Yesterday’s startling and detailed report in the New York Times on civilian casualties in Iraq was strangely not followed by discussion on television, either commercial or public. I hope the media remedy this nonresponse. One could imagine that they did not want to be attacked for making yet another attack on the Administration at this late date, particularly when any statistical study carried out in wartime is open to criticism. Perhaps they wanted to check out the data. I have made a preliminary check, and it seems to me that the study has to be taken seriously, even after all the caveats are weighed.

The reported Johns Hopkins study in the journal Lancet was prepublished on the web at this address. It estimates on the basis of a statistical survey that about 100,000 civilians have died as the result of the American-led invasion. (Many of the men may actually have been insurgents, but not soldiers in the usual sense.) Some of these were indirect casualties, caused, for example, by people less able to get timely medical assistance due to the fighting. But the study suggests that the great majority of the “excess deaths” were caused from the air by bombs, helicopter gunships etc. The study points out in an aside that may lead readers to have greater confidence in it, that only three deaths were reported by their interviewees as were attributable to mistakes on the ground by American soldiers In two of these cases the soldiers later apologized.

This study greatly increases the seriously of our undertaking. The highest non-propaganda estimates of civilian deaths I had seen previously were below 20,000. One method of counting based on newspaper accounts puts the figure at about 15,000 (600 in Falluja). This may be found at this site.

The study team took a sample survey of household clusters from January 2002 to date. They interviewed 33 clusters representing about 6000 people, being sure to make the sampling as representative of Iraq as a whole as possible. They looked at death rates from all causes before the America-led invasion and afterwards. Once the death rates were established, then the results were extrapolated to the country as a whole. They found it difficult to work in Falluja (study done in September of this year) and so left it out of their calculation. (They went there anyhow and have what data they could collect.) If Falluja were included, they believe the final figures would be much greater.

This suggests that we are still a long way from being able to use heavy firepower to overwhelm an opponent without causing a high level of casualties among civilian populations. This is not to say that greater precision in the use of firepower, particularly from the air, has not helped. Some European countries suffered mortalities over a period of five years in World War II as high as 10% of their pre-war population. We are speaking here of one and one-half years of war that killed (or caused to die) perhaps 0.35% of the population. Nevertheless, this cost is not at all trivial. We can certainly understand why many Iraqis and others see the war and what goes with it as unjustifiable and immoral.

This suggests once again that after Tuesday’s election, the American Administration must seriously rethink what the war is doing to its position in the world, as well as to the people directly affected. We must consider how we might be able to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. If it does not look as though we can with the forces on the ground bring it to an end, then we must either greatly increase those forces (hopefully with the assistance of other countries) or we must, in consultation with British, Kurdish, and Shiite leaders, together with the Allawi government, devise a means for a relatively quick and orderly exit. We must do all this remembering that if we handle the process poorly we may leave behind a society so torn apart by rivalries new and old that the fatalities discussed here will end up seeming trivial. Our invasion, no matter how idealistic its rationale might have been for many of those initiating it, has opened a Pandora's box. It will be hard to force the lid back on.

Perhaps we should wait until after the January elections. But regardless of the benefit or reality of these elections, we must begin planning now for how we end it, for even in the best case January is likely to bring to power a new government that will be just as unacceptable to many of the insurgents as the Allawi regime is today.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies in its latest “Comments” takes a position on the reform of American intelligence. Its conclusion is that the egregious errors in handling the situation leading up to 9/11 should not lead to the kind of changes that the 9/11 Commission, seconded by the U.S. Senate, are proposing. The difficulty that needs to be addressed is that the information gathered at lower levels is not getting up to those who could act on it at the top in a timely fashion, if at all. Placing another layer above the CIA may simply make the situation worse.

They point out that a pre 9/11 reorganization was an attempt to get the information to the NSC. This was useful but not enough. As they say: “Well before 9/11, there was a bureaucratic mechanism in place for gathering intelligence at the appropriate level in the form of the CSG, which had been enshrined by presidential decision directive as the government’s counter-terrorism crisis-management nerve centre at the NSC. As chairman of the CSG, Richard Clarke made breaking down inter-agency anxieties about sharing information a priority but had not been completely successful. The problem before 9/11, then, was not the absence of a top-level clearinghouse for pooling intelligence on terrorist threats from multiple agencies. Rather, the trouble was that key officials in the individual agencies themselves did not rate intelligence that turned out to be important as sufficiently probative to filter up to the NSC.”

The “Comments” also sum up the advice offered by Henry Kissinger with the support of others, which concluded (note that the NID is the new position being advocated by the 9/11 Commission and the Senate; DCI is the present Director of Central Intelligence):

“Shortly before the House version of the intelligence reform bill was introduced, Henry Kissinger, with the support of a bipartisan group of former high-ranking officials, in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee cautioned Congress against taking ‘irrevocable legislative action’ prompted by any false sense of urgency that the election cycle might have created. Kissinger was generally concerned with creating another layer - in the form of the NID - between the president and existing intelligence institutions. His specific worries included:

• weakening the relationship between intelligence analysts and operations officers;

• potentially compromising democratic principles by institutionally melding domestic intelligence with foreign intelligence;

• suppressing competing views;

• blurring lines of authority between the NID and the NSC;

• the questionable advisability of folding tactical and operational military intelligence into a predominantly civilian multi-agency structure; and

• the inclination of the 9/11 Commission to ignore more incremental and less disruptive means of achieving reform through existing institutions, such as the DCI.”

Good points, well made.

As suggested in previous postings, it seems to me that there should be an operational office alongside the NSC that has responsibility for action. Such an office would be more likely to demand needed intelligence and coordination than the advisory and fact-gathering groups that seem to be in the loop discussed above. One would office would be in Homeland Security. But this is not the way this agency is structured. It is more like the old Civil Defense or FEMA agencies that have to do with managing crises, with reaching out to everybody, mobilizing first responders etc. Perhaps a thorough redoing of Homeland Security would give us such a capability, but probably the complexion of that agency is already set (and I believe it might as well be dismantled). The FBI and the CIA are both very ineffective agencies (because of a combination of the quality of their personnel and their institutional culture). The first task is to remold their cultures and personnel (a long and perhaps impossible task). The FBI is set up to control internal crime by getting indictments in the court system. This is a task that must be done in the end in many terrorism cases, but it leads to different priorities and a different sense of time than the terrorism issue demands. Most of the CIA is concerned with fact gathering. A section send out small units on ad hoc military assignments in overseas situations. It does not, however, have the command function and field forces that would be demanded by serious security threats playing out in the United States. Somehow this lack has to be remedied without damaging civil freedoms in the country more than the terrorism scare already has.

As I have often emphasized, terrorism is many things and the war in Iraq is not simply another form of Islamic terrorism. Nevertheless, an excellent discussion of terrorism through analyzing the statements of Islamic terrorists was presented in the Op-Ed page Wednesday. The Islamists talk continually on the internet, and according to these reporters they are getting happier and happier about what is going on. After a downcast mood following the defeat of the Taliban, they now feel that our position in Iraq is about the same as that of the USSR before they were driven out of Afghanistan. They point out to one another our mistake of taking on two guerrilla wars at the same time, and also of fighting insurgents with unlimited access to arms and money. They see the fighting as leading to a religious revival among the Sunnis in Iraq and the whole Islamic world. They regard Iraq as a great recruiting ground for Muslims everywhere. Lashkar-e-Taiba, the leading Jihadist “army” in Pakistan is now shifting its sights from Kashmir to Iraq. They also point to a parallel development among the Shiites among which a leading divine preaches that events in Iraq are a harbinger of the return of the Mahdi. “A fire will come from the sky and swallow up Baghdad”, apparently a kind of Shiite Armageddon. The authors of the Op-Ed conclude by advising us to not be taken in by the Administration’s rosy picture. We are in a mess and will be lucky to get out. In this election season, many are saying this because of their visceral opposition to the President. But these analysts are particularly well informed.

The report in today’s paper from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, underscores the difficulties. Apparently, while we have been worrying about Falluja, Ramadi has been going from bad to worse. The 400,000 people in the city are essentially out of either our control or that of the Allawi administration. Our forces can guard particular buildings and take convoys through the city. But around every corner there is another sniper. No one feels safe anywhere. And those Iraqis not with the resistance find it in their interest to pretend they are. Again we hear the refrain that the government troops and police are with few exceptions completely worthless, or even worse than worthless. They openly speak of the American soldiers as dogs and talk of fighting them one day. The Marine commanders know they can win any battle, but they seem quite hopeless when it comes to winning the war. The idea of using the Americans in the city to do something other than fight has essentially been abandoned. Reconstruction is at a standstill.

Recent days have seen recurrent attacks on our forces and on government forces in Iraq, some bloodier than others. But more alarming, reporters are continuing to report widespread hatred of American soldiers, even within Shi’a areas. Reporters who have recently talked to new recruits in the Iraq’s police and military units tell reporters they hate Americans and would gladly fight them. We should consider once again why this might to so.

President Bush believes that he is offering the Iraqi people freedom and democracy. He cannot understand why they will not accept these gifts because in his mind these are what all people want. However, while Bush speaks of democracy, the average Iraqi may see something else. First, he may see an occupation that threatens to take his homeland away from him. We say this is silly, but our judgement is not there’s. They have been occupied before, by the Ottomans, the Persians, and the British. It is not impossible to understand that we are just another power in this tradition. Second, they see us as Christians invading a Muslim land. We are in this sense desecrating holy land, putting down Islam while raising up Christianity as the more successful religion. (Certainly this is the way the ancient Israelites viewed their wars, their victories and defeats.) Third, when we say that we are bringing democracy and freedom this means little to a people who have never lived with these. It is easy for them to believe these are mere slogans. They know that we are bringing modernism, rationalism, and decadent ideas and behaviors from a sinful West. These changes may mean much more to them than the promise of democracy.

I have played with the idea of comparing what is happening in Iraq to our forces to what happened to Napoleon’s forces in Russia as reported in War and Peace. Napoleon easily conquered the most important parts of Russia and took Moscow in a walk. Yet his forces eventually had to leave and as they went home through the Russian winter they were destroyed. They were destroyed by a ragtag army that harried his forces all the way back. Much of their fighting might be called guerrilla war. It is important to realize that Napoleon also was bringing the modern world to Russia. Everywhere he went in Europe he established modern states with a new rule of law. It wasn’t democracy, but it was a new and superior political system. It guaranteed much more freedom to the average person than the systems it replaced. Yet the Russian peasants, ground down under the heel of oppressive tsars, resisted fiercely. They resisted because the invader threatened to destroy their way of life, to replace the Orthodox Church (or so they thought). The French were outsiders who did not belong in Russia, so they were attacked and attacked until the last one had left the country. The situation is different now (we have better supply routes and equipment for one thing). Yet there are some similarities that we should take to heart.

In an Op-Ed today, Zbigniew Brezezinski develops the outlines of a strategy that might help us escape from the traps that recent policy has allowed the United states to fall into in the Middle East. It is not too striking an effort, but nevertheless it offers many more useful ideas than either candidate has yet offered. He begins by expressing his fear that some elements of the Bush Administration are tempted by the idea of developing a “Holy Alliance” against Islam. This would include the Christians, Orthodox Russia under Putin, India with its Hindu-Muslim struggle, and Israel with its Jewish-Christian connection. They might even hope on other bases to entice China and Japan into the Alliance. He sees this as a dangerous approach that offers many dangers and few gains. He is happy that Kerry and his people would not follow this route, but feels they do not have enough ideas of their own to find a way out. Without more reason to do so than Kerry has put forward, he believes that our European allies will remain unwilling to help Kerry obtain his objectives in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Brezezinski would have a new administration get together with our European allies to develop a “Grand Alliance” that would embrace the Middle East and its problems by taking on in collaboration with moderate Middle Eastern countries the three major challenges that we face in the region: Israel-Palestine, Iraq, and a restless Iran. We should begin with a joint statement of the European Union and the United States on Israel-Palestine. It would outline a solution and include a commitment to international peacekeeping to help with the aftermath. Second, the European Union would make a major financial commitment to the recovery of Iraq and commit a significant military force so that the United States might be able to reduce the size of the American presence. It might be possible in this context to get some moderate Muslim states to also commit forces. Third, the United States and the European Union would open exploratory discussions with Iran on regional security, including questions of nuclear proliferation, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This should be combined with a carrot of normalizing relations with the West. He believes that our European allies would find it difficult to stay out of the projected Grand Alliance because of the dangers they see in allowing the United States to continue to go it alone. They fear as much as he does that we might just decide to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq, or lash out again by attacking Iran.

Today’s paper explains the methods by which a small faction in the Bush Administration was able after 9/11 to change military law in regard to the way in which persons were arrested, held in custody, and tried (actually not tried as it turned out in most cases) after 9/11. Rules of evidence were to be greatly modified and everything was to be done simply by the whim of the President no matter what the national or international law might be — so long as terrorists, a very hard category to define in the field, were said to be involved. This faction was so sure of its rectitude and so convinced that everyone else was a wimp that they excluded from their efforts the military lawyers (who before these events had been bringing military law and practice into conformity with civilian law and practice), the State Department who had the greatest number of experts on international law, and such supposed insiders as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice (both of whom were furious when they found out what was happening). The result has indirectly been the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo and, more directly, the inability of the government to try effectively those that it has imprisoned. The latter failure results from the fact that too many of the judges and bypassed military lawyers that have at some point to become part of the process are deeply opposed to what is going on.

I was recently asked what I thought of the threats to civil liberties that were inherent in aspects of the Patriot Act and the preemptory approach of the government to suspects. My reply that I was not happy, but that what I really worried about was what would happen if we had a succession of 9/11s, such as both Homeland Security and al-Qaida has assured us will occur. Then I would see a cowed American public willing to accept almost anything the government claimed was necessary, with the end result a fundamental and long-term loss of civil liberties.

A friend of mine, Patrick Gunkel, has pointed out that from a larger perspective the loss of 3000 lives on 9/11 is actually a rather small event. Over 40,000 people are killed in automobile accidents every year and 60,000 people die in New York City every year. Of course, the level of horror of 9/11 seems quite different, especially when the events are played up all around us by the media. But let us imagine a string of 9/11s, one every week for two months, occurring at scattered points around the country (although mostly in large cities). This is what we have been told might happen. But if it did, then how would we restrain those in government who would set aside our common rights to attack this danger? I am afraid that the majority of Americans would not be in a mood to restrain them.

This suggests that those who fear this outcome should come together as experts and civil libertarians to devise proposed changes in peacetime civil and military law that could and should be made for carefully delineated periods in the event of extreme emergency. If these changes were well publicized and decided on before the fact, then when such an emergency occurred, the rush to push aside liberties for safety might be controllable. One can hope that a new administration would make such a move to define before the event emergency law for crises of different intensities.

Today’s paper reports on the excellent reputation Dutch soldiers are developing in one of the less conflicted provinces between Baghdad and Kuwait. Their approach is decidedly low key. They do not wear armor on their persons or vehicles. They emphasis small public works projects. They are well respected by the local people and have friendly relations with them. The result is a marked contrast between the attitudes that the Iraqis have toward the Dutch and toward the Americans. The Americans come though town only in heavily armed convoys. They seem to feel that everyone in their path is an enemy. On occasion they have even killed local Iraqis that got in the way of their vehicles, and never slowed down. In reaction the Americans are seen simply as occupiers who have no interest in helping the Iraqis. The bristling Americans racing through the streets have had their experience in much tougher environments or have been indoctrinated by “old hands” who have had this experience. It is easy in this environment to develop the idea that every Iraqi is an enemy. Many American units had originally intended to take the Dutch approach. (I remember a discussion of the approach the Marines intended to take in some areas.) But their experience has taught them a different doctrine. Perhaps an effort could be made to avoid having people who have developed a fearful/brutal attitude toward Iraqis come in contact with the people. Units composed of such persons should either be shipped home or used only in the most dangerous areas. Otherwise, we are making enemies even where we do not need to have enemies.

American intelligence is developing what purports to be an improved picture of the enemy they are fighting. Intelligence officers believe they are facing 8000 to 12,000 insurgents backed up by another 20,000 active sympathizers (this figure seems low). They are divided into an estimated 50 cells. They believe that only a 1000 of the total are foreign fighters, although these are some of the most dedicated. The insurgents are supported by almost unlimited supplies of money brought in from Syria, but originating in many cases in Saudi Arabia (notice the absence of Iran in this account). The rest of the money is evidently parceled out by relatives of Saddam from a hoard that the family had managed to place under their control in Syria. It was noted that Iraqis are often fees decided on in advance for setting bombs or attacking Americans. The data reported in the article suggests that 80% of the attacks are criminal rather than insurgency in the accepted sense. This applies especially to kidnappings for ransom and hijackings. Four-fifths of the remaining 20% are carried out by domestic insurgents rather than outsiders. Major insurgent leaders in the Falluja area are more like gang leaders than guerrilla fighters. (The numbers may be wrong, but other accounts suggest that a large percentage of the incidents reported are not actually political. This includes large numbers of revenge killings within the Iraqi community.) The new intelligence suggests a lack of unified command. There are five leaders in the Falluja area alone. The new intelligence is based on an increase in intelligence due to increasing involvement of Iraqis in the anti-insurgent effort. Unfortunately, this gain is balanced in part by the fact that as more Iraqis become a part of the anti-insurgency, the insurgents are able to also improve their intelligence by placing some of their members in the new anti-insurgent units.

These figures should be considered in the context of theories of guerrilla war. The old “rule of thumb” going back at least to the war of the British to suppress the communist insurgency in Malaysia was that to defeat guerrillas the government (or analogous body) needs ten times as many soldiers as there are active guerrillas. This suggests that we are not in such a bad situation in Iraq. We have more than the 120,000 soldiers that this would imply are needed. Unfortunately, the 135,000 or so Americans are scattered over a large area while the guerrillas we are speaking of here are concentrated in a much smaller area. In this area, we do not have ten times their number. Bringing a few thousand British up from the South should help. But perhaps we could turn a much larger percentage of the country over to Iraqi security control, concentrating our forces only in the most difficult areas. We already have very few troops in the Kurdish area. We could also reduce our forces greatly in most of the South.

The Association of Muslim Scholars announced earlier this week that all Iraqis should boycott the elections unless attacks on Falluja or similar American offenses were stopped. The Association is said to represent 3000 Sunni mosques. This announcement came at the time that negotiations to avert the American attacks seemed to be on again, off again. The Association particularly attacked Allawi for insisting on “impossible conditions” for calling off the attack. They objected to the demand that the Fallujans turn over Zarqawi when (they claim) he is not in Falluja. I am sure that many Sunnis are upset by every bomb that falls on Falluja, but we are not really sure of the effect elsewhere.

This morning we had news that the United Nations (only 14 persons in country) has developed with the Iraqis what appears to be an excellent registration system, given the circumstances. They plan to use the country’s food distribution rolls as a basis for registration. The coverage of this system is nearly universal, and government food distribution continues even in Falluja. The electoral administration intends to use the occasion of people coming in for their November food ration for a creative form of registration. Each person with his or her food will be given a piece of paper giving the number of eligible voters in the family. That person is then to correct the list as necessary and hand it back. As I understand it, this will serve as a registration. The clever part of it is that it means that no one will be seen going into an office specifically to register, an action that could be dangerous in some areas. Relying on this method one can begin to understand how some Iraqis assert that they will be able to have a reasonable vote everywhere in the country in spite of the problems.

In all the discussion of the reform of the intelligence services, based in part on the 9/11 report, there is simply not enough realization that the agency has repeatedly failed the country. Today there is yet another report about how immediately before and in the early stages of the war in Iraq, the Central Intelligence Agency in its capacity as advisor to the government and as advisor to various commanders on the ground in Iraq, repeatedly “had it wrong”. They really did think that the people would welcome us with open arms. They really thought that insurgency after we had conquered the country would be a minor problem. They evidently had no idea of the state of Iraq’s infrastructure before the war. With this kind of advice coming in it is no wonder that the Bush Administration so badly judged the requirements of the commitment. The Agency has also been responsible in part for the egregious violations of the right of prisoners in a largely futile search for information.

This, we should remember not the first time that the Agency has failed us. I remember that when I was visiting Vietnam as an advisor to DOD, that the CIA had become something of a joke because in a recent election it had predicted the victory of a faction that in fact came in about eighth when the votes were counted.

The fact is the CIA is lost in a world of its own making. Its analysts believe what they want to believe, and hire secret agents that will feed their fantasies. It seems to me that we need a complete redo, not just a rearrangement at the top. We need an analytic agency that begins de novo, based on the best and most knowledgeable people our universities can provide. We will need to incorporate into the agency some of the truly secret investigative parts of the agency, while keeping the analysts in charge. The analytic agency will operate in the clear without secrecy. The investigative branch will operate in a classified manner. But we must develop a working relationship by which the analysts can both use the clandestine service as a source of information and direct this service in the kind of information that they try to obtain. In the end, the analysts with the broader picture should be the channel through which information from the Agency is provided to actors in government and the military.

In comments on the war, there is often little attention played to the number of Iraqis who are dying, particular as a result of insurgent action. The Times reports that in one recent week 208 Iraqis were killed compared to 23 American military. Perhaps half the 208 were killed by American military action (targeted insurgents and civilians combined). The other half are divided between casualties among the Iraqi security services targeted by the insurgents and civilians killed in the course of insurgent “cause havoc” actions (particularly suicide bombings). In addition there are the kidnappings, either for profit or ideology — sometimes both. The latest is that of the director of CARE in Iraq. What is important to the cause of peace and stability in Iraq is the reaction of the Iraqi people to all this. Some surely condemn many of our bombing attacks that inadvertently kill civilians. They also condemn both America and the Allawi government for our inability to stop the killing. But many civilians are also bound to condemn insurgent attacks that seem to have little purpose other than killing civilians. These may be targeted civilians or just persons in the wrong place at the wrong time. So it would seem to an outside observer that in many cases the insurgent attacks, particularly the suicide bombers are counterproductive. It is said that many Iraqis believe these are the work of outside Islamists, because they do not believe real Iraqis would kill so indiscriminately.

In a recent discussion with a person well acquainted with events in Iran, he suggested that the next successful democracy in the Middle East after Turkey will be Iran. His feeling is that the Iranian people are just waiting for this opportunity. He believes that the religious leaders have completely lost the support of the population. Since the opposition seems to have rejected the idea of mounting a violent revolution, the problem then becomes trying to understand the process by which the present system is replaced. His suggestion is that sooner or later a commander in the security forces (Revolutionary Guards in his scenario) realizes that he would be welcomed by the people if he simply set the religious leadership aside. The result in the first instance would be an authoritarian regime, but this would soon evolve into democracy.

Maybe so, but let us step back a little and examine the situation.

The government of Iran as it is now constituted consists of a Supreme Leader appointed for life by an Assembly of Experts (a small council of religious leaders), the Assembly of Experts (advises on many issues, particularly judicial), the President (popularly elected every four years), and a Consultative Assembly (elected every four years). The problems with the system from a democratic perspective include the nonelection of the Supreme leader who can override anything, the participation of the Supreme Leader in appointing the President’s cabinet, the ability of the Assembly or Experts or other religious bodies to veto the candidacy of anyone to an elected office, and the continual interference with the media by the religious bodies, the Revolutionary Guards, and other antisecular gangs that operate either with or without government support. As might be expected in a state viewing itself as Islamic, the judiciary is largely under the control of clerics (whose education is often primarily in Islamic law). The head of the judiciary is an Ayatollah. The regular court system is supplemented by a Revolutionary Court System that has been responsible for a good deal of the suppression of what modern societies consider personal rights.

In spite of all this, there is a large segment of the Iranian population, especially that centering around the universities, that is quite outspoken. While newspapers and other publications and artistic products (such as movies) are continually banned or closed, the flow of information and artistic expression continues. The movies that reach the West depict a remarkably westernized life in which women play effective and accepted leadership roles. The opposition scored important gains in electing and reelecting Khatami as President (a clergyman, but moderate). They also elected a competitive parliament willing to challenge the religious leaders in many respects. However, by the time of the most recent parliamentary election the inability or unwillingness of Khatami to stand up to the religious leaders and the failure of the parliament to get its measures past the religious hurdles set up by the system, combined with a stronger than previous effort by the clergy to veto the candidacies of many liberals, turned off the liberal leaders to such an extent that they told their followers to abstain from voting. The result was a predictable sweep by the conservatives — further isolating President Khatami.

We do not know what the Iranian people actually think. In the recent past, polls have shown majorities supporting liberal propositions, such closer relations with the United States. But one wonders why a liberal majority hasn’t been able to challenge the system more than it has. One suspects that in Tehran there would be a majority against the system. But, as in many countries, the modernized capital is not the country. It should be noted, however, that statistics suggest that Iran as a whole is a surprisingly modernized country for the region. Its total fertility rate is down below 2.0 births per woman, which means that the population is moving rapidly toward stabilization. By comparison, the rate in Iraq remains above 4.0. This achievement means that the people of Iran have been able with government encouragement under both previous and present political systems to control their fertility in a modern manner. The literacy rate is at 79%, with female literacy 74%. Comparative figures for Iraq are 40%, with female literacy at 24%. If these figures are anywhere near accurate, this means that Iran has without much of the world noticing been developing a modern society that is poised to demand a modern political system. What remains to determine is the path.

The implications of the discussion for American foreign policy are not clear. But it does suggest that instead of thinking of Iran as the next boulder in the path of universal democratization, we should think of it as a country well on its way toward joining our world through the efforts of its own citizens. It would be crazy to think of invading such a country, a step that would both discredit its growing liberal population and discredit liberal leaders. Instead, we must with the help of Iranians both within and without the country devise a strategy that will assist the democratic evolution of the country. In doing so, we must remember that Iranians, liberal and conservative, must be allowed to define their national interests in their own way. In particular, we should not assume that nuclear abstinence is a necessary part of the democratization process. Dictating the position of Iran on this or any other issue cannot be a part of a true democracy program.

The opponents of the Iraq War have many good arguments. It was “the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place”. Yet we are there, and all Americans and friends of what used to be called the “Free World” must realize that for both our country’s reputation and the good of the Iraqis we have to accomplish as much as we can while we are there and leave as early and as “successfully” as we can.

In today’s Times, Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed represents another example of the dark side of the liberal critique of the Bush Administration. Herbert tells us that “we find we can’t win this war we started”. Further down the page Herbert writes “As for the rebuilding of Iraq, forget about it.” These may appear to be brave words to Herbert’s admirers. They were words I might have written last April when it appeared our forces were entering the retreat phase of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

But today they no longer make sense. If we concentrate on the horror, on the repeated suicide bombings and mortar attacks, and mines along the roads, the picture can look black. But if we notice how these incidents have become more and more concentrated in the Sunni Arab areas, if we read reports detailing small gains here and there, of water systems reestablished, of electricity production which is now considerably above the level when we attacked, of schools that have been renovated, we will draw a different picture. If we note that the program of turning in weapons by the Mahdi Army is now being extended from Sadr City to other Shi’a areas in Iraq, we will see hope once more building. If we note the Shi’a majority in the South and the Kurdish enclaves in the North are expected to vote heavily in January, this will give another picture.

There is no doubt that the situation is still perilous, that the Sunni Arabs might be able to keep the insurgency up for months, or that relations with al-Sadr might break down once more. There is no doubt that the Administration’s plans for the aftermath of “victory” were poorly developed, that there were too few troops to carry out this phase, that the economic development effort, the arms available to American troops, the training of Iraqi security forces, and the incarceration and treatment of Iraqis captured in war or on the streets were so incompetently administered as to verge on criminality. Yet this does not mean that the probability of a reasonably successful outcome is below 50%. I suspect it is well above that. The hatred many of us have for the Administration should not be allowed to obscure the responsibility of observers to take careful and frequent readings of the course of events, and to adjust their judgments as new information comes in.

Today’s New York Times report on Guantanamo concludes that the mistreatment of prisoners there was (at least until this April) quite general and persistent. It assumes that much of the subsequent mistreatment in Afghanistan and Iraq was due, at least in part, to the habits developed and accepted at Guantanamo. An example of special treatment that their reporter repeatedly heard was the shackling of a prisoner to the floor while filling the room with extremely loud music and very bright strobe lights. This was combined with extremely high air conditioning for up to 14 hours.

Many confuse such treatment with the treatment of enemies on the battlefield where tensions are extreme and raw. But this is in a prison in which the power is completely in the hands of the guards and interrogators. There is little or no excuse for it. Experts do not believe that it leads to good intelligence not otherwise obtainable, particularly if, as was generally the case at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the prisoners have little information to give.

Whatever administration is in power in the United States should take seriously the challenge such barbarity poses to the country, in the opinion of its citizens and the world community. The problem is one that transcends the military services and goes to the behavior of the whole corrections and intelligence community, whether in civilian life or in a so-called “time of war”. We cannot claim to be a defender of freedom and a purveyor of democracy while we are allowing people to act in this way at home and abroad.

I would propose a series of conferences on law enforcement and corrections that included the military services, intelligence agencies, and those responsible for these functions at state levels. We should review existing standards of behavior in these agencies, compare these with international standards, and consider the ways in which these are taught to people “on the front lines” in these agencies. If there are special conditions that require measures that go beyond this base line, these should be narrowly defined and the persons identified who can legally give orders to go beyond this line. Such exceptional treatment should be allowed only for named persons and only for specified periods. The conferences should develop high and relevant psychological standards for persons allowed onto the front lines of corrections and interrogation. The conference should consider methods of improving the existing professional cultures among those charged with interrogation and corrections responsibilities.

In addition to this, the United States needs to rethink its identification of persons it picks up in what it refers to as a “war on terrorism”. Most of the people we picked up in Afghanistan were actually members of the Taliban militia. As such, they deserved to be treated as prisoners of war, with a classification identical to that of persons picked up in the course of military operations in Iraq. There has been a much too quick and vague identification of persons as members of al-Qaida or as terrorist enemies of the United States. I agree that there is such a category. But it should be much smaller than we have made it in this instance. For those so categorized, the answer is to bring them back to the United States and try them for their crimes against the United States on a basis that accords with international rather than national standards. We must remember at all times that by our actions we are being judged by peoples everywhere, those well intentioned toward the United States and those not well intentioned. But we are never going to win the long-term struggle to maintain the reputation of states dedicated to freedom and democracy unless we accept the right of our audiences to judge our actions by their standards as well as ours.

Today’s paper discusses a British approach to fighting the insurgency that the American forces might profit from adopting. I say “might” because the British approach has not been 100% successful and the British in the South are in a largely Shi’a area in which the foreign intervention has been welcomed more than in the areas of or worst problems.

First, although they are working on setting up local councils, they are less intent on establishing democracy because they simply do not believe it will have much staying power. Second when the al-Sadr revolt reached them, their response was to hold their bases and outlast the mortar rounds. They killed many of the Mahdi Army in the process, but they launched no counterattacks and so spared the civilians. They make a deliberate effort to see the point of view of the local people, including the Mahdi Army. they try to avoid armor and even helmets as much as possible. They have developed a program to aid local businesses with small loans. The effort to involve the leaders even of hostile groups in these programs seems to have paid off — at least for now.

It is worth reading today’s discussion in the Week in Review of the difficulty of identifying the enemy in Iraq and the problem that this poses for the American command. An American general is quoted as calling this a “negative insurgency” because the groups involved are not offering the Iraqi people any tangible benefits. Unlike other insurgencies, the insurgents have not established a political wing with a communicable political program. Some observers reason that a major reason for their negativity is that the insurgents are loosely organized into many separate groups, often with quite different and even clashing objectives. In this situation, the leaders of these groups may believe that it is better for now to abjure definite positions beyond anti-Americanism. It is, after all, a simple message, and simple messages are those most likely to mobilize large numbers of people. One can only assume that if insurgent success were imminent, the many groups of which they are composed might then shift their attention to their so far suppressed political agendas.

This suggests that if anti-Americanism is the major glue that holds most of these groups together, if we left violence would simply shift its focus. To some degree, it would. However, for the Coalition troops to leave might not be enough to change the focus in the short term. For there would still be in place the Iraqi political and security structure headed by Allawi. Would this continue to be viewed as no more than an American puppet, with a consequent intensification of efforts to drive it from power? If so, we should realize that defeating such a puppet could take longer than many suppose. We must remember that the South Vietnamese government held the country together for a year against one of the largest armies in the world after the Americans left.

We also must remember that the Shi’a hierarchy, the major Shi’a parties, and the major Kurdish parties stand to gain from the success of the political process headed by Allawi. Right now the Shi’as and Allawi are having difficulties because some Shi’a see Allawi as attempting to reestablish a Baathist and secular government. Yet if the Americans left, Allawi and the Shi’a would be forced to come to an understanding to resist the Sunni Arab insurgency. They might even be able to get al-Sadr on their side in this event. After initial losses in the aftermath of an American withdrawal, this new “coalition” might be able to consolidate control over most of the country. One can assume that eventually the Kurds and the rest of the country will have a falling out. But I place this after the democratic process has moved to at least the constitution writing stage. How a subsequent Kurdish challenge plays out will depend on the degree to which the Kurds will want to continue to play a role economically and politically in Baghdad.

The news from Haiti this morning reports on the continuing sad story of inadequate and irresponsible government combined with inadequate foreign assistance. The drama is playing out among a people who have been suffering through countless years of inadequate nutrition, resource depletion, and an everlasting internal war of all against all. While we worry about the problems of Darfur, it is not clear that we should not be concentrating on those closer to home.

More generally, as we look around the world we note that Somalia has been without government for years, making it a haven for criminals and terrorists, local and international. A new Somali government has been established in Kenya across the border, but it is doubtful that it will be more successful than the last attempt of this kind to actually govern. In Palestine-Israel we see another running sore that the political institutions directly involved have proved manifestly unable to heal.

Along with the multiple problems of Sudan, these crises suggest once again the need for the resuscitation of something like the trusteeship system that was set up for former colonies after World War I. In the form that was adopted then (having one Western state responsible for each trusteeship) it was too much like another form of colonialism. If a new attempt were made today, it would have to be more broadly based. In any event the international community should establish on more than an ad hoc basis an international governance agency that can be called upon to take over and govern parts of the world that are either unable to govern themselves or unable to govern in a responsible manner. Once established, the agency would develop its own management and civil service structure that would be able to handle crisis and development problems anywhere in the world.

Such an agency would need to begin in desperate situations where a society is so broken that the local people and the international community would be likely to accept massive outside intervention. Only after the agency develops a track record in such situations, would it be asked to expand its activities into a wider variety of situations. The development process might begin with the Security Council granting the agency the rights and the resources necessary for governing Haiti for a period of ten years, to be extended as necessary. During this period the agency would establish comprehensive educational and medical services for all. It would establish an effective, modern police force, disarming all others. There would be no army under such a dispensation (compare Costa Rica). It would undertake economic development and land reclamation projects that would make possible a sustainable future. Since agriculture resources will never adequately support Haiti, other forms of economic development would also be undertaken. As national and municipal services and jobs begin to be provided, the international agency would develop a modest level of taxation so that Haitians would not come to see themselves as little more than the uninvolved recipients of an endless stream of foreign goods and services.

To work, a major international commitment of resources and attention must be made. Recent experience suggests that the international community, and especially its lead countries, will be reluctant to make the kind of commitment that the establishment of this agency would entail. Yet the case could be made that in the long run it is more costly to the international community to confront on an ad hoc basis repeated crises in situations such as Haiti than it would be to address them in a more organized and long-term manner.

The last week has brought more information confirming the basic direction of the Iraq insurgency and our chances to overcome it. On both sides, the battle seems more than ever to have settled down to be one between the government and the Americans, assisted by the Shi’a establishment and the Kurds on the one side, and the nationalists, Baathists, and Muslim extremists within the Sunni Arab population on the other.

The Shi’a establishment has long been pushing for the January vote. Now it is starting a campaign to get persons in all communities to vote in large numbers to ensure the legitimacy of the vote. Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers are continuing to hand over their heavier weapons (for a fee) and there is more and more talk of their leader joining the political process. Of course, terrorism continues and the American bombing and clearing operations continue, but these are more and more directed at the Sunni Arab community whose ostensible leaders seem unable to rein in the attacks. Current estimates are that about half of the Sunni Arabs would vote is they had a peaceful opportunity. But whether they will get this level of security by voting day in January is still unclear.

The picture is muddled by the fact that the Allawi government has interfered in the process of vetting former Baath party members to the extent that some Shi’a are saying that he is intent on establishing a new Baath government that will once again dominate the country. This is ominous since to do it he will have to short-circuit the election process and establish another authoritarian state. However, a more favorable view of what he is doing is that he is trying to improve his relation to the insurgent Sunni Arab community by bringing more of their real and potential leaders back into the mainstream.

Today’s paper includes a long op-ed arguing that the United States and the Iraqi government is making a mistake by continuing to try to isolate al-Sadr and Ahmad Chalabi. (It is a Chalabi commission whose function it was to carefully screen former Baathist officials that the government is now by-passing by adopting a faster inclusion process.) The writer points out that Chalabi has managed in a few months to transform his role from that of a leader of an exile organization heavily supported by the United States to a leader of a federation of Shi’a organizations whose members see him both as the man responsible for eliminating Saddam (whether he brought on the American attack with lies is immaterial to them) and the defender of populist Shi’as, such as al-Sadr, and an intermediary with al-Sistani and Iran (where he now has a home). The fact that the Americans and Allawi and many Sunni Arabs hate him is seen as a plus by his supporters. The op-ed writer argues that it is with this Chalabi, not the one who may have misused funds in Jordan and Iraq, or misled the Pentagon, that we must learn to cooperate if we are to be seen as an impartial and supportive party in bringing democracy to Iraq.

This is correct. The United States must get out of the habit of picking favorites and supporting them to the detriment of others if we are to play a positive role in democratization in Iraq or elsewhere. The faster we are able to overcome our prejudices and learn to see situations through local eyes the better.

The front page of today’s Times tells us that there is worry that most Sunni Arabs will not be willing to vote in the January election. Apparently several Sunni Arab political parties want to take part. But their members are too fearful of the insurgency in their area to allow themselves to be seen as supporting the election, standing for election, registering, or even voting. There is also reluctance to vote because of distrust and hatred of the Americans and the new system. But Sunni Arab leaders are quite aware that a boycott will not be to their sectarian advantage. The main issue seems to me to be simply fear, since most Sunni Arabs live in the high violence areas.

This same discussion reports that the Shi’as and Kurds, making up about 80% of the country are expected to vote in large numbers. This encouraging piece of information is combined with the fact that the agreement with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City seems to have held for at least two days. Today, the report is that in Sadr City the Mahdi Army is beginning to hand in its heavy weapons as promised in the agreement. Again there is talk of al-Sadr entering the political arena. These developments and estimates bring us back to the fundamental fact about the insurgency: it is overwhelmingly a reaction of the Sunni Arab population of the Sunni Triangle to the humiliation of having their leader and their system dispossessed. The promised move toward elections, a new constitution and finally parliamentary government will give the other majority sections of the population a weight in the society that they have never had before. As their leaders accept this fact, the insurgency should be even more confined to the triangle than it is today.

But what can be done for the Sunnis who want to vote? Some are said to be encouraged by the recent policy of suppressing the insurgency in Sunni Arab centers of resistance. But for each person encouraged another may be further enraged by the attacks, even more inclined to kill those of his neighbors who would cooperate. Ideally, there should be a formula by which 15% of the country could be temporarily left out of the voting, thereby satisfying the Ayatollah Sistani who demands an early vote and leaving the door open for the Sunni Arabs to come in later. Unfortunately, no one seems to be considering this option.

Today’s paper offers an Op-Ed with a careful look at the training of the new police force in Iraq. It points out that in spite of a great deal of advice, our government has consistently short-changed the effort. because of insufficient funds the final decision was to offer an eight-week training program for new police officers (compared to six months in the United States). This period is further shortened by the need to translate everything that is said into Arabic and then back into English. Even then only 8000 men have completed the course. Most of the new recruits were simply handed a badge. The advisory group sent to Iraq over a year ago to estimate needs suggested that the United States bring in 6000 international police advisors for a population of 25,000,000. Yet one year later, there are only 500 in the country.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the recruits start the training with no idea of how a modern police force should operate. What astounded the recruits most was the concept of “human rights”. In their experience, police are little more than a rag-tag gang of extortionists. ( For this reason, 32,000 of the old police have been “reprogrammed” to meet new requirements.) Another anomaly is that the police are trained for ordinary police duty American style (with, for example, seminars on domestic violence) and then sent out to guard the new government’s offices.

The seriousness of this failure is suggested by the fact that this police force will for many Iraqis be the new face of the government. Its first task should be to change the attitudes of people who see lack of security as the main failing of the new system. The country is beset by what is reported to be a very serious crime problem that goes far beyond that associated with the insurgency (especially revenge killings, kidnapping, and robbery). The force described by this reporter will do nothing to change the popular impression that the Americans and the new government have done nothing for the country.

One of the most discouraging reports I have seen lately comes from a New York Times reporter in Baghdad discussing the problems that reporters have of getting out and seeing what is going on. Most reporters have simply left. Those who remain go out very seldom and then to the few areas that seem relatively safe. Even then they are finding it increasingly difficult to get Iraqis to talk with them. Even those who they had formerly developed relations with now avoid being seen with an American. Until this trend of reporter access reverses, it will be hard for our optimism to brighten very much.

Another report discusses the problem of finding out just who Zarqawi is. Apparently it is not at all clear that he is or ever was a follower of Ussama bin Ladin. His objectives seem to be the same as bin Ladin, but his methods are quite different. Ussama would never be seen cutting off someone's head. Many doubt that Zarqawi was ever a backer or tool of Saddam. Another group of authorities are convinced that Zarqawi is actually a competitor of bin Ladin's. The two are thought to be competing for the same pool of "soldiers".

Friedman in today's Op-Ed makes a further a different attempt to approach the "enemy definition" problem. He points out that the Iraqi insurgency seems to be able to recruit an unending stream of people willing to become suicide bombers. He relates this to the development of extremist Islamic thinking, believing that the secular tendencies of the earlier Saddam regime had begun to change toward the end for tactical reasons and that now what we are facing is a revitalized and fanatical Islam. However, Friedman should be reminded that for many years the most successful recruiters for suicide missions were the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, and they were not religious at all. Nationalism and hatred of "the other" can evidently produce enough fanaticism for suicide. Still, Friedman's broader concern is a good one. The Palestinian suicide bombers are different. They are better known, the names often being released, and their objectives are clearer. Their reasons seem to involve a strong mixture of religion and nationalism. In Iraq, who the bombers are is much more secret and their goals cloudier. It is encouraging to realize that unlike the Israeli-Palestine problem, which for Americans is unsolvable because of internal American politics, it should be possible over time to reduce nationalist reasons for taking part in suicide bombings in Iraq. When the Americans leave, the queue should shorten.

The election in Afghanistan seems to have been a resounding success. The promised attacks by the Taliban were few and far between. This would indicate that they are weaker than we would have thought and/or that the security forces (American, NATO, and Afghan) are more effective than observers would have expected. All this is promising. The opposition claims that they were cheated, that the ink did not work and so on. In nearly every “third-world” election I have been involved in these claims have been made. There is usually something in them, but not much. The counting will take a long time. If the combined opposition gets near to 50%, then the criticisms should be looked at carefully. But if not, probably not. One must understand that in a society such as the Afghan people generally do what they are told. Even if the election is ostensibly free and secret, voters will fear that they will be found out if they go against the local consensus. For most local leaders, on the other hand, power relations and the possibility of future favors reach back to Kabul and Karzai. He has the power now; he will probably have it in the future; it is safer to have one’s people vote for him. It is also true that most of the other candidates had a very difficult time getting known. Some voters evidently did not even know what Karzai looked, let alone any other candidate (they voted by picture as well as written name). One can assume that in Kabul itself the more educated and individualized population will have voted with more understanding.

Many Afghans appear to have voted for Karzai because of the relative peace they have enjoyed since he came to power. Beyond security, they see real improvement in a number of areas (education, transportation etc.) It is nothing like what they want and expect, but compared with what they had before they welcome it. This again leaves a positive feeling for what has been accomplished there — and contrasts rather dramatically with the reactions reported in Iraq to the Americans and the interim government.

As to the future, it is well to remember that in spite of repeated assurances in the papers that this was the first election in Afghanistan, there were earlier elections in the 1960s. Over two million voters participated in one; not too bad a turnout in a country with less than half its present population. That “democratic system” and its king (Zahir Shah, now back in Kabul in an anomalous role) were soon overthrown, leading to a spiral down into violence, local communism and then Soviet invasion. I also remember going to two elections in Zimbabwe. Both led to large turnouts. In the first the people overwhelmingly voted in an anti-insurgency leader. The second had an even larger turnout and voted in the insurgent leader, Mugabe, with an even larger majority. Over the next twenty years Mugabe succeeded in eroding democratic rights of all kinds to the point that it would be hard to imagine a fair election that would reverse the process. One Swallow does not make a spring.

The American Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has a long an interesting career for such a young man. He is a Pashtun from Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan. After high school he studied at the American University in Beirut and then on to the University of Chicago. He began his academic career working with Zbigniew Brezezinski at Columbia. He then started working off and on in the State Department and the Rand Institute. He was a player in the government’s involvement in the Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s. Apparently his ideology became increasing military oriented and he became affiliated with neocons such as Wolfowitz. He began this President’s term in the National Security Council, but soon was a special representative concerned with Afghan affairs. Along the way he is said to have supported the idea of working more closely with the Taliban, perhaps because of his work for a pipeline company that was contemplating a route from Turkistan through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. After our later victory in Afghanistan, he oversaw putting together the conference of Afghan leaders in Berlin and later the Loya Jirga that appointed Karzai to lead the new government. As Ambassador he is extremely active. He is said to have been working to get other candidates to withdraw in favor of Karzai, and to be the main person responsible for the retirement of Ismael Khan as the governor of Herat. Many Afghans refer to him as their new Viceroy.

Having invited Khalilzad to a conference once, I remember him as a gracious, polite, and engaging person well suited to the kind of job he has now. Certainly, if he is a viceroy, he is a most Afghani viceroy (although in our brief acquaintance he wanted to be referred to as an American and not an Afghanistani). But what is not so good is the fact that as he throws his new weight around, it is the weight of the United States. It makes sense from the American point of view that he would want to get rid of Ismael Khan, a person known for his anti-American and anti-UN sympathies and his Iranian support. However, Ismael Khan was also known as one of the best liked and most courageous of the “warlords”. Herat was considered to be the best run and most reconstructed of the regional cities. Unfortunately, American troops were both directly and indirectly involved in his “retirement”. This does not seem in the long run to be the way to make friends for either Americans or the Karzai government. It would also appear that retiring governors that have been able to administer their areas with some effectiveness before there is an Afghan army and administrative corps that can take their place is a foolish undertaking.

Today’s paper lays out the outline of a new strategy for putting down the resistance. Apparently it all started with the actions at Tal Afar near the Syrian border. Then it moved to the clearing of Samarra. Now the action is in the Balil Province south of Baghdad. The plan is to bring the twenty or thirty most serious problem areas (towns or cities) under Iraqi-Coalition control before the elections in January. What they hope to do in the process, beyond the obvious, is to change who directs the action, to take the initiative away from the insurgents. They have developed a set of measurements to monitor the rate at which the Iraqi government is able to take over and control these problem areas.

The thinking is that this activity and this plan have been devised at least in part to counter the Kerry claim that Bush does not “have a plan” for Iraq. One hopes that the war is not being planned and fought on the basis of what will play best back home. Nevertheless, if it took Kerry to get things turned around a little, one should not complain. One particular problem that the new approach hopes to address is making possible the security of those Iraqis who want to cooperate with Allawi and the Americans. Because of the job situation, there have been many people seeking work, even under desperate conditions. But without security the well could dry up — the people could just stay home.

Meanwhile, the insurgent attacks go on, particularly in Baghdad. The latest attacks near and even within the “Green Zone” are apparently meant to prove to the citizens and the foreigners working in the country that there is and can be no “safe area”. Ayatollah Sistani wants the United Nations to take a larger part in the election process. Yet it is not going to do it as long as the security situation remains as it is, particularly in Baghdad. This leads one to wonder why the concentration in the new security effort is not on Baghdad itself, an area with about a fourth of the country’s population. If this city were as safe as say Kabul, the international community, investors, experts, and regular Iraqis would take heart and be a great deal more cooperative. One of the points often missed when Iraqis say “the Americans must leave” is that many Iraqis argue that the Americans have failed in their primary task, bringing security to Iraqis. As one articulate and well-educated Iraqi women told interviewers recently, “If they cannot do even this, let them leave and let us work out our problems among ourselves.”

It now appears that the insurgency in Iraq was actually planned before the war with some care by a division of Hussein’s intelligence service. Before the war started they had positioned weapons and munitions in hidden locations, in farms and so forth. At the beginning of the war Saddam told his people that if they held the Americans for a week he would carry on from there. His confidence was based on the idea that whatever happened, the Iraqis would never submit to an occupation force (there had been some evidence for this in Iraqi history). Apparently, Saddam was both confused and clever in his war preparations. he had convinced some of his officers and the Americans that if the attackers went beyond a certain line in their approach top Baghdad, that he would use chemical weapons. But he had also admitted to others before the war that he did not have any chemical weapons.

In any event, the insurgency has been surprisingly persistent and innovative. Although Saddam and the Baath had a plan, the insurgents actually represent at least four types of fighters. The first are simply the disaffected and the revenge seeking (“They killed my relative, I must get back at them”. ) The second is the Shi’a resistance, based on the idea of resisting the infidels OR on the idea of improving the position of a particular group of Shi’as after the Americans leave (Mahdi Army and al-Sadr). The third is the Jihadist or Mujahedin element, fighting the “crusaders” in the name of Islam. Some of these are outsiders such as Zarqawi, but remember the Ansar, routed in Kurdistan but settled elsewhere now, are extremist Kurds, not foreigners. Many Jihadists see themselves as linked to al-Qaida, at least spiritually. Whether there is more than that we do not know. They probably represent many groups large and small, with varying degrees of linkage to one another. Finally, there are the Saddam or Baath loyalists. Initially they had the most money and access to the most arms. They were certainly the best trained element. One can assume that they have tried to direct the effort. They may have coordinated their efforts to give the impression of a more united national movement. But actually, the insurgents are harder to defeat if they work separately, for with so many diverse groups the gathering of intelligence from captured individuals is much less fruitful than it would otherwise be. We think of this group as Sunni and most of their activity has been in the Sunni triangle (although one suspects they are also in Basra and other urban centers outside the triangle). We must remember that some Baath leaders were actually Shi’as, such as Allawi himself before he fell out with Saddam. These were secular people for whom sectarian allegiances were useful but not essential.

Kristof is on a campaign in the Times to bring the attention of the world to the serious oppression of women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. This is a serious problem, although my judgment and experience suggests that it is hardly confined to the Muslim world. (I found some of the most oppressed seeming women in Nepal.) However, the fact that Afghanistan has not turned quickly into an arena of freedom for women should surprise no one. King Amanullah tried to improve their lot in the twenties and he was ejected. Movement in this direction started again during the democratic opening in the 1960s. It was revived by the communists both before and after Soviet intervention. It is my suggestion that democratizing Afghanistan at this point has to be done without putting on the agenda a major change in the position of women. The position of women is already much better in Iran and across the border in the Soviet successor states. Many Afghans are aware of how women live in these countries and in the West. The more contact there is of East and West in Afghanistan, the more the position of women will improve.

Women tend to be relatively free in the Islamic world after or during the time of authoritarian, modernizing, westernizing leadership. It was Ataturk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran that made critical improvements in the position of women. In Iraq, women under the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein achieved a degree of freedom rare in Arab countries. We can still see the remnants of modernized class in which this occurred in the better off parts of Baghdad and in the emigré community. But if and when true democracy is restored in Iraq, we will see the position of women decline once again — at least for a while. The task of western-sponsored democratization should be to lay the groundwork for popular rule, establish the principles of free media and free discussion. We should also help privately in the organization of women's groups, and should, of course, support female education at all ages. But we will defeat our purpose if we push too hard, if we seem intent on invalidating local customs, replacing their way of life with ours. Democracy should be seen as laying the basis for freedom, not an initial guarantor of freedom and equality for all. (Much the same should be our approach to economic reform. Democracy is a means by which a people can decide on what economic policies and forms they wish to have. It is not a precut formula that necessarily demands a particular economic system.)

Progress in the reconstruction of society, leave alone democratization, in Afghanistan suffers from the same indeterminacy as in Iraq. The primary difference is that both the Afghans and outside observers have more confidence that the Afghan leaders are calling most of the shots in Afghanistan than they do in Iraq. Most Afghans cannot view American an foreign forces as constituting an "occupation" in the same sense as Iraqis view our forces there to be an occupation. The fact that Kabul appears to be a much safer and more livable city today than Baghdad also gives a different complexion to the situation. However, it is still true that in much of the countryside the government is not in complete control, that the insurgency still has its safe areas and manages to infiltrate its operatives throughout the country. There is evidence that it has staying power. But evidently the government has staying power as well. Certain areas, such as the Uzbek fiefdom of General Dostum in the North, are out of control of Kabul, but are most unlikely to fall to the Taliban. These areas may be compared to the Kurdish areas of Iraq.

Judgments of success depend on who you believe and what seems important to you. If your measure is the extent to which women have gained freedom, the situation is not encouraging. In the major cities they are better off than they were. Certainly more girls are getting an education in much of the country than they did under the Taliban. But the extremely restrictive "tribal" way of life still dominates the countryside. The number of people who have registered to vote is astounding, and sometimes more than that (many people have managed to get several registration cards). But the hope for uncoerced voting in rural areas is fading. (Uncoerced voting generally comes at a later stage of democratic evolution in any event. We should never expect ideal Icelandic standards to a country such as Afghanistan.)

One of the best signs that the evolution of a stable system is proceeding is that the second presidential candidate, Yunis Qanooni, is attempting to get all the other opposition candidates to work together to force a runoff. It is also encouraging that while his message is anti-American and pro-Islamic, it is all very moderate. Essentially, his pitch is that the government has forgotten the Mojahedin, that it is labeling their leaders "warlords". His message "lets have more respect". Qanooni's movement has also been able to enlist support from a broad spectrum of ethnic groups, including the majority Pashtun (most of whom support their fellow ethnic Karzai).The moderation of both the government and the opposition bodes well for democracy and for American policy.

The attack on Samarra seems to have succeeded with very little loss (on our side anyhow). We are now engaged in a similar major clearing operation south of Baghdad in Balil Province. This reduction of enemy redoubts was supposed to be delayed for at least another month. But for some reason it has been speeded up. The suspicion is that in Samarra the defenders just faded away to fight another day. Some did I am sure. But the important question is whether the insurgents will be able to reconquer the city once the Americans leave. Perhaps there is a middle ground between “leave it to the Iraqis” and maintaining an American occupation that has not yet been found.

Oddly, at about the time that the latest attack was underway Prime Minister Allawi made a somber speech to Iraq’s National Assembly telling how bad the security situation actually was. He lamented the fact that the Iraqi security forces were not yet up to the challenge, being underequipped and undertrained. He added that they do not yet have the respect of the Iraqi people that they require. I guess that he thought it would be an error to paint the rosy picture at home that he did in Washington. After all, his audience experienced the violence on the streets every day.

The paper also reports statements by Paul Bremer, now safely back in the country and apparently anxious to argue that his failure to accomplish more in Iraq was due to the mistakes of the administration and not his mistakes. He claims, and it appears confirmed, that from the very first he argued for more troops, but that the administration insisted they had enough. The fact he is making this case now is not a hopeful sign for what he believes the situation is now.

Another Times report today focuses on the Japanese contingent, one of the coalition partners that are helping us according to the President. It seems that their contingent of 550 soldiers in the town of Samawa has not yet fired a shot. They were evidently put into the safest place that could be found to keep the folks back home happy. Meanwhile the local Iraqis are running out of patience. They had such inflated ideas of what the Japanese would do that the schools they did rehabilitate seem to count for nothing. The locals threaten that if the Japanese don’t do more they will turn against them.

In all this confusion of action and inaction, of ridiculous expectations and dashed hopes, the general impression is that no one knows what is really happening or will happen. On the one hand, the claim of looming and unavoidable disaster is overblown. But so is the claim that “we have it under control”. My hope remains that the size of the group that will benefit from the current attempt to establish “democracy” is so large that the insurgency will eventually fail. It seems likely that if the coalition forces left now, all hell would break lose. It also seems clear that the Iraqi replacement forces have a long way to go in spite of Allawi’s on again, off again bluster. Yet with every day we stay, the sense that we are simply an occupying force that does nothing for the country grows stronger.

Sunday’s paper brought yet another discussion of the intention of al-Sadr to renounce force, disarm his militia, endorse the election, and enter politics. Once again he has been making overtures on a number of fronts. Our friend Ahmad Chalabi is said to be encouraging the move. al-Sadr’s representative has been meeting with the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, Kurdish and Christian leaders. He wants to bring into his camp the smaller, disaffected, anti-American parties to form a new bloc. His conditions include the involvement of the United Nations and the absence of American or British interference in the elections. Supposedly, this initiative is again approved by Ayatollah Sistani. Many political leaders endorse the attempt, but are also skeptical.

Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army continues to operate effectively, at least in Baghdad. The degree of his control over the army has always been a question, although I suspect that this is a question that has been promoted by al-Sadr to improve his bargaining position. More serious may be the attitudes of the Mahdi Army individuals if asked to give up their weapons in an authenticate move. Reporters speaking to them on the street find they are as dedicated to killing Americans as ever. Even though they have lost untold numbers in Najaf and Baghdad in recent offensives, their morale appears to remain high.

It is very difficult for a challenger in a war situation to express simultaneously support for the troops and promote the idea that this was “the wrong war at the wrong time”. Bush is right about that. But Kerry must do both to win and he is right to do both.

It is in the area of developing a new strategy for Iraq that Kerry faces the most serious challenge. He is absolutely right that if one were going to fight this war, the war should have been better planned and the aftermath should have been better planned. This is both a matter of inadequate resources and inadequate planning for the use of those resources. But Kerry must be careful. He knows that he will not really know what to do until after his election (if it occurs) and he is able to sit down with the principals and see what is possible.

Kerry accuses Bush of having a policy of “more of the same” in Iraq. Yet if we look at the Kerry plans, outlined here, we find that they too are made up of items that could be labeled “more of the same”. He is going to: * Internationalize, because others must share the burden; * Train Iraqis, because they must be responsible for their own security; * Move forward with reconstruction because that's an important way to stop the spread of terror; and * Help Iraqis achieve a viable government, because it is up to them to run their own country.

All of these items are, of course, what Bush claims to be doing. But under these headings Kerry does spell out some new directions or at least emphases that would help. Probably the most useful (found under several headings) is the shifting of more of the development process at small and major levels, in gas fields and in election preparations, to a broader set of international actors as well as to the Iraqis themselves. There has been too much reliance on Americans, particularly in the major oil and construction projects. It is also interesting to note that while Kerry has had his doubts about making the democratic transformation of Iraq (or other states) a major aspect of American policy, in his Iraq program he suggests strengthening the democracy program by such actions as increased protection of the voting process, more training in civil society and the operation of political parties, and more support for judicial training.

On September 29 the NY Times published one of the most informative pieces on the Iraq war yet. The article was written around an incident map compiled by a private security company working in Iraq. They report that in the last 30 days there have been 2300 attacks, which is about average for this period of time. The point of the piece emphasized by the Times is that the insurgency is everywhere.

Yet studying the map rebuts this assumption and leads to very different conclusions. The number of incidents in the three southwestern provinces are 1, 2, and 7 respectively. For the provinces east of that, the figures are 1 and 6. Beyond that, on the Iranian border, they are 12 and 13. In the three Kurdish provinces in the northeast the figures are 1, 4, and 1. So out of the 18 provinces in the country 10 are essentially quiet. At the other extreme we have Baghdad with 997, Anbar (Falluja) with 332 and six others with 325, 283, 83, 123, 87, and 76 respectively. This certainly refutes Dr. Allawi’s recent claim in Washington that “14 to 15 of the provinces are completely safe”.

An overlay map of where the Sunni Arabs live shows that nearly all the incidents have been in Sunni Arab majority areas: Shi’a areas are remarkably free. The only Shi’a area with significant incidents is Basra with 87, and I believe there is a considerable Sunni Arab population there. It should be noted that in the Najaf and Karbala, areas where there has been heavy fighting recently, there were very few violent incidents in September. The kind of war that we had in Najaf is not a war against terrorists. It is essentially conventional and much easier to fight and win in a meaningful sense.

So the Coalition and the Interim Government are fighting the Sunni Arabs and not the Shi’a. As I have said many times, this fits the rational assumptions about why Iraqis might fight to fight “the invader”. The Sunni Arabs are the ones who will be left out in the cold in a democracy — or feel they will. The map also suggests that the Iranians are not playing a major role in anything that is going on. The map is remarkably free of incidents near the Iranian border, which, incidentally, is where the Shi’a and the Kurds live.

David Brooks gives a reasoned argument in Tuesday’s paper for the Administration’s thesis (supported in other days by many academics) that elections (as a road to democracy) are the best solution for terrorism. His example is the election of Napoleon Duarte in El Salvador in the 1980s. There is no doubt that this did play a part in moving social conflict in the state from the jungle to the election booth. Brook’s message is that as soon as we bring democracy, the “insurgency buster” to Iraq and Afghanistan, there will be an end to violence and insurgency.

There are several reasons to doubt the analogy. First, El Salvador, like all Latin American countries had been working on making democracy work since the 1820s. The people were used to elections, parties, and freedom of expression. The fact that these features of their systems were often set aside by recurrent times of trouble and dictatorships does not vitiate this experience. So when the elections were held in the 1980s, most Salvadorans were ready for them in a sense that Iraqis are not. Second, although they have had much less experience with democracy than Latin Americans, the peoples surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan have had brief episodes of democracy. The Syrians and Iranians have both had short bouts with democracy. Afghanistan had a democratic opening in the 1920s and more serious experience with democracy in the 1960s. Pakistan has been an off and on again democracy since its creation. Unfortunately, violence and repression followed these experiments. Third, we should also remember the experience in Yugoslavia. For forty years Tito ruled the many peoples of the land with an iron hand. When this was removed, the successor states all intended and tried to be democracies. But except for relatively homogeneous Slovenia, the result was a bloodletting that has still not worked itself completely out. Several successor states remain relatively peaceful only with the help of the international community.

In Post-USSR and post-colonial lands, the institutions of democracy were established and elections held immediately after the attainment of independence. Yet the end result for most of the “successor states” was dictatorship in a new form, this time covered with the fig leaf of democratic forms. India, and Caribbean Islands largely escaped this experience, and today in some of these states democracy is having a rebirth. But the record hardly suggests that elections are a sovereign solution for violence in emerging societies.

Yes, elections might help to calm things down, especially in Afghanistan. But they could also be no more than a starting point for a new cycle of violence, an experience only too common in the modern world.

There is a growing feeling that we are trapped in a cycle of violence in Iraq. Today, let us see some arguments on both sides of this judgment. On the one side are experts such as Juan Cole who continues to report in greater detail than the media the litany of deaths and destruction. By his estimate the level of violence has been steadily rising since June. He apologizes today for having reported too large a safe area previously (see our earlier posting). He now thinks only the three Kurdish provinces are relatively safe. On Sunday, Maureen Dowd led yet another Times Op-Ed charge against the mendacity or delusion of an administration that cannot admit such an obvious fact.

On the other side, I read a fabulous Times account in Monday’s paper by a reporter who accompanied a truck convoy from Kuwait to Baghdad. He reports that at any one time there are about 700 large trucks hauling goods in Iraq. The drivers include many Americans as well as Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Somalis and others. They realize it is dangerous, but continue for the money and apparently the thrill and camaraderie “of the road”. The trucks largely move in large convoys, with accompanying humvees. Yet the impression is that they are very lightly protected. The long line of closely packed fuel trucks pictured in the article must present an enticing target for terrorists with rockets (Cole reports a recent attack on just such a line). Nearly all the drivers have had their trucks attacked at one time or another. But the trucks are getting through both for the military and the civilian economy. As far as the extent to which the violence is concentrated, the general consensus of the drivers was that danger increased with every mile from Kuwait to Baghdad. The reporter’s convoy stopped for a while before making a night run into the city.

This made me stop and think a little. The willingness of these drivers to take these risks suggests that there is more of a chance than we might think. If we imagine that a truck is stopped or highjacked every week, that is only 52 a year out of 700 plus large carriers. When we think of the civilian deaths at the hand of terrorists, we must remember this is a country of 26 million. I suspect that if we did the calculation, the danger for Israeli and Palestinian civilians over the last several years has probably been a good deal greater than for Iraqi civilians once the early stages of the war were behind them. I saw a report the other day on homicides dealt with in Baghdad hospitals. The doctors said that they were mostly domestic homicides, often revenge killings or other killings for honor.

I am not willing to go the Administration route and put on rose-colored glasses. But it is well to remember once again that the media do report what happens, not what does not happen. This can give a warped view. (For example, killings in American schools have been going down for many years; this would never be understood through watching or reading the media.)

Noah Feldman, a noted authority on the current situation in Iraq, writes in Friday’s Op-Ed that elections in Iraq would be worse than useless if they take place without the Sunni Triangle’s full participation. His argument is several fold.

Feldman regards Sistani’s latest demand that the elections be held in January and that the government parties abandon the single list approach to be actually a bargaining ploy to strengthen the hand of his supporters in making election arrangements. Sistani believes that instead of the 55% Shi’a population that the list is being based on the real number is more like 70%. He wants the list to be based on 70%. Feldman points out that the January election is important because those elected will rewrite the constitution. Sistani intervenes because he wants the Shi’as to dominate that process. Turning to the Sunni, Feldman notes that they are used to running the country. They are also clearly able at this juncture to mount an effective insurgency. Were they to be left out of the election process, they would turn decisively against the democracy project and persist as an uncontrollable population in the heart of the country. Therefore, unifying the country will require both the suppression of the insurgency, proving the insurgents cannot win and “the carrot” of being offered an effective role in the political process. He believes this offer will be enough to get the Sunni clerics who have told their followers to sit out the election to change their minds. He realizes this will take some time, but believes it would be a disaster to not postpone the election until such time as the Sunnis are ready.

Whether Feldman is right or wrong depends in large part on what the country really looks like. If as Allawi and the American Administration claim, there are really only three provinces where elections could not be held today, that is one thing. But there is considerable dispute over where control is adequate and where it is not. Juan Cole’s position is that the elections now could only be held in only nine provinces: the three Kurdish provinces, Baghdad, and five provinces in the south (including Karbala and Basra). Cole’s position on Baghdad is unclear because he says that Allawi included Baghdad in the three no-goes where elections could still not be held, and Cole certainly is aware of lack of control in much of Baghdad. Perhaps Cole’s map where he shows Baghdad white is simply a mistake. One thing to remember is that out of a population of about 25 million, 6 million live in the Baghdad region. So if that is in the pacified area, great, but if it remains out in the cold as Allawi and others say now (and as I would guess from the news), then it is hard to see how a “national election” could be out.

Perhaps the greatest objection to the Feldman approach is that it is unclear why the Sunnis would ever “come in out of the cold”. They will lose control no matter how the constitution is written, if it is at all democratic. Moreover, for whatever reasons, they hate Americans and those who cooperate with them. This unfortunate hatred cannot be wished away. The longer the war goes on in the Sunni Triangle, the more Sunnis are killed, and the more individual Sunnis come to feel the need for revenge against the Americans and their allies. I do not see how “suppression” under these conditions will produce a country ready for a democratic vote.

Today’s paper reports that the Ayatollah Sistani is again expressing his concerns about the planned elections. He seems to have two fears. First, he objects to the fact that the major political parties, all groups that had an existence outside the country during Saddam’s day (but not only outside), are meeting together to decide on a common ticket that will be presented to the people without offering the chance for others, particularly local leaders, to run effectively for office. Their argument is that this will mean a more unified country after the elections. His argument is that it will mean a less legitimate process. Second, he is worried that all the talk about security being too poor for the elections to occur is just a pretext to put them off. He thinks they should go ahead where there is enough peace, and that means most of the country in his view. (This is a view I share.)

One never knows why the Ayatollah injects himself into the process in this way. But leaving aside the obviously important “real concerns”, he probably also feels a need to counter the thought that al-Sadr is the only Shi’a leader that stands up for the masses. He wants to show that he is there for them, that he will not allow the shenanigans of the foreigners and the Sunnis to deny the Shi’a masses their right to rule Iraq.

Regardless of his reasoning, one can draw a positive conclusion from his statements (as usual cloudily expressed through a representative). This is that he is taking the process seriously. He still wants, as he has said in the past, for a legitimate vote to take place. He still believes it can. He wants to have a Shi’a run Iraq and believes that if the present process is carried through on schedule, this will result. He is suspicious, or wants to show that he is suspicious, of the Allawi government and the Americans. But if he holds their feet to the fire, all will be well. (He must see more bright lights than many commentators do.)

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an old-fashioned war where we could judge success or lack of success by the movement of front lines? Iraq and Afghanistan, indeed the whole so-called “War on Terrorism”, confuses everyone, even those who do not have a pre-determined wish to see events turn out poorly or well.

President Bush tells the United Nations that we are building democracy in Iraq, never mind a few stumbles along the way. Prime Minister Allawi assures us that what we are seeing in Iraq is the last gasp of the insurgents, made desperate by their inability to derail progress toward democracy. Meantime the killing goes on in Iraq. I am particularly discouraged by the thought that for many Iraqis the issue is not so much deciding on which side would be best for the country but rather the inescapable rules of revenge. With every person killed in Iraq, no matter whether we were the direct killers or not, there is likely to be group of persons united by family or other ties that feel that they are duty bound to exact revenge on the Americans (or other foreigners, they are not always that discriminating). I am not sure we can get over this hurdle. Yet Allawi’s words also remind me of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Many observers saw that as a defeat for the communists (their losses were tremendous, they failed to hold any cities — they never had any Fallujas). Yet it was at this point that many Americans decided they had had enough. There may or may not be any moral in this.

Afghanistan looks a little better. Today’s NYT Op-Ed page had two pieces. One said that bad planning and unwillingness to put adequate forces and resources into the country has resulted in a smoldering disaster. The presidential election in going ahead in spite of a lack of control over much of the country. The economy has come to depend largely on the opium crop. Yet even this critic sees some positive gains, particularly in the education of girls and the number registering to vote. The other piece paints a much more optimistic view of what is happening, what we have come to know as a Bush-eye view. I believe that one of the best parts of the Afghan situation, one that ironically may be due to the fact we have not invested very much in the effort, is that Hamid Karzai and the Kabul government is taken much more seriously than Allawi’s government in Iraq. Hatred of the foreigner does not seem to be the most salient fact in the violence in much of the country. This is due, in another part, to the fact that the structure of the country was not torn apart by an invasion as it was in Iraq. The old ethnic and tribal groups, often led by what we call “warlords” were never driven out. They either never left or easily returned (as did Karzai). In fact, some of their units played a major role in bringing down the Taliban. The Karzai government also benefits from its authentication by the Grand Assembly or loya jirga that was carefully planned out of the country and then convened with comprehensive participation within the country. Along with the involvement of the former King, this gave Karzai a credibility that similar efforts carried through in the more hostile redoubts of Baghdad simply did not obtain. Would that it would have been possible to approach Iraq in the same fashion.

If we are to escape from the trap recent policies have led us into, we must take urgent and dramatic steps to reestablish our credibility and thereby reestablish our leadership. Only then can we pursue the essential goals of any American administration: the protection of American interests at home and abroad and progress toward the achievement of a better life for all people.

At a minimum, the following steps are necessary:

1. Make careful and judicious use of our resources. This means avoiding spending beyond our means except in clearly exceptional times. In military terms, it means undertaking actions only when we have clear objectives and when we can apply overwhelming force. It means ending actions only after our objectives have been attained. Following this path, we will reduce casualties on all sides and preserve the ability of the country to respond in a timely fashion to other crises as they arise.

2. Establish and maintain friendly working relationships with all responsible governments, even those with which we have important policy differences. In the case of Iraq specifically, this means working with the governments of all adjoining states to help contain the movement of supplies to the insurgents and to assist in the development of the country. In the case of Russia, it means avoiding unnecessary criticisms of their internal policies and offering assistance in their struggle against terrorism and ethnic unrest. It also means taking a more even-handed approach to Russia’s relations with its former socialist republics.

3. Play a more supportive and cooperative part in international organizations or conferences, whether the subject be environmental policy, trade policy, nuclear proliferation, or international courts. We must be seen as playing a positive rather than disruptive role in creating a new international order, as well as in the creation of new regional organizations or systems.

4. Work for the extension of freedom (democracy and human rights) in the world through peaceful means. We can do this through offering democratic assistance to countries that ask for it. Many countries desire our assistance in improving their security, judicial, or electoral systems - or in the building of a civil society. We should remain a haven for exiles working for freedom in countries still without freedom. We should publicize our impression of the degree to which the performance of some states falls below international standards. Official condemnations of the behavior of other governments should, however, only be made in exceptional circumstances. Finally, we should support freedom through our example, through inviting people throughout the world to become acquainted with the better aspects of our way of life. We should, of course, be sure to continue working on improving the level of freedom and democracy in the United States.

5. Assist in the creation and maintenance of chains of nonaggression agreements throughout the world. We might, for example, help to create and ensure a nonaggression agreement running from Lebanon and Turkey to India and Bangladesh. This would include specific guarantees to the countries involved that we will not threaten them and will come to their assistance if threatened, thereby strengthening their ability to develop nonthreatening relations with the countries around them.

6. Strive to develop along with other existing nuclear weapon powers a more responsible and equitable nuclear nonproliferation program. As it is, rising states with nuclear ambitions have no reason not to use the same logic that we do in imagining that nuclear weapons makes a country invulnerable through deterrence. We can say little that is convincing to the Iranians as long as we have allowed Israel, Pakistan, and India to possess these weapons and as long as we show little sign of actually dismantling the overwhelming nuclear deterrent capacity that we maintain. In the end, an effective nonproliferation program will be one in which all nuclear weapon countries move together toward a radical reduction in their stockpiles and radical change in their nuclear weapon doctrines. It is past time that the United States take a lead in an effort to develop such a program.

With an approach along these lines, we will begin to look more like a leader than a bully, and we may find it easier to induce other states and peoples to help us extricate ourselves from those projects in which we have floundered.