(
some snipping for brevity--DR)
- I think what is both ironic and myopic here is to assume that the wars in Afghanastan and Iraq were the best and ONLY solutions to the problem at hand. 9/11 was a terrorist act perpetrated by a criminal gang with the explicit intent (in OBL's own words) of drawing us into a fight.
- What if we had used intelligence, black ops, surgical incursion, and law eforcement to go after these guys? Five years ago there were 15 year olds growing up in Iraq that couldn't find America on a map - today they want to kill us.
Again, the question remains, was war the right choice?
Which war?
The Afghanistan war was the correct choice, and necessary as a retaliation against the harboring of terrorists who attacked us. It served (beyond damage to Taliban and Al Qaeda organizations) as a signal to others who might harbor terrorists with an attitude
vis a vis the US. (You could argue that its intent was to whet America's appetite for war, if you wish, as an internal political goal.)
I disagree with your characterization of Al Qaeda as a criminal gang. It is a political organization, though its methods are certainly outlaw, as are the methods of most underground political organizations: see the Weathermen, IRA, ETA, Hezbollah.
The Afghan war was reasonably well supported by most of our allies, and internally. (Well, supported beyond the standard useful idiots still living in a 1960's dream land. James Carroll, Naom Chomsky, various PCA loudmouths. "No blood for oil" as a soundbyte to Afghanistan? Morons. No Blood for Opium? OK.
)
With that example of penalty for providing sanctuary established, a policy could be presented. Without the demonstration of action, this policy isn't credible.
Presentation:
- "Work with us, do not give sanctuary to those terrorist sorts. If someone you harbor now hits us, you are going to be held responsible, and you will bleed. Oh, by the way, if you need some money or UN top cover vis a vis human rights, we may be able to work a deal if you choose to help. Capisce?" Make an offer they can't refuese, but with a carrot, with some incentives. It's good business.
I am of the impression that such a deal has been in the work with Pakistan for some time.
The sound byte "For us or against us" represented muddy thinking. I felt that approach would have been better presented as
- "If you aren't part of the solution to terrorism (thus implying an inclusive "we the right thinking people") you are part of the problem."
Of course, the speechwriters never called me, the cads!
I agree with your idea of how the War on Terror could have looked: like not much. Mostly black ops, lots of law enforcement, bribes a plenty, taking down bankers who launder money, and a lot of dead people not announced, nor spread all over the cover of
Newsweek as a trophy
a la like Zarqawi's face.
That "quieter approach" is hard To Take Credit For politically in the time horizons of US politics. (2002 and 2004 elections) This is a price paid for representative government, the constant need to demonstrate to Short Attention Span America (and Short Attention Span Europe) "what we did, see how great we are!" Sitting at the head of the table in Washington remains the driving motivator US administrations.
The Iraq War has little of the Afghan War's character. Among other things, it is "we are doing SOMETHING to prevent the next terrorist from hitting America." Something huge, something spectacular. Attacking a nation, not a terrorist organization, is surely a curious way to achieve that goal. Call it the indirect approach, as Sir Basil Lidell Hart spins in his grave.
(Fix the cause, not the symptom, per Dr Frank N Furter?)
A salient political problem? Sustained US political failure at the UN level to wrap up the sanctions regime satisfactorily. Saddam drew attention to himself as a leader who "we can't (or won't) talk to." This was policy that went from Bush 41 to Clinton to Bush 43. "We can't work with this guy."
If you can't work with hm, you can't get him to work with you (for an incentive, per the above policy idea) to clean the terrorists out of his country. Or can you?
What strategic imperative precluded finessing a deal with Saddam? With the strategic environment changed on 9-11(did it really?), why the choice to not reassess what Saddam might be able to do for us, and a
quid pro quo? US could work with him a bit versus Iran in the 1980's, why not now? Hell, Iran's a terrorist sponsoring nation, why the bad fit?
I think part of the answer is a matter of being hostage to bipartisan political rhetoric, since about 1996, regarding Saddam being bad, needs to go, regime change, etc. He's still the "Hitler" symbol in the spring of 2002.
The core counter terror policy problem goes beyond Iraq. The "tar them all with the same brush" rather than "deal with each terrorist group on its own merits" was conceptualy bankrupt. Based on reading official rhetoric, that is how the policy is built. This allowed "terror war" to be tied to "the road map for peace in Middle East" (terrorists aplenty in Gaza, eh?) which was the post Clintonian approach to the Paletsinian/Israeli meatgrinder of failed reconcilliation efforts.
To misquote Rummy:
You need to fight the enemy that is there, not the enemy you wish was there, as of 12 September 2001.
In Afghanistan, US took on the enemy who was there, in Iraq, the enemy "we" wished was there. US also took on who Israeli security policy makers saw as there. Israel has to buy into whatever initiative Washington tries to broker for Israel/Palestine, or they won't come to the table. Why using the 3 billion in aid as leverage was never considered lends credence to "tar them all with the same brush" as a mental state to form policy around. Further linkage to Israeli security will be set aside, to keep this post short.
Approaching each terror group separately, if in parallel, would have bothered the French less, and IMO allowed us to build a stronger strategic bridge to the Russians, whose Chechnya problem is not trivial. Their Muslim populations present both of them with a different set of problems than American faced, and faces. It wasn't and isn't "all about the US."
If the war on terror is "all us right thinking people" versus "those wrong thinking terrorists" it has to be an inclusive, coalition effort. The White House decided, I think, that "it's all about us" because (see UN, NATO) coalition efforts fall prey to internal agendas if the threat and urgency is felt unequally.
Iran's Great Satan policy and rhetoric certainly feeds the "it's all about us," as does the rhetoric of various terror groups -- if their words are credible. US = the head of the Beast. This makes it look as though US accepted the battle on the enemy's terms, doesn't it, at the conceptual level? (Sun Tzu would spit out his egg drop soup at that prospect.)
So, what option other than preemption seems workable, since "we can't work with this guy, and he'll lilkely help people who want to hurt us?" Evidence to support the last: He tried to kill Bush 41.
What won't he do?" He doesn't like Isarel either, and he funds terrorists to attack them.
What won't he do? The UN embargo we keep supporting makes him not like US. Put two and two together. That consideration isn't trivial. The one thing Saddam's track record seems to show is a lack of scruples. Politics 101: enemies sometimes form common cause, as the US and USSR did to defeat a common enemy. So too might Saddam form common cause with someone as irritated with the US as he is.
What won't he do?
Policy can't wait for the next (possible nuclear) attack. A gas, germ or Nuke attack while BushCO are in office ends the 2004 campaign before it starts. The "next" attack is to be "pre empted." First pre emption = Afghanistan. (OK, so it was retaliation . . . and preemption) Of course, given the long time line for the attack that took place, it wasn't unreasonable to expect that a number were already in the planning stages, and could occur at any time.
1. Pre emption: in a multipolar world, is how you deter a nuke attack if other avenues aren't available. The leaks in non-proliferation have, over the past 5 years, shown fears of loose bits of fissile material being available valid. (Though not in Saddam's case)
Nuclear MAD policy doesn't work with assymetrical threats. The genie won't crawl back into the bottle.
Extra national political groups, like Bin Laden and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, are an assymetrical threat, whose rhetoric and actions confirm their seriousness. Trying to prevent a terrorist attack with nukes (should these lads get ahold of one) holds a significant vulnerability, so pre emptions becomes the option to explore.
Why?
2. The terrorist always has the advantage of
the initiative in chosing the time and place of a strike. He has patience, if he is funded, and has a sanctuary.
The theat: fissile materials made available to strike the US
by Saddam (as we see now, not until the mid term at the earliest). The threat wasn't wholly bogus, it was displaced in time. If 2004 elections are in question, waiting is a failed policy. It shows indecisiveness. Perhaps the Pakistani Dr Nuke and some North Koreans were more likely sources in the mid term 5- 10 years. (Does that mean invade North Korea? No. China is an immovable obstacle on that score. Pakistan's Dr Nuke is, for the moment, neutralized thanks to softer, quiter efforts. Hmmmmmmmmm)
3. UN Sanctions weren't working at the political level, so the image/propaganda war was taking a loss. With the constant harrangue of "500,000" dead due to US (UNSC of course, but note the spin) enforced sanctions, and no change in the offing, whatever "work" the containment by sanction was accomplishing was
- restricting the flow of oil into the international market
- feeding the UN free money in the override on "oil for food"
- transparently not working as planned, due to the usual UN inefficiencies and the suspected evasion of the program.
(That later turned out to be true, in spades.)
Abandoning that failing policy was a decision to abandon containment of Iraq. Unlike revisionists, some of us recall the fractious nature of Cold War containment, and the useful idiots who worked to dilute and undermine it.
4. Collective action, specifically containment, requires a shared sense of threat. The EU's flexing of its muscles in the 1990's, and the euro, made Europe less, not more, likely to go along with economic warfare
vis a vis Iran, Iraq, and for that matter anyone else, like China. The threat US felt did not translate well from capital to capital.
Two key SC members were not playing ball anyway with Iraq. France and Russia gave Saddam the "divide and conquer" options at the political level due to oil deals, among other things. Note: further comments on oil, follow the money, and how money/oil market influences all of this will be set aside for brevity.
"Don't just stand there, do something" is a political imperative in Washington, apparently, but it is not a security imperative. This is where I think the policy myopia leaps out, with the following beliefs as catalysts:
- We can't work with these people. (Includes a list of both enemies and allies.)
- "F*** 'em, we'll do it without them, they (allies) don't see the (read our) long term problem. It will be too late when the nuke hits Paris, but they don't get it."
The core political threat to the US interests in the Persian Gulf has been, for a generation, Iran. Whatever weakens Iraq, Iran benefits. Even the sanctions helped Iran, in that sanctions constrained their most serious security opponent in the Gulf region. But "we can't work with these people" in Iran either. So, would a containment regimen work on them? No. In fairness, Iran tends to take the "can't work with these people" attitude regarding the US, and indeed initiatied it.
With 12 years of containment in Iraq failed, what hope did Washington have for one versus
Iran, who is arguably a hub of terror exportation? Practically, I don't think much, given the size of Iran's potential markets to the European, American, Russian and Chinese ecnomies. So, Iraq is attacked because it can be done, with the UN Sanctions and a non-complied-with cease fire as the thin end of the wedge.
Was going into Iraq a good idea, a good policy?
Only if one assumes that a change made in the short term that will sustain in the long term. That would be beyond the 5-10 year time horizon. That sort of political success requires sustained political support and consensus, within the region and without, which wasn't available, blatantly, before the decision to cross Kuwaiti border was made.
It was also unlikely in America on that time horizon, given political attention spans and loss of political will demonstrated in both Viet Nam and more recently in Somalia. While that trend was countered in Bosnia with an 11 (8 at that point) year effort, Iraq is not Bosnia: logistically, strategically, nor geographically.
When the tanks rolled, long term support could be predicted as weak, based on American political norms. A timeline not friendly to a short war assumption stared Washington in the face. Those two problems were assumed away.
Why wasn't the long term war on terror (in the style you and I agree would have worked, albeit differently, and with different political risks) adopted?
- political image needed "do something" for re election
- No prospect of successful containment
- Remove political liability of UN mess that wasn't working
- "We can't work with these people"
- Impatience with the "under the shadows" methods
Was doing Afghanistan enough? Yes, particularly if followed by the war in the shadows with full discretion as to means. Problem. The party in power had to be seen (politics and image) as vigorous, and the follow on to Afghanistan's initial success => nation building. (2000 campaign promise issue) Election in 2004 would not be won by an image as slow moving and indecisive, like the party it had replaced.
The Iraq war, unlike the Afghanistan war, was a strategic gamble taken while the political emotion could still be harnessed to use it as leverage, and based on fragile assumptions.
Was it necessary or the only, or the best, option? No.
Other options had short term and long term
political down sides, to include no prospect of economic cooperation on containment that worked well versus Soviets in the Cold War, the marked difference in threat perception making a combined effort as full of holes as the Iraq sanctions had been, the "quiet war" holding the political trap of any trials being used by captured terrorists as political stages.
Why was containment doomed to fail, in either Iraq or Iran, as means to empower the "war on terror" with financial leverage?
For at least two reasons: China's emergence on international markets, and US vs Europe economic competition, coupled with the lack of skill in Washington statecraftmanship to overcome those considerable challenges.
DR
