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Bush Administration Aligns Stars for an Attack on Iran

September 7, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Valley News.]

More and more today the media are reporting on the likelihood of a U.S. attack on Iran. As impossibly foolhardy as such an attack might seem, the drums of war are increasingly heard.

During the 1930s, Winston Churchill was the only prominent politician in England who spoke out against German rearmament and Hitler’s increasing belligerence. A bust of Winston Churchill adorns the Oval Office. President Bush sees himself as modern-day Churchill, waging an unpopular war in Iraq for which he will be elevated to great heights by future historians. Like Churchill, he has to keep the fight going, because he knows he is right and time will prove it. He will be a hero to future generations.

Apparently the White House staff takes every opportunity to reinforce the Churchill analogy. Supportive White House visitors are encouraged to participate in this reinforcement.  They are supporting Bush’s basic position on Iraq: The United States must remain engaged in Iraq. Everything depends on it:  the success of the “war on terror,” the democratization of the Middle East, the safety of America from terrorism, even the peace and well being of the world.

This hoped-for Bush legacy of success in Iraq and the greater Middle East is gravely threatened by the likelihood of the election of a Democratic president in 2008, which would likely result in a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. How can the president keep the United States involved and his dreams alive? The president has to make sure that America can’t withdraw from Iraq.

Perhaps the only way to do that is to get the United States into a conflict with Iran. Support for such a war today lies primarily with Israel, with Israel’s more conservative American political and religious supporters and with the neo-cons.

There are some pretty good indications that a strike against Iran might be on Bush’s mind. First and foremost is the transfer of the “Churchill syndrome” to Iran. If he keeps Iran from going nuclear, he believes, he will be revered by future generations. Besides, he has promised he would do so.

The general military, economic and political consensus is that such an attack would be a disaster not only for Iran and the United States, but also for the world in general. Forget the misery Iran could cause US troops in Iraq and our Navy in the restricted confines of the Gulf. More significantly, a glance at any map will show that Iran can easily shut down all oil shipments through the Gulf—more than a fourth of world production. That would certainly bring worldwide economic chaos.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was not nominated for a second term. It was said he would be vulnerable to a hostile pack of Democratic senators in the confirmation hearings. Perhaps, but he is on the record as having said that the United States has zero intent to attack Iran and for being opposed to any such plan.

His chosen replacement is Admiral Mike Mullin, a choice that had to be approved, if not made, by the president. Admiral Mullin has said, “Do some work on where they are, who’s trying to get nukes, who’s trying to get chemical, biological weapons, and this, some of us may have put this in the too-hard category before. We can’t afford to do that now. We have got to address this.”

Although this falls far short of a declaration of war on Iran, it certainly heading in that direction.

The U.S. Navy brass thinks it has been shortchanged in the conduct of the Iraq war and desperately wants a chance to show its stuff. In addition, the Navy has a battle plan for a missile attack on Iran. When Admiral William J. Fallon was appointed last winter to lead United States Central Command in the Middle East, analysts noted that the choice of a Navy officer reflected “a greater emphasis on countering Iranian power—a mission that relies heavily on naval forces and combat airpower to project American influence in the Persian Gulf.” These appointments don’t happen by chance.

It seems inconceivable that even such a bellicose president as Bush—a lame duck president with miserable popularity ratings—might undertake an attack on Iran prior to the 2008 presidential election. To do so would certainly seal not only the fate of the Republican candidate, but would be equally likely to doom the Republican Party to political oblivion for some time to come.

It seems far more likely that if Iran is to be attacked, it will be between the November elections and the investiture of Bush’s successor. The president has direct command authority over the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a chain of command that would effectively circumvent a reluctant or obstructionist Secretary of Defense Gates.

Finally, the designation of the Iranian Quds force as a terrorist organization and recent incidents involving Iranians in Iraq could well be the beginning of provocations against Iran designed to create a climate more favorable for an attack.

The stars are aligning. Should the president decide to attack, there would seem to be no way to stop it.

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

Posted in Iran |

The CIA Must Rely More on Collecting Human Intelligence

August 10, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Valley News.]

Earlier this summer, when the CIA released the “family jewels” — nearly 700 pages of documents detailing some of its most infamous and illegal operations dating back to the 1950s — the question that immediately came to mind was: Why now?

After all, Director of Central Intelligence Bill Colby had let some of those secrets out during the Church Committee hearings in the early 1970s. When Colby made the initial revelations, there was widespread anger among the old agency hands, particularly those from World War II’s Office of Strategic Services, the CIA’s precursor. Much of this anger resided in the division known as the Clandestine Service, which thought it owned most of the jewels. Colby had betrayed them. More gems dropped out of the bag in subsequent years.

Today, there is no cadre of old-timers to rise up in anger. Most of them are either dead or so far removed from the realities of espionage that they do not care much what happens in Langley, Va. It was, therefore, a pretty safe time for Gen. Hayden to put his jewels on the table, as it were.  Or perhaps the CIA released the information because it wanted some cover for its questionable activities in the rendition and interrogation business. Framed against a backdrop of past sins, today’s CIA might seem less horrendous.

Still, these explanations aren’t sufficient. It could be that the agency knew that Tim Weiner’s book Legacy of Ashes was about to be published.  Weiner had unique access to the CIA leadership of the early years, and he was about to expose their secrets himself. By releasing the secrets first, Hayden preempted Weiner.

One unintended result of the release of the vast store of CIA secrets is that it denigrates covert action operations in favor of human intelligence collection, which will play such an important part in our struggle with terrorism. And to understand the difference between covert action and human intelligence, you have to understand the reality of the CIA, which evolved from the OSS.

During World War II, OSS personnel parachuted behind enemy lines to establish contact with and organize resistance groups to harass the Germans and Japanese. It was a classic hot war operation. Those who did it were heroes in the truest sense of the word.

When CIA’s existence was legitimized in the post-war years, its management was handed over to those senior OSS officers who chose to respond to the challenge of the Cold War–Allen Dulles, Richard Helms and Des Fitzgerald. Their experience was almost entirely in paramilitary operations, which today are part of the world of Covert Action. That is what they knew and understood, so when successive presidents wanted someone assassinated or a foreign government overthrown, that kind of covert action was right up their alley.

They were less knowledgeable about Humint operations, particularly against difficult targets like the U.S.S.R., China and terrorism, which are time-consuming, frustrating, tedious and only occasionally successful. Compared with the flash and bang of covert actions, they are mundane and boring.

Because the old OSS types had so little experience in Humint, there was never a sufficiently strong worldwide effort against those hard targets. Presidents and CIA management were interested, instead, in covert action. It was infinitely easier to recruit some Third World newspaperman to place articles favorable to the United States in his paper than it was to recruit a Soviet. A lot of CIA officers got promoted doing just that.

So, the CIA of the post-war years was primarily a covert action organization, which, according to the newly exposed record, wasn’t even terribly good at covert action. For those officers who saw the USSR as a real threat, covert action operations were an impediment that drew resources away from the really important job of recruiting Soviets. This was a major factor in the inability of the CIA to penetrate the highest policy-making levels of the USSR.

Take an Agency management that neither promoted or understood the nuts and bolts of Humint operations, couple it with the paranoid madness of those Agency managers who believed the Soviet KGB controlled everything we tried to do against them, and you have a Clandestine Service that was destined to under perform against the most important and difficult target we had.

Has any of this changed? One of the major messages of the Weiner book is that with the possible exception of former DCI George H. W. Bush, no president has ever understood what the CIA could and could not do. The CIA probably failed in its Cold War covert action operations because most Americans (the Mafia excluded) are not very good at assassinations. Picture an Ivy Leaguer planning Castro’s assassination.

Whether presidents like it or not, the CIA is a reflection of the American ethos. When it ceases to be that, this country will have made a major change for the worse.

We may be approaching that point now.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.  He lives in Williston, Vt.

Posted in CIA |

Why the ‘surge’ cannot work

August 9, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

The goal of the Bush administration for the ongoing “surge” in Iraq, as far as it can be ascertained, seems to be to bring an absence of violent, physical conflict to Iraq which would in turn permit political reconciliation.

Iraq has never been a viable country in any accepted sense of the word. It was created between 1921-1926 by the British to suit their own political needs in the area. Since then the “country” has been kept together by a succession of repressive regimes, ending with Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party rule from 1958 until our 2003 invasion.

It is likely that the “surge” currently under way will dampen the violence in Iraq. We have entered into relationships against al-Qaida with Sunnis in Anbar and Diala provinces. In return for training and financial support, the militias in those areas have joined us in the struggle with al-Qaida in Iraq. Those two provinces have become relatively peaceful.

Actually, this makes all the sense in the world since it was inevitable that Iraqis would come to view al-Qaida in Iraq as a hostile, foreign, fundamentalist organization that shares no goals with the secular Iraqi Sunnis. Incidentally, this shreds the Bush administration’s repeated assertions that if we leave before “succeeding,” Iraq will turn into a terrorist base for attacks against the U.S. That is patently untrue.

With help from those Sunnis, we apparently have narrowed al-Qaida’s options. When attacked in the past, al-Qaida would simply move to a safe area. Now when we attack them in one place with more troops, they have few if any options on places to hide. It looks as if we may be on the way to reducing al-Qaida-sponsored violence in the Sunni areas. Clearly, this is good.

However, the real problem lies with the Iraqis. It has been said over and over by every pundit and military expert in the U.S. that there will be no successful conclusion to our adventure in Iraq until the Iraqis reach peaceful agreement on sharing wealth, power and responsibility.

The Iraqis have shown no inclination to fulfill this, our goal, for them. Quite the contrary, none of the participants appears to have any desire to make a “new Iraq” work. Having had virtual autonomy since the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds would like to be left alone in northern Iraq. They now want the oil in the north as well as Kirkuk, the largest city in the north.

The Shia, as the largest ethnic and religious component in Iraq, would like to maintain control of the southern oil fields and, in addition, control the entire country. They have absolutely no desire to share any of this with the Sunnis, under whose hostile and repressive thumb they existed for decades, or with the Kurds.

The Sunnis, having run Iraq since 1963, think they should still be in charge. They are so deluded about their past power that many of them honestly believe that they are the majority group in Iraq. Unfortunately for them, they are the smallest group in Iraq, have no oil to speak of on their own turf and are roundly despised by Kurds and Shia alike for their 40-year-long murderous rule of the country.

In short, there is no reason for any one of the three groups to want to share anything with the others. And these are the folks that the Bush administration is counting on to find a political solution to Iraq’s problems, which would enable us to withdraw from the country.

There is no viable central government in Iraq today. There is only a power void created by the disinclination of the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds to solve their political problems. In fact, the Sunnis have just withdrawn from the so-called central government, making political consensus even less likely.

We have compounded the problem by entering into local agreements supporting Sunnis against al-Qaida. Even though that may be in our best interest in the struggle with al-Qaida, it certainly will do nothing but make Iraqi political reconciliation more difficult. The Shia, who are suspicious of our ultimate intentions and probably anticipating a more open civil war, are upset that we are, in effect, training, arming and financing their Sunni enemies.

However resoundingly successful the “surge” turns out to be in terms of calming violence in Iraq, it will be meaningless in the face of the disinclination and inability of the three warring factions to reach a viable consensus.

The likelihood of an amicable solution to internal Iraqi political problems, which would enable us to declare success and withdraw under the conditions already established by the Bush administration, is infinitesimally small.

Why should the U.S. use its precious treasure to support a process that has little if any chance of success?

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

Posted in Iraq |

With cowboys in charge, danger is high

July 12, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

Serious commentators in America state unequivocally that the Bush administration will attack Iran and that this will happen without notice because of the president’s interpretation of his powers as commander in chief. It would almost have to be that way, because there are few American supporters of such an insane scheme.

Overseas, Israel is the only country that has been quite openly encouraging the U.S. to attack Iran. However, although it is extremely unlikely that it will ever become public, some Sunni Arab regimes might not see such an attack as wholly undesirable. There are the perennial Sunni-Shia tensions. In addition, the ancient struggle over hegemony in the gulf is still alive and well, and there is a fairly high level of anxiety in the Sunni Arab world that Iran, if it goes nuclear, will become the dominant power in the region at the expense of those Sunni Arab regimes.

That notwithstanding, there is zero support among what’s left of our allies around the World for a U.S. attack of any kind on Iran.

Support for such an attack here at home stems mainly from our most conservative political elements. In Iran, it seems likely that the only support for that policy would come from the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards.

The only two players who really matter are Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad, who sound like two gunslingers in the old West. Neither of them enjoys much support from their people.

Bush is in trouble over a multitude of issues from Iraq to Scooter Libby. His poll numbers are abysmally low and unlikely to rise. He has lost his majorities in the Congress. He is beginning to lose support from Republican congressmen who are coming up for re-election and who see further blind support of failed Bush policies as virtual political suicide.

In Iran, President Ahmadinejad enjoys roughly equal popularity. Nothing he has promised has worked. Inflation is rampant. Housing costs have risen steeply. Food prices are up, and just recently we have learned that the price of gasoline has been raised significantly. Instead of tending to the needs of the Iranians, he has spent massive amounts of money on Iran’s nuclear program and in support of foreign adventures. There are protests and rioting in the streets of Iran.

So we have two presidents with much in common. They are both in deep political trouble. They both shoot from the hip. Unfortunately, it is quite possible that they see the same salvation for themselves in a military confrontation.

President Bush has “promised” that he would attack Iran if they did not give up their nuclear program before he leaves office. In the absence of rational foreign policy guidance from his “team,” he may honestly believe that his best contribution to the welfare of the world would an unannounced, massive precision missile strike. Apparently we already have such a plan on the books in the Pentagon. Never mind that military experts agree that this would not eliminate the nuclear threat for more than a short period of time.

The only thing, it would appear, that has the potential to unite a now discontented and divided Iran behind Ahmadinejad would be just such a strike. Any U.S. military action against Iran would be likely to unify the country, despite its difficulties and differences, against us and cause us major problems around the world.

So both presidents would appear to believe they have something to gain from a military confrontation. The situation is ripe for provocation. We have a large chunk of our Navy sitting in the narrow confines of the gulf. We have our Army and Marines stretched out all over Iraq. The Army now says that Iran is providing materiel that is killing our soldiers. If that is true, Iran must know that it is taking a major risk of providing the rationale for an American attack against them.

The Iranian navy has recently run a provocation against the British navy in the Gulf. The Brits reacted calmly and rationally and that threat appears over. What will happen if they do the same to us? Will we find a casus belli in that or in some other Iranian provocation? Are we seeking that? Is that what Iran wants?

This is an extremely dangerous situation in which the leaders of both countries seem to have reason not to avoid military confrontation. It would only take one well-planned provocation for the whole thing to blow up. With the cowboys in charge, there’s no telling what will happen.

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

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq |

Iran is not the enemy

July 4, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

In Mid-June, the BBC reported that 57 Iranian economists, including many university economics professors, had strongly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his “unscientific” economic policies, which have negatively impacted Iran. Implicit in their denunciation is the premise that the allocation of resources (read oil) to the nuclear program is having a major negative effect on Iranians, particularly those “of modest means.”

Americans may be surprised. In what they view as a tightly controlled country like Iran, would anyone be sufficiently foolhardy to speak up in this manner? Won’t such outspokenness against the country’s president end in disaster for the protesters?
Iran is a country with more than its share of thoughtful, pragmatic, independent, educated people. There is a strong intelligentsia with educational and philosophical ties to the West. Iran is not a democracy in our sense of the word, but is it freer than many think.

Additionally, there is room in their system for constructive dissent. When that dissent focuses on the currently deplorable condition of the Iranian economy, including inflation and the rising prices of food and housing, it is not only acceptable, it is powerful. It is powerful because the ayatollahs understand and are a bit anxious about Iran’s tradition of secular government. Iran still holds relatively free elections, and life there is not the model of religious orthodoxy that the ayatollahs would clearly like to see. Sure, they are in power, but there are always those masses out there, and if they are not happy, their power is in danger.

What should be clear from the economists’ tirade is that Iran is not the terrible threat it is often alleged to be. Internal discontent over mismanagement of income from its oil industry, the country’s premier natural resource, brings dissent. Even at its present level, this discontent produces the kind of instability that has to worry the ayatollahs.

If Iran were properly exploiting its oil resources, as well as the income from that sector of the economy, the country would be in far better economic (and political) shape that it now finds itself. With the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, there should be no problems. However, with only one refinery, Iran doesn’t even produce enough refined oil products for its own internal use. Those products are in short supply and far more expensive than they should be. Yet despite the oil income, there is no capital for a second refinery. Everyone in Iran knows this. These are not stupid people.

The current argument that Iran represents a threat to the United States does not appear to hold much water — probably not much more water than that Iran is an immediate threat to Israel. No, it would appear that, given the realities under which it is now functioning, Iran is vulnerable to just the kind of mischief of which President Bush so often fondly speaks. Our ability to manipulate world finances and deny capital input to Iran is pretty well established. In a world less full of American rhetoric, there should also be room for serious, highly effective sanctions from most of the rest of the world.

What America really should be doing is ratcheting down its hyperbole against Iran. President Bush’s proclivity to “confront the bad guys” does us only harm. His brand of puerile machismo is joyfully and thankfully replayed by the Ahmadinejad government to keep the faithful and not so faithful ginned up and in line. They need a common enemy. What would they do without Bush?

The one thing we don’t need to do is alienate regular Iranians. They are, after all, the ones who are our inadvertent allies in that their pressures on their own government will probably influence Iran to move in directions favorable to us. Anything we can do quietly and surreptitiously to exacerbate the tensions between regular Iranians and their government is in our favor. There is much potential there.

There is currently heavy pressure to take military action. It comes from Israel, some American conservatives, “Christian Zionists,” some neoconservatives (as if they haven’t already made enough of a contribution in getting us into Iraq), and even from Connecticut’s “independent Democratic” Sen. Lieberman (another Iraq hawk). On a more sinister note, al-Qaida through its Web sites and some Russians oligarchs through their Washington lobbyists are trying to influence us to bomb Iran. What we surely do not need is any kind of military action against Iran any time soon. If Iran had already tested an atomic weapon, it might be considered, but today it is absurd. The one immediate result of such action would be to unite regular Iranians (our inadvertent allies) against us, thus removing or at least mitigating whatever hope we might have for effective, internally instigated pressure for change in Iran.

We have time. We just need to use it wisely.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Beirut, Tehran, Berlin and Prague and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in Iran |

Finding common ground with Iran is key

June 28, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

Looking back on our experience with Iraq, it’s clear that the Bush administration decided that the Cold War policies of containment and alliances that kept the USSR and the USA from blowing each other to smithereens were no longer valid. Instead, they decided without public discussion that preemptive unilateralism would be the cornerstone of their foreign policy.

The combination of a Republican administration allied with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, with the pathetic, belly-up acquiescence of the Democrats, gave birth to preemptive unilateralism. Only 9/11 was needed to give us Iraq.

Right now, powerful forces — the neocons, some conservative Republicans and conservative Israelis and their supporters in America — are pushing hard for an attack on Iran in another show of preemptive unilateralism, the same policy that got us into the Iraq mess.

Iran, formerly Persia, has a glorious history going back more than 3,000 years. Iranians are proud of that history and see in it, along with their oil-based economic strength, their right to a far greater Iranian role in the Middle East. Despite the difficulties imposed by their theocratic Muslim mullahs, the Iranians are a proud people who will almost certainly rally behind whatever leaders they have, if attacked by an external enemy. On the other hand, the level of popular support for those mullahs and their policies is very low right now.

Iran is located in an extremely dangerous part of the world. It is surrounded by U.S. troops stationed abroad in the “war on terror.” There are nuclear weapons in Russia, Pakistan, India and Israel. Other than Israel and Turkey, it is the only non-Arab country in the Middle East. In addition, many in the far larger Sunni community revile Iran’s Shia form of Islam and are anxious about Iran’s push for hegemony in the Gulf. It is easy to understand why the Iranians would seek first class self-defense, and it is easy to understand why they are unlikely to attack anyone.

It is probably safe to say that another round of American preemptive unilateralism in Iran would be a replay of Iraq, compounded by a factor of “x.” Not only would the military aspects of an Iran attack be infinitely more difficult and expensive, the political ramifications would most certainly be counterproductive to our aims for that country. In the event of a foreign attack, we would certainly see those anti-theocratic Iranians who represent the best chance for political change in Iran, signing on with the mullahs. In short, an American attack would be likely to unify a currently discontented and politically fragmented country, making our task far more difficult.

The real issue here is whether or not containment and alliances could successfully help America avoid a much more difficult, complicated and bloody war in Iran. Our attitudes around the Iraq adventure have alienated many of our former allies, but we could do much to repair those relationships by eschewing preemptive unilateralism, making our former alliances strong and whole again, and sorting out how to contain a nuclear Iran. That is clearly the way the rest of the world wants to do it.

What do we have to fear from that approach? It worked for the 45 years of the Cold War. Quite apart from the absence of armed conflict, the moderating influences of our allies during the Cold War exerted a positive influence on U.S. policy, as the attitudes of Soviet allies moderated Soviet policies. We certainly could use some moderation in our foreign policy today.

The U.S. overthrow of the only legitimately elected government in Iran’s history, that of Mohammad Mossadeq came in 1954. The Iran hostage crisis of 1979 resulted directly from the events of 1954. What that means is that leadership on both sides is angry and intolerant — a poor basis for rational discourse.

But what most Americans don’t realize is that we have much in common. Neither America nor Iran wants to see Iraq turn into a regional conflict. Neither wants to see a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan. Neither wants to see an Iraq dominated by Sunnis. Iran is seriously in need of capital investment, which is something we can provide. All of this could serve as a basis for discussions and for the betterment of the relationship, which might conceivably lead to a peaceful resolution of the problems between us.

For that to happen, both sides will have to identify and recognize their common interests, tone down their bellicose rhetoric and acknowledge the legitimate needs of one another.

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

Posted in Iran |

U.S. Risks unilaterally confronting Al Qaida

June 14, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Valley News.]

Americans are not united behind any one policy on when or how to get out of Iraq.  Why? Largely because “Iraq” is an internal political issue that stems from the Bush White House’s campaign to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people after 9/11.  During that campaign, a number of things that simply were not true got woven almost permanently into the Iraq tapestry.

This sales campaign stated that Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11; that there was an ongoing relationship between Saddam’s Iraq and Al Qaida; that there were WMD that would materialize in the form of mushroom clouds in the United States; that we could bring democracy to Iraq and that the Iraqis somehow could learn to live together.  All of these things when put together provided a persuasive argument that we needed to Invade Iraq.  That argument’s success is best measured by broad, bipartisan, congressional support.

Despite the inaccuracies and untruths of the sales campaign, much of it continues to be believed by significant portions of the American public.

Now, almost five years later, we are told that Iraq is the “front line of the war on terrorism”.   This is true, however the Iraqi front line was created solely by the U.S. invasion.  Al Qaida is active in Iraq only because there are American targets there.  There was absolutely no pre-invasion existence of Al Qaida in Iraq.  For that reason, Iraq is better viewed without being clouded by the “fighting terrorism in Iraq rather than here” mantra which is constantly mouthed by Republican politicians.

If you look at Iraq without the Al Qaida/terrorism filter, you will see a “country” made up of three major, competing groups.  That “country” has virtually no more hope of solving its internal differences than it has of embracing democracy.  Instead, it is sliding into full-blown civil war driven by age-old jealousies and rivalries.

There is, however, a major problem with Iraq.  The miserable military performance of the Israelis against Hizballah in Lebanon last summer has shown many Arabs that Israel is not invincible.   Like it or not, a precipitous, un-negotiated withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will fuel those fires by positing that, like Israel, America is weak and vulnerable.

“Arabia Decepta” was the title of an essay in Time Magazine just after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.  It spoke to the premise that Arabs have a predilection to self-deception on matters that are of great importance to them.  For example, the headline on the English language Beirut Daily Star on the third day of the 1967 war was “Israeli Lines Crumble”.  Many Arabs will persuade themselves that Israel, American and the West are weak.  That will greatly complicate our struggle with radical Muslim terrorism.  The only way to soften the effects of US withdrawal from Iraq is to undertake negotiations with all the neighbors, none of whom wants chaos in his neighborhood.   Muslims will not view negotiated withdrawal as a US defeat.

This distinction is important because Al Qaida is strong and growing in its ambitions and numbers.   Despite U.S. decimation of Al Qaida leadership, our ill-advised incursion into Iraq has been a recruiting and fundraising gold mine for them.   Al Qaida is not going away and, like it or not, they will be emboldened and empowered by any precipitous withdrawal.

America is not ready to unilaterally confront a resurgent Al Qaida; one that has already hit us at home and that appears to have a rapidly growing membership.  In the past five years of Bush administration Iraq policy, we have alienated most of our friends around the world.  Without friends, a worldwide struggle (not war) with Al Qaida will be difficult to win.  Enough “War on Terrorism”,” Axis of Evil”, “Dead or Alive,” Smoke ’em out” or “Bring ‘em on”.  This is not the Wild West.  Such cocky, intemperate pronouncements, which accurately characterize the Bush Administration’s attitude toward terrorism, only energize our enemies.

We need a new policy.  Rather than trying to arm ourselves to the teeth and unilaterally confront our radical Muslim enemies all around the world, we need to re-evaluate our policy and consider the alternatives.  Radical Muslim terrorism is supported by a tiny fraction of Muslims.  To be successful, radicals must get support from moderates.   The nature of terrorism demands that we examine the roots of terrorist movements and try to mitigate the factors that cause their anger and provide their support.

If we do not want to take on the entire Muslim world in armed struggle, we absolutely must look at existing, alternative policies that will weaken Al Qaida in the Muslim world and strengthen our hand against them.  We need friends for this struggle, the friends who have deserted us over our Iraq policy.

Unilateral bellicosity is no substitute for sober alliances.

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.

Posted in terrorism |

Greatest Foreign Policy Disaster in the History of our Republic

May 17, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Herald of Randolph.]

The twin realities of a Democratic Congress bent on representing the desires of the American electorate, as expressed in the 2006 elections, and an obdurate President Bush, immune to consideration of any policy change, but armed with an override-proof veto, mean that we will not know for sure what will happen in Iraq until after the 2008 Presidential elections.

Impeachment will not happen. We are stuck in Iraq at least until then, and probably far beyond.

Nevertheless, the question of where this is headed is clearly important enough to be addressed. Largely because crystal balls are notoriously cloudy, only those without adequate common sense and good judgment are prone to offer answers.

According to the Bush Administration, we will either win or lose. There is no middle ground for them. V.P. Cheney now defines “winning” as the establishment of a “democratic government that can defend itself,” so it all depends on the formation of a viable government.

Every American military expert in and out of this Administration, says Iraq cannot be won militarily. The solution in Iraq is political. Such a political solution is improbable at best because none of the Iraqi parties is interested. Each is interested in a solution that will bring it power at the expense of its internal rivals. The Kurds and Shia have waited eternities and suffered endlessly from their enemies. Thus “winning” seems essentially unreachable. Nevertheless, we are committed to pursue the current strategy or to fail. As hard as it may be to believe, there is no Plan B.

“Losing” means that the American people (not the Congress, as Bush insists) will no longer support the Iraq war and we will withdraw, salvaging what we can from an impossible situation.

Incredibly, within this spectrum the Republicans acknowledge only two outcomes- “win” or “lose”. There is no middle ground, even though the Iraq Study Group findings include numerous alternate strategies. Unfortunately, we have never been told precisely what progress the Bush administration requires to be able to say that the current “surge policy” has “won.” Must an Iraqi government be functioning? Does Iraq have to be safe, or is safety only required in selected areas around Baghdad?

And, how do we define “safe”? Polls today indicate that almost no Iraqis feel “safe,” that Iraqis overwhelmingly would like us out of their country, and that over half of Iraqis approve of killing Americans.

Right now, we appear to be dealing primarily with Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters. What has happened to the Mahdi Army and Moqtada al Sadr? What are his plans? If he keeps his powerful militia out of the fray, the Bush administration might conceivably be able to declare that we have succeeded and then withdraw our troops.

A case can be made that this is, or might be, the collective, secret prayer of the Bush administration, because if Moqtada turns the Mahdi Army loose, all hell will result.

But remember, the Mahdi is Shia and thus part of the largest ethnic or religious group in the country. It has never shown any inclination to share power with the others. It is highly likely that even if they do stay out of the fray long enough to permit us to withdraw, they will return to battle after our withdrawal with the same goal of dominance, removing whatever shred of hope we might have had for democracy, stability and political compromise within Iraq.

What we have to ask ourselves is just how much we can hope to influence the ultimate Iraq outcome, just how much that will cost and whether or not it’s worth it.

Forget the “at all costs” part of the Bush equation for “winning.” Many of the Bush administration’s dire predictions about the consequences of “premature” withdrawal are wildly overblown and can be fixed or mitigated by any number of policy changes that the Bush administration will not now even consider.

American foreign policy is not nimble. It corrects course more like an aircraft carrier than a PT boat. The simple implementation of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has set in play a process that will take much longer to fix than most Americans would like. It seems likely that whoever is elected President in 2008 will struggle mightily with the inheritance of Iraq and will suffer roughly the same fate as its authors.

America’s extraordinary misadventure in Iraq will probably turn out to be the greatest foreign policy disaster in the history of our Republic. We have sacrificed decades of good will generated through the past pursuit of policies that were generally viewed internationally as positive. We are now seen as a mindlessly arrogant bully, thrashing about the world unapologetically, doing whatever we think is good for America, without any understanding of the cultures in which we meddle and without reference to the needs of anyone other than ourselves.

This cloudy, crystal ball thinks that this will be the Bush legacy. What will we do in 2008?

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served, inter alia, in Lebanon and Iran and as Chief of the Agency’s Counterterrorism Staff. He lives in Williston, Vt.

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq |

Support for Fatah Foments Radicalism

April 4, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Valley News.]

The spit between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine is now a reality.  For many Americans, Fatah is good because it is secular and Hamas is bad because it is Islamist.

In early 2006, at the insistence of the Bush Administration and against the wishes of both Hamas and Fatah, a free, democratic, Palestine election was held.  Hamas won handily, taking control of the parliament.

Hamas won because Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat which had ruled Palestine since the 1967 war, had become corrupt, wildly inefficient and unresponsive to its people.  In marked contrast, Hamas had developed a strong infrastructure in Palestine.  They established extensive welfare programs and  funded schools, orphanages, and health clinics.  Palestinians voted for Hamas because they represented the only change for the better available to them, not necessarily because they supported Hamas’ violent and bellicose, anti-Israel terrorist policies.

In short, in the process of implementing its one-size-fits-all policy of democratizing the Arabs, the Bush Administration forced an unwanted democratic election on the Palestinians – and its friends lost!  The Israeli, US and European Union response was to immediately hold up hundreds of million dollars designated for Palestine.

This does our image no good anywhere in the World.  On the one hand, the Bush administration talks incessantly about establishing democracy in the Muslim world.  On the other hand, when enabled by a democratic election, the Palestinians voted out the American “friends” (Fatah) and voted in our “enemies” (Hamas).   We responded by stopping our financial and political support of Palestine for 16 months, or until lour “friends” took over the West Bank again.  We look totally hypocritical and cynical.

Despite presidential rhetoric, America will continue to support unelected, undemocratic governments like those in Egypt and most of the rest of the Arab world.  This administration will push for a democratic process only where they think it would work to their advantage.  They will not, however, support a government that is Islamist, even if it is elected under democratic rules spelled out by the United States.  By any objective standard, that’s hypocrisy.

This mess in Palestine reveals almost limitless problems.  The administration is trying to bring democracy to the Middle East.  In the process of doing that they have shown that there are limits to the results they will accept.  What does this say about our relations with Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the countries of the Maghreb.  None of them can be considered democratic.   But those that support the United States would appear to be getting a pass.  Those who do not, like Syria and Iran, do appear to be on our hit list.

If that’s the case, then what are the prospects for an Arab who lives in one of those “friendly” countries and fervently wishes to live in a democratic environment?  Basically, he has no good choices.  America won’t support him because the tyrants who rule over him are America’s “friends”.  Where home-grown Islamist movements exist in abundance, democratic movements do not .  So, basically we have presented him with a Hobson’s choice of living under a secular tyrant (his present life) or an Islamist tyrant (his alternate possibility).

Undemocratic states friendly to the US have a very real strategic problem.  As long as they continue to support us and remain undemocratic, they build resentment among their own people.  How long will their support of American policy protect them from their own internal opposition groups when such support moves them higher and higher on the Jihadists’ hit lists?

Whether you think America is in the Middle East because of oil or Israel, or for any other imaginable reason, our current policy is only creating more and more problems for us.  The Middle East is on the cusp of turmoil.  Iraq is a mess.  Turkey grows more and more apprehensive (and bellicose) about the Iraqi Kurds.  Lebanon seems headed back into civil war.  The Palestine situation is increasingly dangerous.  America becomes daily more warlike about Iran and Syria, where we have no good military options.

American policy is hated for what Muslims see as its support of undemocratic Muslim regimes; the stationing of US troops on holy Muslim soil in Saudi Arabia; our occupation of Iraq and what they see as America’s constantly lopsided support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

These are the issues that motivate terrorism.  None of them is being effectively addressed.  As long as our present policies persist, our problems will grow.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in Europe, Lebanon and Iran and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.  He lives in Williston.

Posted in Israel/Palestine |

Democrats’ Showboating Won’t Help Get U.S. Out of Iraq

March 24, 2007 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Valley News.]

Most Americans honestly believe that given sufficient effort, they can solve any problem. They are usually right. Unfortunately, the problem we have in Iraq is almost certainly one of those that, despite our best efforts, is unlikely to have a decent solution.

The Bush administration, supported by less than a third of the U.S. population, says we can “win” in Iraq, and that in order to do so, we have to go ahead with the planned “surge” of additional troops. At the other end of the spectrum are those who say we should get out immediately. Either of those two extreme positions could ultimately prove to be the best course of action, but embracing either one of those options now makes no sense. Only through a careful, public examination of the advantages and disadvantages of those two extremes are we likely to reach any kind of truth about what we should do.

The claimed advantages of the stay-and-win strategy are that as long as we stay, we will: have some military control over events in Iraq; prevent a regional war among the neighbors; fight the terrorists in Iraq rather than at home; retain hope of installing democracy in Iraq; prevent al-Qaida from setting up training camps in Iraq.

Those who want us to get out now claim that: there is no military solution for Iraq; we will save precious lives and resources; we cannot export democracy; our presence in Iraq is what galvanizes local and international terrorism against us; we will regain world respect and our old allies.

How do these statements stack up with realities on the ground in Iraq?

First, there is absolutely no available evidence that our departure from Iraq will empower al-Qaida to strike America again. Even with all the help our invasion of Iraq has given our enemies, they have not yet been able to hit us a second time at home. They will do this when and if they are able. The further allegation is that they will set up training camps in Iraq if we leave. They already have, directly under our noses!

Furthermore, the secular Sunnis, who have nothing in common with theocratic al-Qaida except for a shared hatred for America’s presence in Iraq, will surely close those facilities when we withdraw from their country. The presence of American troops is the only glue that holds them together.

In terms of al-Qaida’s ability to train new jihadists, our departure from Iraq will make that training less practical, less realistic. What we really have done in Iraq and continue to do as long as we are there is give the terrorists a target-rich training environment for rookie jihadists, with live American targets, as well as a level and scope of advertising for further recruitment that al-Qaida could not otherwise match.

The fact that there are conversations going on throughout the Middle East among countries traditionally at odds shows pretty clearly that all those countries have their own reasons not to want to have a regional conflict. The apocalyptic view of a regional war may not be an accurate prediction for the future.

Pandering to the anti-war, left-wing of their party, the Democrats’ attempt to force withdrawal of our troops by 2008 is political grandstanding that will lead nowhere. Withdrawing troops without first arranging for and participating in regional talks designed to mitigate regional conflict would be a major error. Democrats can continue to try to humiliate the president and the Republicans by establishing a date certain for withdrawal, or they can do whatever is practically possible to bring our disastrous Iraq adventure to an end. Given the political realities that exist in the Senate and with a presidential veto virtually guaranteed, it seems likely that the president’s policy will prevail until he leaves office, or until the Democrats stop playing politics and find a viable plan. That will need Republican congressional support.

We need a practical approach from the Democrats that recognizes the political realities they are facing. They should be pushing for a series of timed benchmarks, including: dates for establishing regional talks; tangible evidence of the diminution of sectarian violence; evidence that Iraqis are taking over tasks now performed by Americans; and a political agreement among Iraqi factions on the future of their country.

That is where the Democrats might better put their efforts and hope to pick up the necessary Republican support. Those benchmarks would measure the success or failure of the surge policy. They would have to be successfully met for the administration to keep the battle going. Without benchmarks, we will stay in Iraq for a very long time, or at least until the next elections. With benchmarks, we have some hope of achieving a measure of success in stabilizing Iraq, even if we don’t achieve victory in terms of meeting our original goals. If the benchmarks aren’t met, we will get out.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Lebanon, Iran and Europe and as chief of counterterrorism in Langley. He lives in Williston, Vt.

Posted in Iraq |

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