Tag: Iraq
The joke is on us
The temptation to do an April Fool’s post is great, but the barriers are greater: how can anyone joke about Bashar al Assad murdering Syria’s citizens and managing nevertheless to stay in power? Or about nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranian theocracy? A war we are losing in Afghanistan? A peace we are losing in Iraq? A re-assertive Russia determined to marginalize dissent? An indebted America dependent on a creditor China that requires 7-8% annual economic growth just to avoid massive social unrest? I suppose the Onion will manage, but I’m not even one of its outer layers.
Not that the world is more threatening than in the past. To the contrary. America today faces less threatening risks than it has at many times in the past. But there are a lot of them, and they are frighteningly varied. Drugs from Latin America, North Korean sales of nuclear and missile technology, Al Qaeda wherever, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the wrong hands, bird or swine flu… Wonks are competing to offer a single “grand strategy” in a situation that does not permit one. Doctrine deprived Obama has got it right: no “strategic vision” can deal with all these contingencies. They require a case by case approach, albeit one rooted in strength and guided by clear principles.
American military strength is uncontested in today’s world and unequaled for a couple of decades more, even in the most draconian of budget situations. A stronger economy is on the way, though uncertainty in Europe and China could derail it. All America’s problems would look easier to solve with a year or two, maybe even three, of 3-4% economic growth. The principles are the usual ones, which I would articulate this way:
- The first priority is to protect American national security
- Do it with cheaper civilian means as much as possible, more expensive military means when necessary
- Leverage the contributions of others when we can, act unilaterally when we must
- Build an international system that is legitimate, fair and just
- Cultivate friends, deter and when necessary defeat enemies
My students will immediately try to classify these proposition as “realist” or “idealist.” I hope I’ve formulated them in ways that make that impossible.
There are a lot of difficult issues lying in the interstices of these propositions. Is an international system that gives the victors in a war now more than 65 years in the past vetoes over UN Security Council action fair and just? Does it lead to fair and just outcomes? Civilian means seem to have failed in Syria, and seem to be failing with Iran, but are military means any more likely to succeed? If the threats to American national security are indirect but nonetheless real–when for example North Korea threatens a missile launch intended to intimidate Japan and South Korea–do we withhold humanitarian assistance?
America’s political system likes clear and unequivocal answers. It has categories into which it would like to toss each of us. Our elections revolve around identity politics almost as much as those in the Balkans. We create apparently self-evident myths about our leaders that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
The fact is that the world is complicated, the choices difficult, the categories irrelevant and the myths fantasies. That’s the joke: it’s on us.
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Missive offense and defense
America’s patriots were hard at work this week, not attacking the nation’s enemies but each other. First the Romney brigade launched a missive, apparently the first salvo in a planned barrage. The Obama missive defense went ballistic. The question is this: how much difference is there, really, between the two presumed candidates?
On one issue, defense spending, there is a clear and present difference: Obama is in the midst of cutting close to half a billion dollars from projected increases in the Pentagon budget over the next ten years. Romney says he would not do that (without explaining how he would avoid it). He has committed himself to a naval buildup, apparently in anticipation of a Chinese challenge that will be decades in the making. Presumably to cover the interim, he has declared Russia America’s main foreign threat. Obama is already moving to shore up America’s presence in Asia and the Pacific, but he shows much less concern about Russia and more about Iran.
Romney has said Iran will not get a nuclear weapon if he is elected president. Obama says Iran will not get a nuclear weapon while he is president. Romney is clearly thinking more about military threat that enables diplomacy and Obama more about diplomacy enabled by military pressure. That’s a distinction with a difference in emphasis.
Both candidates are Israel‘s best friend. Obama has its back. Romney has its front. Neither is willing to pressure his best friend to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians. Romney seems inclined to ignore their existence. Obama does not but has reached a dead-end on the issue.
Both candidates are also Castro’s worst enemy. Romney would pursue a tougher isolation policy with Cuba, one that has failed for more than 50 years to bring results. Obama would try to undermine the Castro regime with soft power, a more recent approach that has also failed to work.
On Iraq and Afghanistan, there are again some real differences. Romney says it was a mistake for Obama to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq. Obama asks how they could stay if Iraq did not want them and refused to allow immunity from prosecution. Romney says the drawdown in Afghanistan is too fast. Obama leans toward accelerating it. That difference too is real: Romney would stay in Afghanistan to win, Obama wants to get out before we lose.
Then there are the issues that have not yet been launched. Romney will likely say Obama hasn’t done enough to support the rebellion in Syria. Obama won’t say it, but he hesitates on Syria because he wants to keep his powder dry and needs Russian support on Iran. Obama will vaunt his accomplishments against Al Qaeda. Romney will criticize Obama for failing to bring around Pakistan.
There are also the intangibles. Romney says the United States needs to be number 1 and lead. Obama says the United States needs to collaborate with others and share burdens. Romney says he would never apologize for the United States. Obama apologizes when we are responsible for something going terribly wrong. Romney will say Obama is too soft. Obama will say Romney is too simplistic.
There are some who think this kind of missive exchange is clarifying or otherwise edifying. I’m not so sure, even if I think my team–that’s the Obamites–got the best of it on this occasion. I guess I am nostalgic, but it would be nice to return to the “water’s edge”: that’s a foreign policy that ignores partisan differences once we leave the east and west coasts to go abroad. We shouldn’t hide the real differences, but there is more similarity here than either side would like to admit. Nor will they do so any time before November.
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Maliki wins another bet
Nouri al Maliki, the prime minister orginally chosen in 2006 because he and his Dawa party were regarded as too weak to threaten the bigger fish of Iraqi politics, is improbably completing his sixth year in office (give or take a month or two) with another relative success: the Arab League Summit he hosted this week in Baghdad. It marks the reemergence of Iraq as a regional player, one which borders both Syria and Iran, the West’s two big preoccupations in the Middle East these days.
While the Western press is underlining that fewer than half the 22 heads of state attended the summit, the Iraqis will be glad to have gotten 10 of them to a security-handicapped Baghdad, including the Emir of Kuwait. That’s significant, not only because of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 but also because relations between the two countries were tense until recently.
Also significant is the absence of the other Gulf heads of state, who want to see better treatment of Sunnis in Iraq. Boycotts are not my style of diplomacy–they’d have done better to attend and complain. But I suppose the message was clear enough.
The main substantive issue was Syria. The Arab League is now backing Kofi Annan’s plan, which to Baghdad’s satisfaction backs off the demand that Bashar al Assad step down. Instead it talks about “an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people.” Anyone who has followed Maliki’s elastic interpretation of his domestic political commitments over the past year–in particular to his putative coalition partners Iraqiyya and the Kurdish bloc–will understand immediately that this language will not constrain him to insist that Bashar has to go.
That said, it is not really Iraq’s role, or even the Arab League’s, to push Bashar aside. That role belongs mainly to the Russians, who have so far protected him from a UN Security Council resolution. They are showing signs of impatience with their protégé, who is not looking so reliable these days. The Americans need to convince the Russians that they have better chances of maintaining their port access and arms sales in Syria with a successor who can last rather than a wobbly Bashar.
In the wake of the Summit, Iraq will take over the presidency of the Arab League from Qatar. This will put Baghdad in a decisive role vis-a-vis Syria during the period in which a denouement is likely to occur. Iraq will want to make sure that the successor regime in Damascus is one that does not feed Sunni insurgency in Iraq and treats Alawis gently.
Baghdad will face enormous challenges if Bashar al Assad does step down. The West will look to the Arab League for answers to difficult questions: how will law and order in Syria be maintained? What will have to be done to help it revive its flagging economy? Where will the necessary relief come for what are now likely more than a million refugees and displaced people? Iraq, not far itself from having been a basket case, will have a major role fixing another broken state.
But those challenges lie in the future. For the moment, Maliki can enjoy his earnings from what was a high stakes bet.
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Geography and oil are fate
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki seems for the moment to be winning his high stakes bet on hosting the Arab League summit this week in Baghdad. The first bar is set pretty low: if the meeting comes off without any major security incidents or diplomatic kerfuffles, Iraq will be able to herald it as a successful milestone marking the return of Baghdad to regional prominence and a renewed role in the Arab world.
It could amount to more. It already says something about the Arab League that a Kurdish president and a Shia prime minister are leading an Arab League summit. Maliki has successfully courted improvements in relations with Sunni-dominated Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the last couple of months. Some are hoping he might use the occasion to tilt Iraq away from Iran, perhaps even capturing a significant role with Russia in the effort to manage a negotiated transition in Syria.
Of course the whole thing might still blow up, too. Either literally, if Al Qaeda in Iraq slips through Baghdad’s well-manned but still porous security cordons, or figuratively, if heads of state decline to attend or the Syria issue leads to a serious diplomatic breach with the Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that would like to boot Bashar al Assad.
A successful Arab League summit could significantly improve Maliki’s standing at home, where he has also been doing some fence mending. His big achievement was passing the budget in parliament. His Sunni and Kurdish putative allies in parliament might still like to bring him down, but they have been unable to mount a serious threat and have not managed even to suggest an alternative majority. Besides, they like their cushy jobs.
Maliki may be mending his fences, but they are still fences. His majority is increasingly dependent on support from the Sadrists, whose reliance on Iran will limit his room to maneuver.
What does this mean for the U.S.? The most immediate issue is Syria: Washington would like Baghdad to help get Bashar to walk the plank. Tehran will resist that mightily, and if it happens will redouble its effort to create in Iraq any “strategic depth” it loses in Syria. Maliki can only gain from an end to the Assad regime if it gets him serious support from the Kurds and Sunnis within Iraq, as well as the broader Arab world. I’d like to believe that would happen, but he is unlikely to have enough confidence it would.
The longer-term issue is the political orientation of Iraq. Will it stand on its own and develop strong ties with the West, as well as with the Arab world and Iran? Or will it tilt inexorably in Iran’s direction, risking internal strife as well as its own independence? The Arab League summit is unlikely to have much long-term impact in determining this question. Iraq’s Sunnis are convinced Maliki is an Iranian stooge. The Americans still hope he’ll come around in their direction.
One major factor determining the outcome is rarely discussed, even in expert circles: how Iraq exports its oil and eventually also its gas. If it continues to put the vast bulk of its oil on to ships that have to pass through the Gulf and the strait of Hormuz under Iranian guns, Tehran’s influence will grow. But there is an alternative. If Baghdad repairs and expands the “strategic” pipeline to enable export of large quantities of oil (and eventually gas) to the north (to Turkey) and west (to Syria or Jordan), any government in Baghdad will see its links to the West as truly vital. Maliki’s government has been doing the needed feasibility studies, but it is not yet clear that it is ready to make the necessary decisions, since export to the north and west would mean crossing Kurdish and Sunni controlled territory.
Iraq once seemed hopelessly divided. But those divisions can be bridged, if there is political will to do so. Geography and oil are fate.
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Iraq needs a shopping list
A couple of birdies have flown into Washington from Iraq recently. They had interesting, but very different, things to say.
One thinks Iraq is doing all right but the United States is missing big opportunities, due to its failure to implement the Strategic Framework Agreement that now governs bilateral relations. This has lots of potential for tying Baghdad more closely to the West, as does the export of more oil to the north and west rather than through the Gulf. Washington, this birdie thought, is worrying too much about Iraq’s sometimes tense internal political situation. It is only natural that the political forces that make up the current parliament are testing each other to see where the limits lie. Erbil/Baghdad problems are solvable. Things are settling down, problems are finding solutions and Washington should take a hint from the Iranians, who are actively projecting soft power. That is unavoidable, given their proximity, the long common border and the many Iranian pilgrims who visit Shia shrines in Iraq.
The other birdie thinks Iraq is severely handicapped in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal. Despite dramatic improvements in the Iraqi security forces (more jointness, a stronger non-commissioned officer corps, and decentralization of authority), its many intelligence agencies are no longer sharing information, partly due to sectarian and ethnic divisions that the U.S. presence used to bridge. Absent a clear national security strategy, Prime Minister Maliki is centralizing decisionmaking in ways that reward loyalty over professionalism and open the door to corruption, especially in military procurement. Iraq lacks a strong national identity. A return to sectarian war is unlikely, but the Sunni-majority provinces will insist on more decentralization. Iran has influence on some politicians but not on the army. Iraq would however oppose any U.S. raid on Iran and is unconcerned with Tehran getting nuclear weapons, since they won’t be targeted against Iraq. As things stand today, Iraq lacks the capability to prevent Israel (or the U.S.) from overflying Iraq to attack Iran.
I suspect there is a lot of truth in both these perspectives, which makes it ironic that they should be carried to Washington separately. The message from both–that Iraq still needs the United States to play a strong role–would make a deeper impression if carried jointly. The Iraqis need to understand that the initiative is now theirs, not ours. They need to create conditions in which Americans can train Iraqis, cooperate with them across a broad spectrum of activities, and invest in Iraq. If it is too risky or unwelcome, the Americans will turn their efforts elsewhere.
At the policy level, the Americans have moved on to other issues, Iran and Syria for the moment but also North Korea and the Afghanistan withdrawal. If Iraq wants U.S. help, it is going to need to plot out clearly what it needs and come shopping for it.
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Negotiation time
With all the jabber the last few days about the use of force against both Syria and Iran, media attention is not focused on the prospects for negotiated settlements. But there are such prospects still, even if the odds are getting longer by the day.
Syria
International Crisis Group is out yesterday with a “now or never” manifesto rightly focused on prospects for UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s efforts:
Annan’s best hope lies in enlisting international and notably Russian support for a plan that:
Arming the Syrian opposition, which is happening already, is not likely to improve the prospects for a negotiated settlement along these lines. To the contrary, Western contemplation of safe areas and humanitarian corridors, loose Arab talk about armed the Syria Free Army, the occasional Al Qaeda suicide bombing and a Russian blank check for the regime to crack down are combining to plunge Syria into chaos. Someone may think that deprives Iran of an important ally, but it also spells lasting (as in decades-long) trouble in a part of the world where we can ill afford it.
The Americans have been mumbling about how arms will inevitably get to the Syrian opposition. This is true enough. But some visible support for Annan, and a behind the scenes diplomatic game with the Russians, would be more helpful to the cause of preventing Syria from becoming a chronic source of instability in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
Iran
Netanyahu came but this time did not conquer. He needed President Obama to be forthcoming on an eventual military action against Iran as much as Obama needed him to refrain from aligning with Republican critics. It fell to Senator Mitch McConnell to crystallize the emerging U.S. position: if Iran enriches uranium to bomb grade (at or above 90%) or shows signs of having decided to build a nuclear weapon (design and ignition work), then the U.S. would respond with overwhelming force. This is the proposed “red line.”
We should not be fooled by McConnell’s belligerent tone. Even assuming very strict verification procedures, the line he proposes is a relatively expansive one that leaves Iran with enrichment technology and peaceful uses of atomic energy, which is what the Islamic Republic claims is its red line.
While the press was focused on belligerent statements, the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China + Germany) have apparently responded to Iran’s offer of renewed negotiations. Iran has also told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it can visit a previously off-limits nuclear site believed to be engaged in weapons research, but procedures have not yet been worked out.
Bottom line
I wouldn’t get excited about the prospects for negotiated solutions in either Syria or Iran. But if ever there was a time to negotiate, this is it. By fall, both situations will likely be too far gone, with serious consequences for the United States, the Middle East and the rest of the world.
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