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Unilateral Attack is Dangerous for U.S.

November 9, 2001 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Burlington Free Press.]

The Burlington Free Press headline “Vermont split on Iraq” on October 30th, which reports the results of a poll on Iraq, conveys a largely erroneous message because it misses the main finding of the poll in question.

The important thing here is not that Vermont is split, but that Vermont is populated by people who support “diplomatic efforts only” (31%), doing “nothing” (13%), military activity “only with UN backing” (40%) and “not sure” (6%) for a total of 90% percent who do not agree with the 10% who think the U.S. should “launch a military strike on its own”.

And that is the real issue here:  There will inevitably be major negative consequences for the United States if we take action against Iraq without U.N. cover.  Let’s make two stipulations:  Saddam is a thoroughly evil person and the world would undoubtedly be better off without him.

The question of unilateral action is the key because it has the potential to create the following disasters for the U.S.:

  • A unilateral attack, despite the fact that most Muslims thoroughly dislike and fear Saddam, will move Muslim fence sitters toward the radical fundamentalists against the U.S. and very likely prompt many of them to join the jihad against the secular West.
  • It will greatly increase instability.  The northern Iraqi Kurds, who have long sought their own country, will cause instability in Turkey and Iran where there are major Kurdish populations who would join them.  The Shiites in the South may find advantage in joining with Iran’s Shiites.
  • Unelected governments (our “friends”) in the Muslim world will find it even more difficult to contain the growing fundamentalist Muslim discontent that exists in their populations. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and the Gulf States as well as Pakistan and some of the countries in North Africa will all feel this instability and its unpredictably destabilizing results.
  • It will empower any government to make preemptive strikes without worrying about U.S. wrath or intervention, simply because having done it ourselves, we will hardly be in a position to disapprove anyone else doing it.  Pakistan, India, Korea and Russia are all candidates.
  • It will further marginalize the United Nations, which despite the derision of the U.S. political right over the years certainly has played a positive role in U.S. foreign policy objectives in Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.  In effect, a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq will tell the rest of the world that they don’t have to worry about the U.N.
  • What effect will it have on our long-time allies around the world who believe unilateral action is inappropriate?  Will we become increasingly isolated?  If you think that doesn’t matter, think about the importance of global trade to our well being.
  • If Israel is attacked by Saddam in the waning moments of our attack on Iraq, they will retaliate, as they have said they would do, perhaps even with nuclear weapons.  Either way, it will create further chaos.
  • It will bring a quick end to what is now left of U.S. moral authority in the world.  We will no longer be able to use that authority to defuse dangerous issues abroad as we have done so many times in the past sixty years.

We have already redefined the word ‘terrorist’ to cover anyone who uses “force or violence …..in furtherance of political or social objectives” (2001 FBI definition).  This could probably have been applied to the Minutemen!  This labels as terrorists any group of people who have legitimate grievances against their repressive government and it enables any such government to crush them without a whimper from the U.S.  This has recently happened with the Chechens in Moscow and will happen again all over the world.  After all, they are terrorists by U.S. definition and therefore they are evil. If we want to be supported in our war on terrorism, we will have to support theirs even if our war is morally correct and theirs is not.  The list includes any country with national minorities that have legitimate repressed goals.   Turkey, China, India, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Phillipines and Iran are all included.

It appears that Usama bin Laden’s primary goal on 9/11 was to provoke U.S. retaliation, which he dreamed would lead to a decades-long confrontation between the secular West and the Muslim worlds.  Even though there is no credible evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Quaida, a unilateral attack on Iraq, particularly if it involves significant Israeli retaliation, will simply increase the possibility that he will get his wish.

If Saddam does not acquiesce to our demands on his weapons of mass destruction, the last thing we want to do is undertake action against him without the sanctions and the blessings of the United Nations.  Even though action under the UN’s multilateral umbrella may not solve all our problems, it will be preferable to going it alone.  The consequences of unilateral action could haunt our country and our civilization for decades to come.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in the Middle East and was subsequently Chief of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Staff.  He lives in Williston.

Posted in foreign policy |

A Fair Policy in Mideast Could Have Prevented Attacks

September 13, 2001 by Haviland Smith

America is under attack!  At 8:45 AM on September 11, 2001, when the first of two planes slammed into the World Trade Center in New York City, life in America changed, perhaps forever.

Although Americans are now entering a period of appropriate mourning which will be fueled by extraordinarily graphic press reports, the first reaction of many Americans will be outrage against the perpetrators of this horrendous act and a desire for retribution.  Yes, we are outstanding retributionists and our resolve will be fueled by the Pentagon attack and ensuing evacuations of just about every other symbol of American democracy and power.

We will almost certainly spend our talent and treasure identifying and then destroying the perpetrators of this multiple attack.  If, as seems likely, it turns out to have been Usama bin Laden, we will hunt him and his people wherever they may be and we will kill them all.  That is who we are.

A number of things probably will get lost in the physical and emotional debris of these attacks.  The first is that life will now change for us in this country.  Transportation will become a nightmare.  Controls in airports will become so repressive that air travel will proceed at a crawl.  If you have plenty of time, fly.

Any structure that could be attacked will be protected.  You will no longer be able simply to drive over the George Washington or any other major bridge or through any important tunnel.  Protective measures will be instituted.  Tunnels are particularly vulnerable.

A level of paranoia will creep into our psyches.  Once we know what kind of people did this, we will become actively distrustful of anyone who looks like them.  Remember what we did to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.

You may rest assured that our government will be able to get whatever it wants in terms of surveillance rights.  That means that your rights will be diminished out of deference to the fight against terrorism.  The sad thing is that you will acquiesce in the loss of your civil rights because of your concerns about your own personal safety.  Will you ever get them back.  Will you lose more?

Think about it.  How would you like to have an office in the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower or any other attractively tall and important building?  How will you feel crossing the Golden Gate Bridge or entering any tunnel on any major automobile corridor?  Will it be safe to travel in Subways?

If they can do this, what else can they do?  Can they poison our food or our air or our drinking water?  Just what will be safe to do and what will be too dangerous?

The other lesson we have to learn is perhaps even more painful.  It is that “as ye sow, so shall ye reap”.  For those of us who have been involved in Middle East politics over the years, this sort of attack was almost inevitable.  This is Arab retribution for what they perceive to be over fifty years of America’s one sided support of Israel over the minimal basic rights and interests of the Palestinians.

Most Arabs and many Americans believe that without the constant intervention of the United States on behalf of Israel, Israel never has been and never will be a viable state.  But what has most infuriated the Arabs has been America’s decision to stand by and do nothing as Israel created its provocative and universally condemned network of settlements on Palestine land, fomenting violence and complicating if not precluding any eventual peace settlement in the area.  America has not been an honorable broker.  As warped as these attacks appear to us to be, from an Arab point of view, they are appropriate.

Many observers have pleaded repeatedly for changes in American policy toward the Middle East, not in a way to jeopardize Israel’s existence, but to simply inject an element of fairness.  That has not happened and after 50 years of an American policy seen as objectively unfair, we are paying the price.

All of this could have been avoided if we had evolved and implemented a fair policy in the Middle East.  We did not.  One has to wonder if we will get a second chance.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served five years in the Middle East and was Chief of the CIA’s Counterrorism Staff.

Posted in foreign policy, Israel/Palestine |

Don’t blame Palestinians for failure

August 27, 2000 by Haviland Smith

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

ust about everyone in the US who has access to the press is currently beating on  Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, blaming him for the failure of the most recent Camp David talks.  President Clinton, needing redemption, and his wife, needing votes, seem to be leading the charge from the political side and even such a serious and unbiased commentator on Middle East affairs as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has joined in the fray.

The rap on Arafat is that he has made no compromises on any important matter of any real substance.  Not only that, he hasn’t even had any proposals to make that could conceivably lead to compromise.  That is probably all true, but there always two sides to every argument.  Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is largely unknown to the American people.

Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were ejected from their homes by the Israelis in 1949.  It was safer to throw them out of the new Israel than to try to assimilate them.  Since 1949, there have been a number of wars between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors.  The Israelis have won them all and have occupied vast tracts of Arab land.  They have occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River (the Palestine homeland) and East Jerusalem (their Capital) both once part of Jordan. They have occupied the Sinai and the Gaza strip, both once part of Egypt, the Golan Heights which had been part of Syria and Southern Lebanon.  In short, at one time they had more than tripled the land mass they had originally occupied.

Most of that land was taken in the 1967 war.  The Sinai was returned to Egypt for political advantage and because there was no emotional Israeli attachment to those barren lands.

Since 1967, a succession of Israeli governments has systematically colonized the West Bank and East Jersulam with Israeli settlers.  This was done for the sole purpose of making the return of those lands (Judea and Samaria of the Old Testament) to the Palestinians difficult or, preferably, impossible.  There are very strong forces in Israeli which do not wish to give up a square centimeter of the occupied territories.  If you are given to dark conspiracy theories, you could make a fairly good construct that the Israelis engineered the 1967 war specifically to occupy the lands taken in that war – in the cases of Samaria and Judea, lands that have an extraordinarily emotional connotation to Jews everywhere.

The point to remember here is that none of this formal waging of war has been undertaken by the Palestinians.  They have no real government and no real conventional army and are dispersed throughout the world in their own Diaspora.  It has been their so-called, fellow-arab friends, the Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Egyptians who have not

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allowed any assimilation of Palestinians in their own countries and have kept the Palestinian refugees festering in virtual prison camps, while they sought to eradicate Israel.

The Palestinians are the lost people of the Middle East.  They have never been in charge of themselves under five hundred years of Ottoman, British, Jordanian and now Israeli rule.  Since 1949, they have become an almost exact analogy to the Jewish Diaspora.  The only major difference is the Holocaust.

During the period between the Second Partition of Palestine in 1949 and last month’s Camp David talks, just about  every move that the Israelis have made to consolidate their position in East Jerusalem and the East Bank has been condemned in the United Nations.  Only the United States and its perpetual and unflinching Security Council veto has prevented the Israelis from feeling the sting of sanctions for its policies in the occupied lands.  The resolutions which have avoided our veto (UN Resolution 242, for example) have all condemned Israeli policies in those lands. Why do we always forget these things?

So, when you start to condemn Arafat and the Palestinians, think of them for what they really are – a people pushed out of their homelands through no fault of their own whose only ability to get back the lands taken from them by force is to throw rocks at Uzi-armed Israeli soldiers or give up their national identity and heritage under American pressure and without protest.  Maybe that will help you understand where the Palestinians and their scruffy leader are coming from and why they do not seem eager to formally give away what they consider their birthright.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served five years in the Middle East.  He lives in Williston.

Posted in Israel/Palestine |

Why do we want Russia to suffer?

January 9, 2000 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Burlington Free Press.]

For reasons that a e probably rooted deeply in our psyche, it would appear that America is intent on inflicting maximum punishment and pain on Russia.  We started almost before the Soviet Union was dead.  We have been treating them like the third-rate country they always would have been had it not been for the fact of their nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Almost as soon as the USSR became Russia, we began the process to admit former Soviet satellites into NATO.  This would compare to Cuba or to Mexico having become a satellite of the USSR during the Cold War.  However, in this case, the cold war was over and Russia did not have the power formerly wielded by the USSR.  It  is acknowledged that Clinton did this because he made a campaign promise in order to get ethnic East European votes in Chicago in the 1992 election.  It really has no basis in American needs for the Pos-Cold War period.

Since then, we have consistently undertaken activities that have predictably infuriated Russia.  We have treated them as if they didn’t exist.  We have completely and consistently ignored their course on areas that are and always have been of major national interest.  The Middle East and the former Yugoslavia are perhaps the best examples of issues that are really within the Russian sphere of interest and influence and on which we absolutely and rather pointedly ignored them.  In short, we have consistently rubbed their noses in their Cold War defeat.  We have been lousy winners.

Our most recent foray into this arena has been our handling of Russian activities in Chechnya.  The purpose of this piece is not to attack or defend those activities, but rather to illuminate them.

Our administration and the American press have consistently berated Russia for the barbaric attack of Great Russian central authority on the powerless, minority Chechens.  For their part, the Russians have continued to explain their actions an attempt to control the “criminal” and “terrorist” Chechens.  In assessing where Russians stand, it’s important to remember that this is not the first fracas they have had in Chechnya.  In the mid-’90s, they were humiliated in a destructive and bloody war in Chechnya.  They really can’t afford to fail again.

For reasons that are hard to understand, no one on either side has attempted to shed light on the most likely issues that underlie this conflict.  Chechnya is a part of the Muslim underbelly of Russia.  The changes after the demise of the USSR left Russia only the Caucasus, much of which is Muslim.  In addition, from the Caucasus east, the former Soviet Central Asia, which became independent from Russia in the early 1990’s, is Muslim.

The region holds extraordinarily important natural resources – oil, gas and minerals – and Russia, to the displeasure of the Muslims, controls the flow of those resources to markets around the world.  Russia has a major vested interest in the stability of Central Asia.  It has natural resources in the Muslim Caucasus and it is concerned about political stability there and along its southern border with Muslim Central Asia.

Muslim fundamentalism is currently gaining ground throughout Central Asia and the Middle East.  Although no one either in America or in Russia seems willing to acknowledge it, Russia has to be absolutely terrified that what is happening in Chechnya is a harbinger of what is likely to come throughout its own Muslim world.  If they are right, they view Chechnya as the first domino in their own coming problem.  It is clear that Middle Eastern Muslim fundamentalists are assisting, training and fighting  with the Chechens.  The Russian administration must think of itself as the little boy with his finger in the hole (Chechnya) in the Muslim dike.

If you are a typically paranoid Russian and believe that the above scenario is likely to be true, just what do you do?  You probably do everything you can to stop this Muslim peril as soon and definitively as possible.  Not to do so would be to invite ultimate disaster.  People tend to pull out the stops during Civil Wars.  We certainly did.

Whatever the underlying reasons, Russia is involved in a very serious military action in Chechnya.  They view it as critical to their future.  We don’t have to agree that the way they are fighting the war is appropriate (even though it is similar to the way we fought the war in Kosovo), but one has to wonder what purpose it serves to continue to demonize Russia from our self-appointed perch on high moral ground as we have during this entire decade.  Given our recent military activities and our tawdry politics, are we morally superior to them?

Finally, Russia has hundreds of nuclear weapons that are capable of destroying U.S. targets.  How can it be more important to rise up in high moral dudgeon and rub Russian noses in their Cold War defeat than to create an atmosphere in which we can render those weapons harmless.

Haviland Smith, a former station chief for the CIA, lives in Williston.

Posted in Russia |

U.S. Foreign Policy Downright Dangerous

August 29, 1999 by Haviland Smith

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

Since the 1992 election, the Clinton administration has done nothing to develop a coherent, consistent foreign policy, opting instead for policy based on political expediency. Clearly, the first White House question on any international issue is “What’s in it for us?”

It is said that the decision to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders was connected to Clinton’s desire to win Czech, Hungarian and Polish votes in Chicago during the 1992 presidential campaign.  If true, and if that is characteristic of his overall foreign policy, then one should expect the results to be chaotic.

World stability has always depended primarily on the predictability of the foreign policies of the major powers.  During the Cold War, when the world seemed as close as it could get to self-destruction, there was really little to fear.  American officials knew exactly what the Soviets would do in any number of truly important situations and the Soviets knew the same about us.  We were both comfortably predictable in matters that truly concerned our “vital national interests”, largely because each knew exactly what those “vital national interests” were.

America is now in the process of becoming a real threat to world stability.  We are pursuing a foreign policy that has no perceivable thread of consistency.  We are leaving it to other nations to figure out just exactly what we are doing or will do, primarily because we don’t know ourselves.  How can our actual and potential protagonists figure out what we are up to when our observable policies are so totally inconsistent?  How are the Russians and the Chinese reacting to us?

Why does Russia take a back seat in our foreign policy concerns in Kosovo and just about everywhere else. Russia remains the only country in the world with the means (and under certain circumstances, the resolve) to blow us off the face of the earth.  Yet, we have treated them cavalierly, almost rudely, as if punishing them for losing the Cold War.  In the past decade we have antagonized them with our policy in the former Yugoslavia and with our totally unnecessary enlargement of NATO membership to include former allies of the USSR.  We are making it a more dangerous world in which to live.

A big part of our problem lies in the act that the Clinton administration is trying to broaden the meaning of the term “vital national interest”.  This term used to be defined quite narrowly and focused on critical political or economic interests like our continuing access to Middle East oil.  Now we are being told that preventing genocide is in our “vital National Interest”.  There is a preachy, moralistic tone that creeps into Clinton administration pronouncements on genocide.  But their message is mixed and hypocritical when we see nothing done to stop genocide in Africa or Asia.  It doesn’t work to be simultaneously preachy, moralistic and inconsistent.

If fighting genocide is in our vital national interest, why do we absolutely ignore the Kurds?  In their case, we actively support the Turks who are the ones trying to do them in.  It has been reported that we assisted the Turks in the recent capture of the Kurdish leader, Mr. Ocalan.  It seems that we limit genocide in the “vital national interest” to expedient fights in white Europe.  At very least, this Clinton administration ignores the Kurdish victims of genocide in favor of the expedience of its policy vis a vis
Turkey and southeastern Europe.

Worst of all, we are seeing the Clinton administration trying to effect the change without sufficient national debate.  We are constantly being told that our Kosovo policy is in the “vital national interest”, but just about everyone knows that it doesn’t fit the old definition.  Given the ambivalence of the administration on non-European, – particularly African – genocide, many are unconvinced by White House arguments that combating genocide is in the vital national interest.  Largely because of its own policy inconsistencies, the White House has failed to make the case.

Every time we have broadened or cheapened the meaning of “vital national interest” in the recent past – in Vietnam, Haiti, Lebanon, Grenada, Bosnia and Kosovo and then made questionable commitments, we have created major disagreement and dissent among Americans.  When we have stuck to the old definition – in World War Two and the Persian Gulf – there has been generally broad support among Americans.

Finally, these recent flings in Bosnia and Kosovo were undertaken in the face of a history that predicts failure.  These two adventures alone have cost hundreds of millions.  We will continue to throw hundreds of millions more at them for a very long time.  One has to ask of any of these old, intractable, Balkan problems are going to be solved by U.S. money even if it (against all odds) gets into the right pockets.  Whether we like it or not we simply can’t solve every problem in the world.

Unfortunately, our current policies make the kind of mess one can expect from an administration that has never had any practical or philosophical foundation for foreign policy other than the most recent New York Times poll.

Haviland Smith, who lives in Williston, is a retired CIA station Chief who specialized in Soviet and East European affairs.

Posted in foreign policy |

Kosovo: Thorny path to peace U.S. heading into quagmire

May 2, 1999 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Burlington Free Press.]

In his “Close to Home” column  (Free Press, April 24), Editorial Page Editor addresses the issue of Kosovo.  In addition to his argument about humanitarian aid, he makes two major points.  The first is:

“These divisions have not always been violent, so clearly it takes a despot to inflame them.  Remove him and the order returns.”

Internal strife in the Balkans has been going on for centuries.  The only time is stops – for example, during the Ottoman Turkish occupation from the 14th to 18th centuries, or the Tito era from 1945 to 1980 – is when the central power, whatever it is, is strong enough to forbid internecine warfare.  Tito simply told all the assembled mutual haters in the Yugoslav Federation that if they started killing each other, he would do the same to them.  The result was an absence of mayhem.

Conversely, the biggest troubles have come when leadership was diffuse or weak.  Milosevic and the last Yugoslav king were the perfect examples.  The Balkans fell apart under them because they were not sufficiently strong either to occupy and hold the land they wanted to or to impose peace by force of arms

This leads to Kiernan’s second point:

“This troubled region has not had the benefit of democratic governance, which would most promise a lasting peace.”

Many Americans tend to think the best solution to just about any problem is to export democracy.  Obviously, it is because it works for us here.  It is an unfortunate fact that American foreign policy since WWII has been built on the hopeful but questionable assumptions that we would be able to export democracy everywhere and that it would be good for the people who imported it.

Unfortunately, there are many people in the world who are psychologically, culturally and sociologically ill-suited to our system of government.  However unfortunate we might think it, democracy in the Balkans has about as much chance of survival as an ice cube in hell.  Not only that, but the time it would take to prepare the Balkan people for it would so destabilize the area that the old scenario of weakness and chaos would certainly re-emerge.

All of Kiernan’s humanitarian arguments are, of course, valid.  That is true simply because we no longer have the option of beginning our policy anew.  There are no born-agains in foreign policy.  It is totally irrelevant to argue what we could have done or should have done.  It is way too late for that.  Nevertheless, anyone who thinks we can drive Milosovic to the table – bomb him into submission – has not looked at the history of air power.  What we are trying to do has never been accomplished before.

We have zealously demonized Milosovic since the beginning of the problem in Bosnia.  How can self-righteous zealots – we Americans – sit down and talk to a man such as that.  We can’t, so we dictate to him.  Why would he want to sit down and do anything with us.  We have methodically eliminated virtually all of our options in the Balkans.

What everyone needs to know is that we are in the process of grabbing hold of our next tarbaby.  We have created a situation in which our options are bad, bad and worse.  We will do something humanitarian because that is the kind of people we are.  We will probably have to put troops on the ground.  That might result in body bags coming home – or it might not.  We were told how many body bags would come out of Iraq and that didn’t materialize.  Everything is up for grabs.  We have no real policy and that will lead us ever deeper into trouble.

The single most important thing to remember is tat the tarbaby is ours.  If we are motivated by our humanitarian feelings, there will be no choice but to become involved on the ground.  We have to get the Kosovars back to Kosovo and then protect them from harm.

Clinton said we would be out of Bosnia in a year, but now it’s three.  Even if we successfully occupy the Balkans and are able to stop them from killing each other, the minute we leave, they’ll be at again.  At best, that will be our future in the Balkans.  How long will we be prepared to stay? Forever?

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who specialized in Soviet and East European affairs.  He lives in Williston.

Posted in Yugoslavia |

Terrorism Fault of Mideast Policy

August 30, 1998 by Haviland Smith

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

When the Israelis undertake some incredibly bloody operation against the Arabs, as they have frequently done, we either wink and turn away or, at worst, slap them on the wrist.  When the Arabs undertake similar action, we blast then with missiles.  Worst of all, we don’t take Arabs seriously.  If we did, we would have changed our current policies in that reason.

Terrorism today has moved largely away from state sponsorship.  Out attack against Libya after the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbee, Scotland demonstrated clearly that if a state sponsored terrorism and got caught, it would be highly vulnerable to military retribution.  States have no place to hide.  In the current case, Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who is godfather and banker to the current terrorist spate will simply pull up stakes and move to another area.  America will be castigated for attacking “the sovereign territory” if the (blameless!) state in which he has been operating.   People like him will always be able to find places to operate (and hide).  There will always be Muslim countries that see it as being in their political interest to allow him to operate on their turf, despite the potential shower of cruise missiles.

The bombing of the Trade Center in New York City marked the beginning of a new direct state sponsorship which could significantly damage a piece of American real estate.  The true significance was that they hit us where we live.  Given the realities of our current Middle East Policy, that will almost certainly happen again.

Terrorism is a weapon of desperation available to those who know they are powerless against overwhelmingly strong enemies.  They attack America selectively because, much as they would like to, they cannot do it conventionally.  They will continue to do it as long as their region is in turmoil and as long as they perceive our Middle East policy to be unjust.   The recent embassy bombings are a harbinger of things to come.  Life will get worse before it gets any better.  Having lived with the situation for over 50 years, the Arabs are prepared to do anything to get our attention, punish us for what they view as our unjust policies and persuade us that our Middle East policy us unjust.

Terrorism is a psychologically unsettling tool.  When used by Arabs against America, its goal is not to defeat us militarily – that would be absurd.  It is simply to give America a taste of what Arabs have been fed by Israelis for 50 years with American complicity or at least indifference – spotty but relentless misery and humiliation.   A continuation of their current operation will simply put us on edge and keep us there.

What will be next?  Hit some more embassies and watch our humiliation and frustration increase?  Worse yet, suppose the Arabs start to murder American businessmen and tourists around the world.  If you don’t care about being caught, as is the case with all Arab suicide bombers, it’s easy.  What better way could there be to realty get inside the collective American psyche than to blow up a tourist group or business delegation?  We are worriers. Do we really want to visit Europe this year, darling?  Think of the impact on our overseas commercial activities.  Such operations would frustrate and humiliate us by showing our impotence and inability to stop them.

If we continue to be unwilling or unable to find a just solution to the Middle East problem and if terrorism in its current form continues and expands as it most certainly will, America can look forward to wearing a very uneasy crown.  We will be on the edge.  We will become increasingly paranoid.  Our government will become more and more frustrated.  Telling us that you have to fight fire with fire, Washington will ask us to give up more of the freedoms we take for granted in order to protect us from this new kind of terror.  We will learn that the quality of life slowly deteriorates under prolonged terrorist attack.  Just ask any Israeli who gets up in the morning wondering if he will be next.

Haviland Smith, who lives in Orange, is a retired station chief who was in charge of counterterrorism for the CIA in the mid-1970’s.

Posted in terrorism, United States |

Israeli Expansion Won’t Lead To Peace

April 6, 1997 by Haviland Smith

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

What’s going wrong (again!) in the Middle East? Quite simply, the Israelis have announced their intention to build settlements in occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the Palestinians have resorted to the only effective weapon they have – unconventional warfare.  Palestinians see this struggle for their occupied land as war, a war they are compelled to fight without an army.  Their only weapon is a virtually unlimited supply of suicide bombers drawn from an angry, frustrated, fatalistic and hopeless Palestine.

Israeli settlements in Arab Palestine accomplish exactly what they were designed to accomplish.  They make it extremely difficult for any Israeli government to pull out the troops that protect their settlers in Palestine, thus continuing the Israeli occupation.  Furthermore, under  Netanyahu’s expansionist Likud government, new settlements are being encouraged, making the prospects for peace even dimmer.  Despite all their pious pronouncements about peace, Netanyahu and his supporters clearly display their preference for territorial gain in the ancient biblical lands over the peace process.

Does anyone care?  Do Americans care that the Israel they have unstintingly supported since 1947 is pursuing counterproductive and undemocratic policies that will almost certainly have major negative consequences for the United States, other western countries and perhaps the entire world?

Ten centuries before the birth of Christ, Jews ruled Samaria and Judea which together now comprise Palestine.  For that reason, Palestine has major, albeit ancient, emotional and religious meaning for many Israelis.  The Likud party, in power in Israel from 1977 to 1991 and again since 1995, has always actively promoted the establishment of Israeli settlements in Palestine in order to make it as difficult as possible for non-Likud Israeli governments to return Palestine to its rightful Arab owners.

What do Netanyahu and his supporters want?  Real peace would mean an end to Israeli settlements in Palestine.  If the Likud wants peace, they simply need to look at their last election to see that at least half of the population of Israel shares that goal with them.  Unfortunately, it is very clear that what motivates the Likud government is territorial expansion into the Arab lands of Jerusalem and Palestine.

If the Likud continues to expand through the creation of new settlements and through their refusal to carry out agreements (to withdraw from Palestine) already made in the peace process, the Palestinians will respond the only way they know how.  They will continue to murder and destroy Israelis whenever and wherever possible.  Netanyahu will blame them for the destruction of the peace process, vow revenge and carry out harsh retribution, conveniently forgetting that it was his very own expansionist policies that started things up again.  Violence begets violence and there will be no peace.

Now and then it appears that the Clinton Administration understands what is happening here and what is likely to come of these Likud policies.  The Clinton administration’s refusal to join in (and their subsequent veto of) the UN security Council censure of Israel for their settlement in Arab East Jerusalem is and was unconscionable.

Thirty years of US vetoes of legitimate UN resolutions condemning Israel’s international misbehavior in occupied Palestine have enabled, even encouraged, Israel’s expansionist policies and behavior.  Israel right or wrong!  Until that stops, there will be no peace.  We simply need to be a lot tougher.  We have to apply the same moral standards to Israel that we say we apply to the rest of the world.

Despite that, US policy is still designed to discourage Likud expansionism.  The reasoning behind our policy is very simple.  Likud expansionism will undo all of the hard-won gains of the peace process.  It  will lead to a much more hostile environment which will encourage the inherent violence of Muslim fundamentalism.  This will manifest itself in violence toward Israel and her allies, most definitely including the US.  We should not forget the World Trade Center bombing.

As violence escalates, our allies in the moderate Arab states where about 40% of the world’s oil is produced will be threatened.  The unfortunate byproduct of such violence is the accelerated radicalization of the Arab world, something that cannot further US interests.  We cannot afford to allow any of that to happen.  This is not just about Israeli interests, it’s about ours as well.  Unfortunately, they are not always identical.

Finally, our policy represents the right and fair thing to do.  It is time we acknowledge that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular are no less human or decent than anyone else, Israelis included.  Despite the Israeli fixation on labeling Palestinians “terrorists”, they are no more “terrorists” than were the Minutemen in 1776.  After all, they are fighting for the same thing – the right to self government in their own land.  It was Jordan, Egypt and Syria who started and lost the 1967 war that enabled Israel to first occupy Palestine.  Who has paid the price?  Palestine.  It’s time to give Palestinians a fair shake, something they have not had at least since 1949.  If we are unable to do that, we will lose what little moral credibility we have left in the Middle East and the world will become an even more dangerous place.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served five years in the Middle East.  He lives in Brookfield, Vermont.

Posted in Israel/Palestine |

U.S. Must Support Middle East Peace

August 4, 1996 by Haviland Smith

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

One of the most enduring and uncritical international partnerships that the United States has had since World War II has been that which we have enjoyed with Israel.  It is very clear that the US has been and continues to be Israel’s primary international backer.

The single most important element in our continuing support has been the nearly total identity of American and Israeli national interests.  What was good for Israel was good for the United States.  We all knew it.

The recent visit of the newly- and narrowly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to America has provided a rather unsettling focus on the goals and policies of his Likud Party.  As a result, we must seriously question whether American and Israeli national interests remain identical in all matters concerning the Middle East.

Israeli withdrawal from the peace process which was initiated under Shimon Peres will bring the Middle East again to the brink of hostility.  Although Netanyahu (with less than 51% of the vote in the recent national election) gives lip service to the peace process, enough evidence has come from the Prime Minister and the Likud camp to make any American observer concerned about their true intentions.

How can the appointment of Ariel Sharon, the quintessential Israeli expansionist hawk, to an important security role in the Netanyahu cabinet reassure America?  We have recently learned that the Likud government has decided to postpone implementation of Israel’s previous commitment to pull out of Hebron, the last city in the West bank under Israeli control.  In addition, the Likud have announced their intention to expand Jewish settlements on the West bank, that they will not further consider exchanging the Golan Heights for peace with Syria, and never agree to any partition of Jerusalem.

All of these issues were left either open or undefined during the negotiations of the Peres Labor Government with its Arab neighbors under  the peace process. They are now apparently foreclosed.  Should we be concerned about this?  You bet we should!

Other than assuring the continuing existence and viability of the Israeli State, America has only one overriding interest in the Middle East and that is achieving a lasting peace between the Arabs and the Israelis.  Without such a lasting peace, a level of instability will return to the area and create nothing but problems for us.

In the absence of a lasting peace, we can expect a return to the turmoil that characterized the Middle East before the peace process was begun.  In response to these new Likud policies, we can and should expect a resurgence of aggressive Muslim fundamentalism led by Islamic militants in Iran and elsewhere in the Arab world against the more moderate or pro-western Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates.

This will likely be supported by states in the region that hold grudges against America – Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq – and will almost certainly lead to a resurgence of anti-American and anti-western (as opposed to anti-Israeli) terrorism and to increasing Muslim fundamentalism, none of which is in our interest.

Ultimately, Gulf oil supplies may be threatened as they were during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and we will again be placed in a position of choosing between oil shortages and intervention.  And don’t kid yourselves about American altruism, alongside Israel’s well-being, our primary interest in the Middle East is continuing easy access to oil!

The key element here is our commitment to the “continuing existence and viability of the Israeli state”.  It is not in our national interest to support either actively or passively the aggressive intentions of the Likud and its allies to turn back the clock on the peace process and pursue Israeli territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs.  Such actions will unquestionably lead to Arab-Israeli conflict in the region.  This is no time for America to procrastinate or to humor the Likud.  It is time to be clear in our rejection of those policies.  America must never have to choose between Oil and Israel.

We need to recognize that our American national interests are increasingly different from those of the Likud and its allies.  We cannot afford to support or in any way condone the aggressive expansionism that is creeping back into Israeli foreign policy under the Likud government.  We have to say very clearly that such regression is not acceptable to us.

What right do we Americans have to try to dictate to the Israeli government?  Perhaps the fact that America contributes 8-10% of the $40-odd billion Israeli budget, over $3.3 billion annually, gives us the right to say that peace is more important than Israeli expansion and that we will not support an Israeli withdrawal from the peace process.   That fact may underlie Netanyahu’s clear policy, which just lead to a serious strike in Israel, to make the Israeli economy less dependent on foreign resources.

It is important that the Likud government understand that American interests are fundamentally different from their own.  If that means the withdrawal of our financial support to the Israelis for quitting the peace process and pursuing expansionism, then so be it.  It is in America’s vital interest to do everything possible to see the Middle East peace process successfully concluded and a lasting peace established.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief.  He served in Lebanon and Iran in the sixties and seventies and lives in Brookfield.

Posted in Israel/Palestine |

It Would Be Foolish, Dangerous to Pull Out of Bosnia

July 2, 1995 by Haviland Smith

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

With the failure of Viet Nam still all too vivid, most Americans have hardened their hearts against Bosnia.  Not even brutal, bloody, Balkan barbarism entices Americans to get more involved.  That fact is seen clearly in public opinion polls that repeatedly underline America’s mistrust of any greater Balkan involvement.  However, we must not confuse the two issues.  Our Viet Nam involvement was never in our national interest.  Bosnia almost certainly is, if only to avoid the almost certain horror that inaction will bring.

Yugoslavia has always had the perfect mix of trouble-making ingredients.  It is the locus of four major religions, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim.  It consists of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia/Montenegro and Macedonia.  It is surrounded by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, each of which has some mix of historical, religious, economic or ethnic interest in one or more of the major parts of Yugoslavia, interests that usually conflict with those of fellow neighbors.

Worse, there is nothing tidy about the way the former Yugoslavia is split up.  It looks like a complicated, large scale model of Palestine in 1946 – a chunk of swiss cheese.  Where Palestine only has Jews and Arabs (and they make plenty of trouble on their own), the former Yugoslavia’s problems are compounded by their much broader diversity.  There you can have a Bosnian Muslim enclave within an Serbian Orthodox enclave which is in turn an enclave in greater Catholic Croatia!

In the broader regional sense, each of those enclaves, and there are many, has a foreign champion looking out for its interests.  Except for those who are of Serb, Bulgarian or Albanian extraction, Greece supports  Macedonians against Serbia.  Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Croatia, and Hungary are all looking out for the interests of their national and religious minorities in Serbia.  Serbia dislikes all of them.  Orthodox Serbia’s champion is Orthodox Russia.  Muslim Bosnia’s champions are Muslim Iran and the Muslim/Arab world.  Catholic Croatia and Catholic Slovenia draw support from Catholic Europe.

Given these extraordinary complexities, the potential for disaster is limitless.  The peoples of the former Yugoslavia have been killing each other purposefully at least since the fifteenth century.  The only time they are at relative peace is when they are forbidden to kill each other by sufficiently strong leaders, leaders who historically come from dominant and aggressive Serbia and occasionally (as in Tito) from Croatia.

At this point, the only thing that is preventing a downward spiral into general, regional civil warfare is the unhappily inept and unsupported UN peacekeeping effort.  In the absence of a meaningful deterrent, virtually anything can happen.  Scenarios include the involvement in war

of all the former Yugoslavia’s neighbors and quite possibly, of Russia.  That could easily get the European powers involved in a general war in Europe.

In the absence of an alternative plan, it is simplistic, foolish and dangerous to say the UN should pull out and let the Bosnian Muslims arm themselves and take on the Bosnian Serbs.  Under that scenario, if things go badly for the Bosnian Serbs we will certainly see Serbia/Montenegro intervene.  As a matter of fact, it really doesn’t matter what happens – the conflict will spread inexorably because of the vested interests that all of the former Yugoslavian components, sponsors and neighbors have in the outcome of such a conflict.

So, what’s the answer here?  There seems no predisposition in America to become involved and Western Europe, which should know better, doesn’t seem much more enthusiastic.  Yet, if we fail to support the suppression of internal conflicts in the Balkans, there is more than a reasonable possibility that a disaster will take place that will involve Europe and America in a far more dangerous situation, including war.

This really is one of those “pay me now or pay me later” situations.  Unfortunately and shamefully, there are no national level politicians who are leveling with the American people on the issue.  Even if there is a viable solution that is not too costly, we are not getting any leadership from Washington.  Republicans are calling simplistically for us to arm the Bosnian Muslims and get completely out and Democrats, including those in the administration, are undecided and uncommitted, wishing the whole mess would go away.  Well, it won’t.  What we need is some leadership on this issue, and we need it quickly before we continue further down this slippery Balkan slope.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station Chief who specialized in Soviet and East European operations.  He lives in Brookfield.

Posted in Yugoslavia |

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