Symposium: If We Fail
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 12, 2007
In this special edition of Frontpage Symposium, we have invited a distinguished panel to discuss the consequences of failure in Iraq. Many anti-war critics and legislators are pressing for a premature evacuation from Iraq, but do they understand the ramifications of such a move? Do most Americans, and most political observers, truly understand what is really at stake in Iraq? We thought we would spell it all out in detail in this symposium.
Our guests are:
Steven Schippert, co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness and managing editor for ThreatsWatch.org.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the director of FDD's Project on Religion, Politics, and Radicalism. He is the author of the new book My Year Inside Radical Islam, which documents his time working at the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, an international Wahhabi charity that proved to be an al-Qaeda financier.
Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, the author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. He is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
Ralph Peters, a retired military officer, a popular media commentator, and the author of 22 books. An opinion columnist for the New York Post, he is a member of the boards of contributors at USA Today and Armchair General magazine, a columnist for Armed Forces Journal, and a frequent guest on television and radio. He is the author of the new book, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century.
and
Kimberly Kagan, an affiliate of Harvard's John M. Olin Institute of Strategic Studies and executive director of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
FP: Steven Schippert, Ralph Peters, Daveed Gartenstein Ross, Kimberly Kagan and Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Steven Schippert, let us begin with you.
What are the consequences if we fail in Iraq?
Schippert: Well, in order to assess consequences of failure, which would be de facto signified by premature withdrawal while still in close and deadly contact with the enemy, we must first understand what the Iraq theater is to the enemy. That is to say, not what it means to/for us (ie "Bush's War," "Democratization of Iraq," et al). Because victory, however you define it, is the successful imposition of our will. By definition then, defeat is ceding the imposition of the enemy's will. So, what is his will?
The enemy principally includes al-Qaeda, Iran, and Syria in the Iraqi theater. For this discussion and for sake of space and word count, I will focus on al-Qaeda. And for al-Qaeda, as can be clearly seen by their own public communications as well as in captured internal communications, Iraq is their own central front in their war against the Jews and Crusaders, declared long ago in 1998. It doesn't matter what we think it is or what anyone thinks of how or why we went there. And it must also be acknowledged that anywhere we had gone in lieu of Iraq would have thus been their central front.
So if we withdraw from Iraq, we cede Iraq, in whole or in part. So what is al-Qaeda's will? The death of Jews and Crusaders on the path to the re-establishment of the greater regional caliphate, of which Iraq is a part. By accepting defeat in Iraq, we largely disengage and move on from the one front where we are engaging (and killing) the al-Qaeda enemy in combat. (Some will say Afghanistan, too. But that is an illusion, as killing hundreds of Taliban cannon fodder conscripts hurled over the Pakistani border is not engaging and killing al-Qaeda. Not by a long shot.) And if the enemy is disengaged by us in Iraq, in short order al-Qaeda will shift resources to tip the next domino in their Quest for the caliphate.
Where that would be would be a matter of both likelihood of success and necessity. And, with the demonstration of flagging American will emboldening a well-organized enemy, it may not necessarily be a single target. On al-Qaeda's declared short list are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Jordan, and - largely for regional public consumption, the Palestinian Territories (as a means to strike Israel, the other unifying target beyond America). There are clearly others, such as Zawahiri's own Egypt. But the previously listed are likely perceived as either more critical in the immediate or more attainable.
So, while many others continue to ponder the consequences of failure in Iraq by focusing on Iraq and what happens there, the true consequences that will further shape this generational conflict are well beyond Iraq's borders and will be chosen and defined by our enemy. Initiative lost. And an emboldened al-Qaeda is thus primed and charged to make a move on one or more after seeing blood in the water and fear in American eyes.
- Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is very high on al-Qaeda's list. Consider that while the last assassination attempt on Musharraf was being executed, Hamid Gul was in Islamabad meeting with military leaders. It doesn't take much to plausibly conclude that succession was being discussed. And Gul has openly stated several times that he seeks an Islamist nuclear power in Pakistan aligned with an Islamist Saudi Arabia after the monarchy falls. Nuclear weapons and oil (massive influx of internal terror funding) gained through conquest.
- Saudi Arabia remains led by wealthy individuals in the monarchy who seek their own survival and wealth preservation first and foremost. And there are members who are already sympathetic to if not aligned with al-Qaeda. Conquering Saudi Arabia may not require massive operations and a decapitation and defeat of the monarchy through uprising or attacks. It is not beyond plausible to envision a Wahabbi Saudi Arabian monarchy shift from a flagging America to an open alignment with al-Qaeda for the purposes of its own survival. This allows them to stay alive and wealthy. And the compromise would allow bin Laden and al-Qaeda to gain control of the Peninsula, the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina (immensely significant in the Muslim world), and significant control of oil operations and funds - all with minimal bloodshed and expense of resources. The global energy markets would hit a frenzied scramble and energy-dependent economies worldwide would be hammered, including America perhaps most of all. The world would be shocked by such a development. I would not, sadly, after a US withdrawal from Iraq.
- Somalia is unfinished business for al-Qaeda. If not for the persistent presence of Ethiopian troops since December, perhaps it may have been finished business by now. The Somali effort gains from al-Qaeda's newly freed resources after an American Iraq withdrawal. To what degree depends on where al-Qaeda places it on its revised (and initially likely fluid) priority list post-Iraq. The same can be said for the erst of al-Qaeda's African Crescent of growing terrorist networks from Morocco through Sudan and to Somalia and Eritrea.
Jordan and others are foregone from the above bullets, but not from al-Qaeda's.
It is sad irony that America is popularly described as "imperialist" both at home and abroad, and Iraq decried as a 'War for Oil' by the enemy and American commentators alike. Yet, all the while, al-Qaeda's caliphate mission is by very definition imperialist, one domino at a time, and their quest for control of Saudi Arabia in particular largely based on conquering and seizing the riches of oil resources for terrorist aims and upon religious grounds. Who's the Crusader, really?
In summary, so long as we continue to focus on how we define the conflict rather than how the enemy defines it, we will continue to make missteps and the American public and much of the West will continue to be surprised by the actions of the enemy...even though they clearly state their intent, aims and plans.
The consequences of failure in Iraq are myriad, including an enemy emboldened and strengthened who seeks to target us on our own soil. Stated here are some important and real regional implications (and enemy next steps) most overlooked by observers who fail to judge the consequences of failure through the eyes of a victorious enemy.
Gunaratna: It was a mistake for the US to go to Iraq. Before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, I wrote:
Iraq and Al Qaeda: No Evidence of Alliance
Rohan Gunaratna
The International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
The direct and immediate threat to the United States, its allies and other friendly nations is terrorism, not Iraq. A U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to disarm the regime of Saddam Hussein, especially if it is seen to lack the authority of the UN Security Council, will weaken the international campaign to counter Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
There is overwhelming evidence that Iraq is not complying with UN resolutions to account for its chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons programs. However, the case that Saddam's regime has helped Al Qaeda is weak. Iraqi intelligence agents have met with Al Qaeda leaders and operatives, but there is no conclusive evidence of Iraqi assistance to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda operatives have traveled in and out of Baghdad, but there is no evidence of state sponsorship. Since U.S. intervention in Afghani-stan in October 2001, I have examined several tens of thousands of documents recovered from Al Qaeda and Taliban sources. In addition to listening to 240 tapes taken from Al Qaeda's central registry, I debriefed several Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. I could find no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and interviews indicated that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a secular leader, as an infidel. Saddam has sponsored terrorism against Israel, Kuwait and Iran. He has provided money and weapons to such terrorist groups, but not chemical, biological or radiological material. He did not transfer chemical and biological weapons to terrorist groups, probably because he knew that they could one day be used against his secular regime.
A number of key Muslim countries in Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, have cooperated with the United States in countering terrorism. In addition to weakening this work, a unilateral invasion of Iraq would strengthen the popularity of Islamist political parties at the expense of moderate groups. This would make it easier for terrorist groups to operate.
Islamist propaganda has already identified the United States as the main enemy and sensitized Muslims in their Middle East and Asian heartlands, as well as Muslim migrant communities in North America, Europe and Australasia. An invasion of Iraq would give a new lease on life to existing and emerging terrorist groups.
Although it was a mistake to invade Iraq, it will be a FATAL mistake to withdraw from Iraq. The same way Al Qaeda and other groups used Afghanistan to attack the US, Al Qaeda and OTHER JIHAD groups will use Iraq to attack the US, Europe and their friends.
Gartenstein-Ross: I agree with Dr. Rohan Gunaratna that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, both for the reasons enumerated in his International Herald Tribune op-ed and others—such as U.S. intelligence’s massive overestimation of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs. But like Dr. Gunaratna, I believe that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would not only compound the error but would also have far-reaching consequences for the region and for the course of the global war on terror. Here I would like to focus on four primary negative consequences that would flow from withdrawing too quickly.
The first, as Steve Schippert states, is an al-Qaeda safe haven that would impact the entire region. Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri said as much in a summer 2005 letter to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi where he outlined the “incremental goals” of the jihad in Iraq: “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate—over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq.” Zawahiri wrote that the third stage would be to “[e]xtend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.” More recently, in a video released by as-Sahab Media, Zawahiri said that the end result of the jihads in Iraq and Afghanistan would be “the setting up of two mujahid emirates which will be launch pads for the liberation of the Islamic lands and the establishment of the Caliphate.”
I agree with Schippert that this would have consequences for countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia, although I think he overstates the ease with which al-Qaeda could leverage its victory in Iraq. (I am unconvinced, for example, that “©onquering Saudi Arabia may not require massive operations.”) In addition to the regional consequences, such a safe haven presents an increased risk of another catastrophic terrorist attack against the United States. As the 9-11 Commission noted, a critical element in devising a catastrophic terrorist attack is a sanctuary that provides “time, space, and ability to perform competent planning and staff work.” Further emphasizing the risk of a safe haven, the most recent National Intelligence Estimate describes al-Qaeda in Iraq as al-Qaeda’s “most visible and capable affiliate” as well as “the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland.” Because of the risk of a safe haven, I agree with the analysts who believe that a fast withdrawal from Iraq would likely result in the U.S. military’s eventual return to that country.
A second consequence of failure is the likely slaughter of our allies in Iraq. The U.S. has had a terrible reputation for not standing behind our allies. The world has not forgotten America’s abandonment of the South Vietnamese and later the Kurds. If we retreat hastily from Iraq and those aligned with us pay a heavy price, the U.S.’s reputation will suffer further. And let there be no doubt that many on the ground in Iraq are taking bold stands to align themselves with us, and against al-Qaeda. A notable example is the Anbar Salvation Front, a collection of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others from the Anbar province who are united by the goal of driving al-Qaeda from their country. Their leader, Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, is keenly aware that he is placing himself directly in harm’s way.
How much would U.S. prestige suffer from the slaughter of our allies in Iraq? It is worth recalling that after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the Saudis were hesitant to allow the U.S. to provide them with protection—not because of the implications of inviting non-Muslims to defend the kingdom, but because of a perceived lack of American resolve. As detailed in William Simpson’s The Prince, Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s immediate response when national security advisor Brent Scowcroft offered to send American troops to Saudi Arabia was: “Why would we want to be defended by you?” Simpson writes:
Bandar would later explain the reasons for Fahd’s silence and his apparent reluctance to accept [President George H.W.] Bush’s offer of help. These would include President Carter’s hollow gesture in 1979, after the fall of the Shah in Iran, when the United States sent a squadron of F-15s as a show of support for Saudi Arabia only to announce, while the planes were still in the air, that they were unarmed. So too was a U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1983, when President Reagan, after a vicious terrorist attack on U.S. barracks, which killed two hundred forty-one Americans, quietly ordered them loaded back onto their ships and returned home.
A hasty U.S. retreat from Iraq would be even more of a stain on the U.S.’s reputation and credibility—at a time when we need people to feel secure in aligning with us in the region.
A third consequence is the dramatic effect that a U.S. defeat would have on al-Qaeda’s prestige. Al-Qaeda leaders would claim that they have defeated two superpowers on the battlefield: the Soviet Union in the Afghan war, and now the United States. While some advocates of withdrawal will object that al-Qaeda won’t really have beaten us, that is beside the point: the foreign volunteers in Afghanistan were likewise not central to the Soviet Union’s defeat. Marc Sageman notes in Understanding Terror Networks: “Their presence in Afghanistan was very small and they did not participate in any significant fighting . . . . Contemporaneous accounts of the war do not even mention them.” Despite this, the “Arab Afghans” became legendary throughout the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda would likewise use the U.S. defeat to enhance its own prestige—thus drumming up more recruits, more funding, and more “soft” support.
A fourth consequence would be a likely humanitarian catastrophe. Sectarian violence has plagued Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Without the U.S. military’s presence, the Iraqi security forces would be unable to stop this violence from escalating. Iraqi lives certainly have a place in the equation.
There are also other consequences beyond these four that are relevant to what might happen if the U.S. withdraws. For example, Iran would emerge a clear winner with a significant sphere of influence.
I was in Iraq back in May, where I was embedded as a reporter with the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery (2-32). At the time, I noted some of the effects of surge. When 2-32 first arrived, the soldiers were regularly finding corpses, IEDs, and car bombs—but after they moved into the Yarmouk district as part of the surge, many residents who had previously moved out returned, new stores opened up, and residents gave American soldiers actionable intelligence that resulted in valuable arrests. Others—such as Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution—likewise see significant changes since Gen. David Petraeus took the reins in Iraq.
The most responsible course of action is to give Gen. Petraeus more time.
Kagan: Withdrawing from Iraq prematurely will have devastating consequences for U.S. foreign policy in the near and long term. The process of withdrawing troops before establishing security will destabilize Iraq and, consequently, its neighbors.
I have just returned from Iraq, and I have seen first hand what U.S. troops are doing there on the ground. U.S. forces are protecting the Iraqi population from terrorist groups and from militia death squads that plagued the country in 2006. Execution-style killings in Baghdad have declined substantially since Operation Fard al Qanoon (Enforcing the Law, also known as the Baghdad Security Plan) began in February. U.S. forces have expelled al Qaeda from its strongholds around Baghdad during Operation Phantom Thunder (the theater-wide offensive against al Qaeda that began on June 15). These operations have increased security, but they are not complete.
As a result of the new counterinsurgency doctrine, which has U.S. forces spread through Iraq, working with Iraqi security forces and protecting the people, U.S. forces are now seen by most Iraqis as impartial actors preventing a grave sectarian struggle and helping them get what they need from their government. Because the population is now more secure, and because U.S. troops are present in areas where they had not been for three years, thousands of Iraqis are volunteering to join local police forces and protect their homes – not as militias, nor as terrorists, but rather as supporters of the state. This is a change in Iraqi attitudes toward Iraq’s security forces – and toward American troops.
The continued presence of American troops – working to protect the population – is necessary to support those Iraqis who are now associating with the coalition, trying to end terrorism in their communities, and trying to establish government rather than insurgency. But these very people, including the Iraqis who are joining, training, and working daily in the Iraqi Army and Police to help preserve their country – need the coalition to protect them from militia groups and terrorists for a while. Should U.S. forces pull out, even to forward operating bases, these people will be vulnerable. The ISF not yet ready to face terrorists and militias on its own.
If U.S. troops withdraw before the ISF is ready, terrorists and militias will slaughter those Iraqis who are now working so hard to defend their country. The Iraqi Security Forces, though improving dramatically, are unlikely to survive such a crisis – as their leadership is destroyed. The Iraqi Government, likewise, would not survive without an army. And the sectarian war that follows these collapses of government institutions and civil order will likely be far bloodier and more vigorous than the sectarian killings of 2006, because Iraqis will know that the U.S. will not defend them.
Should the Iraqi Security Forces collapse or sectarian violence escalate again, Iraq’s neighbors are likely to become involved in the struggle to stabilize Iraq: for security reasons as well as sectarian reasons. Iraq’s neighbors – Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait - do not share a common vision of what Iraq should be, and they have military capabilities that they can use to settle the issue in the absence of American troops. Broad sectarian conflict in Iraq is likely to have second-order effects in neighboring countries, where Sunni and Shia live tensely, and where many Iraqi refugees have settled. These are not worst-case scenarios; these are likely consequences of an American withdrawal based on the involvement of these states in the present conflict. The consequences of Iraq’s collapse after a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops will ripple throughout the region for years to come.
The U.S. has a chance to stabilize Iraq, develop the nascent Iraqi security forces, and improve the capacity of Iraq’s government. If the U.S. withdraws troops from Iraq before establishing these preconditions, it is likely to face a conflict in Iraq and the Middle East far larger and wider than we have yet seen – requiring a level of U.S. military involvement far beyond what Iraq now requires.
Peters: I agree with much of what has been said and I'm in near-complete agreement with Steve Schippert. So I'll try to sound a few reinforcing notes, while offering a few divergent views.
First, the belief of some in Congress that we can just quit, after which all things would be sweetness and light, is ludicrous. You can't just break off a fistfight unilaterally if your enemy isn't ready to quit. And, in this "fistfight," our enemy is far from ready to quit.
Betraying our troops, our purpose and our clients in Iraq now would have severe short-term consequence and, probably, painful mid-term consequences. We cannot, however, predict the long-term consequences with certainty, for several reasons: history isn't linear; the Arab genius for screwing up everything must never be underestimated (we certainly failed to appreciate the Arab talent for turning opportunity into yet another regional debacle); and the situation in the Middle East is so complex that categorical statements about the future beyond a decade are foolish.
We are, on one hand, blessed with an enemy who, while implacable, is also oblivious to elementary human impulses--witness our "dumb luck" gains in Iraq from Sunni-Arab insurgents who, recently fighting against us, have become our allies against al-Qaeda. This was not the product of our diplomacy, or of our counterinsurgency doctrine, or of anything else that we did--it was the result of al-Qaeda's literally intolerable totalitarianism regarding "the structures of everyday life." Secondarily, the Sunnis belatedly realized that we're all that stands between them and a lot of zero-sum-game Shias.
As for the current military situation, I'm pleased and, frankly, surprised that General Petraeus has been able to accomplish so much so fast. He's a general capable of learning, which is a beast almost as hard to find as a minotaur or unicorn (or responsible Hollywood celebrity). Petraeus gets an A-double-plus to date.
That said, the progress is almost exclusively military, and it is tactical in nature. It remains an open question as to whether that street-level progress can be elevated into strategic progress. At this point, it becomes us not to make premature success that rival the hard left's premature claims of failure. Certainly, one wants to see success in Iraq. But we can only bring Iraq to a certain level of security. Beyond that, Iraq's politicians must behave as men and women of stature, not simply as partisan puppets, thugs or grab-alls. On that count, I'm afraid, I'm less hopeful. To date, the great majority of Iraq's politicians give us no reason to retain confidence in them. Nor to I believe that there is any hope for the remarkably dysfunctional al-Maliki government. A new governmnet is an elementary requirement.
It's insufficient to declare that we "must succeed in Iraq." What if we can't, simply because the Iraqis refuse to succeed on anything approaching our minimum expectations? At this point, I believe that we need a two-track strategy (which would, see below, clarify the situation for the American electorate).
The first track would continue our efforts to encourage Iraq's leaders, such as they are, to accept the necessity of national-level compromises and to behave responsibly (at least part of the time). Success, however, is entirely dependent on them, not us.
The second track--which General Petraeus is already pursuing--is to give practical priority to America's fundamental strategic requirements in Iraq. They are three:
(1) Knock al-Qaeda down
(2) Keep Iran out.
(3) Reduce the level of sectarian violence to a level that permits the extension of government sovereignty.
Each of these goals is achievable, if we persist (but persist intelligently). While the last is the toughest (which might surprise some), the first two are, in fact, easier--if we display the strength of will to achieve them. Also, were our president were to explain the conflict to the American people in such clear terms, it would ease his problems on Capitol Hill to some degree.
My bottom line: Again, much of this has been highlighted, with great skill, by others in this discussion, but I'll summarize: The surge has shown sufficient success to merit its continuation; we must give priority now to our own national security goals in Iraq; all hope of a model democracy in Iraq is dead, murdered by Iraqis, but a reasonably benign government not aligned with Iran may be achievable, if we do not quit; our military cannot sustain the current level of troops strength--and it would be conduct unbecoming for pundits who never served to expect the men and women in uniform to do so; we must all avoid the disgraceful trap of defending our pet theories or public pronunciamentos beyond the bounds of reason--and at a cost in the lives of others that cannot be justified. On that last point, I am personally troubled by the willingness of some who never considered military service themselves to fight to the last soldier or Marine.
The fight is worth continuing. For now. But we also need to have Plan B. And Plan C, D and E. We should concentrate on killing America's enemies and prepare a fallback approach should the Iraqis continue to fail themselves.
My personal fear is that Arab and other Muslim societies in the Middle East are so structurally deficient and incompetent that nothing we do will lead to meaningful progress. God, whether we call him Jehovah, Yahweh or Allah, helps those who help themselves.
Schippert: The consensus appears that the consequences of precipitous military withdrawal are so grave for American national security and the stability of the peoples of the region that we must continue our efforts. We differ on some points, perhaps, but these are minor. Not in and of themselves minor, but within the context of their impact on deciding to or not to proceed, minor.
If we continue to see progress on the ground against AQI and Iraqi insurgent groups, both Sunni and Shi'a, and Iraqis begin to enjoy the personal liberty that comes with personal security, the groundwork will be laid for political progress.
Now, it is surely true that political progress lies squarely at the feet of the Iraqis. But the difference must be distinguished between 'the Iraqis' and 'the government.' For, while it is true that the current government was freely and openly elected by the Iraqi people, I personally question the degree to which it truly represents local communities on a national level for two reasons.
First, the conditions under which the current government was elected in 2005 and the conditions today are vastly different. Security in many places has increased dramatically. With that security - not to mention a bit of true electoral democracy under the belts of the Iraqi electorate - the ability to campaign more freely on specific ideas and stances exists.
And, related to that ability to now more freely campaign and more openly discuss in many more local forums, we should take a close look at the electoral method employed in 2005 and adjust. The current government was elected as party 'slates,' not as individuals representative of a local or regional community to which they are personally beholden and from which they were selected to represent.
Everywhere we see progress - be it security or reconstruction - the key has been the focus on 'local.' It's the one common denominator. All of our success has been from the ground up.
The Iraqi government, at least in its current party 'slate' form, appears almost entirely 'top-down' in approach. As our 'bottom-up' security approach - neighborhood by neighborhood and town by town - begins to garner tangible results enjoyed by local Iraqis, perhaps we should consider a means of re-organizing and structuring the federal Iraqi electoral process that reconstitutes its federal government from the ground up, also.
Can any Sunni 'slate' (not even individuals) elected at the height of the Sunni insurgency truly be considered accurate representation of local Sunni communities today? Are any of them truly beholden to local electorates? Has the 'slate' system been successfully employed elsewhere? The Palestinians have used it. That's worked out rather well, I would say.
After all, all politics is local. That does not exclusively apply to the United States.
Considering the local approach to all of our successes and progress thus far, to continue to expect a top-down 'slate' system Iraqi government to benefit productively from local security - which it must - is to continue to try and squeeze a square peg into a round hole. Perhaps if the ministers of parliament chosen by the parties to fill the slate were more responsible to a local electorate, they would be considerably more productive.
It just seems backwards. The slate chosen fills the seats rather than the seats elected constituting any 'slate.' We should seriously consider a new approach to elections. Otherwise, there will be a natural and persistent gap between all the local security gains and any political progress we are expecting on the back end as a result.
A successful 'surge,' a 'knocked down' al-Qaeda and an ultimately unresponsive federal Iraqi government would be a difficult pill to swallow after all of that.
Gunaratna: Three profound developments characterize the post 9-11 global threat landscape. First, after the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan, the ground zero of terrorism has moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s FATA. Second, after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, al-Qaeda in FATA has gained a foot-hold in the Middle East establishing a forward operational base 2290 km (1420 miles) closer to the West.
At the very heart of these developments is the leadership of Jama’at al-Qaeda al-Jihad led by Usama bin Laden (UBL), the leader of the 9/11 attack. Increasingly his deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Zawahiri), also the principal architect of the global jihad movement, has assumed control of, al-Qaeda’s operations. Although Jama’at al-Qaeda al-Jihads strength has depleted from 3-4000 members at 9-11 to a few hundred members today, al-Qaeda is still resilient. Furthermore, al-Qaeda is accepting new like-minded groups seeking to name themselves after al-Qaeda to adopt its ideology of global jihad and operational tactics of suicide.
With US intelligence and military forces diverted to focus on Iraq, al-Qaeda has successfully carved out a semi-safe-haven in FATA. The Afghan-Pakistan border has emerging as the new headquarters of the global jihad movement. The subject of al-Qaeda dominates the international media, but until five years after 9-11, its presence in FATA has not been a subject of intense international debate. In the meantime, al-Qaeda determined to attack the WestMuhsin Musa Matwali AtwahMuhsin Musa Matwal has recruited globally and struck its enemies through its inspired and instigated cells.
From FATA particularly, North Waziristan, the group is resting, re-organizing and re-generating. Compared to the Afghan Taliban and the Local Taliban in FATA, al-Qaeda’s presence and influence in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan is relatively weak. The Local Taliban has grown significantly in strength and in the coming years it will be a significant factor influencing both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The error effect of al-Zawahiri’s continued threats are slowly wearing off. As such, the al-Qaeda’s leadership must show that the group retains capabilities to strike against Western targets outside its normal Areas of Operation in Iraq and Afghanistan. While creating new structures and linking up with existing platforms globally, al-Qaeda is using FATA to impart training and direction to a new generation of both traditional and homegrown cadre. As long as FATA is a sanctuary for the jihadists, there can be no genuine peace and stability in Afghanistan and beyond. Without dismantling of the al- Qaeda and the associated jihadist enclave in FATA, the incessant guerrilla and periodic terrorist attacks will continue. Stemming from increased infiltration from FATA into Afghanistan, the media has mostly dealt with the problems for NATO and Afghan security forces, but not the threat to the rest of the world. Very little has been documented on the threat from this jihadist enclave to the rest of Pakistan and to the West. From this sanctuary, al-Qaeda is building skill and empowering a new, albeit small generation of Western recruits. In addition to imparting propaganda, translating into for support for al-Qaeda and its movement globally, al- Qaeda is providing operational and IED knowledge, which make young jihadis from the West able to plan and conduct attacks that are much more sophisticated than what is normally seen among homegrown groups.
As a result of America's flawed policy of invading Iraq, Al Qaeda has succeeded both in establishing an operational presence in FATA and in Iraq.
Kagan: Since Peters, Schippert, and I are in general agreement about America’s interests in Iraq, the success of the surge to date, and the importance of continuing the effort, I shall focus my comments on the points made by Gunaratna, with one exception. Schippert is quite right that the list-system used in Iraq’s elections—advocated and implemented by the UN monitors who supervised them—was a mistake from the outset. It would be very wise for the U.S. to use every means in its power to persuade the Iraqi government to adopt a district-based system for both provincial elections and the next parliamentary election. This is an extremely important matter for all the reasons Schippert adduced, and others besides, and it is a hopeful sign that Ambassador Crocker recently evinced not only his conviction in the need for district-based elections, but his feeling that the Iraqis were coming around to the idea themselves. It will nevertheless be a challenge to persuade parties elected on the basis of lists to shift to a different system.
Most of the points made by Gunaratna are valid, but irrelevant to this discussion. The exception is his assertion that we have given al Qaeda a base in Iraq. That assertion was true until the surge began, but it is true no longer. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been driven from all of its urban sanctuaries and is now being hunted vigorously by American and Iraqi forces everywhere it is trying to reconstitute a base of operations. Although al Qaeda in Iraq leaders such as Abu Musaab al Zarqawi were present in Iraq before the 2003 invasion (Zarqawi, in fact, used Iraq as the base to kill USAID worker Lawrence Foley in Amman in 2002), it is true that AQI did not have a large presence or sanctuaries prior to the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime. If the U.S. had simply abandoned Iraq to AQI at the end of 2006—as some people, including some members of Congress, proposed doing—then we would, indeed, have given al Qaeda a significant gain. By recommitting ourselves to defeating AQI in January, however, we and the Iraqis are in the process of inflicting a defeat on al Qaeda on a larger scale and in a more central location than the defeat of the Taliban in 2001 did. We cannot rewind history to the situation before the 2003 invasion. We can now ask the question: Do we want to continue the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, or do we want to abandon that successful effort and allow the movement to reconstitute, as Gunaratna says, fourteen hundred miles closer and in a much more strategically important location?
The establishment of al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas is often used now as a reason for abandoning the effort in Iraq, as Gunaratna does. But what is the actual proposal under consideration? Shall we shift our forces from Iraq to Afghanistan and then invade Pakistan, a country of 125 million people armed with nuclear weapons? Or would Gunaratna prefer that we land on the Pakistani coast and march north? Al Qaeda does not now have large permanent bases in Afghanistan, even though the situation there is deteriorating. Sending more forces to Afghanistan would help stabilize that country, but it would not help with the problems Gunaratna describes unless we are prepared to move them into the tribal areas of Pakistan. This argument is simply a cover for the refusal to recognize that the struggle against al Qaeda in Iraq is even more direct and important than it is in Afghanistan, and that it is one that we are currently winning.
Gartenstein-Ross: My reading of Dr. Gunaratna’s remarks about Pakistan differs from Dr. Kagan’s reading. While I don’t think Dr. Gunaratna was advocating that we withdraw from Iraq to focus on Pakistan—given his initial remarks in this symposium—I agree with Dr. Kagan that al-Qaeda’s growth in Pakistan is not germane to a discussion of what needs to be done moving forward in Iraq. Now that U.S. forces are in the country, the dynamic on the ground has changed substantially. No matter how much one might wish that we had not entered Iraq back in 2003, we are there now.
It seems that every participant in this symposium agrees that immediate withdrawal from Iraq would have dire consequences. I outlined some of these in my first contribution: regional consequences, the likely slaughter of our allies in Iraq, a boost to al-Qaeda’s prestige, and humanitarian catastrophe. Of course, none of this matters if the situation on the ground is hopeless, if even General Petraeus’s shift in strategy and the troop surge have made no difference. Other contributors have outlined the fact that the surge has produced measurable progress on the ground, something that I was able to see first-hand during my time in Iraq back in May and June. At this point, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have both testified about the military and political situation in the country.
Militarily, the surge has been effective in rooting out al-Qaeda and reducing sectarian clashes. For that reason, the debate in Congress has largely shifted to the political situation. Ambassador Crocker’s testimony was interesting in this regard, particularly his discussion of how Iraqis have been dealing with some of the complex issues in front of them by tackling immediate problems rather than leaping directly to a national framework:
One such example is how the central government has accepted over 1700 young men from the Abu Ghurayb area west of Baghdad, including former members of insurgent groups, to be part of the Iraqi security forces. Another is how the government, without much public fanfare, has contacted thousands of members of the former Iraqi army, offering them retirement, return to the military, or public sector employment. So without the proclamation of a general amnesty, we see amnesty being granted, and de-baathification reform in advance of national legislation. In both instances, the seeds of reconciliation are being planted.
Like most commentators, I am unsatisfied with the performance of the Maliki government. But clearly some positive political steps have flown beneath the radar, and many Americans do not appreciate the deeply rooted issues that Iraq’s politicians need to address. As Ambassador Crocker said, tough issues that America faced historically “were resolved only after acrimonious debate and sometimes violence.” If American troops are able to continue to provide stability on the ground, it will help pave the way for Iraq’s national government—as well as local and regional leaders—to address the challenges that the country faces.
That being said, I agree with Schippert and Dr. Kagan that the slate system that has been employed in Iraq’s elections is a mistake. Schippert does a good job of describing how this system fails to adequately represent local and regional communities. It is worth noting that the local constituencies’ efforts to take control of their destiny is one of the truly significant developments we have seen over the past year. In his testimony, General Petraeus lauded the emergence of “tribes and local citizens rejecting al-Qaeda and other extremists,” and concluded that the progress made in the Anbar province demonstrates the “dramatic change in security that is possible with the support and participation of local citizens.” (It remains to be seen how the tragic death of Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi will affect the tribal leadership.)
The bottom line is that Gen. Petraeus’s military efforts should be given more time; we should continue to partner with local tribes and sheikhs; and we should work to reform the problems with Iraq’s voting system. Ambassador Crocker put it best when he said, “I cannot guarantee success in Iraq. I do believe that it is attainable. I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure.”
Peters: I have just recently spent a few weeks in Iraq, embedded with low-level Marine units in Anbar, speaking with sheikhs and Iraqi officers, and, finally, interviewing our senior generals in Baghdad. Although I always return to Iraq with a mind as open as I can make it (a challenge these days), I must say simply that my visit only validated the primary conclusions made by most parties to this discussion: We're making progress, although Iraq remains a mess, and we can't afford to leave prematurely--or to suggest that we might do so (put yourself in an Iraqi officers place: He has to have Plan A if we stay, and Plan B if we leave, which is not conducive to complete unity of effort.
The one big thing of which I became convinced during my time in Anbar is that, contrary to Dr. Gunaratna's assertion that our invasion of Iraq was an error (certainly, the fumbled occupation was, but that's a different matter), in the quirky way of history unfolding, it's turned out to be disastrous for al Qaeda. When Monsieur bin Laden and Herr Zawahiri declared Iraq "the main front" in their struggle against the U.S., they made a huge strategic blunder: By over-reaching (as religious extremists always do) in their efforts to impose an ultra-brutal corruption of Sharia law on Iraq's rather laissez-faire Sunni Arabs, they alienated them profoundly (it was piquant to witness a Marine captain restraining an Iraqi Sunni general from launching a premature attack on an al Qaeda element in an Anbar village--the Iraqi felt the rage of a betrayed lover). Now that more and more Sunni Arabs are "flipping" to our side to fight against al Qaeda (they realized that we meant to leave eventually, but that al Qaeda intended to stay), the terrorists are suffering a strategic humiliation of the first order--rejected by their own kind, by those they claimed to champion. And no matter what al Jazeera says or doesn't say, word gets out. The Arab-Muslim world, and the greater Muslim world beyond, is witnessing the rejection of al Qaeda by Sunni Muslims--a violent rejection. While it's still far too early to make firm claims, there's a possibility that future historians will date the long, truculent decline of al Qaeda from the recent turn-about in Anbar.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, there's progress on the security front in much, though not all of Iraq (the Brits are leaving a godawful mess down south), and it's yet another lesson in the non-linearity of human behavior to see the children of Fallujah smiling and waving at passing U.S. Marines. On the other hand, political progress at the national level is nil. That said, as others in this discussion have noted, encouraging things are happening at the local and regional levels--Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis (recently nominated for a fourth star, and a well-deserved one) speaks of a "democracy of the sheikhs," of building an Iraqi--Iraqi--form of democracy that doesn't fight the cultural norms. We'll see on that count, too.
My bottom line: the fight is worth continuing, at least for the next year or so. But the Iraqis do have to get it together eventually. Meanwhile, the stunning thing in Iraq is that, contrary to the fantasies of Hollywood script-writers, directors and actors, troop morale is bewilderingly high. Hey, if Marines and soldiers can keep up their spirits in 120-degree heat, maybe we should trust their judgment.
FP: Steven Schippert, Ralph Peters, Daveed Gartenstein Ross, Kimberly Kagan and Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.
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Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.