Tag: Somalia
Producing more enemies than you can kill
No doubt one of the few international issues President Obama will highlight in tonight’s State of the Union speech is the threat of international terrorists associated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. He will cite the American military response in Iraq and Syria as vital to our national interests and claim we are making progress, at least in Iraq.
He is unlikely to acknowledge that the problem is spreading and getting worse. In Libya, there are two parliaments and two governments, one of which has ample extremist backing. In Yemen, rebels have laid siege to the government the Washington relies on for cooperation against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram is wrecking havoc. In Syria, moderates have lost territory and extremists have gained. Taliban violence is up in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Fourteen years ago when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York City Al Qaeda amounted to a few hundred militants hiding out mainly in Afghanistan, with small clandestine cells in Europe and the US. Now estimates of the number of extremists change so rapidly it is hard to know which to cite, but there are surely more than 100 times as many actively engaged in extremist Islamist campaigns or recruitment efforts in close to a dozen countries, including (in addition to the ones cited above) Somalia, Egypt, Niger, Mali, Algeria, Palestine and Tunisia. Counting the numbers of sympathizers in Europe, Russia and the United States is just impossible.
The long war against Islamist extremism is not going well. It can’t, because we are fighting what amounts to an insurgency against the existing state system principally with military means. Drones and air strikes are killing lots of militants, and I am even prepared to believe that the collateral damage to innocents is minimized, whatever that means. But extremist recruitment is more than keeping up with extremist losses. We are making more enemies than we are killing. Insurgencies thrive on that.
The Obama administration is apparently prepared to make things worse, as it now leans towards supporting UN and Russian peace initiatives in Syria that are premised on allowing Bashar al Asad to stay in power. The Islamic State will welcome that, as it will push relative moderates in their direction and weaken the prospects for a democratic transition. Bashar has shown no inclination to fight ISIS and will continue to focus his regime’s efforts against democracy advocates.
President Obama knows what it takes to shrink extremist appeal: states that protect their populations with rule of law and govern inclusively and transparently. This is the opposite of what Bashar al Asad, and his father, have done. But President Obama has no confidence the US or anyone in the international community can build such states in a matter of months or even years. So he does what comes naturally to those whose strongest available means is military power: he uses it to achieve short-term objectives, knowing that its use is counter-productive in the longer term.
But producing more enemies than you can kill is not a strategy that works forever. The Union is recovering from a devastating economic crisis and can now afford to take a fresh look at its foreign policy priorities. I’ll be with the President when he calls tonight for completion of the big new trade and investment agreement with Europe (TTIP) and its counterpart in the Pacific (TTP). These are good things that can find support on both sides of the aisle, among Democrats and Republicans.
I’ll groan when he calls for a new Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) but says little or nothing about building the kind of states in the Greater Middle East that are needed to immunize the region against extremism. Support for restoration of autocracy in Egypt and for Gulf monarchies is not a policy that will counter extremism. We are guaranteeing that things are going to get worse before they get better.
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Why we are losing the long war
The United States went to war with Islamic extremism in the aftermath of the murder of nearly 3000 people on 9/11, when its adherents were largely concentrated in Afghanistan. The Bush Administration called this the Global War on Terror (GWOT), a term that misleadingly included the invasion of Iraq. The Obama Administration has abandoned that appellation but continued what others now term the “long” war, which has spread throughout the Greater Middle East into Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Syria, Egypt, Libya and into sub-Saharan Africa, even as it has subsided in Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Asia.
Even this rudimentary description suggests we are not winning. It isn’t even clear what “winning” means, but it almost certainly does not entail spreading the enemy to a dozen or more additional countries, where they are challenging established governments. The geographic spread makes this a tougher fight. Our military much prefers to concentrate forces on a center of gravity whose defeat spells the end of the war.
But now it is no longer clear where the center of gravity is: we used to think it was Al Qaeda Central, holed up in Peshawar or somewhere else along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. But Osama bin Laden’s death did nothing to stem the jihadi tide, even if Al Qaeda Central has lost significance. Today the press would have us believe the center of gravity is with the Islamic State (ISIS), somewhere in eastern Syria or western Iraq. But defeating it there will all too obviously not defeat Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Yemen and Mali, or the ISIS affiliate in Sinai.
Islamic extremism, despite ISIS’s claim, is still more an insurgency than a state. Insurgencies do not need to win. They only need to survive.
This one is not only geographically resilient but also demographically resilient. I know of no indication that anything we have done for the past decade or more has seriously limited recruitment to Islamic extremism. To the contrary, efforts to repress it using military force seem to make recruitment easier, not harder. New leaders have far more often than not stepped into the roles of those we have killed. Nor have any of our propaganda/psychops efforts worked. There is on the contrary lots of anecdotal evidence that ISIS propaganda efforts do work, at least to recruit cannon fodder.
So we’ve got an enemy that is difficult to locate, whose center of gravity is unclear, and whose psychops are better than ours. What should we do about it?
First is to keep a sense of proportion. For Americans, trans-national terrorism is a vanishingly small threat. The odds are one-ninth those of being killed by a policeman, and comparable to those of being killed by an asteroid. Ninety-nine per cent of the time no American need really fear terrorism outside a war zone, and those who enter war zones do so knowing the risks.
Second is to recognize that if we want to reduce the risk–in particular reduce the risk that the risk will grow in the future–military means are proving massively inadequate and inappropriate. Islamic extremism was far less likely to grow like topsy when confined to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan than it is now, dispersed in at least a dozen weak states. Those cats are out of the bag. We are not going to be able to force Islamic extremists back to where they came from. But we should be cautious about continuing to bombard them with drones wherever they appear. We may think the risks of collateral damage are minimal, but the people who live in Yemen don’t. For those who join extremist groups because of real or imagined offenses to “dignity,” drone strikes are an effective recruiting tool.
This brings us third to the fraught question of countering extremist narratives. I know of no evidence that direct government efforts to counter extremist narratives have been successful. There is evidence that former terrorists and their families can have some influence, working with local communities. But that requires the existence of a relatively free civil society in which religious institutions and private voluntary organizations are at liberty to organize. Community policing is also an effective strategy. But community policing requires the existence of a legitimate and inclusive state that uses security forces to protect its citizens rather than itself.
It is no wonder that we are losing the long war. We are using our strengths, which lie in technology and military action rather than in the far messier (and more difficult) tasks of building civil society and legitimate governance. It is arguable that our technology and military are actually making the task of countering violent extremism even harder. Drone strikes don’t encourage people to think their government is committed to protecting them. Nor do they encourage former terrorists and their families to speak out against extremism, as community-based civil society organizations might.
If the long war is worth fighting, it should be fought to win. For now, we are fighting it in ways bound to make us lose.
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Catching foreign fighters
US Customs and Border Police detained me last Friday en route home from Istanbul. I’ve been hesitating to write about the experience, until I read the story of three Colorado girls busted on their way to Syria to join up with ISIS.
My experience was mundane. I was clearing Customs in Toronto on my way home as a Global Access passenger, which means I usually slide through on my machine-read passport and fingerprints without any questions asked. But human intervention prevailed. When an official examining my passport asked why I had been in Istanbul, I uttered the key word: “Syria.” I was there for a meeting of Friends of the Syrian People working group, an intergovernmental group beginning to plan for reconstruction in the war-torn country.
That was enough to get me shunted to secondary screening, where I found a young man who looked military age and stature as well as an Iraqi Kurd of 45 or so who was returning from visiting family in Dohuk. He had lived in Nashville he said for the past 20 years or so. We were eventually joined by two young men who looked to my inexpert eye to be South Asians, I know not from which country.
By then I was next up to be questioned. It is mildly absurd to question someone my age, ethnicity and occupation as a potential ISIS recruit, but I decided not to object. Any sign of resistance would clearly have meant even more time in detention. If I was only being questioned to demonstrate that they weren’t profiling it was all right with me. Whites and Jews should know what Arabs, Kurds, South Asians and others are subjected to.
It wasn’t painful though for me. The questioning was straightforward and respectful. I explained in a bit more detail what I had done in Istanbul, emphasizing that the US government was represented at the meeting. I answered truthfully whether I had ever been to Syria: yes, before the revolution, to study Arabic. Yes, I know quite a few Syrians, as I’ve done some training of Syrians for nonviolent democratic transition and have followed events there with interest. I pushed forward my Johns Hopkins/SAIS business card. I willingly opened my suitcase and displayed my dirty laundry (literally literally).
About an hour and a half after the initial questioning, I was on my way again, having missed a connection. But no one should assume that my fairly mild experience is typical. The officials were unabashedly giving the Iraqi Kurd a hard time. They said he had deleted something from his cell phone while waiting to be questioned.
I confess I felt for the officials who do this work. Of the thousands of passengers through Toronto on a given day, how many are signing up for, or returning from, fighting with ISIS? Who knew whether and what my Kurdish friend had deleted.
The three Somali girls headed for Syria were caught at the Frankfurt airport. That’s a good thing. But fighting the Islamic State is going to require far more savvy than US Customs and Border Patrol can muster. Even if we stopped every single American going to fight in Syria, there would still be lots of volunteers from other countries far less committed than Germany and the US to stopping them. The contest we are in requires that we win hearts and minds, not just find needles in a haystack.
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The risk of misdiagnosis
Everyone agrees the President’s speech tonight has to make it clear to the American people that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) represents a serious national security threat and merits a strong military response, short of many more boots on the ground (there are already more than 1000 US troops in Iraq). This runs against the grain of both the Administration’s preference and public opinion, which have been focused on retrenchment from more than a decade of unhappy ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. But public opinion has already turned in a more belligerent direction, as has the President. ISIL’s beheadings of American journalists turned that tided.
What I will be listening for in the President’s speech tonight lies in a different direction: how does the President define the challenge ISIL represents? Are the tools he intends to employ adequate to the challenge?
So far, the Administration has defined the challenge as a military one: to degrade and destroy. This is a classic counter-terrorism goal.
But is ISIL really a terrorist organization, or is it an insurgency? It looks to me far more like insurgency: against Bashar al Asad’s rule in Syria and Nouri al Maliki’s in Iraq. It still uses terrorist techniques–like the suicide bombing yesterday that killed the leader of a conservative but anti-ISIL Islamist group in Syria. No doubt it would gladly use such techniques also against the US or Americans abroad.
But it is also clearing, holding and trying to govern several million people. That wouldn’t be possible without the acceptance of a good part of the local Sunni population in eastern Syria and western Iraq. The beheadings of American journalists were staged as executions, not terrorist acts. The mass murder of Syrian soldiers and Yezidis aimed to cleanse and establish control over territory. ISIL is reportedly setting up extensive networks to refine and distribute oil products, in addition to its criminal enterprises like kidnapping and extortion.
The problem with misidentifying insurgency as terrorism is that it leads you to the wrong solutions. You can kill a few dozen, or even a few hundred, terrorists. But an insurgency with popular support requires more than military responses. You need to be able to clear, hold and build in the territory where the insurgency once cleared, held and built. Governance, especially administration of justice, is a vital component of counter-insurgency warfare.
Attacking an insurgency as if it is terrorism is likely to cause a good deal of collateral damage and strengthen the insurgency rather than defeat it. This is especially true once the fighting moves from remote desert areas and major infrastructure like the Mosul and Haditha dams to big cities like Mosul or Tikrit. Without the political efforts to establish something like governing authority in Sanaa and Mogadishu, the drone wars in Yemen and Somalia would have produced a lot of dead bodies but little security for Americans. Even now, many argue that the military effort in those two countries is far too great compared to the limited civilian role in providing humanitarian relief, establishing rule of law and developing the local economies.
In Iraq, the governance issue is fairly straightforward. “Inclusion” of Sunnis and Kurds is the password of the day. But it is a bit misleading. The new prime minister, Haider al Abadi, has included no more Kurds or Sunnis in his cabinet than did Nouri al Maliki. The key is not inclusion in that sense, but inclusion in another sense: in the distribution of power. That’s why the Iraqi parliament approval of a new, provincially-based National Guard to provide local security is important. Empowerment in ways that enable people to govern themselves without dismantling the country is an important key to success in Iraq. So too is oil, which is the glue that will convince many Sunnis, if not Kurds, that they are better off staying than going.
Inclusion and empowerment is going to be far more difficult in Syria than in Iraq. While claiming military success, Bashar al Asad has destroyed much of his country and undermined the legitimacy of the Syrian state. We may well end up with a Syria divided into cantons subject to separate local authorities. There is little oil to glue the pieces together. But somehow the UN, Arab League, EU and others will have to come up with a way of reestablishing some sort of legitimate authority. Otherwise we’ll end up with a Syria that looks even worse than today’s Libya, where militias are tearing the country to shreds.
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Peace picks August 4-8
- Morocco’s Emergence as a Gateway to Business in Africa Monday, August 4 | 9:30 am – 11:00 am Atlantic Council of the United States; 1030 15th Street, NW, Twelfth Floor, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND H.E. Moulay Hafid Elalamy, Mohamed El Kettani, Hajji, and Nabil Habayeb will discuss how Morocco has emerged not only as a significant US political and strategic partner in Africa, but also as an attractive portal for investment and business headed to the continent. They will discuss US interests and the opportunities to deepen economic and commercial cooperation with Morocco and other African countries.
- Tunisia’s Democratic Successes: A Conversation with the President of Tunisia Tuesday, August 5 | 11:00 am – 12:15 pm Atlantic Council of the United States; 1030 15th Street, NW, Twelfth Floor, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND With both presidential and parliamentary elections due late this year, Tunisia once again faces imminent milestones in its political history. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki will join the Atlantic Council’s Hariri Center and Africa Center for an exclusive engagement to discuss successes to date and how the country can address pressing economic and security challenges as its democratic transition continues.
- The Gaza Crisis: No Way Out? Policy Options and Regional Implications Tuesday, August 5 | 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND The Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host a discussion examining the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. handling of the crisis, and the regional implications. Brookings Vice President for Foreign Policy and former U.S. Special Envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Martin Indyk will share his observations and insights. He will be joined by fellows Natan Sachs and Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team.
- Putting the South Caucasus in Perspective Tuesday, August 5 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm Woodrow Wilson Center; 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have been independent states for more than 23 years. Although geographically contiguous, they differ in language, religion, and political and security orientation. How is each country faring in state building, developing democracy, and improving economic performance? Two prominent academic experts of the South Caucasus, Professors Ronald Suny and Stephen Jones, will discuss the historical experience and current developments of the region.
- Overcoming Obstacles to Doing Business in Sub-Saharan Africa Wednesday, August 6 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Atlantic Council of the United States; 1030 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND In the context of the inaugural US-Africa Leaders Summit, the Atlantic Council’s will launch a new study about barriers to doing business in sub-Saharan Africa and how they can be overcome. Visiting Fellow Aubrey Hruby will discuss the inadequate infrastructure, lack of market data, and poor policy implementation in Africa. The publication will also focus on innovative solutions for surmounting such obstacles and how companies who have successfully entered African markets can provide lessons learned for future investors.
- Loved? Liked? Respected? The Success and Failure of U.S. Public Diplomacy Wednesday, August 6 | 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Washington Institute-Near East; 1828 L Street, NW, #1050, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND The Washington Institute will host a debate on the value of U.S. public diplomacy. It will analyze the role of public diplomacy in the Middle East with particular attention to the crisis in Gaza, the ISIS campaign in Iraq, the ongoing conflict in Syria, and escalating terrorist threats in the region. Institute’s Executive Director Robert Satloff will stand off against the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq, James Jeffrey in a debate moderated by Viola Gienger of the United States Institute of Peace.
- Statesmen’s Forum: His Excellency Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of the Republic of Mali Thursday, August 7 | 9:00 am – 10:15 am Center for Strategic and International Studies; 1616 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali will discuss the progress and challenges of Mali’s post-crisis recovery, as well as the broader regional prospects for security, development, and good governance in the Sahel region. He will share his perspective on the ongoing peace process and the role that neighboring countries and the U.S. government can play in tackling insecurity and fostering reconciliation.
- President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso Thursday, August 7 | 5:00 pm National Press Club, 13th Floor; 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND President Blaise Compaore will give his assessment of the results of the US-Africa Leaders Summit taking place in Washington, D.C. from August 5th to 6th. He also plans to speak on his role as a regional mediator to resolve conflicts in West Africa.
- A Batkin International Leaders Forum with the President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Friday, August 8 | 10:00 am – 11:30 am Service Employees International Union; 1800 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND His Excellency Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, president of the Federal Republic of Somalia, will explore the future of democracy in Somalia and its many challenges and promises. Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director for Foreign Policy at Brookings, will hold a question and answer session with the president.
- Beyond North Waziristan Friday, August 8 | 10:30 am – 12:00 pm Atlantic Council of the United States; 1030 15th Street, NW, Twelfth Floor, Washington, D.C. REGISTER TO ATTEND As the Pakistani army wages a long-awaited operation, Zarb-e-Azb, against militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan, there are questions about how effectively it confronts the long-term challenge of terrorism in the region. How is the North Waziristan operation impacting militant groups operating in the region, and the overall stability of Pakistan? Can the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan work together to address sanctuaries for insurgents on both sides of the border? Major Ikram Sehgal and Hassan Abbas will highlight the progress, pitfalls, and implications of Pakistan’s strategy in North Waziristan.
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Memorial Day for the people
I have little to add to what I said the past three years on Memorial Day, so I am republishing what I wrote originally in 2011 with slight updates and a short additional paragraph:
I spent my high school years marching in the Memorial Day parade in New Rochelle, New York and have never lost respect for those who serve and make sacrifices in uniform. Even as an anti-war protester in the Vietnam era, I thought denigration of those in uniform heinous, not to mention counterproductive.
It is impossible to feel anything but pride and gratitude to those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Kosovo, Bosnia, Panama and Somalia during the previous decade. Nor will I forget my Memorial Day visit to the American cemetery in Nettuno accompanying Defense Secretary Les Aspin in the early 1990s, or my visit to the Florence cemetery the next year. These extraordinarily manicured places are the ultimate in peaceful. It is unimaginable what their inhabitants endured. No matter what we say during the speechifying on Memorial Day, there is little glory in what the troops do and a whole lot of hard work, dedication, professionalism and horror.
That said, it is a mistake to forget those who serve out of uniform, as we habitually do. Numbers are hard to come by, but a quick internet search suggests that at at least 2000 U.S. civilians have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus quite a few “third country” nationals. They come in many different varieties: journalists, policemen, judges, private security guards, agriculturalists, local government experts, computer geeks, engineers, relief and development workers, trainers, spies, diplomats and who knows what else. I think of these people as our “pinstripe soldiers,” even if most of them don’t in fact wear pinstripes. But they are a key component of building the states that we hope will some day redeem the sacrifices they and their uniformed comrades have endured.
Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed number at least 100 times the number of American civilians killed. Numbers this large become unfathomable. Of course some–and maybe more–would have died under Saddam Hussein or the Taliban, but that is not what happened. They died fighting American or Coalition forces, or by accident, or caught in a crossfire, or trying to defend themselves, or in internecine violence, or because a soldier got nervous or went beserk, or….
Memorial Day in this age of “war among the people” should be about the people, civilian as well as military, non-American as well as American, not only about the uniform, the flag or the cause.
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