The Iraq War ended on August 31st. Did anyone notice?
You can be forgiven if you didn’t. Wars of the 21st century aren’t really marked with start and end dates. Such are the battlefields of counter-insurgency and of the struggle against terrorism.
But August 31st was still an important day. It did, in fact, begin a New Dawn — the name of the new American operation in Iraq.
The 50,000 US troops that are still in Iraq today, and tens of thousands more embassy staff, civilian officials, and security contractors are, beginning on September 1, 2010, part of Operation New Dawn. That is still quite a presence, but the change in terminology is more than symbolic.
We are still fighting battles in Iraq, and the Iraqi people are still bearing the brunt of the struggle to bring peace and stability to their country. But now U.S. forces are solely trainers and advisors.
But a more important role is not reflected in such titles. Simply having a U.S. presence brings peace to many Iraqis, and causes the more nefarious actors to proceed with caution. This is critical as the various factions continue to develop their ability to work together within the political system, and not outside of it.
But Iraqis are on a deadline. Unless Iraq requests a renegotiation of the Security Framework Agreement, all U.S. forces are required to leave Iraq by December 31, 2011. Yes, the embassy staff and an unknown number of private security contractors will remain, but the calming – and I do mean calming – influence of U.S. military forces will be gone.
Once the Iraqis finally form a new government from the elections that were held in March, our nation must be prepared to consider – at the request of the Iraqi government – a continued presence of U.S. military forces. Somewhere around 15-20,000 will likely be required to continue to help professionalize the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Police, and the officials that provide guidance and oversight to the Iraqi Security Forces.
Regardless of a potential Iraqi request for a continued U.S. military presence, we must expand the relationships between the American and the Iraqi peoples. It is not the military presence that builds the strongest lasting relationships, it is the person to person contact. That’s why the U.S. State Department must expand cultural and professional exchange programs, as they did to the newly emerging democracies of Eastern Europe following the Cold War. Doing so is not only in the best interests of the Iraqi people, but is also in the best interests of the United States. If Iraq is isolated, among other things, Iran’s influence is likely to increase.
Specifically, the State Department should support independent groups such as Sister Cities International in their efforts to facilitate vibrant cultural and educational programs between U.S. and Iraqi communities. To continue the professionalization of Iraqi Police, the State Department should facilitate the partnership of law enforcement agencies in the United States with those in Iraq.
This is hardly a new concept: Such efforts between the militaries of Eastern Europe and U.S. State National Guards are similar in scope and have been an unqualified success. Similar programs have been successful for nearly 20 years, helping developing countries with technical skills, human rights, and strengthened civilian oversight.
Given the many lives and the amount of money that the United States sacrificed during Operation Iraqi Freedom, we should make these small but crucial investments in Operation New Dawn.
Joe Rice is a Colonel in the US Army Reserve and has served four tours in Iraq. The views reflected are his own.
Among foreign policy mandarins here and abroad, it’s become axiomatic that America must radically downsize its global ambitions to avoid hubris and to match our straitened economic circumstances. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is having none of it.
In a speech this week to the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton vigorously affirmed the world’s need for, and America’s capacity to provide, strong global leadership. Even in a multipolar world, she argued, no other nation has the unique combination of strengths necessary to organize collective action against common global problems.
And, at a time when moral relativism has crept into U.S. foreign policy discourse in the guise of realism, Clinton was refreshingly unapologetic in pledging U.S. support for the “universal” values of liberal democracy. As she had done in an important speech to the Community of Democracies in Krakow July 3, she noted that authoritarian governments are cracking down on independent civil society organizations, and she pledged U.S. assistance to embattled NGOs.
Clinton’s confident assertion of a “new American moment” is in striking contrast to narrative of U.S. decline now fashionable among global elites. The story goes something like this:
As the Cold War ended, the U.S. found itself the last superpower standing, its system of democratic capitalism triumphant — and quickly succumbed to hubris. It intervened in conflicts all over the globe, rashly plunged into unnecessary wars, drank the elixir of free market ideology, and in general overestimated its ability to shape events and impose its will on others. Now we are overextended and facing a global backlash against U.S. imperialist pretensions.
What’s more, we’re broke and can no longer afford to maintain our old position as global hegemon. Meanwhile, economic dynamism has shifted eastward, and the rapid growth of China, India and others is fundamentally altering the world’s balance of power.
All this Spenglerian gloom points to an inescapable conclusion: America must retrench strategically. This entails defining our interests more narrowly, shrinking our military, ceasing to lecture others about democracy, and shedding the too-costly burdens of global leadership.
Clinton instead argued essentially for updating the liberal internationalist vision for today’s interconnected world. She stressed the need for America to once again be the chief “architect” of cooperative institutions, at both the regional and global level, for providing mutual security and prosperity, tackling underdevelopment and climate change, and defending human rights (with her customary special emphasis on women’s equality). Through such interlacing institutions, she said, the burden of providing “public goods” could be spread more broadly.
She also widened the definition of the Obama administration’s policy of “engagement.” In addition to engaging adversaries and rivals diplomatically, she stressed her determination to engage directly with the people and foreign publics in general.
Less convincing was her account of U.S. efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program. Our engagement with China and Russia, she said, paid real political dividends when the U.S. Security Council last spring passed, “the strongest and most comprehensive set of sanctions ever on Iran. ”
True, but Iran’s continued intransigence suggests the limits of multilateral diplomacy more than its effectiveness. The underlying assumption that Tehran is eager to be welcomed back into the world community overlooks the regime’s self-conception as a revolutionary Islamist theocracy and challenger of the international status quo.
In a curious omission, Clinton had little to say about terrorism amid all the architectural metaphors. While al Qaeda may be holed up in Pakistan, its ideology has spread to affiliates in Iraq and, more recently, in Somalia and Yemen, where the gruesome pattern of suicide attacks and mass murder of civilians is more and more evident.
Containing this ideological contagion is of critical importance to the United States and to its vision of a world order upheld by a growing network of liberal democratic institutions. Let’s hope we hear more from the Administration on this subject soon.
I am about to make a circular argument, one that will eventually prove why I shouldn’t be writing this post in the first place. But bear with me — to explain why shouldn’t apply fingers to keyboard, I must.
Today, we’ve learned that Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen have both come out strongly against the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn Korans to commemorate 9/11. You might remember this Center from such books as “Islam is of the Devil” (seriously) and such blog postings as “Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran” (for a hilarious read, check out author “Fran’s” assault on apostrophes).
Both Petraeus and Rasmussen have correctly surmised that burning a Koran would “inflame public opinion and incite violence… [and] put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan” (Petraeus), and stand “strong in contradiction with all of the values we… fight for” (Rasmussen). Indeed, the damage may have already been done, as ABCNews reports the “Death to America” chants are echoing in Kabul. (The latest indications are that the church is “praying” about this Koran burning business, and appeals to a Deity might provide sufficient political cover to back off. UPDATE: Whoops, maybe not. Looks like they’re going to burn away.)
Amidst all this, a deeper question remains: Why is General David Petraeus spending time commenting on the actions of a tiny, extremist church in the first place?
Could it possibly be because during the slow August news cycle, cable news wrapped the country in the “debate” about Park51, the “controversial” mosque located somewhere in the vicinity of 9/11’s Ground Zero? And we’re looking for the next headline-grabbing story on controversial Islam?
Ratings might sky-rocket, but America suffers. Despite victims’ families’ legitimate discomfort, it somehow seemed obvious that two centuries of protected speech and open practice religion in America should make this a no brainer.
Extensive coverage of Americans’ discomfort with Islam only serves to promote division and delegitimize America’s core values. Consider this New York Times article, which explains polling numbers behind New Yorkers’ suspicion of Park51. It includes this gem:
“My granddaughter and I were having this conversation and she said stopping them from building is going against the freedom of religion guaranteed by our Constitution,” said Marilyn Fisher, 71, who lives in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I absolutely agree with her except in this case.”
Nevermind that freedoms of speech and worship exist precisely for these hard cases.
But sadly, as the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world exploit division for their own gain, Islam is continually projected in a negative light. This narrative becomes a perpetual motion machine that promotes (and implicitly endorses) extremist views amongst an increasing percentage of Americans.
The only answer, of course, is to ignore non-issues and deny the whack jobs of Dove World Outreach Center their fifteen minutes of ill-gotten fame. David Petraeus could stop wasting time on otherwise unnecessary press releases, and I could stop typing.
So far so good: The White House china survived in tact. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian Prince Abdullah, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak managed to dine peaceably last night with President Obama. No plates thrown, no glasses busted in anger.
I wrote a quick piece the other day about what to watch for coming out of these talks. In terms of body language and messaging, everyone’s saying the right things.
When the talks get down to specifics, what should we look for? Martin Indyk has a smart column at The Daily Beast where he lays down some critical markers. The first, as I’ve discussed previously, is the September 26th deadline to lift the moratorium on construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Getting Netanyahu to give even an inch on his pledge to lift it would be a big win for Abbas. Finding a face-saving way so Bibi’s right-ist coalition partners don’t abandon him is this trick.
Obama should use the limited time available before the settlement moratorium actually expires at the end of this month to focus the negotiators on defining the western border of the Palestinian state. The Palestinians have already agreed in previous negotiations to the principle that some settlement blocs will be annexed to Israel as part of a land swap. If negotiators can agree on which blocs will be absorbed by Israel, settlement activity can continue there, while the moratorium is extended everywhere else.
I think that’s mostly right. Defining the final boarders is only one of the elements to a negotiated solution, but resolving a first issue to both parties’ satisfaction would be an incredible confidence-building measure.
The elephant in the room is Jerusalem, whose final status will remain one of the most contentious matters. A way forward might include negotiating a solution for the rest of the West Bank and the handful of Israeli settlements in suburban Jerusalem, like Gilo, that both sides know will one day be part of Israel. The city’s political composition can wait for another day.
Yesterday morning, that’s what we were wondering around the PPI offices — would Obama thank President Bush during his Iraq address that night? I had a conversation with my colleague Lindsay Lewis, who had just heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mention that Obama was scheduled to call Bush that afternoon. Might Obama directly thank Bush for adopting “the surge”, which, as the incomplete political narrative goes, was responsible for the decrease in violence in Iraq in 2007?
If he was explicit in his praise, I felt that the left would be apoplectic. DailyKos and HuffPo headlines would read “The Jerk THANKED Bush”, not “Obama Fulfills Campaign Pledge.” As polls indicate Democrats’ looming losses this November, that’s not what the administration wants floating around its mysteriously disenchanted base.
Lindsay, ever the astute politico, noted that by paying tribute to Bush, Obama was playing long-ball: If he were to thank Bush, Obama would be positioning himself as a post-partisan Commander-In-Chief. In political terms, he’d be positioning himself for the reelect.
Turns out that Lindsay wasn’t far off, and Obama even did him one-better: The president threaded a very fine needle that mollified critics on left and right:
This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.
Turns out he didn’t go so far as to thank Bush, which keeps the focus on fulfilling his campaign pledge for the progressive base, but he succeeded in praising Bush enough to mute conservative critique and position himself as a post-partisan leader. If you’ll pardon the phrase, Mission: Accomplished.
The conservative intelligensia are split. Here Max Boot sounding… magnanimous, even:
I thought that this speech was about as good as we could expect from an opponent of the Iraq war — and better than Obama has done in the past. He even (for the first time?) held out an olive branch to his predecessor. … There was only a brief mention of Afghanistan, but what he said was pretty good.
I thought his speech was on the whole commendable, and even at times impressive. … Not a bad tribute to the troops, and not a bad statement of the importance and indispensability of hard power. And, on the whole, not a bad speech by the president.
Truth be told, I’m happy to see them giving credit where credit is due.
Of course, every conservative didn’t feel so gooey inside. Here’s Jennifer Rubin:
Obama is still candidate Obama, never tiring of reminding us that he kept his campaign pledge and ever eager to push aside foreign policy challenges so he can get on with the business of remaking America. All in all, it was what we were promised it would not be — self-serving, disingenuous, ungracious, and unreassuring.
I really disliked it…. If you read this closely, what Obama is saying is that not only do we owe it to the troops to rally around his discredited and partisan economic agenda (“It’s our turn”), not only is it a test of our patriotism to sign on with his environmental and industrial planning schemes, but that doing so “must be our central mission as a people.” I find everything about that offensive.
The point is that on some level, Obama succeeded in presenting himself as a post-partisan Commander-in-Chief. Of course, anyone can concoct a reason why not to like a speech given by the president of a different political persuasion. So while Rubin and Goldberg’s reactions are stock and trade, drawing even faint praise from the likes of Bill Kristol is a remarkable and welcome milestone.
Many commentators seem puzzled over President Obama’s decision to use an Oval Office speech to mark the “end of combat operations” in Iraq. The reason: Iraq is important to Barack Obama, even if most Americans are nowadays preoccupied with a foundering economy.
Iraq, in fact, may be the reason Obama is President. During the 2008 campaign, the very green Junior Senator from Illinois used his opposition to the war to distinguish himself from more experienced rivals like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. His anti-war credentials allowed him to ride the powerful tide of anti-Bush sentiment among progressives. It also buttressed his claims to be a Washington outsider, the most authentic agent of political change in the race. This appealed to independents.
So it’s little wonder that Obama takes his pledge to end the Iraq war very seriously. He undoubtedly regards it as a matter of keeping faith with his core supporters. At the same time, he was careful not to inflame old passions over the war. On the contrary, he rightly praised U.S. troops for their skill and valor, offered a graceful salute to his predecessor, and urged the country to move on.
In this respect, the speech was probably the most genuinely “post partisan” of his presidency. But it also raised questions about what Obama really thinks about the war. He noted that U.S. troops, at tremendous sacrifice, toppled one of the world’s worst tyrants and gave Iraq a chance to embrace “a different destiny.” Does that mean he disagrees with the New York Times’ characterization of Iraq as a “tragic, pointless war”? Obama sounded ambiguous on the question of whether it was all worth it, but such reticence probably comes with the job of being President.
Whether the public will regard his declaration as an important milestone is another matter. Violence in Iraq is already down, thanks at least in part to the surge that Obama initially opposed but has since implicitly endorsed by putting the same general, David Petraeus, in charge of a similar escalation in Afghanistan. What’s more, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for the next 16 months, and at least some of them will be fighting al Qaeda insurgents. Truth to tell, the President did little more last night that endorse the timetable set forth in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) the Bush administration negotiated with the Iraqi government.
For Obama, the significance of this moment is that it marks the transition to Iraqi responsibility for security. That’s fine, but America can’t simply wash its hands and walk away at the end of next year. Iraq didn’t ask to be invaded, or to be plunged into the hellish sectarian violence that followed. The United States has incurred an unavoidable moral obligation to help a decent political order emerge in Iraq. If that requires revisiting the SOFA, the administration shouldn’t be inflexible on the point.
In stressing the limits of America’s responsibilities, the President also drew parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States should stay in Afghanistan only as long as it takes to build the capacity of the Afghan government and security forces to defend the country against a vicious Taliban insurgency.
Obama, in fact, seemed to be implicitly advancing a new doctrine of limited U.S. military intervention. The unstated assumption: America probably will be forced to intervene again in failing and fragile states beset by terrorism or communal conflict. But we should make no open-ended commitments to counterinsurgency and national building. But war is seldom so tidy. The United States still has troops in South Korea, 57 years after the war there ended.
In all, it was an often confusing and even contradictory speech, as Fred Kaplan captured well today. It reflected the deep ambivalence of a man who rose to prominence on the strength of his anti-war stance, and now finds himself, as Commander in Chief, responsible for bringing no less than three wars – Iraq, Afghanistan and the fight against al Qaeda – to a successful conclusion.
Just after President finishes his Oval Office speech on Iraq (and because they’re somewhat linked, Afghanistan), you may flip to your favorite cable news channel and listen to your favorite talking head or two banter on about the war’s history. In an effort to set the record straight, here’s a quick guide to Barack Obama’s political history with Iraq (and by extension Afghanistan). If you want to a more detailed timeline, you can click over to the Washington Post, which has a good interactive map and timeline. Or you can check out my new favorite site, LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com.
Here’s the bottom line: After reading just about ever single speech Obama has given on Iraq since 2002, he has been remarkably consistent for a politician.
He opposed the war, while being explicit that he’s comfortable with the use of force. He’s been steadfast that Bush was screwing around in Iraq while he should have been concentrating in Afghanistan. Hence, this administration’s current policy is the continuation of Obama’s thinking since 2002.
However, once we were in Iraq, he recognized America’s ongoing national security concerns, and sought to promote debate on striking the balance between responsibility, national interest, and political reality. Even though Obama opposed the surge, it was not because he was uncomfortable with using force, but because he felt that the threat of removing US troops would force political cooperation amongst Iraqi governing stakeholders.
Throughout his campaign, he stayed on message about bringing the war to a “responsible conclusion” a pledge that he has largely fulfilled.
The future is murky: Violence may return to haunt Iraq as the remaining troops are pulled out over the next 17 months (as George Bush’s 2008 SOFA dictates). While a new Iraq government may request that continued presence of American forces past the 2011 deadline, it is dubious whether Obama, in the midst of a re-election bid, would reopen such a divisive arguement, particularly as America’s national security interests seem long-since secured.
Here are the details:
October 2, 2002: On the eve of a Congressional resolution authorizing President George Bush to use force in Iraq, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama gives a speech at a Chicago Anti-War Rally. Here’s what he said:
Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. …
After September 11th… I supported this [Bush] Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance. … I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.
Ambassador Keyes and I agree on one thing, and that is that the War on Terror has to be
vigorously fought. Where we part company is how to fight it, because I think Afghanistan in fact was not a preemptive war, it was a war launched directly against those who were responsible for 9-11. Iraq was a preemptive war based on faulty evidence. … Now, us having gone in there, I do think we now have a deep national security interest in making certain that Iraq is stable. If is it not stable, not only are we going to have a humanitarian crisis, I think we are also going to have a huge national security problem on our ands—because, ironically, it has become a hotbed of terrorists consequence, in part, of our incursion there.
What do we want to accomplish now that we are in Iraq, and what is possible to accomplish? What kind of actions can we take to ensure not only a safe and stable Iraq, but that will also preserve our capacity to rebuild Afghanistan, isolate and apprehend terrorist cells, preserve our long-term military readiness, and devote the resources needed to shore up our homeland security?
[G]iven the enormous stakes in Iraq, I believe that those of us who are involved in shaping our national security policies should do what we believe is right, not merely what is politically expedient….
But I believe that, having waged a war that has unleashed daily carnage and uncertainty in Iraq, we have to manage our exit in a responsible way – with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis.
January 9, 2006. Senator Obama podcast following a trip to Baghdad:
I think the general view was that we were in such a delicate situation right now and that there was so little institutional capacity on the part of the Iraqi government, that a full military withdrawal at this point would probably result in significant civil war and potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths.
January 25, 2006. Senator Obama podcast following post-trip meeting with George Bush:
I believe we need to bring our troops home as quickly as possible, but to do so in a way that does not precipitate all out civil war in Iraq.
On February 22, 2006, the Sumarra Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, is bombed. The repercussions set off a spiral of increasing violence that many call a civil war.
June 26, 2006. Senator Obama floor statement on Iraq following proposed Kerry Amendment, which called for redeployment of troops.
I would like nothing more than to support the Kerry Amendment; to bring our brave troops home on a date certain, and spare the American people more pain, suffering and sorrow.
But having visited Iraq, I’m also acutely aware that a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, driven by Congressional edict rather than the realities on the ground, will not undo the mistakes made by this Administration. It could compound them. …
I do not believe that setting a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops is the best approach to achieving, in a methodical and responsible way, the three basic goals that should drive our Iraq policy: that is, 1) stabilizing Iraq and giving the factions within Iraq the space they need to forge a political settlement; 2) containing and ultimately defeating the insurgency in Iraq; and 3) bringing our troops safely home.
…
I cannot support the Kerry Amendment. Instead, I am a cosponsor of the Levin amendment, which gives us the best opportunity to find this balance between our need to begin a phase-down and our need to help stabilize Iraq.
November 20, 2006. Senator Obama speaks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:
The President should announce to the Iraqi people that our policy will include a gradual and substantial reduction in U.S. forces. He should then work with our military commanders to map out the best plan for such a redeployment and determine precise levels and dates. … [I]t could be suspended if at any point U.S. commanders believe that a further reduction would put American troops in danger. …
Perhaps most importantly, some of these troops could be redeployed to Afghanistan, where our lack of focus and commitment of resources has led to an increasing deterioration of the security situation there. The President’s decision to go to war in Iraq has had disastrous consequences for Afghanistan — we have seen a fierce Taliban offensive, a spike in terrorist attacks, and a narcotrafficking problem spiral out of control.
In January 2007, George Bush announced ‘the Surge’, which Obama opposed. Here’s a video. Here’s what Obama said in a Senate floor statement:
The President’s decision to move forward with this escalation anyway, despite all evidence and military advice to the contrary, is the terrible consequence of the decision to give him the broad, open-ended authority to wage this war back in 2002…. I cannot in good conscience support this escalation.
Drawing down our troops in Iraq will put pressure on Iraqis to arrive at the political settlement that is needed and allow us to redeploy additional troops in Afghanistan… My plan would couple this phased redeployment with an enhanced effort to train Iraqi security forces.
As the political narrative tells us, “the surge worked.” However, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that three events really helped bring about a de-escalation in violence in Iraq in 2007. Read this op-ed from my friend Michael Kleinman on what really happened.
October 2, 2007. Early in the presidential campaign, Senator Obama pledges to bring home troops within 16 months of taking office:
I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately. I will remove one or two brigades a month and get all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months. The only troops I will keep in Iraq will perform the limited missions of protecting our diplomats and carrying out targeted strikes on Al Qaeda.
November 19, 2008. Just before leaving office, George Bush negotiates a new Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. It calls for US troops to be out of Iraq’s cities and towns by mid-2009 and out of the country altogether by the end of 2011. Read the entire SOFA here. Obama’s campaign timeline is more-or-less in line with Bush’s.
January 21, 2009. Just after taking office, President Obama met with military leaders and asked them to draw up a 16-month withdrawal plan from Iraq.
February 27, 2009. Obama tells Congressional leaders that he’s planning to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by August 2010. That 19 month time-line is three longer than his campaign promise. He tells lawmakers that he intends to keep 35,000-50,000 non-combat forces in the country for training and force protection. Some Democratic Congressional members are upset at the remaining forces; Generals Petraeus and Odierno are supportive.
August 25, 2010: U.S. troop numbers in Iraq at 49,700.
For the first time in 20 months, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will sit down face-to-face in Washington, DC this week. Building on a year and a half of shuttle diplomacy “proximity talks” shepherded by George Mitchell, the White House’s Middle East envoy, this Wednesday, September 1, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will sit down with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.
There’s been broad skepticism surrounding these talks from the get-go. Is the Obama administration convening talks for domestic political reasons within a pessimistic geo-political environment, or because there’s actual hope? My colleague Will Marshall shares this decidedly luke-warm take: “It’s not hard to find grounds for pessimism,” he wrote last week here on ProgressiveFix.
Here are five ways to gauge the talks’ success:
1. Cameras
Yes, yes – a press conference ain’t much, what with the security and happiness of millions hanging in the balance. But the mere act of holding a joint press conference with Obama stewarding Abbas and Netanyahu at least indicates the talks were a basis for some extraordinarily cautious optimism. It would be better than, say, both leaders departing quietly in the middle of the night without so much as a word to the cameras. But this is the low bar the situation demands.
2. Netanyahu’s position on the settlement moratorium
Upon assuming office last year, Netayahu issued a 10-month moratorium on construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It is due to expire in late September, and Netanyahu, facing right-wing pressure from within his coalition, has said that building will resume.
It is, of course, a shame that the extraordinarily complex issue of where and how to build settlements has been reduced to the binary choice of “build” or “don’t build”. That’s why if Netanyahu, fresh off a positive meeting with Obama in July, can finesse his pledge to continue construction (and please his political base) while giving ground somewhere to show the Palestinians and Obama that he’s serious, we might be in business.
3. Level of buy-in from the “moderate” Middle Eastern countries
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are planning to attend. While neither leader is on extraordinarily solid political ground domestically (which may turn out to be the understatement of the year for Mubarak, who faces a potentially explosive election), Abbas needs their blessing to create breathing room with the likes of the nay-sayers in the Arab League, who are already predicting failure but remain generally supportive of talks because of Obama’s “sincerity”. Building an Arab coalition around a deal is key, so watch whether they are vocally supportive of the meeting and what message they take back home.
4. A statement from Hillary Clinton
She’ll be the direct intermediary between the two, so watch her closely. Everything from body-language to expression to the actual words out of her mouth will be important. If there’s a tense, negative air surrounding the talks, the Secretary might just literally embody them.
5. Reactions in Israeli press
Israel has a wide selection of English language publications of good quality, like the Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz. Keep an eye on what they’re saying – for them, the talks will be issue #1 this week and will no doubt maintain lively commentary. They were the bell-weather for Netanyahu’s trip to DC in July, and the Israeli English-language press deemed that trip a success, which became the de facto public narrative.
The White House today withdrew charges against Abd-Al Rahim al-Nashiri, the al Qaeda operative who lead the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor, Yemen in October 2000, and was awaiting trial in a reformed military commission in Guantanamo Bay.
Reasons for the withdrawal remain unclear, but one possibility is that the Obama administration is not comfortable with how rules for the new military tribunal system are being implemented.
As background, on the campaign trail in 2008, then-Senator Obama campaigned against the Bush version of military tribunals. In office, the president endorsed the 2009 Military Commissions Act, which reformed Bush’s military tribunals by letting, say, the defendant actually cross-examine witnesses and call witnesses in their defense. (You can read details of the 2009 law, and how it improves Bush’s 2006 iteration, here.)
Any discomfort from the White House may stem from another dropped case this year against a Guantanamo detainee. In May, the Administration scuttled charges against Omar Khadr, a Canadian, when it became uncomfortable with interpretation of certain legal definitions in the 2009 Act. Based on the Khadr precedent, one Administration estimate believed up to one-third of the Guantanamo proceedings might be canned on similar grounds.
We’ve been operating in this legal limbo for nearly ten years: the system for prosecuting terrorism suspects is an ad hoc, inefficient mish-mash of stop-gap solutions.
But there are better solutions. One is “National Security Court,” along the lines of what the – gasp – French have. Harvey Rishikof made a strong argument for this in PPI’s Memos to the New President:
As a practical matter, however, it will be difficult for you to close Gitmo without an appropriate legal framework for adjudicating terrorism cases.
Such a framework is urgently needed. …
In the French system, an investigating judge is essentially a special prosecutor in charge of a secret, grand jury-like inquiry through which he can file charges, order wiretaps, and issue warrants and subpoenas. These judges can request the assistance of the police and intelligence services; order the preventive detention of suspects for six days without charge; and justify keeping someone behind bars for several years pending an investigation. The judges have international jurisdiction when a French national is involved in a terrorist act, be it as a perpetrator or as a victim.
Clearly, this is by no means an ideal to be adopted wholesale by the American justice system. Several of the French magistrates’ powers would run far afoul of proper constitutional safeguards in the United States. It is worth noting, however, at least one benefit of the French system that we could readily emulate: It has produced a pool of specialized judges and investigators adept at prosecuting terrorist networks.
Of the Bush administration’s many failings in the so-called GWOT, perhaps its greatest is that it never defined the rules of the road to prosecute those who had harmed us. A National Security Court would right that wrong.
The New York Times implies there’s a problem with fighting corruption in the Afghan government while paying the corrupt, in this case Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief administration on Afghanistan’s National Security Council:
Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Hamid Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it.
That’s not right. If we begin holding every official in Afghanistan to some vague corruption-based litmus test, the intelligence community would be completely handcuffed: I’d bet you a paycheck that you could pin some sort of corruption charge on every single official in the entire country.
After all, it’s a bit of a Catch-22, right? If Afghanistan was a graft-free Jeffersonian democracy, CIA wouldn’t have such a need need to recruit unsavory sources like Salehi. But the country is a mess, and our intelligence community better damn-well have its ear to the ground. And if we really want to stop corruption at the highest level, Salehi has regular access to the biggest fish of them all: Karzai. That’s highly valuable.
I understand the desire to keep things above-board, but tough situations demand hard choices, and paying a well-placed but corrupt source is clearly the lesser evil.
U.S. officials say they have al Qaeda on the ropes in Pakistan. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for al Qaeda’s homicidal ideology, which is spreading to extremists in other Muslim countries. This poses new risks for Americans, and highlights a big hole in President Obama’s counter-terrorism policies.
According to The Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency now rates al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemen-based offshoot, as an even greater threat than Osama bin Laden’s original. Under the “spiritual” guidance of Anwar a-Aulaqi, a cleric and U.S. citizen, AQAP is busy plotting attacks on America, including a failed attempt earlier this year to set off a car bomb in Times Square.
As my colleague Jim Arkedis pointed out yesterday, this doesn’t mean AQAP is capable of staging 9/11-scale attacks on our country. But since Aulaqi also counseled Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army major accused of gunning down 13 Americans at Fort Hood last year, the AQAP threat seems real enough.
Meanwhile, in the Hobbesian nightmare that is Somalia, another al Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabab, launched a suicide attack this week that killed 32 people at a Mogadishu hotel. Last month, the group claimed responsibility for a massacre of over 70 people watching the World Cup at a bar in neighboring Uganda.
And just last week, al Qaeda’s Iraq franchise launched a suicide attack that killed 57 job seekers at an army recruitment center in Baghdad.
What’s the message in all this carnage? That al Qaeda continues to offer the brand of choice to aspiring jihadists, who are more than willing to use its gruesome tactics to advance their local ambitions.
What can our government do to stop this contagion of suicide and mass casualty terror attacks?
Self-defense requires that we shift some military and intelligence resources to these new hot spots. But unless we want to be drawn into a never-ending game of terrorist whack-a-mole, we also need to do a better job of discrediting the ideology that motivates al Qaeda and its affiliates to kill in Islam’s name.
A trenchant strategy for doing just than is detailed in Fighting the Ideological Battle, an excellent study by the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. It begins with a step that the Obama administration unfortunately has been reluctant to take, for fear of conflating violent extremism and Islam: acknowledging the essentially ideological nature of the terrorist threat. We need to openly contest and challenge the Islamist catalogue of grievances, the better to drive the wedge deeper between them and the decent majority of Muslims who no part of their apocalyptic visions.
Our government also needs an explicit strategy for shoring up failing or fragile states that are particularly vulnerable to extremist violence. It’s no accident that al Qaeda and its offshoots flourish in ungoverned spaces within countries like Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Finally, we need to keep driving home the essential point about al Qaeda’s growing global franchise: its victims are overwhelmingly civilians, and Muslim civilians at that. That’s why, even as al Qaeda franchises have cropped up, support for terror attacks on civilians has fallen among Muslim publics. And al Qaeda’s vicious tactics have sparked a backlash even from some of the organization’s founders and leading theoreticians. Rather than being overly sensitive about lending credence to the Islamists’ “clash of civilizations” rhetoric, our government should miss no chance to stand in solidarity with the victims of Islamist ideology.
Last weekend, Australia held a national election. And for the first time in 70 years, the land down under is now facing a hung parliament.
While Australia struggles to figure out how to govern itself, it’s worth reflecting on a larger trend: there is now a hung parliament in every major nation that is governed by a winner-take-all, “Westminster model” parliament (For those of you keeping score at home, that’s India, U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). And just about every other major industrial democracy relies on some version of proportional representation, resulting in multi-party governing coalitions of varying stability.
India obviously is an astoundingly heterogeneous country, so that makes sense. But it’s not immediately obvious why the four Anglo countries should be having such a difficult achieving political consensus these days. It’s enough to make one wonder: have we entered a new era of global politics in which it’s no longer possible for any party to win an electoral majority anymore?
And then of course, there is the good U.S. of A. (not a Westminster parliament, obviously, but also a winner-take-all system) where even though Democrats control both Congress and the Presidency, filibuster powers in the hands of an obstructionist minority sure makes it feel like a hung parliament.
But the big U.S. story this election is of course how the voters are growing increasingly sour on both parties, and no matter who winds up in control of the House and Senate come 2011, it’s not like any electoral majority is going to have anything close to a meaningful national mandate. In the latest National Journal poll 28 percent of all respondents disapproved of both parties, and the number of Independents has been rising over the last six years to the point where the plurality of voters (36 percent) now choose to identify themselves as independents. And even if most independents tend to vote like partisans, the changing self-identification suggests they are less and less happy about it.
And while there are any number of possible explanations (Is it the hyper-adversarial nature of modern politics, stoked by the 24/7 media cycle, in which every trivial tiff is the new Waterloo? Is it something about the grim global economy, and the difficult reckonings that almost all nations are facing on some level?). One wonders: have we entered a new era in which it is impossible for the majority of any modern nation to come together behind one banner? Is the modern partisan majority dead? And if so, what do we do about it?
I pity journalists on the terrorism beat. Take Greg Miller and Peter Finn’s piece in the Washington Post this morning, entitled “CIA sees increased threat in Yemen,” referring to the al Qaeda splinter group called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (or AQAP). The journalists’ challenge is to quantify the scale and immediacy of the “threat”, an amorphous term that implies danger, yet remains extraordinarily difficult to quantify.
The story, based on analysis from the CIA, describes AQAP as the “most urgent threat to U.S. Security.” It’s critical to properly categorize the threat because left undefined, the average American’s basis of comparison for a terrorism is the devastation of September 11th. Hell, I spent five years trying to brief relatively high-ranking Pentagon officials on this stuff, and 9/11 was their point of departure too. Nuance is important in defining terrorist threat – without it, government officials tend to over-react, going into CYA-mode (that’d be “cover your ass”) that guards against today’s headline rather than the overall, long-term picture.
Of course, part of the problem is that the CIA source in the article is only willing to go so far with the information he/she provides – sufficing at such vague quotes as “increased threat” and “on the upswing” while pointing to evidence of the group’s prowess that we already have: the Christmas Day plot and radical cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi’s increasing activity. Give away more, and the source could end up busted.
So what are we talking about here? Does the “increased threat” mean AQAP can pull off a massive terrorist attack on American soil? How far from its base in Yemen can the network reach? Is it a threat to American only interests in the Middle East region? Is the network confined to smaller attacks? Civilian or military targets? What?
As the article asserts, AQAP may now be more dangerous that Osama Bin Laden’s war-ravaged and hiding clique, but that’s a dangerous comparison to make. The United States has dedicated nearly ten years to degrading al Qaeda’s core group, and AQAP’s relative strength – and the resources dedicated to combatting them – should be understood within that context.
And that’s why in absolute terms, I wouldn’t lose sleep over AQAP launching a massive, 9/11-style attack against the United States just yet. That’s because the terrorist threat is measured by marriage of a group’s intentions plus its capabilities: AQAP may really, really want to strike New York (intent), but hasn’t yet developed the operational expertise of training, financing, internal security, and logistics (capabilities) to succeed.
Currently, I’d assess that AQAP has the intentions and capabilities to threaten American security in two ways: First, we’re likely to see a continuation of small attempts against public targets in the U.S., in the mold of the Christmas Day attempt. These attacks will be launched by single operatives that have plausible cover and legit paperwork to slip over the American border. However, coordinating a massive terrorist attack with many operatives against thousands of Americans continues to remain several years off.
Second, the group likely does pose a threat to American interests in Yemen or the broader region. The 10th anniversary of the USS COLE bombing is upon us, which serves as a fitting reminder that Bin Laden’s al Qaeda has successfully executed complex terrorist attacks against hardened American targets in Yemen before. But until AQAP pulls off an attack of this nature – like an embassy bombing akin to the 1998 attacks in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam – I can only assess that the group’s ability to project power will remain confined to the region.
In sum, AQAP remains one to watch. The intelligence community is right to be concerned about the group’s apparently amassing capabilities, but keep in mind that terrorist attacks are often a building-block process: a group must crawl before it can walk, and walk before it can run.
Right now, AQAP seems to be taking its first few steps. The IC seems to recognize that, and will be working hard to knock it back on all fours.
When Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari played the terrorism card Monday appealing for flood relief funds, I had to stop my eyeballs from reflexively rolling back in my head. Zardari called the flood the “ideal hope of the radical” and cast relief efforts as a struggle between his government and Islamic extremists. On the surface, it sounds cheap, it sounds disingenuous. Worse yet, it sounds like something George W. Bush would say. But desperate to spur the international community and its sluggish financial response to the crisis, Zardari made a calculated pitch framed in stark terms: help us or the terrorists win.
The thing is, he might just have a point. The flood might not be the radical’s ideal hope, but there is certainly an opportunity to further divide Pakistani’s allegiances.
Disaster relief is the ultimate test of a government’s competence. Its citizens are dying, homeless, and starving, and they know where the buck stops. If the government fails to address basic survival needs, a vacuum in public trust can open almost instantaneously.
On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it’s fitting to examine the dispassionate political parallels. After winning the 2004 election with 51 percent of the vote, Bush’s approval hovered just shy of 50 percent through mid-2005. When Katrina hit in mid-2005, his ratings nose-dived from 48 percent in June to 39 percent by November. After a brief recovery in late 2005, Bush was toast for the rest of his presidency, leaving office with an awesomely bad 23 percent on Election Day 2008.
Zardari has Bush-like unpopularity: the Pew Research Center’s July poll gave him just a 20 percent favorability rating amongst Pakistanis, and a full 77 percent say his influence is downright negative. Just 25 percent rate the national government as having a “good influence”.
It is safe to say that if Zardari’s government continues to fail delivering swift relief aid, that Pakistanis are ready to support whoever will. One of those possibilities is Zardari’s chief rival, Nawaz Sharif, who has garnered a tidy 70 percent approval rating and maintains a deep desire to return to the top of Pakistani politics. While the U.S. should have no great preference for individuals over democratic institutions, a messy political fight in the midst of relief efforts would only cause more suffering.
A more serious concern is the Pakistani Taliban, which could draw on the example of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. That group has won hearts and minds in the public services business in southern Lebanon, too.
Zardari may never be America’s best bud, but he understands that it is in Pakistan’s interest to have a working strategic relationship with the United States. While humanitarian grounds should be enough to motivate the world’s rich countries to give generously to Pakistan, that hasn’t proven the case. Short-term political instability and Taliban opportunism should be.
It took a lot of arm-twisting, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced last week that Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to return to the bargaining table. The Obama administration’s faith in the power of diplomacy, which some consider misplaced, is about to face its sternest test.
It’s not hard to find grounds for pessimism. For one thing, Palestinian President President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to participate only under heavy U.S. pressure. He had to give up his demand that Israel continue the freeze on settlements as a precondition for talks, though the “Quartet” (the U.S., Europe, Russia and the United Nations) cooked up a face-saving declaration last Friday.
The agenda for negotiations has been left intentionally vague, so as to give neither side a pretext for refusing to participate. Somehow, the dynamic of face-to-face talks itself is supposed to lead to a peace deal over the next 12 months. Yet there’s been little change in the internal political realities – the West Bank/Gaza split and Netanyahu’s dependence on right-wing coalition partners to govern – that have made this such an unpropitious time for a comprehensive peace settlement.
The operative theory here seems to be that U.S. can more effectively pressure both sides to make concessions – through “bridging proposals” – in the context of direct negotiations. For example, Netanyahu will more likely extend the moratorium on new settlements, lest he be accused of scuttling the talks. U.S. officials also believe that Netanyahu’s hard-liner credentials will make it easier for him to sell a skeptical Israeli public on any deal reached with the Palestinians.
It’s also widely assumed that Abbas needs to demonstrate that his relative moderation and support for a two-state solution can deliver concrete benefits to Palestinians. But if Yassir Arafat, who presided over a more unified Palestinian authority couldn’t bring himself to embrace a two-state deal, its hard to see how a far weaker Abbas can, especially with Hamas looking over his shoulder.
Nonetheless, it’s axiomatic in U.S. diplomatic circles that it’s always better to have the two sides talking than not. The absence of hope for a political solution leaves the field to the radical rejectionists: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
Maybe so, but two large doubts hang over the coming talks. First, it’s not clear, for either Netanyahu or Abbas, that perpetuating the status quo, for all its frustrations, is a riskier course than making difficult concessions on territory, refugees, the status of Jerusalem and other traditional sticking points. Second, it’s not evident that either leader, even if he thought such risks worth taking, could forge a domestic consensus for a peace deal. So why shove them together now?
The answer may have more to do with America’s efforts to combat radicalism and violent extremism in the region than any profound yearning for peace among Israelis and Palestinians. If so, it’s going to be a long year.
4,419. That’s the number of Americans who have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to the Pentagon. Tens of thousands more have been wounded, maimed, or traumatized in various ways. And although it’s hard to get an accurate count, it’s likely that more than 100,000 Iraqis have perished.
As U.S. troops head home ahead of President Obama’s Sept. 1 deadline for ending major combat operations in Iraq, it’s worth asking: What did all this sacrifice achieve?
No dispassionate observer can doubt that Iraq, the United States, and the rest of the world are well to be rid of Saddam Hussein, one of history’s worst tyrants. He continually menaced his neighbors, invading two of them (Iran and Kuwait) and launching missiles at a third (Israel). At home, the paranoid dictator presided over a nightmarish police state in which anyone suspected of disloyalty – including school children – were abducted, tortured and murdered by the regime’s vast security apparatus. All told, the Iraqi dictator was responsible for the death of nearly two million people. He was Iraq’s weapon of mass destruction.
It took U.S. troops to free Iraqis from Saddam’s sadistic grip. Despite the many blunders the Bush administration committed following the invasion, that act of liberation is to America’s everlasting credit.
Now it remains to be seen what Iraqis will make of it. It’s easy to be pessimistic. Terrorist acts, though down, are still almost a daily occurrence. Sectarian rivalries have abated somewhat, but still seethe under the surface and could yet fracture the country. Five months after its last elections, Iraqi politicians seem paralyzed, unable to agree on a new government.
But if Iraqi democracy is a mess, even a messy politics is preferable to no democracy at all, as James Traub has argued Slowly, fitfully, a brutalized people have begun to take control of their own destiny. The United States, which will keep an “overwatch” force of 50,000 in the country for another year, still has considerable influence. There’s a reasonable chance that Iraq could continue to evolve into the Arab world’s first functioning democracy.
But even if you grant that the United States has accomplished much in Iraq, many Americans, and not just critics of the war, still wonder whether it was worth the cost. That’s a very different question, and one we’re likely to be debating long after the last U.S. soldier has left Iraq.
The Iraq War ended on August 31st. Did anyone notice?
