Iraq and Afghanistan

Because of other commitments, the reader should not expect additional posts to this blog for the next two weeks.

Juan Cole reprints in his blog the opinion of Professor Kahl of Minnesota on the apparent counterinsurgency strategies of the United States since the beginning of the Iraq war. Let me summarize briefly Professor Kahl's points. He divides the COIN operations into four phases.

Phase 1: Denial. Until April 2004, there was a general denial that an insurgency existed. The result was that the different commanders were pretty much on their own. Some concentrated on providing the population with protection, while others conducted aggressive search and destroy operations. This phase ended with the Fallujah uprising and the revolt of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Phase 2: Learning Curve. The military woke up to a problem and began developing new strategies and tactics. It took more seriously training Iraqi forces. Yet the bulk of the effort still went in to alienating search and destroy efforts. Only in early 2005, did the leaders begin to systematically learn from their mistakes.

Phase 3: Getting it. The military now began a number of experiments, especially in Tal Afar and Ramadi to place the emphasis on the protection of the people. This effort was, however, compromised by two other factors. First, the military had begun in 2004 to consolidate its basing by closing many of its smaller bases in the countryside. The was a natural development of the idea that we needed to reduce the Iraqi perception that their country was under occupation. But it also meant that the forces were less able to implement the people protection mission. The other problem was that we simply did not have enough forces for the hold strategy. We attempted to fill the gap with Iraqis. But this effort took more time than had been imagined.

Phase 4: Doing it. In January 2006, Bush announced a new strategy that would make possible the achievements foreseen in Phase 3. We would bring in more troops and we would assign more to population protection. Kahl notes that this was not actually a new strategy. The strategy had been created in Phase 3. But it was an effort to provide additional forces that might make the "clear, hold, and build" option actually work. But as Kahl further notes, this might be too little and too late.

Juan Cole leads us to consider some recent polls. A recent survey by the British Opinion Research Business (ORB) showed that Iraqis had remarkable confidence in spite of all that has happened. Support for Prime Minister Maliki was much more widespread than had been expected. In their polls, increase in support compared with September was quite dramatic. Not surprisingly more Shi'a preferred the present system to Saddam's, yet the difference was not as great as might have been expected (51% of Sunnis preferred the Baathist regime; 66% preferred Maliki). Only 15% of Shiites believed they were in a civil war, while 40% of Sunnis believed this. (I would note that this was a countrywide poll, and many of those reported as Sunni were in fact Sunni Kurds, a fact that should temper our surprise at the results.) Yet it might be discouraging to the surge folks that 53% nationwide thought that the security situation would improve after foreign troops left, while only 26% thought it would get worse.

According to Cole, the most recent USA Today poll showed that 83% of Shiites and 97% of Sunni Arabs oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq; 75% of Kurds support them. By more than 3 to 1, Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making the security situation worse. The respondents want the foreigners out, but only 35% want them to leave immediately, perhaps six months to a year would be best. 40% of Shiites want a theocracy governed by Islamic law. 58% want a strongman to rule. Even 34% of Kurds reject democracy. This seems to contrast remarkably with the growing support for Maliki, who is, after all, the first person to come to power by a more or less democratic process in a long time. I think the association of a foreign occupation force with "democracy" has given the system a bad name for the moment. In any event, few Iraqis are likely to be willing to fight for democracy. What they are willing to fight for, other than security, is still up in the air.

In the last few days reports have reached us that severe fighting has broken out along the Afghan border (South Waziristan) between the traditional Pashtun tribal groups and a large group of Uzbek jihadists who have moved in from Central Asia in the last few years. The Uzbeks have a force of as many as 2000 fighters; they are said to form the backbone of the al-Qaeda forces in the area. For years now the Pashtuns have supported them for religious reasons, because they brought money with them from Central Asia, and because of the tribals' legendary support for guests. But the guests have outstayed their welcome. They are said to have killed 200 tribal elders in the last few years. So far the Pashtuns seem to have been successful in their campaign to rid themselves of theit guests. These battles seem to reinforce the argument of Rory Stewart (see Wednesday post) that in Afghanistan less may be more. Many problems would be best left to the locals leaders to sort out. They do not so much support islamic jihad and the taliban as they hate and detest foreigners who try to tell them what to do.

Rory Stewart, who works out of Kabul, is presently a guest Op-Ed writer for the New York Times. He has been making a concerted effort to tell us, and the West, to "back off"in Afghanistan. This is very counter-intuitive for me. I was one of those who counseled when we went to Afghanistan after 9/11 to be sure and "do it right" This meant to follow the post-World War II example of what we did in Germany and Japan: massive assistance, total occupation; reeducation on many levels etc. According to this analysis, we sent far too few troops to Afghanistan and spent far too little. We still might have been right, but Stewart makes one wonder. In the present environment of limited resources and reluctant publics in both Europe and America, he is certainly worth listening to.

His basic idea is that the Afghanis simply do not understand the priorities we place on our assistance. They increasingly feel that we have spent a lot of money and accomplished very little. Some are even nostalgic for the return of the Russians. "At least, they built bridges, roads and airports". Instead of talking in general terms about building democracy or reforming the economy, we should talk to the Afghans more, find out what they really want and need, and help them with that. He finds the Afghans have responded favorably to, "excellent models, from U.N. Habitat to the Aga Khan network, which has restored historic buildings, run rural health projects, and established a five-star hotel and Afghanistan’s mobile telephone network.". And he speaks of a functioning soap manufacturing business that an American woman has promoted.

In many areas we seem to be fighting the people instead of the terrorists. He finds that in many areas our opponents have no fixed political agenda; they are certainly uninterested in attacking Europe or the United States. He reports a Dutch experience in one area where they found that if left alone, the Taliban defeated themselves with their ideological preaching. He contrasts Dutch inaction to the British offensives in the South which accomplished little besides the alienation of large areas. He asserts that "Pacifying the tribal areas is a task for Afghans, working with Pakistan and Iran. It will involve moving from the overcentralized state and developing formal but flexible relationships with councils in all their varied village forms".

His conclusion is that we were more correct than we knew when we sent only limited forces into the country after 9/11. We may be making a mistake in trying to reverse this policy. I guess Afghanistan is not Iraq. (Or maybe it is?)

In the last few days the Times has given us a summary of the recent economic penetration by Iran into Iraq. We could view this negatively, as many in Washington are wont to do. But from the viewpoint of all but the hardest line Sunnis, it should be considered as a real harbinger of hope for the future.

The stores are full of Iranian produce, air conditioners, automobiles and much else. Several Iraqi cities, including Basra, depend on Iran for their electricity. Iran has loaned Iraq one billion dollars and is establishing a bank in Baghdad. Iran is helping to relieve a severe gasoline shortage in Iraq by bringing gasoline in from Turkmenistan. Iranian trade with the Kurdish region now amounts to one billion dollars a year. Iranian tourism, particularly to the shrines in Karbala and Najaf has added considerably to the economy in some areas. Iran has assisted in the building of tourist facilities in both cities.