So-Called "Depleted" Uranium Weapons Poison the Homeland

The story of the thoughtless manufacture and widespread use in war of highly radioactive depleted uranium illustrates how a zero-sum attitude in foreign policy impacts domestic policy.

Do We Want a Zero-Sum or a Positive-Sum World?

As tempting as it may be to conceive of an opponent as "evil" and oneself as "good," the truth is seldom so clear-cut: something happened, someone felt boxed in, someone misunderstood someone else's intentions, one thing led to another. But humans can't know everything and will always search for a neat mental model. Rather than "good vs. evil," try "zero-sum vs. positive sum."

Military and Financial Adventurism: Two Sides of a Bad Coin

Global war against Muslim political activists and domestic economic crisis both appear here to stay, so it is high time for Americans to recognize that they are connected and to start trying to figure out how global war and domestic economic crisis impact each other.

Can Erdogan Save Syria?

As Syria collapses, the likelihood of intervention rises. The nature of that intervention is key to the future of the Mideast.

As Syria morphs into Libya, two very different scenarios are beginning to appear on the distant horizon, with profoundly distinct implications for Mideast stability. One scenario—the Israeli Expansion Scenario--is that of a U.S.-Israeli intervention “in the name of humanity” that would invade, eliminate the barbaric Assad regime, and effectively colonize Syria in the interests of Israel. The other—the Turkish Tolerance Scenario--is a Turkish initiative, also to eliminate the barbaric Assad regime in the name of humanity, conceivably diplomatic but more likely also a military invasion, that would oversee the creation of a moderate Syrian popular regime.

The Israeli Expansion Scenario would antagonize the whole region, threaten to stop the Arab Spring in its tracks, infuriate hardliners in Tehran, embolden hard-liners in Tel Aviv, excite hardliners in Riyadh.  The Turkish Tolerance Scenario would offer Syrians neutral ground for working out a national consensus, catch both Iran and Israel off-guard but simultaneously mitigate the fears and ambitions of each, slam the door in the face of Salafi jihadists looking for their next opportunity, and turbo-charge the Arab Spring with a breathtaking victory for moderate, democratizing modernization with a Muslim flavor.

Israeli Tanks [Amir Farshad Ebrahimi]

Almost no one would like an effective Israeli takeover of Syria under a 1970’s Lebanon-style proxy regime. A frontal invasion by the IDF is perhaps the least likely way such a scenario would develop, but a more subtle Israeli role would cause nearly as much damage as long as Israel were perceived regionally as expanding its area of influence at Syrian expense. Iranians would rightly fear the construction of offensive Israeli air bases near Iranian territory, committing the normally cautious Iranian national security elite to emergency countermeasures. Muslim hardliners from the IRGC to al Qua’ida would have a field day with easily justified campaigns against “Zionism” that would exponentially magnify their regional popularity. Israeli hardliners would see the takeover of Syria as a brilliant coup giving them a fast-closing window to take out Iran as a regional competitor. Even if no country actually decided to start a war, the rising tensions and rapid pace of developments would dramatically raise the danger of war through miscalculation or a third-party provocation.

          

Turkish P.M. Erdogan [Copyright by World Economic Forum
swiss-image.ch/Photo by Andy Mettler]

The impact of a solution to the Syrian mess dominated by Ankara would be far less dangerous to regional stability. Regardless of who liked or did not like a moderate Turkish leadership role in forming a new Syria, such an arrangement would be sufficiently non-threatening and offer sufficient potential benefits to make everyone else take a deep breath before using violence to oppose it. Washington could calculate that a democratic Syria under Turkish guidance would no longer be a regional irritant. Tehran could calculate that its expanding economic ties with Turkey are, in the end, worth far more than its alliance with a discredited Assad. Even if it did not, what could Tehran do once Turkish ground forces were inside Syria? Tel Aviv would lose a military opponent, potentially gain a neutral Syrian state, and might think it could talk Ankara into forgetting about the Golan Heights. Riyadh could figure that it could always work with Sunni Turkey and slowly gain influence in Syria through its financial clout. And Erdogan, now solidly in control with his impressive 2:1 electoral victory over his nearest competitor and justified by the growing urgency of addressing the Syrian refugee flood, might just be able to pull this off. At the end of the day, Turkey has a unique regional combination of low “fear-factor” and high power.

But Erdogan’s moment to act is now. The world will not be able to ignore the unfolding horror in Syria forever. Sooner or later, if it continues to worsen, Washington will intervene militarily. If that happens, we will see Iraq all over again, but with Israel even more deeply involved and, this time, Iran and Saudi Arabia both spring-loaded to protect their perceived interests. Lacking popular support, the time that was available to Bush for his anti-Iraq war preparations, the strong economy inherited from Clinton, and military force (given current commitments in Afghanistan), Obama will intervene with insufficient power, opening the door to both Israeli and Saudi influence. Each of the latter will move to radicalize the situation for their own short-term interests. Syrian popular interests will be ignored, and extremists will have their day, once more. Iraq 2005 and Lebanon late-1980s come to mind. Every regional action hero will move to Syria for every imaginable purpose except helping Syrians.

The danger of the Israeli Expansion Scenario lies in the number of conflicting and interacting military and sectarian dynamics it would provoke. This set of dynamics will contain more exponential shifts of influence, more tipping points, more tricky delayed reactions, more oscillations derived from negative feedback loops than anyone will be able to understand in time to react. It will be plagued by fixes that fail including expensive examples of the subset, Shooting Yourself in the Foot, e.g., applying military force to prevent terrorism and thus provoking terrorism; shifting the burden, e.g., forgetting social collapse while fighting political enemies; and the needless creation of accidental adversaries, thereby spoiling some beautiful relationships. The overwhelming complexity of the situation will stimulate a degree of self-organization that may give rise to the emergence of some unsettling new political phenomena.  Recent examples of self-organization include Aum Shinrikyu, al Qua’ida, the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. occupation, illegal Israeli settler terrorism, and Tahrir Square. Attempts by the status quo forces artificially to constrain disconcerting but stabilizing change will pave the road to more black swans (see Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Blyth, “The Black Swan of Cairo,” Foreign Affairs May-June 2011: 90:3, 33-39), further stunning and roiling the world. All involved actors, guilty of the “action bias” (Taleb, 39) that so plagues U.S. foreign policy-making, will end up making incomprehensible circumstances worse by following the honored dictum, “when in doubt, just do something.” Syria is moving toward chaos, but that in no way proves that more energy (money, weapons, feverishly busy actors) inserted into the system will not just push it faster in the same direction.

Moreover, as former Israeli officials themselves have warned, Israel today may either be plotting war against Iran or stumbling into it. Both dangers will only be increased by an Israeli Lebanonization of Syria.

Syria is weak but strategically located. As a stable, rationally governed state, Syria acts as a buffer, keeping the regional tigers—Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia—from scratching each others’ eyes out. But as a failed state, Syria is transformed from buffer into battleground. To get at each other, Israel and Iran must cross Syria. Weak Lebanon in its turn becomes further exposed to outside influences if no strong state presence is guarding its Syrian border. Syria as a power vacuum is a threat to the region that will demand action.

These are just scenarios; neither is a prediction, nor are they by any means mutually exclusive or logically exhaustive. The two could even combine into one marvelous dream world of Turkish leadership putting a Muslim face on an international effort backed quietly by American power. But that too requires quick initiative by an Erdogan whose  time may just have come. In a word, the region now needs Erdogan to put his money where his mouth is.

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My thanks to Media With Conscience for first publishing this article.

Hidden Agendas

When politicians talk up tensions between two states, these tensions may be a game to satisfy hidden agendas or a reality artificially created by the irresponsible players. The citizens of the two sides, the ones paying the price, should open their eyes and reserve judgement.

State A and State B have long been at each other’s throats, both regularly engaging in insulting rhetoric and hostile maneuvers at every opportunity. Both societies suffer from governments that perform badly in terms of economic management and the protection of civil liberties at home. Each state sports a leader addicted to an aggressive international posture. Both states are theocracies, though both make obeisance to the modern god Democracy. Both states make laughable claims to exceptionalism. But there is a difference. State A is small, with few natural attributes of leadership but with an outsized military its leaders cannot resist using, regardless of whether it offers a long-term solution or not. State B is large, a natural power, but with a weak military, yet to reach its potential. The two states share no border and indeed have no obvious reason to pay any particular attention to each other.

One of the first distinctions one might notice about these two states is strategic: State A, with ample territory, a large population, and resources, seems destined, if it can get its house in order, to a bright future. It needs time, however, and could thus logically be expected to seek a stable and cooperative international environment. State B, with no obvious prospects over the long run for leadership but momentarily on a roll with a vastly greater relative superiority in strength than it could imaginably sustain, in fact has a brief chance to do what it wants but logically could be expected to foresee its inevitable loss of relative power in the midterm and therefore also be looking for a stable, cooperative environment that would facilitate the construction of lasting relationships. Nevertheless, the two cooperate only to the degree that they are, hand-in-hand, courting disaster. What is going on? How can one explain such mutually self-defeating behavior? What are the dynamics of this relationship?

Strategically, State A needs time to gather its strength, import advanced technology, achieve domestic political stability, develop its economy, and gain international support. Its forward-leaning foreign policy and egregiously hostile rhetoric appear ill-timed. Nevertheless, it has a logically defensible hidden agenda. State A appears strong and clearly is in the process of gaining strength, yet it presumably knows its own weakness and may well be acting tough on the basis of the perfectly defensible hidden strategic agenda of covering up its own weakness. In this dangerous game the slightest miscalculation may provoke precisely the attack it is attempting by bluffing to avoid. State A’s long history of suffering aggression from global powers combined with State B’s pattern of aggression against a variety of neighbors provide a persuasive body of evidence arguing in favor of bluffing rather than trying to accommodate State B. Clinching the case in the minds of many of State A’s national security thinkers may be a powerful pair of additional facts: the tight alliance between State B and the world’s only superpower and that superpower’s recent proclivity for attacking State A’s neighbors. When you really are being surrounded, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that you are under threat. State A’s behavior seems to be a dangerous miscalculation strategically but is explicable as a calculated risk to conceal a position of genuine weakness.

State B’s behavior also makes some sense strategically…but only as a risk-taking, short-term maximizing strategy. State B is, after all, in a temporary position of strength; it has a strategic opportunity that can be expected to dissipate, so the argument can be made that this is an historic opportunity to consolidate its position by seizing territory and retarding the development of potential adversaries. The strategic risk is that such a policy is also likely to maximize the hostility of its adversary. Given that its adversary is likely to gain strength relative to State B over the long run, a policy that stimulates hostility is logically questionable from a national security perspective. Defense of this strategy as a rational approach requires belief in the assumption that everyone else will always be hostile, a self-fulfilling prophesy of doom that is irrational by definition.

Both states, then, are pursuing what appear to be illogical and self-defeating policies of raising tensions and needlessly taking a real risk of provoking war of incalculable cost, yet each state actually can make a somewhat logical, if highly dangerous, case that it is pursuing a strategically valid policy. This conclusion is important because it portrays the respective decision-makers as carefully calculating risk-takers rather than the crazy militants they sometimes appear to be. Fighting to the death may be the only workable response to crazy militants who worship force; other, much cheaper solutions are available to persuade rational, calculating risk-takers that a particular risk may be too great.

This conclusion is also important because it suggests that national security thinkers in each state may well support these policies for a long time, regardless of how dangerous they are for the respective states as well as the rest of the world. No one can safely assume that either regime is suddenly likely to “wake up” and become risk-averse, renounce the use of force, and transform itself into a “good neighbor.” Like driving a sports car at top speed, a policy of force has momentum. This means the world needs to take very seriously the danger that this strategic competition might spin out of control; rather than just watching, or, as some are wont to do, cheering on one’s favorite side, the rest of the world needs to recognize that these two states are going through a period of extreme danger, like speed-crazed drivers entering a curvy section of highway but unwilling to slow down, and this highway is crowded. The period of danger will last as long as:

1. State A remains too weak to feel confident that it can protect itself without frightening its adversary;
2. State B remains convinced that it has a unique moment of power that it must exploit before it is too late.

It is thus in the interest of the rest of the world to consider how they might dissuade each side from these perceptions.

It may be concluded, then, that strategic claims are at least to some degree sincere and thus must be taken into account by analysts attempting to understand the curious behavior of these two states. That said, strategic considerations are clearly far from the whole story. More than one layer of hidden agenda lies inside the policy onions of these two states.

If a government is a group that gropes its way toward some (often least) common denominator called a policy, it is also a collection of individuals focused like a laser on their own personal careers. The behavior of States A and B cannot be understood without appreciating the degree to which the leaders of each benefits from, indeed survives politically as the result of, the garden of international tension which he so assiduously waters.

The leaders of States A and B would no doubt both be highly insulted were they informed of the degree to which they present mirror images of each other. Each has exacerbated domestic discord with ominous long-term implications for the stability of his society in order to form a winning coalition to enhance his own hold on power. Each has exploited and exacerbated international tensions to cover up his own failings as a leader. Each justifies his own failed leadership by then claiming to be defending his own country against the very hostility he himself has done so much to provoke. As obvious as this personal hidden agenda may be, the respective supporters of each seem utterly oblivious to it.

More, on each side, some of the supporters simply do not care; they themselves benefit too much to care. Superpower politicians share the hidden agenda of State B’s leader, exploiting the tensions they so loudly deride between State A and State B to pad their own resumes. Other enemies of State B are more than happy to profit from the tensions to gain the support of State A. Tensions, just short of war, offer many opportunities for profit. More technically, balancing on the fine edge of chaos maximizes performance (as long as it lasts).

International relations is described by the players in fine patriotic words. The reality is an onion of hidden agendas that make almost impossible rational policy-making.

The dynamics propelling behavior in this two-state system are complex. Expanding the analytical perspective to include domestic politics and external patron states makes the system dynamics almost defy comprehension.

The first dynamic is a vicious cycle of hostile behavior by one side provoking hostile behavior by the other side, which in turn provokes more hostile behavior…This cycle is real enough. The pursuit of a weapons system by one side provokes the pursuit of a weapons system by the other side.

A second dynamic is not “real” but “perception,” though its effects may be just as real. Each side interprets all defensive moves by the opponent as demonstrating offensive intent. Misperceptions can cause war as easily as real threats.

A third dynamic is a hidden state agenda to exploit tensions for national profit. A weak state can stride the international stage by providing cheap rhetorical support for an insurgency. A client state can manipulate a patron into providing an unneeded flow of aid. Foreign tensions serve as a marvelous cloaking device for regimes wishing to win votes or repress dissent at home. The leaders of both states exploit tensions for domestic partisan purposes, but both they and the voters misperceive that exploitation as sincere so tensions rise. Tensions also rise because the politicians talk themselves into believing their self-serving propaganda (cognitive dissonance).

A fourth dynamic is a hidden personal agenda to exploit tensions for personal profit. Waving the bloody flag is a tried and tested road to a brilliant political career. It is also the road to massive corporate profit. Who dares complain about the cost of “supporting our boys in uniform?”

These obvious points only deserve mention for two reasons:

1. Obvious or not, politicians get away with this nonsense every day, causing incalculable harm to society;


2. Even if all the individual points are obvious to a particularly aware individual, humans are poorly wired to “connect the dots” when the dots occur in a dynamic relationship, i.e., when interacting feedbacks generate exponential change and tipping points that suddenly reverse dominance (e.g., from intensifying patriotic fervor to sudden disenchantment with a crooked politician). Thus, we almost never understand the danger that results from these different dynamics when they interact.

The above account is a model. No pair of states in human history has ever precisely matched this model. Indeed, this model, as specified above, has no specificity. You must provide the specificity when you apply it to a real-world case, e.g., by determining the rate at which these various dynamics operate (all different from each other and all susceptible to variation depending on the context). Be that as it may, if the model seems to shed light on the behavior of any real pair of contending states, then it may provide a somewhat more useful starting point than screaming accusations of “insanity,” “fundamentalism,” “being the New Hitler,” “deserving to be wiped off the face of the earth,” or “representing evil incarnate.”

Egyptian Revolt: A Classroom Exercise

A scenario analysis is a provocative way to guide students to think about the implications of the Egyptian revolt. The gemstones of scenario analysis are revealed by asking not the traditional “what” but “how.”

Scenario analysis can be complicated to describe, but the steps flow naturally in a group discussion, allowing the students to take the initiative and figure out for themselves how to think about the future.

The basic steps are:

1. Select the question: “Where is Egypt headed?”
2. Identify the causal factors: desire for civil rights and desire for economic security.
3. Draw a grid generating the scenarios. The graph is a useful aid to the real challenge of this step: identifying the likely differences in outcome of each scenario.
4. Identify the key dynamic powering each scenario. Much more important than asking what might happen is explaining how your predicted outcome could occur.
5. Identify at least one other scenario that would change behavior if it became dominant. Whatever you think will happen, some other invisible dynamic is surely present in the background and needs to be identified to avoid surprise.
6. Explain possible tipping points. Ask how a tipping point leading to a shift in dominance might occur.

That process is plenty for two or three one-hour class sessions separated by a day or two for related homework. For further challenge and further realism, the whole system can fruitfully be considered as a complex adaptive system. This provides insight into the underlying evolutionary processes of the whole system within which, in the current case, Egypt exists.

Escaping the Mideast Extremist Trap

Although Erdogan's refusal to grant Israeli right wingers a blank check is to be applauded as a tactical effort to restore some balance to Israeli behavior, Americans should be thinking much more deeply about the subtle threats to both U.S. national security and American democracy that will flow from a collapse of Turkish-Israeli relations. These dangers will be particularly severe if the U.S. blindly sides with an Israel still under rightwing control.

Turkey is a democracy struggling to emerge from the shadow of rightwing military rule; Israel is a democracy sliding into increasingly authoritarian rightwing expansionism. Each society needs the other’s moderating influence to support its own democratic aspirations. Each society suffers from its proclivity to repress an unwanted minority that it nevertheless refuses to free, with the denial of civil liberties to the minority feeding back to undermine the liberty of the majority.

Mideast Radicalization Dynamics

The end result of the domestic political strife in Iran may be the replacement of the regime with a kinder, gentler regime, but for the moment the strife creates yet another cycle of radicalization in the Mideast. Since this cycle is liked in many ways with the other cyles (the battle for Palestine, the Iranian nuclear dispute, the Western war with radical Islam), its immediate impact is to make the Mideast a still more dangerous place.

Farhideh Farhi portrays the radicalization of domestic politics in Iran, a process by which regime repression of within-system dissidents is pushing the dissident movement toward more hardline tactics in self-defense, thereby further radicalizing the regime, in a vicious cycle that makes compromise ever more difficult. This domestic process is occurring in the regional context of Israel’s increasingly intransigent approach to Palestine, demonstrated by the viciousness of its Gaza attack a year ago and its insistence on expanding the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Globally, the Western conflict with activist Islam continues to expand, with the surge into Afghanistan and recent expansion of the U.S. bombing campaign into Yemen the latest examples. Not surprisingly, the Western nuclear dispute with Iran proves, in this context, difficult to resolve. Whenever one side offers any signal of moderation, something—possibly related to the nuclear dispute but very likely unrelated—intervenes to poison the atmosphere and obstruct progress.

As each of these cycles of radicalization feeds on the others, the momentum for war can build far more rapidly than would be justified by the actual reasons.

Violent domestic political strife tends effectively to preclude foreign policy compromise in any country. For the Iranian regime to compromise on a core issue such as its right to develop nuclear technology in the face of highly abrasive and public Western pressure is virtually inconceivable. At a minimum, a nuclear breakthrough during the current Iranian domestic crisis would probably require public silence on the part of Western leaders about Iran’s nuclear program, secret diplomatic overtures to Iran promising fundamental shifts in how the Mideast is managed that would entail greatly enhanced Iranian influence over the U.S. role in that region, and acceptance of a common standard for Mideast nuclear powers that would explicitly link what is tolerated in the nuclear arena on the part of Israel with that which is tolerated on the part of Iran.

Given the rising radicalization of the global Western-Islamic conflict, however, it is hard to imagine the Obama Administration having the courage to offer anything remotely like the above concessions. Even if the political opposition from the Israeli lobby in the U.S. to such a policy could be overcome, the question would remain of how one might reasonably launch such a policy now without having it be misinterpreted as support for, or effectively constituting support of, the repressive regime.

The distinct, but linked, cycle of radicalization in the Levant is provoked by the hardening of Israeli elite attitudes toward Palestinians in recent years, the continuation of apartheid policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank, the intensification of collective punishment of all Gazans, and the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory (constituting an effective policy of ethnic cleansing). Such Israeli behavior not only provokes occasional violent Palestinian reactions and poisons Israel’s relations with Lebanon and Syria but offers Tehran hardliners irresistible temptations for exploitation to gain regional influence. Such Iranian behavior may frighten some Israelis but certainly offers, in its turn, its own irresistible temptations for exploitation by Israeli officials looking for ways to deflect American eyes from Israel’s repression of the Palestinians. Thus, both Iran and Israel whip up tensions that risk war even without either necessarily having any desire to go to war.

Once multiple cycles of radicalization become linked, they transform into a political structure of great durability. Extremists have a huge advantage over those counseling moderation under such circumstances. It takes concerted action simultaneously to resist the radicalization process within each cycle in order to create momentum toward peace, while it takes only a single tiny push anywhere in any one of the cycles to intensify the radicalization process, as exemplified by the emotional and self-defeating reactions in the West to the appearance of one Nigerian terrorist.

The appetites of many will be whetted by the spreading chaos, but the largest smirk of all must surely be on the lips of bin Laden.

Measuring Superpower Performance in Insurgencies

Assessing a big power’s performance during intervention in a developing world insurgency is inherently difficult because no single, simple measure provides a remotely accurate tool. Here’s the beginning of a metric for the job – an explanation of the dynamics driving the dual, interacting cycles of regime and opposition decline into the chaos of mutual violence. To the degree that your case study of choice fits this Chaos Scenario, the losers include the local populace and all who dream of peace; the winners are no more than those extremists on both right and left who exploit chaos for power and profit.

A conservative regime desperate to hold power relies ever more on brute force (its own weak force buttressed by that of its foreign patron). The more it does so, the more it comes—fairly or not—to be seen as an (inevitably) illegitimate lackey, consequently undermining its authority and thus pushing it further into a vicious cycle of repression, corruption, and loss of prestige. This process, in turn, makes it ever more difficult for the regime to engage sincerely and positively in the cooperation with reformers so vital to focusing it on the needs of the people rather than the narrow, short-term needs of the regime that enable the strengthening of links with civil society.

Contradictions between reformers demanding a share of power and leaders seeking to retain their personal and class positions come to the fore. Protected by the patron, the regime marginalizes reformers, forcing them into the arms of insurgents. A regime that relies on a foreign patron to maintain its position either is likely already to be composed of conservative politicians seeking power for its own sake rather than idealistic liberals. However it starts, its conservative, selfish tendencies intensify under the stress of coping with increasingly vociferous reformers, increasingly violent insurgents, and a populace increasingly alienated by the inevitable regime war crimes. The patron, lacking understanding of local conditions, trapped by its public lauding of the regime, and ultimately more interested in profiting from its intervention than building genuine local independence, is both sorely tempted not to change horses in midstream and manipulated by its client.

Opposing this elitist coalition is a cynical group of embittered activists whose experience has pushed them over the edge from idealism to fanaticism. Now convinced of their own perfection and the pointlessness of trying to compromise with a regime increasingly addicted to its own form of extremism, the activists-turned-radicals-turned insurgents’ particular form of the corruption of power knows no more bounds than does that of the regime.

The longer the contest lasts, the more immoral it becomes as the two sides compete for the title of “bloodiest butcher of them all.”

The above description is all too familiar. Eventually one side will tire, and the other will gain control of the slaughterhouse. The loser will be society, by then crushed morally and physically.

To the degree that this description comes to reflect reality in a Muslim society where the American Armed Forces are at war, not just the local society but also America will end up a loser – regardless of which side ends up controlling the slaughterhouse.

When taking stock of the Western-Islamic confrontation, this description provides a metric for evaluating the overall course of the conflict. To the degree that it is accurate, “we the people” are losing, and the forces of extremism, of chaos, of exploitation are winning. These forces may be jihadi terrorists or gun-running masters of the military-industrial complex; either way, they are believers in violence, profiteers of chaos. It is this distinction—not “body counts” or the claims of politicians or the emotional drivel of glib media propagandists or battlefield results—that voters need to understand.

Erdogan's Calculus: An Analytical Approach

Erdogan's diplomatic initiative to break the Mideast logjam with fresh thinking has provoked lots of smoke but much less analytical fire. How might we think through the options facing the region?

Turkey appears to be challenging the world to think more deeply about the state of affairs in the Mideast and to move toward a positive-sum solution. Most of the relevant actors seem unable even to imagine and perhaps do not want a situation in which the U.S., Iran, and Israel might all benefit.

Yet, it seems obvious that all three countries, and Turkey as well, would benefit if an international security regime that put a cap on the militarization of nuclear technology. Indeed, the leaders of all of those countries except Israel have called for this, although, with the exception of Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu, most seem to have trouble imagining a balanced way to get there. Moreover, the degree to which current powerholders rely on the fear of nuclear war to buttress their personal positions constitutes an enormous obstacle. Beyond that, settling the nuclear issue seems workable only in the context of fundamental changes in U.S. and Israeli foreign policy. What Erdogan and Davutoglu undoubtedly have thought about but are, perhaps wisely, not discussing in public is the degree to which removal of Mideast nuclear tensions depends on the willingness of Washington to replace its 21st century military-centric Mideast/Central Asian policy with a diplomacy-centric policy and the willingness of Israel to replace its post-1980s (roughly) Greater Israel policy with a "good-neighbor" policy of living within its legally recognized borders.

For Turkey, in particular, the rationale of trying to bridge the nuclear gap between Iran and its antagonists is crystal clear. Turkey's plan of becoming the regional energy hub virtually requires resolution of the nuclear crisis. Even more important, Turkey would almost certainly lose from a prolongation of the crisis: if it turns to war, Turkey gets the fallout; if not, Turkey will come under pressure to participate in a wasteful regional nuclear arms race. Moreover, the higher the tension, the more Turkey is likely to be forced back into subordination to its American bloc leader. That, in turn, seems likely to raise the prominence of the Turkish armed forces in domestic affairs, undermining both the delicate position of Turkish democracy and the fortunes of the Erdogan regime.

If the challenge Erdogan has taken on is great, the logic of it is so persuasive that his effort can be assumed to be sincere. How he and his foreign minister rank the various goals that they surely have in mind is more difficult to answer.

Ergogan's major goals:

• security - a peaceful regional environment, requiring both resolution of the nuclear crisis and resolution of Iran's demand for a "place at the Mideast table"
• economic - international acceptance of Turkey as the hub of hydrocarbon pipelines from Iran, Kazakhstan, etc. into Europe
• moral - justice for Palestinians and the creation of a less egregiously unbalanced regional nuclear regime
• personal - success could cement the hold of moderate, reformist Islam on Turkish politics and make his name in history.

Debate has arisen over the reasons (e.g., economic) for Erdogan's initiatives to restrain Israeli militarism and invite Iran "to the Mideast table." A better analytical approach is to recognize that he almost certainly has a wide range of goals, as indicated above. These four goals, then, constitute the obvious (albeit not necessarily the only) "driving forces" underlying Erdogan's initiative.

Starting, for analytical simplicity, with the first two--security and economic, axes representing the range of possible outcomes can be defined as follows:

• Security - from "zero-sum" to "positive-sum;"
• Economic - from "isolated" to "regional hub."

The objective of both the selection of driving forces and the way that the axes are defined is to provoke interesting analysis. In this light, it may be advantageous to define "security" as "zero-sum to positive-sum" to underscore the distinction between competing blocs and a mutually beneficial regional security regime (rather than, e.g., "insecure" to "secure"). Similarly, defining the economic extremes as "isolated" and "regional hub" focuses on Turkey's economic policy choices rather than outcomes (e.g., "poverty" and "wealth"). It may seem likely that becoming a regional hydrocarbon hub would produce wealth, but that is an analytical conclusion.

The two axes now define an analytical landscape of possible futures that can simplistically be thought of as offering four broad alternative options. Rather than getting bogged down in the typical scenario analysis exercise of weaving fairy tale stories about each one, it is analytically useful simply to conceive in a general way of the distinctions by suggesting the obvious alternative outcomes with titles.

The result, as graphed, shows what we may take as Erdogan's calculus:

• In a zero-sum security context with Turkey economically isolated, regional tensions and the absence of regional economic integration can be expected to interact, with each making the other worse, generating a vicious cycle.
• The combination of a zero-sum security context with regional economic integration may seem fairly advantagous but is likely to be unsustainable, generating instability.
• A positive-sum security environment lacking regional economic integration might be sustainable but would leave Turkey relatively weak.
• The combination of a positive-sum security regime and economic integration would be mutually reinforcing, generating a virtuous cycle in which participants increasingly see cooperation as to their advantage.

Now we have the analytical raw materials for beginning to think seriously about where Turkey stands and how it might design an effective policy. The image alone helps structure thinking, but the essential element is still missing. The key at this point is not to construct stories about how you think the future might develop in each quadrant of our analytical landscape but to ask a simple question with inevitably complicated answers:

how are the underlying dynamics likely to affect behavior in each quadrant?

Briefly, we have decided that economics and security are the key elements affecting the future, and we have made some simplistic guesses about how they might interact (e.g., to produce a vicious cycle at one extreme and a virtuous cycle at the other), but we have yet to do any real analysis. What has been accomplished is the setting up of the analytical stage in preparation for serious evaluation of how Erdogan may be assessing his options and how Washington and Tehran might determine the appropriate reaction. Those wishing to proceed (be they students writing a term paper or decision makers) should start by asking, "As X (e.g., economic integration) increases, what else happens?" Grab pencil and paper. It gets complicated.

New Mideast War Threat

Saudi Arabia has reportedly made a secret agreement with Israel to permit an Israeli air attack on Iran via Saudi airspace. Publicizing the rumor could inflame tensions in Iran and thus endanger Saudi Arabia, but it might serve the purposes of Israeli hardliners willing to gamble everything on the hopes of a short-term victory.

If true, this highly dangerous agreement would give Iran a justification for attacking Saudi Arabia in self-defense. Given the current tension in Iran and the apparent victory of the militant war generation faction, this would seem to be the last thing the Saudis would want out in the open.

It is almost certain to further intensify regional tensions. Iranian hardliners will interpret it as further evidence that they are surrounded and threatened with an existential threat. This in turn may lead them, heady with their recent victory over domestic opponents, both to crack down on dissent at home and to engage in adventures abroad. Such a domestic crackdown would further exacerbate internal discord, probably making the hardliners feel even more isolated and threatened. Regionally, it could contribute to any number of tension-raising acts, from an intensified arms race to actual steps to “teach the Saudis a lesson.”

That would endanger the whole Mideast and benefit no one…except Israeli hardliners. Those Israelis looking for an excuse to attack Iran would get closer to their goal. Those who want to cement ties with regional Arab dictatorships would probably move closer to their goal as well. And if an incident does occur, all Israel’s shortsighted friends in Congress will rush to pour even more weapons into their arms.

As for the Israeli people, they lose in three ways. First, while war may be very useful for politicians, it is bad for people--they do the dying, and the probability of war has just risen. Second, this will encourage Israeli hardliners and thus make all the more difficult resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Third, both of these results will further undermine Israeli democracy. Democracy does not do well in an environment of rising militancy and racism.

Whatever else the publication of this rumor does, it directly undermines Obama’s professed policy of solving Mideast problems. It will be harder to reach accommodation with Iran. It will be harder to discipline hardline Israeli troublemakers. It will light a fire under the seats of the frustrated neo-cons still prowling the corridors of power in Washington. And it will put a gleam in the eye of al Qua’ida jihadists searching for a way to spread chaos.

Iran's Future Dims

Iranians have evidently fled the streets, and the regime has closed the book on the election dispute, but neither pro-Ahmadinejad extremists out for blood nor Ahmadinejad’s opponents within the elite appear to be getting the message, as rhetoric intensifies. This harms Iranian democracy and makes more dangerous the international situation by complicating Iran’s relations with the U.S. and Israel.

Despite a statement by the Guardian Council that the election issue was resolved, the Islamic Revolution Devotees Society, which had announced support for Ahmadinejad in April, called on June 30 for debates among the presidential candidates to clear up “ambiguities.”Judging from a Western media report, hardliners have little interest in reunifying the fractured revolutionary elite:

• "Those who asked for the annulment of 10th presidential election are anti-revolutionary and against the regime," hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami told the official news agency IRNA, in an apparent reference to opposition groups led by Mousavi. "If anyone said there was fraud in the election, he has lied and committed a sin," said the cleric.
• Even more ominously, the Basij militia is overtly interfering in politics, reportedly calling on the regime to investigate Mousavi for sedition. If true, this would add evidence to the argument that the electoral crisis was really about an effort by the military (and perhaps intelligence) forces to take control of Iran away from the old Khomenei-era generation of clergy.

These remarks starkly diverge from Khamenei’s own strong backing for the legitimacy of all four candidates in his June 19 Friday prayer sermon:

The four candidates who entered the presidential race all belonged and still belong to the Islamic establishment. One of these four is the president of our country - a hardworking and trustworthy president. One of them is the two-term prime minister, he served the country when I myself was president. He was my prime minister for eight years. One of them was the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and one of the wartime commanders. One them was two-time head of parliament and Majlis speaker. They are all members of our Islamic establishment.

Despite the dangerous tone of the pro-Ahmadinejad forces, elite rhetoric from the anti-Ahmadinejad camp continues to heat up as well. Former President Khatami had called for the formation of an “impartial” body—implying that the Guardian Council was not impartial to resolve the election dispute.

In a Sunday meeting with members of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Khatami raised the alarm that the breach of public confidence could shake the foundation of the Islamic establishment.

The two-time Reformist president then suggested that the formation of an 'impartial panel' to look into the issue could remove any ambiguities and restore public trust.

On July 1, Khatami went further, denouncing the handling of the protestors by the regime:

If you want to calm the atmosphere, why are you carrying out mass arrests? Oppressing people will not help end the protest.

Karroubi, head of the Etemad Melli (National Confidence) party and former Majlis speaker, has also reportedly become increasingly active, although Iranian media censorship is making it increasingly difficult to track the actions of the losing candidates:

… Karroubi has stepped up his independent criticism of the election and could emerge as a leading dissident voice against Ahmadinejad.

On Tuesday, he issued a harshly worded statement that blasted Ahmadinejad's government and pledged to continue challenging its authority. Karroubi's political group, the National Confidence Party, said the newspaper was shut down in response. "I don't consider this government as legitimate," said the statement posted on Karroubi's Wed site. "I will continue the fight under any circumstances and using every means."

Karroubi had formerly singled out the Interior Ministry as responsible for electoral tensions, in an apparent effort to put the onus on Ahmadinejad rather than Khamenei.

Moussavi issued a statement Wednesday flatly challenging the regime:

From now on we will have a government the legitimacy of which the majority of the people, including me, will not acknowledge.

Khamenei’s thoughtful and conciliatory remarks in his Friday prayer sermon on the 19^th indicated his concern over such a split among the elite, but his cautious tone has not been emulated by others in the winning coalition – on the streets, at the legal level, or in recent rhetoric and has thus provoked the very divisiveness it attacked. Heavy-handed regime behavior even after its overwhelming victory seems likely to prevent conciliation among elite factions, not to mention undermining legitimacy among the people. This can be expected to further poison an already harsh political environment characterized by bitter factional competition and institutionalized distrust in which career failure can easily lead to imprisonment or even execution.

Iranian politics has been energized, and to that extent patriotic Americans or Israelis dismayed by the lack of popular commitment to defend democractic principles in the face of leadership abuse may be envious. On the other hand, the handling of the election seems likely to leave behind a population and elite split, embittered, radicalized, and disenchanted. The fact that somewhat analogous processes have weakened the unity of both the Israeli and American populations in recent years will make rational interaction among the three states considerably more difficult in the near future.

Thinking Systematically about the G20 Statement

Follow-up to the classroom exercise in systems thinking to sharpen your analytical skills that was introduced yesterday. Including lots of discussion, this exercise would make an appropriate undergraduate lesson for two one-hour classes.

The G20 that just met to resolve the global financial crisis made a significant decision that fell short of the recommendations made by the Stiglitz report to the U.N. that was submitted in March. Although the U.N. commission headed by Stiglitz recommended restructuring the highly restricting rules used by international lending institutions so as to grant poor recipient countries the flexibility to implement desperately needed social welfare measures, the G20 instead focused simply on adding funding to the international lending institutions, thereby increasing the political power of the lending institutions rather than the recipient state governments.

How should we begin to think about the implications of this decision? Is it good news or bad news for everyone who is concerned about the state of the world’s economy? Following the method outlined in yesterday’s post, the apparent “reference mode” (mental model; initial point of view) of the G20 underlying their decision is presented.

(Note: for the purposes of this post, I assume goodwill and sincerity on the part of the G20; i.e., I assume here that the G20 truly desired to resolve the economic crisis to the benefit of all mankind. Of course, if you make a different assumption, e.g., that the G20 was out to exploit the world for the benefit of the rich countries, then the reference mode I have drawn would not represent the G20’s point of view. Normally, in using this methodology, you draw the reference mode honestly to represent what you personally believe before you start analyzing the problem of interest to you. Here, instead, I am guessing—based on the logic of the G20’s statement—what the real intent of that body was.)

The G20 Reference Mode says that:

1. The key variable impacting the well-being of the world’s poor is the amount of aid;
2. The amount of aid and the well-being of the poor covary.

QUESTION: is the G20’s presumed perspective correct?

Consider the following initial causal loop diagram as an approach to analyzing the accuracy of the G20 perspective. I am suggesting that this causal loop diagram captures the key issue: does a rise in World Bank & IMF funding under current rules help or harm the well-being of the world’s poor? The argument can be made that increased aid under current rules results in the impoverishment of local populations even as, e.g., extractive industries designed to export resources cheaply to the West flourish. The purpose of this post is not to answer that question but simply to structure an analytical approach that could profitably be used, say, in a classroom, systematically to illuminate this problem.

Feel free to create a completely different explanation of the core behavior of socio-economics in poor states receiving World Bank/IMF aid if you wish. Alternatively, if you wish to accept this causal loop diagram, first, think about its implications and then consider how it might be improved.

Implications of the causal loop diagram as it stands:

• The black arrows represent the initial effect – the G20 evidently believes the effect is positive; do you agree? Will the rate of positive impact on social welfare be as rapid as positive impact on resource extraction? Will it remain positive? Will it be linear?
• The green arrows represent a second stage effect. The G20 evidently believes this will, in both cases, also be positive. Do you agree? Specifically, does a successful extraction industry (consider oil from Iraq or Nigeria or Colombia; gas from Central Asia) equate to a general rise in social welfare?
• The blue arrows represent feedbacks to international aid institution policies. What might the nature of such feedback be, assuming it exists?
• The red arrow indicates a direct impact of the state of resource extraction industry on social welfare. The literature is vast; you may wish to start with Abdelrahman Munif’s novel about the arrival of Western oilmen to Saudi Arabia. What sign would you put on the red arrow (or do you think there is no impact at all)?

How it might be improved:

• Add new variables?
• Add intervening steps (e.g., along the red arrow)?
• Add a feedback arrow from “popular living standards in poor countries” to “World Bank/IMF aid levels?

Please do not tell anyone, but here’s a secret: this post was not that difficult to write. It is about thinking systematically, which turns out to be easy once you get in the habit because, by definition, you do it one step at a time. This thinking process was so easy that, for example, a serious New York Times reporter reviewing the G20 statement would have had time to do it. In fact, this thinking process was so easy that even a G20 decisionmaker would have had time to do it. I wonder if any of them did.

Systems Thinking Experiment: For Classroom...or Decisionmakers

Thinking logically about complex topics is the critical first step missed by everyone from beginners to senior national decisionmakers. Ironically, the first steps really aren't that hard. So here's an experiment brief and useful enough to fit into any classroom schedule or crisis national decisionmaking process. Professors who would like some Internet-based pro bono support to run this experiment in their foreign policy or economic policy class are invited to get in touch. (National decisionmakers will be expected to pay.)


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A Simple Experiment

Step 1. Select an analytically substantive question.

I recommend a question of real depth, phrased generically, e.g., "What are the implications of the policy of 'security through strength'?"


Step 2. Draw a reference mode.

A reference mode is a graph with time on the x-axis showing what you think happens. This experiment is an exploration, and when you want to explore, it is good to know where you are starting. Think of the "reference mode" like knowing the coordinates of your car before you start a hike. The y-axis represents whatever variable you feel is key. Of course, you can do multiple graphs to show different processes.


Step 3. Draw a causal loop diagram.

A causal loop diagram is a diagram showing how the forces at play affect behavior. It is a "loop" because dynamics cycle back (e.g., the more you complement me, the more I like you). In contrast to the very simple picture of the reference mode graph, the causal loop diagram identifies each force and its impact. Start with A affects B and B affects A. Then add details.

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That is the essence of a simple experiment in logical thinking that can be incrementally pushed pretty much as far as you have the intellectual stamina to take it. Here are examples analyzing military control of the political process and how war can erupt even when everyone wants peace. If you happen to have the luxury of real data, you can transform your causal loop diagram into a mathematical model using simple software such as Stella, but even five minutes on a napkin over lunch will clarify your understanding of a tough problem. Figuring out the key force in a complicated problem such as the impact on a neighboring country of a policy of security through strength and then figuring out the impact of that force turn out not to be as straightforward as many overconfident experts think. Making a formal effort to do this, even for five minutes, is push-ups for the mind.

The point of this post is to suggest that such an experiment, valuable as it is, is easy enough for anyone to try, easy enough for me to support via the Internet. Of course, it can get complicated if you want to identify all the variables, and there are numerous posts on this blog illustrating that point. But it's the first step that counts.

Impacts of Threatening Iran

What are the impacts on Iranian behavior of Western pressure? No one knows. The answer is never certain because the same pressure tomorrow may have a different impact than it does today: context is constantly evolving. What we do know is that the impact of pressuring and threatening an antagonist is highly complex. It also seems pretty clear that its real complexity far exceeds the understanding of most decision-makers. If the above picture is worth 1000 words for you, then you can stop reading.

But just in case you think the picture requires explanation...

Start with the center left square: "anti-Iranian pressure, threats, insults." Arrows should be interpreted as indicating that X covaries with Y. Follow the black arrows, for the moment ignoring the others.

According to the picture, as pressure tactics intensify, two things happen (black arrows): 1) the domestic political power of the Iranian "neo-con" war generation led by Ahmadinejad increases because when a society is attacked from the outside, it comes together in self-defense, 2) Ahmadinejad's status as a global Muslim leader increases because almost no one else is speaking up for Palestine, thus leaving him without competition (i.e., he gets a free ride as a "defender of the faith" and "leader of Arab(!) nationalism" without being forced to back up his words.

Whatever expansionist, adventurist temptations may exist in the Iranian elite, these temptations are intensified by the rising domestic political unification behind their threatened but increasingly famous leader. "I might prefer lower gas prices and freedom to go out for a drink, but ya gotta admire the guy standing up to the whole Western world!"

That is the core story of the picture, but it is only the first stage. Automatically, without any further action by anyone, additional things (blue arrows) start happening. Will the rising power of the Iranian war generation persuade them to be magnanimous and promote domestic democracy? That is theoretically possible. It is also theoretically possible that it will so scare everyone else that someone will succeed in putting together a winning coalition to shove them out of power. But the argument made in the picture is that as the regime's power rises, so will its dictatorial tendencies. If you think some contradictory trend might simultaneously occur, then the picture needs to be modified. In any case, the argument in the picture is that dictatorial tendencies will rise and, being of course noticed in the West, will promote still further Western pressure.

In addition, Ahmadinejad's rising international status will intensify Iranian aggressiveness. Why? Politicians tend to become more aggressive as they gain power: few ever know when to stop. That in turn will further stimulate Western hostility. Why? People seldom recognize the degree to which they are the cause of the effects they deplore. It is highly unlikely that Westerners who are making careers out of sounding the alarm about a future Iranian threat will, as evidence that they are correct multiplies, stop and recognize, much less admit that the Iranian aggressiveness they see might have been provoked by their insults, threats, and efforts to marginalize and discriminate against Iran.

With the completion of the second stage in the process, we now have two unintended processes intensifying the initial Western pressure. Forget real data. Just make the simplifying assumption that every action by any actor has the value of "1." Even before Westerners choose to take any further action, the value of their hostility is already "3" (the original "1" plus "1" from the top blue feedback arrow and another "1" from the bottom blue feedback arrow. In other words, the impact is intensifying pretty fast.

But that is just the beginning. All actors in the system are linked. Israeli politicians are watching and reacting to the behavior of Iranian politicians. If all Israelis are highly educated observers (such as Ilan Pappe or Uri Avnery), then perhaps they will reason that they must try extra hard to calm the waters of international discord when Iranian dictatorial tendencies and international aggressiveness rise. However, if there happen to be any expansionist tendencies in the hearts and minds of any members of the Israeli elite, the view of an increasingly dictatorial and aggressive Iran will almost certainly whet their own appetite for militarism and aggression. Arguments to the contrary can be added to the picture and evidence to the contrary would be most welcome, but that at least is the argument the picture makes.

This brings us to the third stage (red arrows): as Israeli elite aggressiveness rises, their hostility toward Iran will also rise. Is this logical? Well, no; that you adopt an expansionist policy should be be connected to your feelings. A professional should maintain a solid firewall separating policy from feelings, otherwise hubris will result. But the picture is not presenting a story about logic; it is presenting a story about how politicians can be expected to act, regardless of their culture or nationality. For those who want to turn the above picture into a mathematical (system dynamics) model of the dynamics of threats against Iran, we now have a value of "4" on the original Western threat (after a single threatening act). That is, the impact of threats will rise four times (according to this simple picture) as fast as you would expect! For those who want to model this, the result will be highly nonlinear, showing an exponential rise in intensity.

In theory, the mirror image is also true. If threats are very dangerous, a consistently conciliatory policy would in theory undercut tensions equally fast. Unfortunately, there is a problem: people tend to remember threats a long time, and people learn distrust much faster than they learn trust.

Thinking, Not Screaming, About Iranian-Israeli Tensions

EXCERPT: Decision-makers are failing to solve the extremely dangerous but artificially created crisis between Iran and Israel; indeed, they repeatedly throw gasoline on the flames. Can academic analysis resting on systematic methodology provide the necessary insights to enable the world to move forward? It is time to make a serious attempt.

Iranian-Israeli relations have been lurching from one insult or aggravating incident to another for many years, with decision-makers seeming to learn little and frequently to risk much. The longer the tension lasts without steps toward resolution, the greater the danger: people start to assume that conflict is inevitable, forgetting all the arbitrary inputs that occurred over the years and opportunities for a fatal misstep multiply. Ironically, the Iranian-Israeli crisis is artificial. No fundamental conflict of interests exists. They are not neighbors, do not compete for some essential scarce resource the way Israelis and Palestinians compete for land and water. The Iranian-Israeli crisis is completely the product of voluntary political behavior by national leaders on each side. Given the pattern of failure on the part of governments to resolve this crisis and the widespread popular confusion in the West about the underlying motivations and dynamics, it is time for academics to make a major effort to provide insight.

This post, which flows from a series of analyses I have made over the past two years of Iranian and Israeli foreign affairs, offers a model of foreign policy motivations composed of three variables: conflict resolution strategy, security, and influence. Innumerable other factors of course affect foreign policy; if one can be identified that is more important than one of these, propose it or try it yourself. All models are simplifications (including the mental models in the heads of decision-makers who call for war). No model is "correct;" some, however, may be more useful than intemperate rhetoric, talking at cross-purposes, or Big Lies.


The Model.

The model is composed of the following three variables:

• conflict resolution strategy - from compromise to force;
• state of security (perceived by oneself) - from satisfied to unsatisfied;
• level of global influence (perceived by oneself) - from satisfied to unsatisfied.

Detailed scenarios can be developed for the resulting eight octants, but for the moment, it is perhaps sufficient to note that the top left, red octant (force, unsatisfied, unsatisfied) is the most dangerous.


The Current Trend.

The second image shows the rough position of Iran and Israel.

Israel is very far up in the danger zone, employing a conflict resolution strategy that strongly emphasizes force, a steady flow of elite references to insecurity (e.g., calling Iran an "existential threat"), and a focus on maximizing military power far beyond the capabilities of any of its neighbors suggesting high dissatisfaction with Israel's level of global influence.

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Sample evidence of Israeli dissatisfaction with its global influence: Defense Minister Barak asserted the right of Israel to attack Lebanon if Hezbollah obtains (not "uses") certain unspecified weapons.
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Iran's position is less clear. Iran has put very low emphasis on using force in international affairs since the Islamic Revolution, with the single exception of defending itself against Saddam's invasion and Khomenei's subsequent decision to attempt to punish Iraq after the tide turned. However, Iran is clearly attempting to arm itself as rapidly as it can, and its lack of actual aggressiveness (in contrast to its highly aggressive verbal stance on many occasions) may be a function of its military weakness. It seems much clearer that Iran has a perceived security problem; surrounded by American bases and threatened by Israel, how could it not? Iran's emphasis on mastering nuclear technology, armament program even in the midst of major economic problems, and rhetoric all suggest not just a perceived security problem but also dissatisfaction over Iran's global influence.

If the positions of Iran and Israel suggest imminent danger, the lack of change does little to offer hope. Israel's position does not appear to have moderated at all in recent years, despite the failure of repeated wars to solve its perceived security problems. Campaign rhetoric since the end of the Gaza attack suggests no lessening of Israel's reliance on force. Iran has repeatedly signalled a willingness to talk but, in a hostile international environment, has shown little willingness to change policies unilaterally. There is no reason to expect that a country will unilaterally offer concessions when already in a position of weakness, especially when its position is improving, as Iran's clearly has over the last decade with the removal of its main enemy Saddam Hussein,emergence of Shi'ite rule in Iraq, and overextension of the U.S. Until the U.S. or Israel moderates hostility toward Iran, evidence to show Iranian's intentions is likely to be scarce.


In Sum.
This model provides a simple framework for systematic thinking about a very complex subject. Future posts will address the individual scenarios that can be anticipated for the various octants, how scenario tracking can make turn the model into a practical tool for putting events into perspective, the underlying dynamics powering the scenarios, and some insights into reality that complexity theory can provide.

Iraqi Maneuverings

The decision officially made by Iraqi Prime Minister al Maliki, though perhaps with more than a little urging from behind the scenes, to corner Moqtada al Sadr seems to have been designed at a minimum to persuade Moqtada to give up his estimated 60,000-man militia and become just a weak factional leader in a political system where power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Instead--Surprise! Surprise!—it risks pushing him in the opposition direction, toward setting up his own competing political system.

Al Sadr has, over the past year, been taught several lessons:

• Unilaterally declaring a ceasefire does not protect you from being attacked;
• Participating in the political process does not protect you from being attacked;
• Allowing Tehran to broker a ceasefire in Basra does not protect you from being attacked in Baghdad;
• If you have a political perspective (unified state, rapid U.S. troop withdrawal) that puts you at odds with other power centers, you are at risk.

Given these lessons, one would indeed think it would be difficult to make the decision to give up a 60,000-man army and put one’s faith in the generosity of one’s political opponents. This is the context behind the comment of Mohan Abedin, director of research at St. Andrew’s Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, who said that "Muqtada has shown a great deal of patience not calling for an all-out war yet with so much pressure on him.” Indeed, one of al Sadr’s political supporters was anonymously quoted as saying that his “emphasis is now on weapons and fighting, not politics.”

While this is a serious indication of the direction in which al Sadr may be moving, it is nevertheless clear that he continues to play politics, as indicated by his nuanced refocusing of last week’s threat to fight if Maliki and the U.S. do not stop attacking his forces. Focusing on “open warfare against the Americans,” he is now stressing the importance of Iraqis avoiding killing each other.

Still calling on his own forces to avoid fighting, he is maintaining his threat of open warfare, but focusing it on occupation forces, saying "When we threatened 'open war' we meant a war against the occupier, not a war against our Iraqi brothers.” Nevertheless, war against Iraqi brothers continues, as this good background piece describes.

Meanwhile, al Sadr is calling on other Arab states to give political support to Iraqi efforts toward independence. The temporizing of Arab leaders at this week’s Kuwait “neighbor’s summit” suggests they may be listening to him.

And now, only a month after the Battle of Basra, the former prime minister Jaafari is rumored to be moving toward alliance with al Sadr, which would crack the wall of isolation that has been thrown around al Sadr in recent weeks.

Given the relatively restrained resistance of Moqtada's JAM in Basra, it seems fair to wonder if all the rhetoric about open war is anything more than bravado. It may be, as is being argued by some, that Basra has been not only an utter defeat for Moqtada but one popular with the people of Basra.

But the hypothesis that Moqtada chose to limit his resistance does fit with Moqtada’s historical behavior of avoiding open showdowns when offered an alternative. It also fits with his efforts to portray himself as a patriot and maneuver Maliki out of a complete break. Finally, it seems the better part of valor, for it could be argued that time is on Moqtada’s side. One could hypothesize that the longer he resists, the more he trumpets his independence from Iran (a claim al Hakim cannot easily make), the louder he calls on Iraqis to unite against the invader, and the more the Baghdad poor are subjected to collective punishment, the better Moqtada’s political position. Given the likelihood of American troop withdrawal, time may well be on his side militarily as well.

The opposite argument would be that time is on Maliki’s side because the longer he carries on the offensive, the more desperate Moqtada’s poor supporters will become and the longer Moqtada keeps retreating, the more he will look like a paper tiger.

For all the talk of who has military power, the issue may in the end be decided by two political issues:

1. the skill with which Maliki rewards all his new coalition partners, the Kurds salivating over Kirkuk and the Sunnis demanding control of ministries and access to the military;
2. the degree to which Moqtada’s religious and ethnic excesses have alienated him from the Iraqi people.

Maliki and his supporters want to create that “single center of power” that would so greatly simplify the Iraqi political system. He now appears to have made progress toward that goal in both Basra and Baghdad. Time will tell if he is really succeeding or if the “process of energizing” the political system will instead provoke the emergence of new and unanticipated dynamics.