Iraq and Afghanistan

An ABC report the other night on the vulnerability of American trains to terrorists reminded me once again of the missed opportunities for enhancing American security that have been occasioned by the ill-timed and ill-planned invasion of Iraq. ABC found that an explosive package could easily be placed in an upper bin on a train car and stay there without being noticed for hundreds of miles (for example, from New York to D.C.) No one was sent down the aisles during the course of most journeys across the country to even make a cursory search for such packages. The train administrator and others interviewed said "they simply did not have enough resources to do more".

Let us then do a little back of the envelope calculation. We have had and have about 140,000 military in Iraq. Let us imagine a situation without Iraq where government resources had instead been focused on homeland security and defeating al-Qaida. I would imagine that we would still have dispatched and kept a considerable force in the Persian Gulf, say 20,000. I think we would place in Afghanistan about 40,000 of this number (in addition to the sometimes 20,000 we have there now). Such a force would have a much better chance of capturing Osama and his chief lieutenants. It could better protect development projects throughout the country, and reduce the fears of voters in upcoming elections.

This leaves 80,000. Let us first set aside a fast reaction force of 20,000 for international emergencies as these come to be identified by the United Nations. This might include providing forces in Haitian crises or now perhaps in Darfur. Having such a force to help in international projects when needed would improve the global reputation of the United States, thereby improving access to intelligence developed by others. Then we might retrain and redeploy the remaining 60,000 for internal protection. This would allow us to greatly augment investigative forces on docks for baggage checking and at critical entry points into the United States. To return to our previous example, we could assign two men or women to major Amtrak or commuter trains, to make occasional walks up and down the aisles looking for anything suspicious. If we assume that half of the 60,000 could be assigned at any one time to such duty, this would mean that 15,000 trains that are now unprotected in any way could be covered in this manner every day. (This overkill. There are only 1400 amtrak and commuter trains in the Northeast running on any weekday.) This might not be the best way to use such a home security force. But the reader can easily see how it might reduce the pleas that no more can be done for protection because of "insufficient resources".

The tragedy in the Caucasus has caused a great deal of discussion of Russia’s role in Chechnya. Putin has tried to say it is simply "international terrorism" as a means of identifying his cause with ours. U. S. Government officials have apparently said that perhaps an accommodation with Chechnya should be made. An Op-Ed by Daniel Pipes carries this a step further saying the problem would be solved by granting independence to Chechnya, a people the Russians have not treated too kindly in the past. (It occurred to me that we should tell the Israelis that their problems might also cease were they to grant the Palestinians what they want!) Today another Op-Ed says the opposite, that is that Putin has tried hard to reach an accommodation short of independence and that for him independence is not an option. My opinion is that we should not unnecessarily make enemies in Russia by using our cold war animosities as a crutch for reducing Moscow's power still further.

This is all part of a difficult and many-sided discussion that will not end soon. The questions are: "What is terrorism", "What is international terrorism?" and "What is the proper or most useful relationship of the United States to terrorisms of different kinds?"

It is clear that as a nation we have one clear terrorist enemy, an enemy that we can loosely label "al-Qaida". It is not a unified, closely integrated movement. It plays a hand in the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the terrorism in Indonesia and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as most of terrorist events in Europe and Russia. Al-Qaida is not, in my judgment, a major player in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Neither is it the only or even a major player in the insurgencies in Chechnya. But in this and other cases we can see that terrorists and insurgents are being assisted by and copying methods associated with al-Qaida. My position is that in so far as al-Qaida is involved, we should assist any country affected by their activities, whether or not we agree entirely with the politics involved. One reason is to improve our intelligence and knowledge base for our struggle against our primary "terrorist" enemy. On the other hand, where this link is not clear, we should not automatically be supportive just because someone has labeled the violence "terrorism".

Partly with Israeli urging, many is Washington want to emphasis the "terrorist" activity of the Iranians, directly and through Hezbollah, a sometimes violent political grouping headquartered in Lebanon. But directly or indirectly, Iran's terrorism has not been transferred in any major way to the United States and Europe, although there was apparently some actions against Israelis in Argentina. In Iraq and Afghanistan Iran has played a hand in assisting military and political groupings (in fact they aided us in the early stages of our latest Afghanistan adventure). They may be sending in weapons to Iraq, probably to the Mahdi Army, but I have seen little proof. In fact I saw a reference that they were actually assisting a variety of Shi'a groups, as a means of maintaining support for the future. In my mind this hardly makes them a terrorist state.

Today for the first time, Rumsfeld and company admitted that things were not all they should be in Iraq. They are worried about not meeting the political timetable. This was strongly reinforced by a segment of the Lehrer show in which two military authorities (retired generals) discussed what is happening. They were both very negative. They do not see the new Iraqi forces being able to do anything any time soon. They note that a number of cities are out of control and they do not see how they will be brought under control in time for the elections. They noted the steady increase in attacks on Americans and the destruction of pipelines. They noted the improvement in both the arms and the tactics of the insurgents. These men (and other experts, I am summarizing from both news and TV here) did not feel that there was widespread cooperation between Shi’a and Sunni, but they did say that many now see Baathist seculars and the religious extremists cooperating in their attacks on Americans. One sign of this is that the extremists have pulled away from the imposition of Taliban-style Islamic rules in the cities under insurgent control (apparently to satisfy the Baathists).

The experts were asked what is to be done. Their answer was essentially that there was nothing to be done. We could do marginal things, but the implication was that the flow of events was against us. They agreed that the enemy for too many Iraqis has become the existence of American forces in their country. They did not see any change in the situation unless these forces left. Yet they also implied that if they left, “our Iraqis” could not handle the situation on their own.

This suggests that we are back in April 2004 where the name of the game again becomes finding an exit strategy. I suggest the reader review the posts during that period, particularly here. Of course, I overreacted then. Maybe I have again.

If there is a way out, it would seem to me to be a concentration on our strengths. We still have a significant portion of modernized Iraqis in Baghdad and other cities wanting to see the Interim Government and the Americans succeed. We still have the Kurds in the north. Most of the Shiites in the south are potentially on our side. They really do not want to cede the country to the Sunnis and Muqtada. Given this situation, two steps must be taken now. First, enlist the active help of the Kurdish forces outside their homeland. Second, arm the anti-Sadrist Shiite militias that existed in embryonic form formerly in the south. Given leadership and weapons and confidence they might turn the tide in the areas in which Shiites are in the majority, especially outside Baghdad. The great Shi’a divines do not want to see their chance for a successful Shiite state dribble away. But right now they and their followers do not have the confidence or weapons to act effectively. This approach must be buttressed by an American promise to stay only until (some benchmark here), thereby removing the accusation of treason that can be hurled against anyone who helps the Americans as long as they stay.

The fatalities count for American and coalition forces for August was again up. It was up to 2.42 a day on average. To give some perspective on this, the figure is considerably more than June and July, about the same as May, but still much less than the two high points of fatalities during the occupation (last November and April). However, during the first 7 days of September, the average was up to 3.29, a figure that will be raised by today’s loss of at least five more soldiers. This should be understood in the context of several other statistical observations (rather than facts). It is reported, for example, on tonight’s news and in today’s paper that the number of attacks on Americans has increased dramatically in recent weeks. Since these seem to have resulted in a relatively low increase in fatalities, apparently the military has adopted at least safer strategies if not more effective. It also appears that Iraqi losses have been very heavy in recent weeks. First and foremost these are losses among the insurgents. The Mahdi Army has lost heavily. This attrition has started up again in Sadr City where after a lull of several days major attacks were made on American forces. Losses are also frequently heavy in the government’s security forces. Losses must also be heavy among “neutral” civilians, particularly in those areas such as Falluja where the Americans are bombing heavily rather than trying to retake urban areas. I am sure these attacks sometimes kill many insurgents, and the Americans feel they must do something in these areas. But such attacks in urban areas unavoidably kill civilians.

The Administration still talks as though they do not understand what is going on. I hope they have reports that support their conclusions. What I look forward is new evidence that the Interim Government is increasing its presence and control beyond the narrow confines patrolled by Coalition forces. The decimation of its leadership continues. They almost got the Governor of Baghdad today. The hoped for calming down of the Mahdi Army has obviously collapsed once again in Baghdad. Once again there is dancing in the streets at the deaths of Americans. We may not have to face an unraveling of our position just yet if ever, but some day we may have to, and I hope for the sake of both Iraqis and Americans that there is more to our leaving than cut and run. Unfortunately, we are now in an election season in which any admission that things are not going well seems to be unthinkable, thereby creating a dreamworld in which wishing for democracy is the same as creating democracy.

A great deal of nonsense is written about bargaining with terrorists. Cheney tells us as so many do that there is no point in bargaining — "just kill them". In Iraq we have seen that bargaining is sometimes fruitful, sometimes not. The question, of course, is not the value of bargaining with an abstraction like terrorism or a generic class of people called "terrorists". We must be more specific. Before making too many generalizations we need to ask about which class of terrorists we are dealing with. Clearly in some cases bargaining with terrorists is not fruitful; also clearly in some cases, not bargaining with terrorists is equally unfruitful. Israel has had many years to bypass "bargaining" with its terrorists by "just killing them". It doesn't seem to work very well because there are too many Palestinians.

As a first cut at the problem, we must distinguish from all other terrorist groups those small cells, such as the "Red Brigades", that can actually be eliminated or reduced to ineffectiveness by police or military action. Groups that are based on a widespread disaffection within a population, such as that of Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, or Ulster cannot in any simple sense be eliminated by force, except perhaps by actions bordering on a holocaust. Toughness in these situations can be counterproductive, can manufacture new terrorists as fast as they are eliminated. The people of a disaffected area (and this seldom means all or even most of the population of the area) may be remarkably resilient under pressure. The people who caused the recent Beslan school tragedy in the Caucasus apparently intended to be killed. No matter how tough the Russians might have been they could not have convinced these people. Very often, as we have seen, an accommodation occurs. This has happened in Algeria, in the Basque area of Spain, and in Ulster. The accommodation often does not end the story. Many remain dissatisfied. But it helps the society to carry on more peacefully than before. Even if the central government loses some of its values, as in Algeria, it is a useful way to cut its losses.

This suggests that in many situations the issue is not whether one can bargain with the terrorists but rather whether there is a terrorist support and recruiting community that can be affected by actions that a government can take. For example, al-Qaida exists against a background of consistent (from their perspective at least) American support of Israel in Palestine and of support by the United States of dictatorial regimes whose leaders live most unislamic lives (such as those of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates). If we were perceived to change these policies, over time the community of Muslims willing to support al-Qaida would wither. People now in al-Qaida might remain as fanatic as ever, but the level of recruitment and the funds available would decline. If a democratic government with minimal American influence were established in Iraq, then the support community would also decline. If we played a more positive role in the development and education of the Pakistani people, this would also reduce the number of people that became involved in terrorism.

To take an even more indirect tact, if we were able to help in the development of Muslim countries, so that their young people had greater hope for success in their lives, then the pool of potential terrorists would decline. All of these effects would be hard to trace and would occur over many years, but this does not affect the likelihood that they would "work".

Turning to more immediate, face-to-face, situations, we must again note differences. The Mahdi Army is an army of Shiites whose stated goal is the expulsion of Americans from Iraq. However, their goals are also more complicated. They include the increase of the power of their leader and increase of the power of the Shi'a in Iraq. Negotiators could (and I expect have) show them how these goals might be attained by easier means than blowing up people — and this might be done at the same time that American and Iraqi forces have shown them how hard success through arms alone will be. Many of the tribal and Sunni religious leaders can similarly be bargained with. However, terrorists who will only be satisfied by an extremist religious revolution in Iraq (a growing group) or an extremist nationalist revolution (probably a declining group) have goals so far from ours that there is little to bargain strategically about, although tactically in a situation such as Falluja we can of course bargain. For extremists the goal is to bring down the whole recovery enterprise by engendering as much violence and confusion as possible. But even here, by showing in the field that this goal is ultimately hopeless, we can dry up support and recruitment. This is not what is usually called "bargaining", but perhaps it should be included in the discussion.

As was reported in an earlier posting, the theologian who has given a green light in the past to Muqtada was the Ayatollah al-Haeri, now resident in Qom, Iran. Apparently this is new news only to me. For the last year al-Haeri has been distancing himself from al-Sadr. He has stripped al-Sadr of his position as his representative in Iraq and announced that he did not support the idea of the Mahdi Army in the first place. This is quite important since Muqtada does not have the theological credentials for leadership in the Shi’a world and had been relying on al-Haeri to provide them. One of the reasons for al-Haeri’s change of heart was a message earlier from al-Sistani and his group telling al-Haeri that holes in the Najaf shrine roof had come from the guns of the Mahdi Army. During the Saddam years al-Haeri escaped from Iraq and published a book giving the case for armed resistance. His office no longer gives out the book, saying that since Hussein is gone the book is irrelevant. Al-Haeri remains an advocate of Iranian-style theocracy, something rejected by most mainline theologians in Iraq, but he apparently feels his objectives can now be attained through the political process.