Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Obama has no good options in Syria

August 31, 2013 by Haviland Smith

Originally published in the Valley News

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

An American dog may well get mauled in this fight!

 

Posted in foreign policy, Syria, United States | Leave a Comment »

Why we need to spy

August 25, 2013 by Haviland Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

America has no corporate memory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Posted in CIA, intelligence, United States | Leave a Comment »

Invade Syria?

August 20, 2013 by Haviland Smith

Originally published in The Barre Times Argus and the Rutland Herald

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Clearly, the purpose of the article was to warn the

United States that the sale could hamper efforts for

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

With any real luck, they will prevail.

 

Posted in Syria, United States | Leave a Comment »

Egypt’s Democratic Void

July 4, 2013 by Haviland Smith

Originally published in Rural Ruminations

Current events in Egypt represent a perfect example of contemporary Middle East reality.  Irrespective of these dynamics in Egypt, the practical question for us Americans is whether or not the White House and the Congress are able to understand those realities and create viable foreign policy for the region.  This is extremely important because, with both minor and major differences, events in Egypt are likely to repeat throughout the Middle East in the post Arab Spring era.

The root issue here is that there is virtually no practical experience in the Middle East with the conduct of democracy.  Our media currently rant and rave about the fact that Egypt’s President Morsi is “the first democratically elected President of Egypt”, implying that that designation is somehow vitally important.

And so he is the first.

The problem for Morsi and Eqypt is that “democratic elections” have little if anything to do with the ultimate pursuit of democracy in any given country.  For democratic elections to result in democratic practices, any given country has to already have the critical underpinnings of democracy which are: the active, unfettered participation of the people, as citizens in political and civic life; national and regional tolerance of pluralism; free and fair elections; the general and equal right to vote (one person, one vote); the rule of law – unbiased courts; a guarantee of basic human rights to every individual person vis a vis the state and its authorities as well as any social groups (especially religious institutions) and other persons; separation of powers: Executive, Legislative and Judicial; freedom of speech, opinion, press and religion; and, finally, good governance (focus on public interest and absence of corruption).

When those critical preconditions do not exist, there is no reason to expect a successful transition to liberal democracy.  How many such preconditions do you think exist in the Middle East?

In post-Mubarak Egypt there are only two entities that have any experience with leadership and governance – the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Neither of those organizations represents anything “democratic”.  Further, today’s events indicate that there are vast numbers of Egyptians who support neither. They are the good folks on Tahrir Square.  The only thing they support is the fact that without the ongoing intervention of the military, they would have no hope of deposing Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.  A poll on July 3 indicated that 83% of Egyptians approved of the intervention of their military in the domestic affairs of their country!

Despite that, they know that they do not like governance by the Egyptian military – they tossed them out when the military assumed power after the downfall of Mubarak.  And they are perhaps even more nervous about the Muslim Brotherhood who seem to them not to have sufficiently taken into account their (democratic/secular?) goals in the process of governing Egypt for the past year.

The problem is that there is no cohesion within this “Tahrir” group.  What do they stand for?  Who are their leaders?  Do they agree on anything?  Just what do they want for the future of Egypt, of the Middle East and Islam?

And the fact is that we have no answer to those questions.  If Egypt is to move forward toward Democracy, they will have to find a way to democratic, secular coalitions that spring from the “Tahrir” movement.  So far, there has been no indication of cohesion other than that they oppose the only two groups that represent the theoretical ability to govern that country – the Brotherhood and the military.

And that’s not good enough.  Successful democratic governance cannot successfully rely on opposition to familiar former repressive governments.  It has to have positive motivation from its own ideals.  Without that, any so-called democratic movement is bound to fail.

So, where does that leave us?  You could say we are up a creek without a paddle. The fact is that there is almost nothing we can do to alter the dynamics of politics in Egypt and most of the rest of the Middle East. What will happen there will happen there.  There will almost certainly be a longish period of instability, but there will be little we can do to alter that.

Given our precarious economic situation and our discontent with our own foreign military interventions, it seems unlikely that we will successfully change anything.

Perhaps the best thing for us is to sit back and see where the Egyptians decide to go.  Ultimately, there will be self-determination.  It won’t be pretty, but there won’t be much we can do to change things.

 

Posted in Democracy, Egypt, foreign policy | Leave a Comment »

Meddling in the Mideast Leads to Ethnic Strife

June 15, 2013 by Haviland Smith

 
Originally published in The Valley News

 

 

On the heels of al-Qaida’s 9-11 attacks on the U.S., neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration believed that the establishment and spread of liberal democracy in the Middle East would counterbalance the alarming anti-American hostility of jihadists’ radical Islam. Not only would America become safe once again, they thought, but Israel’s security would be measurably strengthened.

 

When we invaded first Afghanistan and then Iraq, it was clearly with the intention of creating democracies in those states, with the expectation that  democracy would flourish and spread throughout the Islamic Middle East. Unfortunately, the neoconservatives implemented this policy without having the foggiest notion of whether or not it would work.

 

It didn’t.  And to be completely honest, there were no real reasons to think that it would or should have worked. No, the neocons simply had it all wrong. Given a real choice, the people in the Islamic world will always choose the Koran, and that is no model for liberal democracy.

 

The Middle East is and always has been one vast array of uneasy, hostile, competing groups. In the past, that hostility has been kept pretty well under control by a long succession of powerful and repressive regimes that simply told the hostile parties that violence wouldn’t be tolerated. Thus the inherent tension and probability for violence among competing ethnic and sectarian groups was successfully suppressed for centuries by both native and occupying governments.

 

In addition, foreign conquerors, particularly Western colonialists, remade much of the region in their own image, creating new “nations” wherever they went. Unfortunately, they did so with absolutely no consideration of the existing ethnic and sectarian realities.

 

So, we ended up with “countries” such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Sudan, where the ethnic and sectarian rivalries and hostilities acquired permanence by their groupings within the boundaries of the new “states.”

 

While the divisions exist to some extent everywhere in the Middle East, Iraq is a glorious example of the ineptitude of the Westerners who created it in 1920. It contains Arabs hostile to Kurds and Sunnis hostile to Shiites. All of the groups have external supporters: The Sunnis have Saudi Arabia, the Shia have Iran, the Kurds have their brethren in Turkey, Syria and Iran, and the Iraqi Arabs have the Arab world.

 

In terms of its own stability, Iraq did perfectly well as long as it was governed by an authoritarian  government. The inherent ethnic and sectarian hostilities that have existed for centuries, if not millennia, were kept in check by the armed power of a succession of central governments.

 

In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq for all the questionable reasons cited above. The net effect of that invasion was that the U.S. military replaced Saddam Hussein and his Baath government as the coercive force that kept internal hostilities under control. Except, of course, for the fact that we did not really understand the nuances of those relationships and didn’t do very well at that new job. When we announced our intention to withdraw from Iraq and then ceased hostilities there in 2011, Iraq was left for the first time in a long time with no referee. And sectarian violence has steadily increased since.

 

The same is true in much of the Middle East. The absence of those old undemocratic, repressive referees tamping down ages-old hostilities has led inexorably to increased ethnic and sectarian hostility. Across the Arab world from Mauritania to Oman, populations are challenging their existing repressive leadership, except that the goal of those people is not the establishment of democracy. It is self-determination, and in Islam that ranges from relatively benign Islamic governance to radical fundamentalism. Who knows, for example, what will happen in Syria, where what originally appeared to be a civil war against the Assad regime is looking more and more like a Shia-Sunni regional conflict with the involvement of Iran, Lebanon and Hezbollah.

 

In our naive belief that we could bring democracy to the Middle East, we set in motion a process that has no clear outcome — save for the eventuality of Islamic governance. Only time will tell whether that governance will be benign or repressive. Until then, we will most certainly see rising ethnic and sectarian conflict across the region, simply because the referees who once maintained a relative stability are now gone. Will the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Shia rulers of Iraq be able to avoid the oncoming hostilities? For that matter will there be stability anywhere in the region or are we heading for broader regional conflict?

 

We certainly have ripped the lid off Pandora’s box!

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East, United States | Leave a Comment »

U.S. Policy Limited Its Ability to Promote Mideast Democracy

May 3, 2013 by Haviland Smith

Originally published in The Valley News

By Haviland Smith
More than two years have passed since a Tunisian man immolated himself and launched what became known as the Arab Spring.  While the changes set in motion by the various uprisings in the Arab world remain works in progress, it might still be revealing to examine the role played by U.S. involvement and foreign policy in shaping events.
It is difficult to convincingly dispute that the Arab Spring was not a direct result of the Bush administration’s catalytic invasion of Iraq. While that war destabilized the region and opened the door to change, it came nowhere close to fulfilling the neoconservative goal that was one of the motives for that invasion: establishing democracy in Iraq, which would then spread to other countries in the Arab world and create a far more friendly environment for Israel. As attractive an idea as it was, it essentially ignored everything that history has taught us about the Middle East and Islam: The belief that democracy will flourish in that region remains little more than an illusion.
But while it is highly unlikely that liberal democracy as practiced in the west will find a home in the Islamic world, it is certainly possible that, under the right conditions, our ideal of democracy ultimately could mitigate some of the more egregious excesses that Westerners tend to see in fundamentalist interpretations and applications of Islam.
Our major problem in the Middle East is that we are absolute captives of our own pre-9/11 foreign policy. During that period, we supported virtually every repressive regime in Islam. Our preoccupation with maintaining stability even led us to covertly interfere with and intervene in countries — Iran, for example — where liberalization looked to be taking hold.
In the process of implementing our policies, we stationed American troops on some of the holiest ground in Islam in direct contravention of Islamic practice, belief and law. In fact, some of our troops remain stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, in the eyes of most Muslims, we were trouble-making meddlers in the Palestine issue, blindly supporting Israel in every respect, even when it meant we were violating international law. In the process, we have left unsolved a regionally critical problem that has now festered for over 60 years.
Finally, we invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq in what was viewed by Muslims as a continuation of the Crusades of the 11th through 13th centuries. In doing so, we began to turn Muslim populations against us in favor of those elements in Islam that we have often found most objectionable.
When the Arab Spring finally arrived, the ill-will we had sown in the region relegated us to the sidelines, with no meaningful role to play. Worse, our support of repressive governments in the Middle East had been a major contributor to the fact that very few groups in the Islamic world had viable experience with governance. Despite their own protestations to the contrary, none were in any way democratic, and none were prepared or equipped to govern democratically.
Groups in the Arab world that do have governing experience include a few non-democratic monarchies, some powerful military establishments and a number of fundamentalist Islamic organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, hardly what we said we were looking for to govern in the region. In fact, through our previous foreign policy of supporting despotic regimes, we had left the area virtually bereft of the potential for any kind of democratic or enlightened rule.
Since 9/11, our combat troops, our network of jails, our “enhanced interrogation” techniques, our drone program and our clear contempt for Arabs as mirrored in our foreign policy have all worked to our disadvantage because they have turned even Arabs who once admired us into our sworn enemies.
Rather than witnessing the establishment of democracy in the Middle East, we are more likely to see the region remain under the sway of the sectarian, royal and military governments with which Arab countries are familiar.
It should be obvious to policymakers at this point that the U.S. would be best off withdrawing combat troops as soon as possible and suspending all other military activities in the region, with the possible exception of special-forces operations and the deployment of intelligence assets in counterterrorism operations. We should focus our efforts on staying involved culturally, diplomatically and economically.
Ten years after the invasion of Iraq and after spending trillions of dollars and setting off a conflict that costs tens of thousands of deaths and casualties, there remains little hope of replacing yesterday’s despots with anything other than today’s. That can’t have been good policy.
 
 

Posted in Democracy, Middle East, United States | Leave a Comment »

Imposing Democracy

March 24, 2013 by Haviland Smith

 

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

When the Bush Administration decided to invade Iraq in 2003, Americans were given sequential reasons for that decision.  We were told that Iraq was full of Al Qaida terrorists, even though no such terrorist could conceivably have survived under Saddam Hussein.  We were told that Iraq was full of WMD.  There was poison gas and nuclear weapons.  None of this proved to be true.

What was never explicitly said at the time was that we were invading Iraq in order to turn it into a democracy.  That democracy would then be the model for the rest of Islam.  The flourishing of democracy in Islam would make the Middle East a safer place for Israel.  And that was the key reason behind the invasion – increasing Israel’s security.

This was not the first time that Americans had thought of the democratization of Islam.  Many knowledgeable US government experts on the region had seen it as worth consideration. However, in the end, based on the realities as they existed in Islam, that idea had been rejected.  Parenthetically, it is of minor historical interest to note that even when the idea was popular, Iraq was the last country in Islam thought by our experts to be susceptible to such democratization.

The lack of suitability of so many Islamic Middle East countries for democratization is part of the DNA of the region.  The issues that surround regional nationalism, tribalism and sectarianism are, at least for the foreseeable future, so great as to make democratization, at best, problematical.

Nevertheless, we did commit American troops to bringing down Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  In doing so, we precipitated a number of inevitabilities.  Saddam was not beloved by his people. When we removed him and his supporters, we created a situation in which our troops, the “foreign invaders”, became the surrogates for Saddam’s repressive troops.  American troops maintained the order.  Where we thought we were involved in a liberation, we soon found ourselves in an insurgency against our presence.

The same became true as we lingered on in Afghanistan.  Afghanis, who never loved the Taliban, retreated into their tribal mode and turned against us in an insurgency.  All of a sudden, in both Iraq         and Afghanistan, we were fighting insurgencies rather than hunting terrorists, primarily because we were the foreigners.  When an indigenous population has to choose between it’s own “bad guys” and foreign “bad guys”, even though they may not actively support their own, chances are they will not help the foreigners at all. A successful  counterinsurgency requires at least local passivity, and preferably some cooperation.

According to American counterinsurgency doctrine, in order to successfully deal with an insurgency, the counterinsurgents  (the USA) must commit 25 combat soldiers for every 1000 people in the local population.  That would have required around 850,000 American troops on the ground in Afghanistan and an equal number in Iraq, an impossible commitment for us to seriously consider.

Most countries that have dealt with terrorism believe for the reasons outlined above that terrorists should never be confronted militarily, but rather should be dealt with as a criminal matter using police, intelligence and special forces.

The decision to use the term “War on Terror” was a major mistake as it misdirected most of our counterterrorism activities.

The first thing we need to do in the Middle East is decide precisely why we are there.  What is there in our national interest that should be driving our policies?    We are not in the process of installing democracy in that region.  The absolute best we can logically hope for is stability through self-determination.   Beyond that, it is reasonable to hope for a moderate Islam.  Only a tiny fraction of Muslims are fundamentalists.  With real self-determination, it is reasonable to hope that Muslims will elect moderates.  And that should be our goal – the election of moderate Muslim regimes.

After a dozen years of military activity, America has little credibility in the region.  Some of that credibility can be restored with the removal of our uniformed troops and the cessation of hostilities.  The simple absence of drone activity would be a tremendous help.

With our troops gone and our military activities ended, we will regain the opportunity to use all the other available foreign policy tools:  diplomacy, propaganda, covert action, police, liaison with indigenous organizations and economic activity.

We might even get back to the greater level of respect and admiration we enjoyed last century.

 

Posted in Afghanistan, foreign policy, Insurgency, Iraq, Middle East, terrorism, United States | Leave a Comment »

Iran after the Arab Spring

March 18, 2013 by Haviland Smith

  
Originally published in Rural Ruminations
By Haviland Smith
 

Iran appears outwardly to be a relatively stable Middle East country.  The Ayatollahs, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, look to be firmly in charge.  The only thing that would appear to challenge that notion of stability are the protests that took place after the 2009-2010 election.

What does the future hold for Iran.  Is it a candidate for democratization or moderation?  For a number of reasons, Iran is worthy of examination in the wake of the Arab Spring

First, despite external appearances, Iran has an extraordinarily pro-western population.  Remember, they are Indo-Europeans, not Arabs.  They have long admired western culture and commerce.  The average Persians on the street have comparatively paltry beefs with America, primarily because, unlike other Middle East countries, they have not seen American troops or weapons on Iranian soil this decade.  They are legitimately angry that in 1953 we engineered the covert overthrow of the only elected government they have ever had and because today’s international sanctions, seen appropriately as American sponsored, severely hurt the man on the street, not the leadership.

On the positive side and whether we like it or not, our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq plus our increased military involvement across the region (Libya and Syria) have greatly benefitted Iran.

Iran sees the Taliban as an enemy, so all our Afghan counterinsurgency operations are of potential benefit to them. However, most important, our ouster of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq has removed Iran’s most powerful and hostile regional enemy and replaced his regime with a pro-Iranian Shia government.

At 636,000 square miles, Iran is the 18th largest country in the world.  It has a population of 75,000,000 of whom two thirds are Persian and two thirds are under thirty-five.  Iran’s rate of literacy is over seventy-five percent and sixty-seven percent of university students are women.  Iran produces one quarter of the world’s oil and is repository for two thirds of the world’s crude oil reserves.  They have all the tickets to be a major player in their region.

In terms of the ongoing impediments to political moderation, Iran is in pretty good shape.  Over ninety percent of Iranians are Shia, while less than ten percent are Sunni.  In terms of nationalities, two thirds are Persian with the largest minority found in Azerbaijanis at sixteen percent.  As Aryans (non-Arabs), tribes play a far lesser role than they do in most of the rest of the Middle East.  Thus, the pressures and divisive problems created by Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism are greatly reduced.

In any examination of discussion of Iran it is extremely important to know some Iranian/Persian history.  Settlements in Iran date to 7,000 BC.  The first Persian kingdom existed in the third century BC and around 500 BC, the Persian Empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River.  It was the greatest empire of its time and made major contributions to Art and Science.

This kind of history affects peoples’ attitudes.  Iranians have a real sense of who they are.  They are educated, thoughtful, smart, clever and nationalistic and have a very good understanding of how the world works.

Why would the Iranians want to develop nuclear weapons, if, in fact, that is what they are doing?  Largely because ownership of the bomb would be a virtual guarantee that they would not be attacked by any conceivable enemy.  Iranians want the bomb simply because having it, as opposed to using it, is power incarnate.

Additionally, they almost certainly believe that the bomb will bring them the respect they feel is due them as a power in the region. In that context they have everything else they need to gain that respect and influence.

Iran was a player in the Cold War and understands how the West dealt with the Soviet threat. The Iranians understand MAD. They know that if they were to acquire the bomb, any use they might make of it — say, against Israel or some other American friend in the region — would result in the obliteration of their country.

In short, like all today’s members of the nuclear club, they know that the bomb is useful only as a threat. It is essentially useless as a weapon because its use leads inevitably to self-annihilation.

All of that aside, the best reason America has to forget an attack on Iran and undertake a dialog with them is that only an attack by America, with or without Israel, can unite the population behind the regime.  Absent that, they will always represent festering potential trouble for the Ayatollahs.

Posted in Iran | Leave a Comment »

Iran after the Arab Spring

March 18, 2013 by Haviland Smith

 
Originally published in Rural Ruminations
 

Iran appears outwardly to be a relatively stable Middle East country.  The Ayatollahs, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, look to be firmly in charge.  The only thing that would appear to challenge that notion of stability are the protests that took place after the 2009-2010 election.

What does the future hold for Iran.  Is it a candidate for democratization or moderation?  For a number of reasons, Iran is worthy of examination in the wake of the Arab Spring

First, despite external appearances, Iran has an extraordinarily pro-western population.  Remember, they are Indo-Europeans, not Arabs.  They have long admired western culture and commerce.  The average Persians on the street have comparatively paltry beefs with America, primarily because, unlike other Middle East countries, they have not seen American troops or weapons on Iranian soil this decade.  They are legitimately angry that in 1953 we engineered the covert overthrow of the only elected government they have ever had and because today’s international sanctions, seen appropriately as American sponsored, severely hurt the man on the street, not the leadership.

On the positive side and whether we like it or not, our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq plus our increased military involvement across the region (Libya and Syria) have greatly benefitted Iran.

Iran sees the Taliban as an enemy, so all our Afghan counterinsurgency operations are of potential benefit to them. However, most important, our ouster of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq has removed Iran’s most powerful and hostile regional enemy and replaced his regime with a pro-Iranian Shia government.

At 636,000 square miles, Iran is the 18th largest country in the world.  It has a population of 75,000,000 of whom two thirds are Persian and two thirds are under thirty-five.  Iran’s rate of literacy is over seventy-five percent and sixty-seven percent of university students are women.  Iran produces one quarter of the world’s oil and is repository for two thirds of the world’s crude oil reserves.  They have all the tickets to be a major player in their region.

In terms of the ongoing impediments to political moderation, Iran is in pretty good shape.  Over ninety percent of Iranians are Shia, while less than ten percent are Sunni.  In terms of nationalities, two thirds are Persian with the largest minority found in Azerbaijanis at sixteen percent.  As Aryans (non-Arabs), tribes play a far lesser role than they do in most of the rest of the Middle East.  Thus, the pressures and divisive problems created by Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism are greatly reduced.

In any examination of discussion of Iran it is extremely important to know some Iranian/Persian history.  Settlements in Iran date to 7,000 BC.  The first Persian kingdom existed in the third century BC and around 500 BC, the Persian Empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River.  It was the greatest empire of its time and made major contributions to Art and Science.

This kind of history affects peoples’ attitudes.  Iranians have a real sense of who they are.  They are educated, thoughtful, smart, clever and nationalistic and have a very good understanding of how the world works.

Why would the Iranians want to develop nuclear weapons, if, in fact, that is what they are doing?  Largely because ownership of the bomb would be a virtual guarantee that they would not be attacked by any conceivable enemy.  Iranians want the bomb simply because having it, as opposed to using it, is power incarnate.

Additionally, they almost certainly believe that the bomb will bring them the respect they feel is due them as a power in the region. In that context they have everything else they need to gain that respect and influence.

Iran was a player in the Cold War and understands how the West dealt with the Soviet threat. The Iranians understand MAD. They know that if they were to acquire the bomb, any use they might make of it — say, against Israel or some other American friend in the region — would result in the obliteration of their country.

In short, like all today’s members of the nuclear club, they know that the bomb is useful only as a threat. It is essentially useless as a weapon because its use leads inevitably to self-annihilation.

All of that aside, the best reason America has to forget an attack on Iran and undertake a dialog with them is that only an attack by America, with or without Israel, can unite the population behind the regime.  Absent that, they will always represent festering potential trouble for the Ayatollahs.

 

Posted in Afghanistan, foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Syria, United States | Leave a Comment »

Best We Can Hope for

March 10, 2013 by Haviland Smith

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

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq in 2003, a course of action was started that has left the United States virtually without influence today in that important “country”.

The probable intention of the Bush administration, heavily influenced as it was by the neoconservatives who populated it, was to create an Arab democracy which could be emulated by other Arab nations. That would create and encourage a democracy-dominated environment that would make the region safer for Israel.

What the Bush Administration either was too ill-informed to know, or refused to acknowledge was that Iraq was the absolute least likely candidate in the Middle East for the installation of democracy.  Sad to say, Iraq contains in superabundance, all those elements that make democracy problematic:  Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism.

Iraq, a “country” of 31 million people, is composed of around 75% Arab, 20% Kurd and 5% Assyrian, Turkoman and others.  It is important to note that Iraq’s better than half million Kurds are a part of an overall Kurdish regional population of 30 million, giving them a non-Arab support base outside Iraq.   They are “not alone”.  Their geographic location next to large Kurdish populations in Turkey, Syria and Iran is important as it gives them regional national allies and a sense of belonging not shared by other national minorities in the region.

Iraq remains a strongly tribal state.  When law and order break down, as it has in Iraq today, and populations increasingly fear for their safety and well-being, people tend to return to their most basic social units, the groups from which they stem and with which they feel safe.

Of the roughly 150 tribes in Iraq, two dozen dominate.  Most of the tribes and their subordinate clans and families are grouped into tribal federations.  Even though tribalism generally has been discouraged since the Baath Party came to power in 1968, it was often encouraged during the war with Iran in the belief that it helped hold the Iraqi people together against a common enemy.

The greatest problem that today’s Iraq has to face is Sectarianism.  Muslims comprise about 97% of Iraq’s population.  Those Muslims are roughly 65% Shia and 35% Sunni.  The remaining 3% of the population contains a smattering of “Christians and others”.  Repressive foreign and native rule over the past 14 centuries has been the only thing that has prevented the Shia and Sunnis from killing each other.  Absent that coercion, as we see today, the killing is almost incessant.

The Baath Party, a Sunni organization, ruled Iraq from its coup in 1968 until the 2003 American invasion.  It is interesting to note that during that entire period, many Sunnis really believed that they represented a majority of the Iraqi people.  Such Iraqi Sunnis have been amazed to hear and often unwilling to believe that the real majority is the Shia population, clinging to the premise that they are the rightful rulers of Iraq.

Iraq is rich in oil.  There are oilfields in Shia southeastern Iraq and in Kurdish northeastern Iraq, leaving the Sunnis with mostly desert.  Oil ownership is one of the major issues involved in today’s negotiations between the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds.  When you think of Iraq, its ongoing sectarian violence and its prospects for the future, remember that the Sunnis who once had all the power and all the resources, now have a large patch of sand.  Unsurprisingly, they are said to be running death squads against the Shia with sharply increasing regularity.

Iraq is now trying to negotiate its way into stability.  Unfortunately, the Shia under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are playing real hardball.  It is clear that after decades of political, economic and physical mistreatment by the Sunnis, they have little interest in compromise or fairness.  Add to that the meddling of Shia Iran in Iraqi affairs at the expense of Sunnis and Kurds and prospects become more bleak.

And while the realities of Sectarian conflicts persist, Iraq bubbles along with periodic acts of sectarian and nationalist violence and terrorism while apparently trying to create conditions that will permit Iraq to remain on the scene as a cohesive “country”.

Unfortunately, this goal seems unlikely at best.  The Kurdish-Arab differences are bad enough, but when added to the Sunni-Shia rivalry and their propensity toward violence, the only logical, peaceful end in sight is the division of Iraq into its component parts.

We could very well see Kurdish, Shia and Sunni “countries” evolve out of today’s Iraq.  However, with the possible exception of the Kurds, there is nothing in Iraqi history or culture that could lead a rational observer to hope for democracy there.  Moderate Islam is about the best we can hope for, a new dictatorship, the worst.

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, United States | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »