Tony Cordesman is a cautious man who is an experienced and conseravative analyst of military affairs. Well regarded inside most of the professional military and across the strategic-studies community, he has done generally solid analytical work on Middle Eastern issues for decades.
Today, in a comment buried at the bottom of an NYT op-ed on Afghanistan, he makes this statement:
- In Iraq, the failure of the United States and the allies to honestly assess problems in the field, be realistic about needs, create effective long-term aid and force-development plans, and emphasize governance over services may well have brought defeat.
“May well have”… It’s an interesting locution, don’t you think? I read it as Tony saying that, on balance, he thinks there probably already has been a US deafeat in Iraq…
In which case, all that would remain would be– what? To clean up what can be cleaned? To save what can be saved? To extricate what US forces can be safely extricated at this point?
I’ve looked over a few other recent Cordesman pronunciamentos on Iraq. (Still figuring out the utility of my ‘Delicious’ account… For what it’s worth, here is the content of my newly minted ‘cordesman’ tag there.)
So on Dec. 10, he was quoted in a Newsday editorial as saying:
- “The Iraqi government is weak as much because of U.S. action as [because of] Iraq’s inherent problems.” Cordesman says Washington is acting like a bull in a china shop, blaming the people who own the shop, the Iraqis, for not being able to put the pieces of china back together.
That editorial, btw, was titled: The game is over: Bush’s dream of spreading democracy is in tatters. If he doesn’t pull back now, he could instead spread war across the Mideast.
Good for those wise people at Newsday!
On Dec. 10, too, Cordesman had his own op-ed in The Baltimore Sun. In it he wrote:
- The principal recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are very unlikely to produce success… The key problem is that events may be spiraling out of control, and the key to success is not outside action but Iraqi action. As a result, the most important single sentence in the Iraq Study Group’s executive summary is its introductory caveat – “if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation.”
Almost any reasonable mix of recommendations would work if Iraqi society as a whole moved forward with reconciliation. But the report does not make workable suggestions for creating or inducing such action.
Simply calling for a weak and divided Iraqi government to act in the face of all of the forces tearing Iraq apart is almost feckless.
Let me say that I completely agree with his diagnosis that, inside Iraq, the single most important key to the country’s survival and to the restoration of some semblance of wellbing for its people is national reconciliation. However, I do also think there’s something the US needs to do, from outside, which is to work with all other world powers to as much as possible “hold the ring” around Iraq so that the Iraqis themselves can get on with the national reconciliation without having their country torn apart through the interference (armed or otherwise) of all of its rapacious and/or terrified neighbors.
Hence the central importance of Recommendation 2 of the ISG report, which reads:
- The goals of the diplomatic offensive as it relates to regional players should be to:
i. Support the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq.
ii. Stop destabilizing interventions and actions by Iraq’s neighbors.
iii. Secure Iraq’s borders, including the use of joint patrols with neighboring countries.
iv. Prevent the expansion of the instability and conflict beyond Iraq’s borders…
But anyway, that’s a bit of a digression. Mainly I wanted to see if Tony was, as of Dec. 10, declaring a US defeat in Iraq or not. I don’t think he did. To say “events may be spiraling out of control” is a far less strong statement than to say that the US’s actions in Iraq “may well have brought defeat.”
On Dec. 11, Cordesman was quoted on this ABC News site as saying, “events in Iraq are moving so quickly that it may be Iraq that dictates the future — and not U.S. policy.”
H’mm. I agree with that– up to a point. But really, there is still a LOT the US could do to make it easier or harder for the Iraqis to reach national reconciliation, and to optimize the chances for some return of stability to the country as they do so.
That “holding the external ring” task I mentioned above is one thing they can do.
Stopping all these silly tactics of trying to split the UIA and build an anti-Sadr coalition on the most unprincipled of grounds is another.
Exiting Iraq without having all guns blazing is another…
Anyway, another key point here. I noted above that today’s op-ed by Cordesman in the NYT, with which I led this post, was primarily about Afghanistan, and it was in that context that he had mentioned– oh, just in passing, really– that the US “may well have” already lost in Iraq.
His whole op-ed there is of course extremely important. It builds directly on the kind of analysis that British Army Chief of Staff Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt went public with back in early October.
Back on October 20, reflecting on Dannatt’s analysis, I wrote this JWN post, titled Choice time: Iraq or Afghanistan? My analysis there still looks pretty good to me, nearly two months later. But Cordesman is now telling us he thinks there is no such choice there to be made.
Here btw are my (admittedly small) Delicious collections for Dannatt and for Afghanistan.
The really odd thing about the Iraq war is our refusal to acknowledge who the enemy is. This is very different from the Vietnam war, when everyone knew we were fighting the NVA and the VC. Sure, it was often hard to tell “friendlies” from enemies on an individual basis, but on the strategic level, there was no confusion. The Iraq war began with a well-defined enemy – the Iraqi armed forces loyal to Saddam Hussein – but for domestic political reasons, it was necessary to announce the defeat of that enemy (Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech) at a time when the real fighting had barely begun. Because we had declared the enemy defeated while the battle yet raged, we then had to invent a series of new imaginary enemies to explain the continuing violence (dead enders, foreign jihadis, Al Qaeda in Iraq, etc.).
This act of self-deception is now preventing any realistic assessment of our current predicament. First of all, the rag-tag mix of militia members, petty criminals, desperados, and opportunists we like to call the “Iraqi Army” is not – let’s face it – the real Iraqi Army. In actual fact, we have been continually engaged in mortal combat with the real Iraqi Army ever since the initial 2003 invasion. We now call them the “insurgents,” but they are essentially the same people who fought Iran in the ‘80’s and the US in GWI and OIF. And this time, they are winning. This should surprise no one. The Cheney government chose to invade the sovereign country of Iraq (437K sq. km; 26M people) with a small expeditionary force of around 140K, against the advice of its own generals. Since then, that country’s armed forces have been fighting tooth and nail to expel the invaders. This is the fundamental nature of the conflict.
The “civil war” aspect currently getting so much press in the US is real enough, but it is the result of a failed attempt by the US to divide and conquer. My guess is that if US forces immediately withdrew from Iraq, absent massive intervention by Iran (which might very well occur), a Sunni dominated group closely resembling the former Baathist leadership would reestablish control over the country (possibly excluding a Kurdish enclave) within a matter of months, despite their minority status. While the “Mahdi Army” and other Shiite militias are good at terrorizing civilians, I have seen no evidence that they possess anything comparable to the tactical ability and organizational discipline shown by the actual Iraqi Army.
So the strategic options now appear to be (a) implicitly acknowledge defeat by cooperating with the real Iraqi Army in reasserting its control over the country (a/k/a the “Sunni strategy”), or (b) attempt to strike a bargain with Iran which would involve ceding long-term regional influence in return for short-term quagmire relief (a/k/a the “Shiite strategy”), or (c) go for broke by launching a massive air assault on Iran aimed at “decapitating” the regime, after which (in the fevered dreams of our desperate leaders) they could then pursue a modified “Shiite strategy” against their enemies in Iraq, from a position of greater leverage (call this the “Neocon strategy”).
As long as Cheney is calling the shots, options (a) and (b) are out of the question. It remains to be seen whether Cheney and the neocons still have enough influence to push through option (c). Plain old Washington gridlock may prevent the government from pursuing any of these strategies, in which case our ground forces will soon reach the point of complete exhaustion, followed by a withdrawal under fire, and a regional war of unknown consequences.
Since I have this comment thread all to myself, I’ll point out that the Pentagon seems to be advocating the Sunni strategy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/13/AR2006121301379.html
Key passage:
“They particularly want to see U.S. pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to offer amnesty to Sunni insurgents, approve constitutional amendments promised to the Sunni minority, pass laws to ensure equitable distribution of oil revenue, and modify the ban on members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party taking government positions.”
I think the words “training” and “advising” are now being used as euphemisms for bringing the experienced military commanders of the real Iraqi Army back into the fold. If you look at it that way, it makes a whole lot more sense. I expect this is what the Saudis told Cheney he had to do. But will he listen?
In the end, of course, the Sunni strategy involves tossing the “democracy” program completely out the window, but we were never serious about that anyway. So how would Bush explain this to Iraq’s long-suffering Shiite majority?
“There’s an old saying in [Iraq] — I know it’s in Texas, probably in [Iraq] — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Since I STILL have this thread all to myself, I will point out that Dick Cheney has sent out his sock puppet Condi Rice to get the corporate media on board for plan (c) – the Neocon strategy. This coincides with all the news headlines about increasing the size of the regular army and marines to allow capacity to deal with “other threats.” These other threats might include – oh, I don’t know – say, IRAN, after we drop a bunch of bombs on them.
“Rice argued that the Middle East is being rearranged in ways that provide the United States with new opportunities, what she repeatedly called a ‘new strategic context.’” Also a “clarifying moment.” You know what that means in Newspeak, right?
The neocons are actually using the phrase “double down” to describe their own desperate gamble. They might as well call it the “go-on-a-bender-and-blow-the-rent-money” strategy.
Gosh, it’s lonely down here. Armageddon about to start, and all anyone wants to talk about is Jimmy Carter’s book. Well you know, old comment threads never die – they just scroll off the page . . .
OK, this is my thread. I own it. I know, I could start my own blog, but I’m too lazy. So I’ve just put my little straw mat down in this quiet corner . . .
Anyway, here’s what Steve Clemons is reporting:
“Sources also confirm to TWN that Ambassador Turki’s decision to resign not only had to do with his refusal to tolerate the unprofessionalism of Bandar and Massoud — but with the signals that Bandar and Massoud have sent to Cheney, David Addington and others on Cheney’s national security staff that Saudi Arabia would “acquiesce to, accept, and not interfere with” American military action against Iran.
While reports of how far Bandar has gone in supporting Cheney’s desire for military action vary, insiders report that Bandar has “essentially assured” the Vice President that Saudi Arabia could be moved to accept and possibly support American military action against Iran. Another source reports to TWN that Bandar himself strongly supports Cheney’s views of a military response to Iran.”
Are you scared yet? You should be.
Nice to have you here, JC.
I think Tony the Cord’s pronunciamnto got far too little attention in the general discourse… But then, things are moving very fast these days.
Thanks for the link to the Steve Clemons piece. Some of what he wrote is interesting. But he writes that the difference of opinion over supporting Cheney in bombing Iran is the core of the deep divide between Prince Turki and Bandar. I disagree. All politics including Saudi politics is fundamentally local, and right now two v. important succession struggles are looming in Riyadh: over the Foreign Ministry and over the kingship itself. Only something like that can explain the extreme speed with which Turki– a major contender for the first and a significant player (tho not contender) in the second– left his post and rushed home.
Yes, there are implications for the bomb-Iran crowd in DC. But that question will be decided much more by US considerations than by any Saudi input.
“Yes, there are implications for the bomb-Iran crowd in DC. But that question will be decided much more by US considerations than by any Saudi input.”
Thank you Helena, and I certainly agree with this. Nevertheless, Saudi acquiescence would be a crucial factor in Cheney’s calculus.
Only renewed multilateralism can save America
By Joschka Fischer
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=78052