Author Archive
Talking to Bad Guys, Part II
Back in July, as the war in Lebanon raged, I questioned the president’s unwillingness to deal directly with Syria and Iran on issues of mutual concern in the Middle East. The issue has resurfaced in the past few days as the Iraq Study Group is expected to recommend that the Bush administration negotiate with Iraq’s neighbors — all of Iraq’s neighbors — in an attempt to rein in the escalating civil war in the country.
For now, President Bush appears firm in his opposition to direct talks with either Iran or Syria. He is encouraged in this posture by neoconservatives who believe that talking to either country is tantamount to a reward for bad behavior. A related argument is that negotiations afford respect and legitimacy to regimes that deserve neither.
I have never understood this position. Ronald Reagan, the supposed patron saint of neoconservative hawks, was never afraid to negotiate with our enemies. Indeed, his willingness to reach out, for example, to the leaders of the Soviet Union engendered considerable criticism among neoconservatives. They were equally skeptical of many of his policies in the Middle East and Asia.
As Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke write in their book America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order:
Reagan had presented the conflicts of international politics in essentially moral terms, and for this reason he looked like the president whom neo-conservatives had waited for. But as his declaratory policies gradually moved toward pragmatism, those events that seemed to be disasters in foreign policy to neo-conservatives appeared as major achievements to the moderates who were making the key decisions in the administration.
One of those moderates was James Baker. The New Republic‘s Martin Peretz urges us to ”Ignore James Baker,” and AEI’s Michael Ledeen accuses Baker et al of “active appeasement.” It is easier to understand Baker’s ability to shrug off such neoconservative sniping when we recall what he learned from the master communicator and strategist. You can almost see a Reaganesque gleam in his eye when Baker explains “it’s not appeasement to talk to your enemies.”
It may be impossible to avert Iraq’s slide into full-scale civil war. But Iraq’s neighbors surely do not want to see the chaos expand over Iraq’s borders, and threaten their own peace and security. That seems reason enough to want to reach out to others in the region, including those countries we don’t like very much.
Hagel Makes the Case for an Exit Strategy
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) penned an important op ed in Sunday’s Washington Post Outlook section calling on President Bush to fashion an exit strategy from Iraq.
Hagel’s candor is refreshing, but I have come to expect this from Hagel. Equally impressive is his brevity. He manages to say in a short 739 words what so few of his fellow senators have been willing or able to articulate in twice or three times as many: “The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq.”
The gist of the editorial explains that we must exit Iraq because it is in our interest to do so. He notes the “devastating” costs “in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing.” He points out that ”We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build.” This cost to our military – and therefore to our national security — cannot be quantified. Neither can the cost in lives. But this much we do know: in dollar terms alone, war costs now exceed $300 billion, and are accumulating at a rate of $8 billion per month.
As to Hagel’s pragmatic understanding of the limitations of military force to achieve noble ends, the following passages are instructive:
Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation — regardless of our noble purpose.
We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans.
Well said, Senator Hagel. Here’s hoping that some of your fellow senators took time off from leftover turkey and stuffing to read the newspaper.
Richard Haass on Iraq and U.S. Foreign Policy
The German publication Spiegel has posted a lengthy interview with Richard Haass, current president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of policy planning at the State Department during George W. Bush’s first term.
Haass is not an anti-Bush partisan hack. Given his Republican leanings, and recognizing that his uniformly bleak assessment of the state of U.S. foreign policy is not aimed at scoring political points for the Democratic Party, that makes his assessment of the state of U.S. foreign policy all the more sobering. He concedes that President Bush still has over two years in office, and that crises may come along that will allow the president to re-shape his legacy. As it now stands, however, “the world is not a safer place.” And the situation is not likely to improve any time soon.
Here are some notable excerpts:
On Iraq:
SPIEGEL: Mr. Haass, were the election results a message from the voters to President George W. Bush that it’s time for US troops to be pulled out of Iraq?
Haass: The mid-term election is a signal of widespread popular dissatisfaction with the course of the Iraq war. But it should not be read as a signal of support for a particular alternative. Nor will it lead most Democrats in Congress to call for a quick and complete withdrawal of US forces. Instead, it will reinforce the likelihood that American policy will be adjusted. We can anticipate force reductions and redeployments and possibly a greater emphasis on diplomacy, both within Iraq and with Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria.
[...]
SPIEGEL: Is Iraq still winnable for the United States?
Haass: We’ve reached a point in Iraq where we’ve got to get real. And this is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation is not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word “winnable.” So what we need to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs, try to advance on other fronts in the region and try to limit the fallout of Iraq. That’s what you have to do sometimes when you’re a global power.
On an emerging Iraq syndrome:
SPIEGEL: The disaster of the last years leads many Americans to doubt the military strength and moral superiority of the nation. Is this country on the verge of a new isolationist phase?
Haass: The danger is an Iraq syndrome. The war is one the American people weren’t quite prepared for: They had not been told it was going to be that difficult and expensive. After the military battlefield phase, they thought it was going to be easy. So this has proven shocking. Nearly 3,000 Americans have lost their lives. Maybe 15,000 – 20,000 Americans have been wounded. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. It has been disruptive on many levels. The danger is that the United States now will be weary of intervening elsewhere, like the cat that once sat on a hot stove and will never sit on any stove again.
On the Bush legacy:
SPIEGEL: Can you remember a time when US foreign policy was confronted with so many challenges and difficulties?
Haass: The short answer is: No. During the Cold War, the United States faced a single challenge that was greater than any we face now. But I can’t think of a time when the United States has faced so many difficult challenges at once. What makes it worse is we are facing them at a time when we are increasingly stretched militarily. We are divided politically. We are stretched also economically, and there is a good deal of anti-Americanism in the world. It’s a very bad combination.
[...]
SPIEGEL: Will Bush leave the world with more problems than he found when he came into office?
Haass: Most likely. That said, the administration still has two years to go, so it is too early to judge. All you can say is that it’s sobering where we are. As of now, you would have to say the world is not a safer place.
The 2006 Elections and the War in Iraq
In last Friday’s Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer tried to argue that tomorrow’s mid-term elections would not deliver a historic and decisive blow to President Bush’s agenda, particularly his agenda in Iraq.
Krauthammer’s argument is based on his reading of the history of mid-year elections. He noted that the anticipated “anti-Republican wave” — a net pick up of perhaps 20-25 House seats, and 4-6 Senate seats, by the Democrats — is relatively modest by historical standards. Reagan lost more in the 6th year of his presidency; so too FDR. One of the greatest mid-term election disasters (not noted by Krauthammer) occurred in Dwight Eisenhower’s 6th year, 1958. At a time when Eisenhower was personally quite popular, the Democrats added nearly 50 members in the House, and another 16 in the Senate, building upon their already commanding majorities in both chambers.
I’m all for studying history. But recent history paints a decidedly different picture than what Krauthammer suggests. The GOP was embarrassed by the results of the 1998 mid-term elections, a failure to capitalize on the 6th year itch that Krauthammer attributes to “Republican overreaching on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.” Given low unemployment, modest inflation, and continued strong economic growth, it is not inconceivable that the Bush administration might have been poised to avoid a 6th year setback (if so, would Harold Meyerson be lamenting “Democratic overreaching on the Mark Foley scandal”?).
Instead, the GOP is playing defense, and Iraq war advocates such as Krauthammer are scrambling to avoid blame for any of the ill-effects of their ill-conceived war. (See also the VanityFair.com article highlighting neoconservative criticisms of the Bush administration’s execution of the war).
The Iraq war is the decisive issue for the vast majority of Americans, exceeding taxes, immigration, health care, and other presumed drivers of voting behavior. Further, the war is unpopular, the costs have far exceeded the benefits, and there is no end in sight. As David Boaz and David Kirby note in a recent Cato Policy Analysis, the Iraq war was a factor — along with “Republican overspending, social intolerance, [and] civil liberties infringements” – in driving many libertarian voters away from George Bush in 2004. “If that trend continues into 2006 and 2008,” they write, “Republicans will lose elections they would otherwise win.”
On the whole, voters are frustrated, impatient, and angry. If the GOP staves off disaster, they will do so in spite of, not because of, the disastrous war in Iraq.
No End in Sight
The front page story in yesterday’s Washington Post by Tom Ricks and Peter Baker is a sobering must-read. (“Tipping Point for War’s Supporters?”)
Don’t be fooled by the headline or the first few paragraphs. While it is true that stalwart Republicans such as John Warner have become more outspoken about the lack of progress in Iraq, and some in the GOP have mused openly about the need for a new approach, the consensus that emerges from the article is toward “a new phase” of the conflict, not an end to it. That is how former Pentagon official Dov Zakheim describes the current state of play. Zakheim dismisses the notion that the United States will leave any time soon, and it is his words — not Warner’s — that close out this important article. (Ricks, by the way, will be at Cato on Thursday to discuss the U.S. experience in Iraq. Visit the Cato web site for more details.)
That a solid majority of Americans want a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq must now be seen as irrelevant. Public and so-called elite opinion has diverged almost from the moment that the Bush administration launched the war in Iraq. In other words, the tipping point, if you want to call it that, occurred long ago. This has had no impact on the size of the U.S. military presence in the country, nor on the mission as a whole.
If you think this assessment too pessimistic, consider the table that appears below the Ricks/Baker story in the Post‘s print edition. The piece compiled by the Post‘s Dita Smith, with research assistance by Robert Thompson, documents the sliding target date for when U.S. troops might begin to be withdrawn from Iraq. The graphic begins by noting that Pentagon planners expected that the 150,000 troops would be cut to about 30,000 by the fall of 2003. But this was only the first of many misjudgments as to the costs and risks of this war. A progression of statements by senior civilian and military personnel since January 2005 shows how projections for troop cuts have consistently missed their mark. According to Gen. George Casey, security in Iraq might improve in 12 months time, which would allow for some troops reductions in the fall of 2007, but for now more troops might be needed.
That doesn’t sound like a change of course to me; and to the extent that it is, it is a change in the wrong direction.
Lenin, Hitler, Bin Laden — and Iraq
In his speech yesterday before the Military Officers Association of America, President Bush focused on Osama bin Laden’s speeches and writings. “We know what the terrorists intend to do because they’ve told us,” Bush told the assembled crowd, “and we need to take their words seriously.”
For the president’s part, bin Laden’s words affirm that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. “For al Qaeda,” the president explained, “Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.”
We know of Al Qaeda’s intentions — to expel the Americans from Iraq, and then to establish a Caliphate there — but what do we know of their capacity for achieving such ends? History is littered with the names of kooks and fanatics who aspired to global world domination. In relatively recent times, Americans remember cult leaders such as David Koresh, and perhaps even Jim Jones, but the vast majority of these individuals merit barely a footnote in textbooks.
The president wishes us to focus on the exceptions, on the evil, tyrannical few who have managed to translate their grandiose intentions into reality. He pointed to Lenin, and to Hitler, men who laid out their plans in clear view, in published writings and in speeches, but who were all but ignored until after they had seized the reins of power.
President Bush further contends that bin Laden has much in common with Lenin and Hitler, and that “History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake.”
We must not underestimate bin Laden, but we would be foolish to fight a war on his terms. We must especially avoid the apocalyptic conclusion that a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq will have the effect of handing all of Iraq over to Al Qaeda on a silver platter. For what differentiates the Lenins and Hitlers of the world from countless other megalomaniacal fanatics was their unique ability to marry their evil designs to the power and resilience of a modern state, complete with an industrial base and a functioning military.
As Justin Logan and I wrote last year, the claims that bin Laden can and will create such a super state in Iraq are absurd on their face. The Kurds will not tolerate Al Qaeda in their midst. Neither will the Shiites, including many of the factional leaders and militia groups that are outspoken in their hostility to the United States. Even many Sunni Arabs, the minority who have lost the most since Saddam Hussein was removed from power, are loathe to make common cause with the murderous jihadists perpetrating indiscriminate violence against innocent Iraqis.
Rather than empowering potential allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, the continuing U.S. military presence is discouraging Iraqis from stepping forward because it feeds into bin Laden’s cynical narrative — that the Western nations, with the United States in the lead, seek to humiliate and dominate Iraqis, and all the Arab peoples. Absent a formal pledge to leave, ideally by some date certain, President Bush’s repeated assertions to the contrary are seen as nothing more than rhetoric, in contrast to the proximate, physical reality of nearly 140,000 U.S. troops on sacred Arab lands.
The occupation is counterproductive in the war against Al Qaeda, but it is also ineffective in its other stated aims. Nearly three and a half years since American forces went into Iraq, the U.S. military presence has not delivered on the promise of establishing a stable and unified Iraq. And for those who say Americans must be more patient, that monumental change takes time, perhaps even generations, it is not too much to expect that the trend lines would at least be moving in the right direction.
But they are not. Three nationwide elections in 2005 have not delivered stability, nor have they contributed to it. If anything, the political process in Iraq has empowered some of the most radical elements in Iraqi society. The ethnic militias and the death squads have used the political process to infiltrate the Iraqi Interior and Health ministries, among others, and have subverted the good faith efforts of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to establish order.
With no definitive milestones on the horizon — there are no nationwide elections scheduled for Iraq until 2009 — the occupation grinds on indefinitely. Beyond the sickening drip-drip-drip of American casualties, there is the torrent of violence against Iraqis, particularly sectarian killings of Iraqi vs. Iraqi. From this maelstrom of bloodshed, the president can offer only more of the same. “The road ahead is going to be difficult, and it will require more sacrifice.”
That it is, and that it will be.
Pakistan and the “Other” Other War
Today’s New York Times reports that Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is caught in “one of the most serious political binds of his nearly seven-year tenure.” Gen. Musharraf’s bind is an American bind, too, because he has been “one of Washington’s most indispensable allies” since the 9/11 attacks, and Washington is loathe to see a nuclear-armed country of 165 million people become an enemy in the war on terrorism.
The tension between short-term diplomatic expediency and long-term political objectives has characterized U.S.-Pakistani relations for years. Another Pakistani general who took power in a coup, Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, aided U.S. efforts to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980s (which we appreciated), even as his country was busy developing nuclear weapons (which we didn’t).
Today, the short-term benefit that we derive — Musharraf’s cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban — is being undermined by Musharraf’s political weakness at home. We don’t appreciate that groups in Pakistan have been linked to the London airplane bombing plot; we don’t appreciate that Pakistan’s government has proved either unable or unwilling to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters and foreign money into Afghanistan, as The Times of London reported yesterday; we are frustrated by the whitewash of the A.Q. Khan affair, one of the most notorious cases of nuclear proliferation in the history of the NPT regime; and it is uncomfortable, to say the least, for the Bush administration to say that it favors democracy while clinging tightly to an undemocratic ruler such as Musharraf.
Antiwar? Anti Which War?
Joseph Lieberman, the sitting Democratic senator from Connecticut who now aspires to be the sitting Independent senator from Connecticut, declared yesterday that the antiwar views of Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont would be “taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England.”
Really?
And what do we — and by “we” I mean Senator Lieberman and the rest of us — know about the people who wanted to blow up the planes?
- We know that they are mainly Britons, many with Muslim names that are common in Pakistan. At least two are believed to be recent converts to Islam.
- We also know that two British nationals and five Pakistanis were arrested in Pakistan a few days earlier, and have been described by Pakistani officials as ”facilitators” of the wider plot.
- We know that the tip that initiated the investigation came from a member of the British Muslim community who, soon after the July 7, 2005 London Underground bombings, reported the group’s suspicious behavior to British authorities.
- And we know that the outlines of the plot look very similar to the failed Bojinka Plot of 1995, which would have involved the downing of airliners over the Pacific using liquid explosives.
These salient facts have led many to speculate that the just-foiled attacks are at least inspired, if not directed, by Al Qaeda, perhaps even Al Qaeda senior leadership such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Remember them? Hint: one is Saudi, the other is Egyptian.
So, to return to Ned Lamont, how is his opposition to a continuation of the ruinous Iraq War, and his support for a refocus on Al Qaeda, good news for the guys now sitting in Pakistani and British jails?
“Precipitous” Withdrawal Defined
Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has never been shy about voicing his opinions. But while his comments on the current crisis in Lebanon before a small group of Washington insiders hosted by Steve Clemons and the New America Foundation has elicited some media coverage, I was most struck by his comments on Iraq.
Brzezinski was an early advocate of a relatively swift military withdrawal from Iraq. In January 2005, he laid out the choices in Iraq in stark but simple terms:
we will never achieve democracy and stability [in Iraq] without being willing to commit 500,000 troops, spend $200 billion a year, probably have a draft, and [impose higher taxes].
As a society, we are not prepared to do that….even the Soviet Union was not prepared to [take equivalent steps in Afghanistan] because there comes a point in the life of a nation when such sacrifices are not justified.
(The full transcript can be found here.)
One year later, Brzezinski made his case again, this time on the op-ed page of the Washington Post:
The real choice that needs to be faced is between:
An acceptance of the complex post-Hussein Iraqi realities through a relatively prompt military disengagement [or]
An inconclusive but prolonged military occupation lasting for years while an elusive goal is pursued.
It is doubtful, to say the least, that America’s domestic political support for such a futile effort could long be sustained by slogans about Iraq’s being “the central front in the global war on terrorism.”
In contrast, a military disengagement by the end of 2006, derived from a more realistic definition of an adequate outcome, could ensure that desisting is not tantamount to losing.
Such talk has been widely panned by the Bush administration’s defenders, who typically dismiss any talk, of any timetable — six months, one year, or ten years — as “cutting and running”.
But Brzezinski remains undeterred. During last week’s meeting he said “We [should] start talking to the Iraqis of the day of our disengagement. We say to them we want to set it jointly, but in the process, indicate to them that we will not leave precipitously.”
He then went on to say “I asked [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay] Khalilzad what would be his definition of precipitous and he said four months.”
Four months.
Four months is tantamount to immediate. 130,000 troops cannot be extracted from any country, even under the best of conditions, in a matter of weeks. Doing so in a hostile environment requires that additional measures be taken to ensure troop safety, and this can add weeks or even months to the project. I don’t believe that U.S. troops could be safely withdrawn from Iraq over a period of less than four months, given the conditions on the ground.
However, I have long advocated (e.g. here, here, and here) that the U.S. military’s mission in Iraq be terminated in an expeditious fashion. And I’m hardly alone. Today’s New York Times reports that 56 percent of respondents in their most recent poll favor a timeline for withdrawal; and, according to the most recent Gallup/USA Today poll, 50 percent of Americans favor a troop withdrawal within the next 12 months, while only 8 percent favor sending more troops.
It may be that Khalilzad was speaking out of turn. And it is never wise to base decisions on second-hand information, even from a source as credible as Brzezinski. However, if the Bush administration defines precipitous as less than four months, then we might be onto something.
A military withdrawal from Iraq, conducted over, say, a 12-month period, would provide ample time to coordinate with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government on the handover of security responsibilities, and already enjoys support among the American public, and, increasingly, on Capitol Hill. That would hardly be “precipitous” and it certainly is better than our current open-ended policy.
Talking to Bad Guys
In an interview with NPR, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage wondered aloud why the United States was not engaged in direct dialogue with Syria concerning the ongoing crisis in Lebanon.
We’re not…using all the levers that we have, such as having the Secretary of State talk to the Syrians. I think they want to get involved. I think they want to become more central to the solution. And you might as well give them the opportunity. If they step up to it, fine. If they don’t, we’ll know them for what they are.
NPR’s Renée Montagne followed up:
The administration has made it pretty clear that they are not interested in talking directly to Syria. Why draw that bright of a line?
Armitage:
I don’t know. I think they’ve talked themselves into this.
My own view is … you have to have a dialogue….We have to be able to sit and listen to the Syrians in this case, and see if they have the desire, the courage and the wisdom to get involved in a positive way.
We get a little lazy, I think, when we spend all our time as diplomats talking to our friends and not to our enemies.
On Sunday, John McLaughlin, deputy director of central intelligence from 2000 to 2004, suggested much the same thing in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “We Have to Talk to Bad Guys”:
Among the five lessons to be drawn from the recent fighting in the Middle East is this gem:
even superpowers have to talk to bad guys. The absence of a diplomatic relationship with Iran and the deterioration of the one with Syria — two countries that bear enormous responsibility for the current crisis — leave the United States with fewer options and levers than might otherwise have been the case….We will have to get over the notion that talking to bad guys somehow rewards them or is a sign of weakness. As a superpower, we ought to be able to communicate in a way that signals our strength and self-confidence.
Makes sense to me.
Armitage and McLaughlin are now out of government. Do they still talk to people on the inside? Is anyone listening?
What Does it Say When the Sensible Voices Are “Former” Administration Officials?
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was typically brilliant on NPR this morning, discussing the limited options available in brokering a peace agreement in southern Lebanon. Here is a sampling:
I find a lot of chatter about this peacekeeping force, but I find very few people putting their hands in the air saying they’ve got troops who are willing to do it.
It all sounds like a great idea, but, sorry, each of us are busy with our own problems.
And what of the U.S. role?
If we had excess troops, which I don’t believe we have…, we would be seen as much more partial to Israel and hence would not be acceptable [to the other side].
Armitage served in the Pentagon when President Reagan dispatched U.S. troops to Lebanon in 1982, and he looks back on that period without a hint of sentimentality.
It was a very troubled time. Actually, sooner rather than later…we were seen as taking sides in someone else’s civil war. Ultimately we lost 241 naval and marine personnel….in the October ’83 bombing.
His experience in 1982 and 1983 conditions his view of the present and future. He was asked, “Are there parallels between that peacekeeping force and now?”
I remember with stunning clarity one of our Israeli interlocutors sitting in my office telling me that ‘Don’t worry about this peace in Galilee operation. We understand our neighbors very well. We understand them better than anyone. We know all the dynamics of the situation in Lebanon.’ That turned out not quite to be the case. I suspect that people in government now are also hearing that from Israel.
Don’t get me wrong. If I thought that this air campaign would work and would eliminate Nasrullah and the leadership of Hezbollah, I think we’d all be fine. But I fear that you can’t do this from the sky, and that you’re going to end up empowering Hezbollah.
The full interview is about eight minutes long, but well worth the time.
Reality Sets In on Capitol Hill . . . Finally
A number of Republicans on Capitol Hill have come forward in recent days with a new “spin” on events in Iraq, reports the Washington Post:
Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.
Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House’s war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse “than we’d been led to believe” and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.
The Post‘s Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana write, “Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war.”
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