Much current debate in the United States about foreign policy can be boiled down—at the risk of the sort of oversimplification that too often characterizes the debate itself—to the following. On one side are calls for the United States to do more (exactly what it is supposed to do more of often [...]]]>
Much current debate in the United States about foreign policy can be boiled down—at the risk of the sort of oversimplification that too often characterizes the debate itself—to the following. On one side are calls for the United States to do more (exactly what it is supposed to do more of often does not seem to matter) in response to untoward happenings in hot spots such as Iraq, Syria, or Ukraine. On the other side, which includes most of the time the Obama administration, is a tempered restraint based on the limitations and complications of trying to do anything more in such places.
This line-up has some similarities to age-old confrontations between hedgehogs, who know (or think they know) one big thing, and foxes, who pay attention to a lot of things without having any one big idea. The nature of the debate has even more to do with the highly asymmetric nature of any argument between incumbent policy-makers, who have the burden of taking real action with real consequences and of dealing with all the messy and costly details, and of outside critics, who have the luxury of bemoaning bad things happening in the world without actually having to take any practical steps to do anything about them, and without having responsibility for the consequences.
This asymmetry has seemed especially marked with the current president, and not only because some of the biggest burdens of his foreign policy have involved cleaning up leftovers from his predecessor’s foreign policy (including the premiere threat du jour, the group usually known as ISIS, whose birth was a direct consequence of the Iraq War). The current clear preference of the American public to avoid new entangling military encounters naturally gives rise to the charge that President Obama is merely bowing to that public opinion rather than exerting leadership.
The principal features of the non-incumbent side of the debate are seen over and over again, even if looking beyond such prominent and stalwart members of that side as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who never met an entangling military encounter they didn’t like. One sees these features in the pronouncements of, for example, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, or of the Washington Post editorial page, which has beaten its drum particularly hard for getting more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war. One familiar feature is the implicit assumption that if there is a nasty situation out there, the United States ought to be able to do something to solve it, coupled with the further assumption that the more actively involved the Untied States becomes in the problem, the more good will come out of the situation.
Another feature is a fondness for applying (again without supporting analysis) the most optimistic assumptions about how some hypothetical alternative policy in the past would have come out. E.g., the idea that if only the United States had done more earlier to assist a “moderate” opposition in Syria, we wouldn’t have Assad, or ISIS, or both to deal with today. Or, if only we had come down harder on Putin he wouldn’t be mucking around in eastern Ukraine today. Yet another repeated feature is an equation of leadership with forceful action, especially military action—as illustrated by Corker’s charge that President Obama is “uncomfortable being commander in chief”.
Also recurrent is the invoking of very hedgehog-like calls for a single “coherent strategy” or “organizing principle” or some such thing, with those making the calls secure in the knowledge that rhetorically such formulations always have an advantage over anything that can be belittled as ad hoc or reactive. The oversimplification involved is grossest when applied to U.S. policy toward the entire world, but there is still oversimplification when such a call is applied even to a single country. We hear, for example, that problems of U.S. policy toward Iraq are a simple matter of deciding whether the United State has a mission of stabilizing Iraq. Actually, it’s not really anywhere near that simple. Instability in Iraq has many different facets, some of which should concern the United States and some of which should not, and some of which are amenable to U.S. influence and some of which are not.
Hillary Clinton, whose recent pronouncements must be dismaying to progressive realists fearing they will not have any acceptable choice at the top of the ballot in November 2016, has been talking in the same mode. She tells us that not doing stupid stuff is not an “organizing principle,” and a great nation like the United States needs an organizing principle for its foreign policy. Two things about that comment make it, well, not quite smart. One is that the world is a very disorganized place, and any single organizing principle is too simple to be effective in dealing with all, or even most, of the problems the world throws at us.
The other thing wrong with that comment is that not doing stupid stuff is so important that it deserves to be at the top of any president’s checklist, just as Hippocrates taught that “first do no harm” should be at the top of any physician’s checklist. Think about the Middle East, and ask what development, whether involving an action or inaction by the United States, has had the biggest effects, for good or for ill, on U.S. interests in recent years. The answer has to be—firmly implanted on the “for ill” side of the ledger—the Iraq War. The most important thing any U.S. president should do is not to do stupid stuff like that, or to get into a position with a serious risk of sliding into something like that.
Mr. Obama’s interview with Tom Friedman last week was a clear statement of the other side of the foreign policy debate. Friedman writes that “the president has a take on the world, born of many lessons over the last six years, and he has feisty answers for all his foreign policy critics.” The president’s observations reflected at least as comprehensive view of the world as those throwing out the buzz phrases ofcomprehensive strategy and organizing principle, coupled with an awareness of the unavoidable complexities whether one is dealing with the whole world or with a single troubling country. His answers were not just feisty but insightful, such as explaining why the idea that putting more arms in the hands of “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth” was never going to be a solution to the problems of Syria, and why in Iraq the incentives for political deal-makers in Baghdad will have at least as much to do with that country’s future stability as munitions in Nineveh. The least persuasive aspect of his comments concerned his unwillingness to recognize intervention in Libya as a mistake.
One should hope that Mr. Obama, as a second term president, will not let his policies over the next two years be diverted by ill-aimed screeching of hawks. Even if he doesn’t, however, the shape and tenor of current debate risks creating a narrative, the effects of which might not be felt until the next administration, that most of the world’s maladies exist because the United States didn’t do something more, whatever that something might be.
Photo: President Barack Obama meets with National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice and National Security Council staff in the Situation Room of the White House, April 3, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission. Copyright the National Interest.
]]>by Wayne White
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resorted to a bare-knuckle power play on Aug. 10 in a frantic attempt to forestall his unfolding political defeat. Leaders recognizing the importance of a fresh new government appeared to overwhelm him. With a new premier in the saddle, peeling Sunni Arabs away from [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resorted to a bare-knuckle power play on Aug. 10 in a frantic attempt to forestall his unfolding political defeat. Leaders recognizing the importance of a fresh new government appeared to overwhelm him. With a new premier in the saddle, peeling Sunni Arabs away from the Islamic State could be explored far more effectively. The international community could also have a partner in Baghdad with which to address Iraq’s crisis in a more sweeping fashion.
Over the weekend, 127 Shia parliamentarians lined up behind Deputy Parliament Speaker Haider al-Abadi, a member of Maliki’s own Dawa Party, for him to be the next prime minister. This coalition included nearly 40 parliamentarians from Maliki’s own State of Law election list.
New Iraqi President Fouad Masoum extended Sunday’s scheduled parliament session by one day to finalize the deal. Although Maliki had been on solid ground to get first shot at forming a government (his list winning the most deputies in the elections), there remains some wiggle room in the constitutional definition of what constitutes the most numerous list, coalition, or faction. Nonetheless, nearly half of Maliki’s list subsequently abandoned him.The precise deadline for a presidential decision naming the first candidate to form a government is also blurred by doubts about how the countdown should be conducted (whether national and religious holidays should be counted, for example).
Maliki’s Dangerous Gambit
In a desperate effort to head off an obvious defeat in parliament, during Aug. 10-11 Maliki sent Iraqi elite security forces groomed as loyalists into Baghdad’s streets along with small crowds of supporters. This was the culmination of Maliki’s authoritarian behavior — including covert violence — as prime minister.
Maliki appeared on Iraqi TV twice over 24 hours, first to challenge Masoum’s legal right to postpone the Aug. 10 parliamentary session and later to reject al-Abadi’s nomination.
Even if Maliki had been given the opportunity he sought to muster support for a new government, weeks of precious time would have been wasted since he lacks sufficient parliamentary backing. The election that gave him a small plurality also pre-dated the Islamic State’s offensive, resulting largely from Maliki’s own exclusion and persecution of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. So, Maliki’s only hope of scraping up enough support to stay in office would have therefore been to resort to hard-edged bullying.
With many enemies and abuses of power, Maliki has good reason — sheer ambition aside — to cling to his job. Absent the horde of government and semi-official goons to watch his back, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, Maliki could be in danger of serious payback if Iraqis with grievances seek revenge.
Ignoring Maliki’s military power play and legal objections, Masoum nominated al-Abadi to form a government “that would protect the Iraqi people” on Aug. 11. Muqtada al-Sadr endorsed al-Abadi’s nomination as the “first sign” Iraq was moving in the direction of safety. Sadr’s Shia Mahdi Army, with tens of thousands of battle-hardened militia street fighters, would be a formidable foe if Maliki presses ahead with his military challenge. The US, France, Turkey, Iran, and the UN quickly lined up behind Masoum and Abadi.
So who is Haider al-Abadi? The British-educated engineer has held senior positions under every Iraqi prime minister (save one) as well as parliamentary positions since the 2003 ousting of Saddam Hussein. Well-respected and known for his economic expertise, Abadi was considered for prime minister in 2006. He is said to be a lot more flexible than Maliki and is not known for excessive involvement in sectarian politics.
The Bottom Line
If Maliki can be removed without an all-out street fight or weeks of delay, it would be the first major break since the Islamic State began its offensive back in June. Opposing Maliki has been the Islamic State’s most effective propaganda weapon in rallying diverse Sunni Arab support; Maliki’s departure alone would be a setback for the extremists. Likewise, until now Maliki has been a bone in the throat of international efforts to fashion a credible strategy to contain and then drive back the militants.
With Maliki gone, the US would be able to support Baghdad far more directly — aid has so far been held back so Washington would not be seen as merely doing Maliki’s sectarian dirty work. Under Maliki, Iraq had practically severed meaningful relations with the US and its allies as 5 years of pleas for ethno-sectarian fairness were ignored.
The most notable change would relate to Iraq itself. Without a new prime minister following the elections, Iraq has been adrift during its greatest moment of post-occupation crisis; its response to the Islamic State’s challenge has so far lacked any real hope of success because of the discredited leadership in Baghdad. Stifling more creative policies, Maliki retained the Defense, National Security, Interior and Intelligence ministry portfolios for himself.
Symbolic of Maliki’s flawed, self-centered priorities was his deployment of the elite Iraqi Special Forces with their armored Humvees on the streets of Baghdad — just the sort of force so desperately needed on various battlefronts. Similarly absurd after his resort to military force was Maliki’s statement today calling upon the army, security forces and police to stay out of politics and keep their focus on defending the country!
]]>by Wayne White
An old military dictum still applies: no determined enemy can be stopped by air power alone. Much will depend on whether the Kurdish Peshmerga militia proves willing to make a stand against the forces of the Islamic State (formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). [...]]]>
by Wayne White
An old military dictum still applies: no determined enemy can be stopped by air power alone. Much will depend on whether the Kurdish Peshmerga militia proves willing to make a stand against the forces of the Islamic State (formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Meanwhile, Washington has little choice but to remain cautious about committing itself to more than tightly focused airstrikes linked to narrow contingencies. Ironically, more extensive US air support might be made available if the Kurds show they are ready to make a strong stand.
The track record of Peshmerga fighting capabilities so far in this crisis is worrisome. After the Iraqi Army abandoned large areas all around the boundaries of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) over a month ago, Peshmerga units were quick to move in to fill the void, in part because most of these territories were mixed demographically, in dispute with Baghdad, and coveted by the KRG. When, however, challenged by Islamic State forces as of last weekend, the Kurds showed little desire to face off with the Sunni Arab extremist group in order to defend them.
Kurdish leaders argue that they lack sufficient weapons with which to face Islamic State forces. However, the Peshmerga probably outnumber the forces facing them, and most Islamic State fighters are no better equipped than the Kurds. The rugged terrain of much of Iraqi Kurdistan also provides defensive advantages. Finally, the Peshmerga do possess weapons such as heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades (RPG’s), light mortars, and formidable light anti-aircraft guns for use against opposing ground forces. Dug in properly using towns and mountainous terrain features as obstacles, with this array of weaponry the Peshmerga could inflict very heavy casualties on the Islamic State.
Such losses could give the Islamic State some real pause as its forces have yet to suffer high casualty rates in Iraq. Its ugly reputation has generally sufficed until now to frighten potential opponents into abandoning the field. This is what the Islamic State is counting on again to defeat the Kurds.
Furthermore, it would be very dangerous if the KRG is deluding itself into thinking US air strikes can stop the Islamic State. Without robust Kurdish resistance, ISIS would be capable of overrunning much of Iraqi Kurdistan, driving millions of Kurds and other refugees sheltered by them into Turkey and Iran. Aside from the obvious humanitarian disaster this would represent, billions of dollars of Kurdish real estate and infrastructure investment over the past 11 years for the creation of a prosperous new Kurdish region would fall to the Islamic State and be demolished or heavily looted.
If the Kurdish leaders and the Peshmerga do, however, muster sufficient willpower to stand their ground and confront the Islamic State, Washington might well reconsider its tightly limited aerial support role. With Kurds fiercely defending along identifiable lines, more US airpower could be usefully employed to take out the Islamic State’s heavy weaponry in a way that would level the military playing field for the Peshmerga.
Most of the heavy weapons the Islamic State is capable of putting into the fight would stand out rather starkly for American military pilots on the rolling terrain of northern Iraq. This would present the US with a real opportunity to take out large quantities of the US equipment the Islamic State captured in the wake of the Iraqi Army’s retreat some weeks ago.
The next few days will be defining: Washington will find out whether it has a partner in northern Iraq with which it can work in putting the brakes on the Islamic State’ advance on that front. So far I suspect the White House has wisely kept some cards well hidden. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to believe that if the Kurds stand their ground, give the Islamic State a bloody nose, but need help here and there to hold on, Washington would not be willing to increase the tempo of its air strikes in support of the Peshmerga.
Such a scenario also could be a lesson for Baghdad. Firm US backing for a determined KRG government and Peshmerga might provide a political boost for those Iraqi leaders pressing for what President Obama again called for last night: an inclusive Iraqi government that would provide Washington — and other governments — with a reliable partner in the struggle against the Islamic State throughout all of Iraq. Such a government inevitably would merit more additional US and international support than has been the case with the dysfunctional mess prevailing in Baghdad in recent months.
Photo: President Barack Obama meets with his national security advisors in the Situation Room of the White House, Aug. 7, 2014. Credit: Official White House photo by Pete Souza
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