Iran has had in its quest to become a major player in the Gulf region. As the largest, most populous, best educated country on the Gulf and rich in natural resources, Iran thinks is should have some influence there.

First, we wiped out Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party which represented the backbone of regional opposition to Iran’s goals.

Our defeat of Iraq unleashed Shia Iran, the largest country with the largest army in the region (and non-Arab to boot) against the mostly Arab and Sunni Gulf states and Israel.

Then, in taking on the Taliban in 2001, we fought and defeated another major threat to Iran – a fundamentalist Sunni organization that had nothing religiously or philosophically in common with the fundamentalist Shia in Iran.  In the vast chess game of the Middle East, the Taliban had always been arrayed against Iran.  We forwarded Iran’s goals with our 2001 invasion and again with our 2009 reinvasion of Afghanistan.  A weaker Taliban is absolutely in Iran’s favor.

Finally, with Saddam and the Baath in power, the inherent religious, tribal and sectarian destabilizing elements in Iraq were managed through forceful repression.  With Saddam gone, those forces were unleashed.  The result has been internecine warfare which has led to internal instability which has only been marginally mitigated by the US military presence.  In short, we have created a new, unstable “Iraq” which benefits only Iran and Al Qaida.

What we accomplished with invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has wiped out all of Iran’s real enemies and given Al Qaida hope for survival.  If Iraq and Al Qaida had been asked to create a US policy for their region, one which weakened the United States and strengthened them, they simply could not have done better than the combined Bush and Obama policies.

So, all of that history aside, how can we be surprised that Iran is funneling money to the Karzai government?  With American commitment to the region on the wane, Karzai is their best bet for keeping the Taliban out of real power and fostering the national instability that is in their interest.

How can we be surprised that the Iranians are supporting their Shia co-religionists in Iraq and that they are almost certainly creating instability there?  A dis-united, unstable Iraq is in their national interest.

How can we be surprised that Iran is baiting Israel?  Israel-baiting keeps the pot boiling in the Middle East and supports the instability that in turn supports Iranian national interests.

And all of this encourages regional instability which is precisely what we would like to eliminate, but which we will never do as long as our own unique contribution to instability, our military presence and activities, is ongoing.

This is not an apologia for Iran.  We don’t have to approve of what the Iranians are doing, but must understand why they do it, because if we don’t we will never find a policy that will permit us to realize our goals for stability in that region.

Haviland Smith of Williston is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterroism Staff.

Posted in foreign policy |

Democracies Just Aren’t Very Good Imperialists

October 28, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Randolph Herald.]

Merriam Webster defines “imperialism” as: “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas; broadly: the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence.”

We Americans don’t like to think of ourselves as imperialists, but given the foregoing definition, it would seem that we are.  Of course, we do not seek territorial acquisition.  We do what we do “for the good of the world.”  And therein lies the rub.

When we think of imperialism, we think of the classic empires—British, Roman, Ottoman, Persian, Russian. Such empires went out and militarily conquered other areas of the world.

No one can say that America did that. On the contrary, it is generally conceded that the American form of imperialism has been quite different, at least until Iraq.

American Imperialism began in the 1890s in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. It brought us the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, all former Spanish possessions. Despite those territorial acquisitions, America added another page to the book begun by Christianity and Islam.  Just like those great religions, in the 20th century we based our imperialism on American exceptionalism—political, economic, and cultural power and influence, not on our military.

That has been the nature of American Imperialism. We are not like the conquering imperial armies and navies of the 19th century and before. As a nation driven by American exceptionalism, we are convinced that since our system is the best, we are bound to share it, by force if necessary, with the rest of the world.

Our motivation is not so different from that which drove our predecessor imperialists. We need markets and we are concerned with challengers. We are convinced that If we were able to install our system in Iraq, for example, then liberal democracy would spread like wildfire in Islam and we would have nothing to fear from fundamentalist terrorists. Since Iraq is essentially immune to our unique economic, political and cultural form of imperialism, we had to go at them militarily, but the result is the same. Our plan was that, after having demolished the existing government and installed one of our choosing, we would get out.

However, the ideal scenario for us involves pure economic, political and cultural penetration, resulting in a slow metamorphosis to liberal democracy.

Either way, military or nonmilitary, the world, particularly the Islamic world where our dreamers thought they would succeed, has not show much willingness to bend to our will.

Even if that were not the case, there is another critical issue. Does America have the goods to be successful imperialist power?

Liberal democracies don’t make good imperialists. In America today, we have the built-in possibility of extreme, electoral political change every two years. Radical policies, like the invasion of Iraq, can and do result in the architects of the policy getting booted out.

We have been sold counterterrorism as a long-term issue. The Bush Administration began the “War on Terror” and consistently referred to it as the “Long War”. They, as well as the Obama administration, saw this struggle in military terms, not realizing that military engagement with fundamentalist terrorism would lead inexorably to the unintended result of seeing counterterrorism morph into counterinsurgency and on into the export of democracy and nation building, all very long term issues.

We are an attention-deficit nation, unable or unwilling to follow one issue for any reasonable amount of time. Imperialism demands a level of patience, focus and persistence that is alien to us. Even under the most perfect circumstances, we change our leadership every eight years or less, far too short a time to be successful imperialists who must see their world in centuries rather than decades.

Just about every nation with a terrorism problem has found that the best counterterrorism programs are police- and intelligence-driven and that a military response is self-defeating.

In our military response, we have repudiated John Winthrop’s message, later echoed by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan: “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Instead of setting ourselves as a model for others to emulate, we decided to militarily export our economic, political and cultural models abroad. It began over a century ago with America trying to find new markets for investment and ended up with Iraq and Afghanistan.

American politicians need to read and learn from history.

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.

Posted in foreign policy, United States |

In a democracy the military must know its role

October 10, 2010 by Haviland Smith

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

During the endless deliberations that took place on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan during the summer and fall 2009, it became clear that the U.S. military establishment — as personified by Adm. Mullin and Gen. Petraeus — was vitally interested in proving that it could reach a successful conclusion in Afghanistan. The military seemed disinclined to consider any of the other factors involved in our Afghan commitment.

This entire episode is laid out in minute detail in Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” which is a fascinating read on the way the Obama administration builds military policy and the interplay between the White House and the Pentagon.

What is clear is that our military establishment was concerned primarily with its own goals and operations and far less concerned with the many other issues facing the administration and the nation.

In effect, the military leadership told the president that the only viable policy for Afghanistan would involve our commitment to six to eight additional years and almost $1 trillion.

Today’s military is probably correctly described as far more politically aware and attuned to the needs of the nation that it ever has been. After all, many of the military’s general officers have advanced degrees from some of our most prestigious universities.

It is not the purpose here to decide whether our efforts in Afghanistan are in our own national interest or not, good or bad, viable or hopeless. This is designed simply to enumerate some of the more difficult issues facing America right now and whether or not we can afford the costs of our military engagements in the Middle East and Asia.

It is generally conceded that one gallon of gas delivered to our troops in Afghanistan in 2009 cost $400. More recently, that has been revised upward to $800 because of the Pakistani closing of one of our routes to Afghanistan and the blowing up of fuel trucks.

In February 2010, the cost of the Afghan war was running $6.7 billion a month and the cost of Iraq was $5.5 billion. At those rates, the current cost of our military involvement in those theaters is verging on $150 billion per year. In fiscal year 2011, Afghanistan is projected to cost $117 billion, Iraq $46 billion. These figures will ultimately be revised upward by the costs we will be incurring in dealing with the long-term effects of the wars on hardware and, more important, on personnel.

As long as these wars are placing such a burden on our economy, it will be difficult for us to deal with the critical issues that face us at home. Quite simply, our national infrastructure, our public education system and our issues with energy demand a level of investment that will be impossible as long as these wars drag on.

Without major changes, those critical structural elements of our country will not support the kind of economic and political clout that will be required for us to maintain any sort of meaningful influence in the world. In short, our needs at home far outweigh our needs in the Middle East and Asia.

Finally, there seems to be a growing sub rosa debate in our military establishment concerning the appropriate role of the military in the formulation of military policy. A close read of Woodward’s book shows strong evidence of the military attempting to end-run the president on the timing and extent of the commitment of increased troop numbers to Afghanistan.

The role of our military establishment is to carry out the policies of our civilian leadership. It is not to determine policy from the cocoon of the Pentagon, but to do what any administration tells it to do. Such military decisions will and must be affected by other national realities of which the Pentagon should be aware, but should not be concerned. The role of those realities has always been considered by the White House.

The legal pre-eminence of our civilian leadership over and control of the military is completely established. The ongoing argument (http://www.ndu.edu/press/breaking-ranks.html) that an officer is obliged to refuse to carry out orders he finds morally objectionable cannot be supported in our democracy (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/09/breaking-ranks/), yet it apparently persists at all levels of the officer corps.

We are clearly approaching some sort of critical juncture where insubordination may play a role. The behavior of some of our military leadership around the two critical issues of Afghanistan and our well-being at home has no place in this liberal democracy.

There should be no question about the role of the military or the identity of the commander in chief.

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

Posted in foreign policy, United States |

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