Defeating Ourselves in Afghanistan

Long-time author and reporter on the Afghan debacle of the last generation Steve Coll describes a collapsing U.S. Afghan policy that is also "destabilizing" Pakistan and is seen by the Pakistani military (not to mention himself) as imperiled because "the logic chain of the American military campaign is broken." [The New Yorker 3/29/12.] Too focused on short-term advantage and, more seriously, benefit specifically of American and allied elites rather than the populations of either Afghanistan or America, Washington's policy all too often amounts to lifting rocks only to drop them on its own feet. Afghanistan is just the most recent example in a long line of making the same mistake over and over.

U.S. policy toward the Muslim world is manifestly ineffective. The particular locus of crisis moves around, but the bottom line is the same: harsh military repression combined with long-standing background economic policies that support client regimes while undermining popular economic development jointly provoke fully justified anti-American feeling. The U.S. needs a new grand strategy, a real strategy thoughtfully constructed of an incremental series of mutually supporting and logically consistent steps that build on each other to create a political atmosphere in which momentum builds toward an outcome of benefit to both Muslim and American societies, rather than focusing exclusively on elites. 

Elites of course prefer padding their own pockets, but the price (albeit one paid primarily by the populations) is recurrent instability, including terrorism and wars. To a degree, current U.S. policy does already have "an incremental series of mutually supportive and logically consistent" components, though one should not push the 'logically consistent' part too far, but the real problem is that these components rest on a zero-sum foundation. That may be the tried and true historical foundation for great power politics, but the world has changed. Events from 9/11 to the 2007 financial crisis to the horrifying years of the Iraqi insurgency should suffice to demonstrate how outdated and self-defeating the old zero-sum policy of force has become. As columnist and strategic thinker William Pfaff put it:

The United States' millenarian notions of a national destiny and the militarism that has infected American society have been responsible for a series of wars from which Washington has gained little or nothing, and suffered a great deal, while contributing enormously to the misfortune of others. ["Manufacturing Insecurity," Foreign Affairs 11-12/10, 140.]

One can obviously make a strong moral argument for positive-sum policy, but that is not needed; even from the perspective of pure self-interest, zero-sum foreign policy in a tightly interdependent world is a self-defeating proposition. The most effective way to achieve a more rational and stable situation is by designing a positive-sum strategy while keeping one’s gun in one’s holster. (Everyone knows the gun is there.) Even if U.S. policy were perfectly logical, with all moves fully consistent, a policy based on a zero-sum foundation that considers force the conflict resolution method of choice is in today's world a non-starter.

The Peace Candidate on Washington's Afghan War

It was a waste, there's not gonna be a happy ending, and I think the Republicans have dug a hole for themselves because they're trying to out-militarize the president, say 'we should do more.' Yet 75 percent of the American people say 'we've had enough.' [Ron Paul on Face the Nation.]

But as the whole decade-long Afghan war demonstrates, U.S. policy toward the Muslim world is far from logically consistent. The Pakistani-Afghan theater of the broader U.S. confrontation with politically active Islam is a case study in mutually contradictory, self-defeating policies based on a zero-sum view of the world that comes dangerously close to defining the world's one billion Muslims as "the enemy." Washington seeks military victory but it is precisely its use of military force to resolve political, cultural, and economic disagreements that breeds hostility. Washington wants Pakistan’s support while seeking to deny it desperately needed Iranian gas imports. Washington provides nuclear technology to India, thus aggravating Islamabad insecurity and contradicting its policy of opposing Iran’s nuclear program. And the rising prospect of a U.S. military retreat from Afghanistan seems increasingly to look, in Washington’s eyes, like defeat rather than transformation from a vigorous but short-sighted military policy to a vigorous but long-term policy of encouraging politically-active, reformist, independent Islamic stabilization and development. 

Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is composed of a coordinated set of policies. Faced with Hitler or Attila, one naturally turns to violence because destruction appears the only alternative. Fortunately, no such threat is even remotely visible on the political horizon, so the U.S. has choices. Counterintuitively, however, the U.S. has restricted itself since 9/11 (with the exception of some fine words, e.g., in Cairo) to a grand strategy of military empire, arbitrarily denying to itself a range of powerful foreign policy tools that, in the hands of a skillful superpower, can have impressive effectiveness.

The ineffectiveness of brute military force for creating a new world of long-term benefit to American society has in barely a decade been made glaringly clear. Iraq and Lebanon are in Iran's orbit, Somalia a basket case, Afghanistan a looming U.S. defeat, and Pakistan a crisis very visible on the horizon. Turkey is alienated, and Israeli democracy under domestic attack. The U.S. should seize the opportunity to come up with a more effective grand strategy than the combination of invasion, drone bombings, and blatant military threats backing up economic sanctions to force adversaries to surrender in return for the right to kneel at the "negotiating" table. ["Grand Strategy."]

A policy of support for independent, reformist Islamic political  activism would not be a policy leading to U.S. empire or U.S. control over local resources or U.S. military bases for dominating Central Asia, but it might be a policy consistent with U.S. security and with a reasonable probability of being effectively implemented. 

Strategy in Iran's Neighborhood

Imagine the Iranian crisis not as a U.S./Israeli conflict with Iran but as a regional competition involving half a dozen major players and the conclusion that jumps out is: “instability.”

The core level is the double sectarian problem of Azeris living in Iran and Kurds living in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. It would not be prudent for a 21^st century strategist to discount the potential of these old sectarian issues to cause problems. Turks, even today in the era of Davutoglu’s “good-neighborliness,” still launch military attacks into Iraq in the endless effort to force the Kurdish circle into the three square pegs of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. As for those who think President Truman resolved the Iranian Azeri issue in 1948 when he faced down Stalin, in now independent Azerbaijan, politicians have not forgotten. Sectarian issues, concerning both justice for minorities and irredentist feelings, lie always ready beneath the surface to complicate whatever other political issues may exist.

Dangerous Neighborhood

The broadest level of the regional political scene is the Iranian-Israeli struggle for regional influence that Americans see through the darkly tinted glasses of the nuclear dispute. Whether or not Iran is truly planning to challenge Israel’s overwhelming nuclear superiority, commonly held to be not just a regional monopoly but a massive 200 or more nuclear bombs, there is little doubt that Tehran wants to duplicate Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity and that Tel Aviv bitterly resents Tehran’s efforts to eliminate by duplication Tel Aviv’s psychological nuclear exceptionalism. Given the questionable utility of nuclear bombs for actual military use, Tehran’s ability to match Tel Aviv’s formerly unique policy of nuclear ambiguity may be more significant in political terms than the question of whether or not it actually manufactures a nuclear weapon.

Another layer of the political onion is political competition among Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan. A recent joint declaration by the three states’ foreign ministers in Azerbaijan to improve relations notwithstanding, realities are less friendly:

• Major General Hassan Firuzabadi, head of Iran's general staff and a general enamored of provocative public remarks about international strategy, is now alleged “not” to have “in fact declared that ‘the people's awakening cannot be suppressed’ or accused Aliyev's government of ‘giv[ing] freedom to the Zionist regime [Israel] to meddle in [his] country's affairs,’ according to a statement issued by the Iranian Embassy in Baku. Nor had he accused Aliyev of giving ‘command to bar Islamic rules.’”
• Whatever the truth of the curiously detailed “misquotations” of Iranian general Firuzabadi, Azerbaijan recently announced an Iranian spy plot against Israeli interests in Azerbaijan.

Sitalcay Airstrip - Base for Israeli Aggression Against Iran?

With Azerbaijan cosying up to Israel to the point of worrying American strategists trying to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran, it seems that Muslim fraternal relations will be put to the test. Not only is Israel now selling arms to Azerbaijan, it appears to be gaining access to Azeri air bases, of which Sital Chay [Sitalcay], an old Soviet base outside of Baku, beckons Israeli strategists—judging from Mark Perry’s important article on the Foreign Policy website--as a convenient location either for spying on Iran or landing at after an attack. Israel’s policy toward Azerbaijan copies its longstanding policy of using Georgia as a potential base for attacking Iran.

Bilateral Azeri-Iranian tensions, exacerbated by the strategically provocative Israeli factor, are further complicated by the Turkish role. Turkey has treated Azerbaijan as an important state since its independence from the collapsing Soviet Union, but the relationship is now clearly troubled, with the recent Israeli replacement of Turkey by Azerbaijan as market for its drones symptomatic. One can easily imagine the $1.6 billion Israeli sale leading to Israeli drone flights from Azerbaijan over Iran. An Israeli-made drone has already been reported shot down over Nagorno-Karabakh. An intruding Israeli drone was also chased, unsuccessfully, by Turkish jet fighters in January, suggesting that Israel is becoming significantly more aggressive (now apparently feeling that it can get away with violating the borders of not just helpless adversaries like Lebanon and Syria but even NATO members). Washington’s example of flying drones over Iran is no doubt seen in Tel Aviv as the pertinent precedent.

More than just imagination, regional drone conflict appears imminent according to Philip Giraldi:

The Israeli government has signed a secret agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to lease two former Soviet military airfields located close to the Iranian border. One of the facilities is being used as an intelligence collection site, with advanced Sigint capabilities and preparations underway for drone operations.

If all these factors fail to give the strategic thinker pause, the number of potential ways in which local misbehavior could pull in the Russians should. After getting a blank international check to demolish Grozniy and cold-clocking Georgia, Russia under the new Putin seems unlikely to tolerate trouble-making on its border. The Heralding the Rise of Russia Blog makes the point clearly:

Moscow has been forced into an alliance of sorts with Tehran due to very distinct geostrategic considerations. Moscow fears that if Tehran falls to its enemies, Russian's already vulnerable position in the Caucasus and Central Asia may become untenable. Moscow fully realizes that the West's main long-term agenda in the region is to exploit the region's remaining energy reserves; to stop emerging nations from growing too powerful; and to contain the Russian Federation and China, the two most powerful nations on the Eurasian supercontinent. 

The full argument is well worth reading. While Turkey may be more of an independent, swing actor than portrayed in Heralding, the point that Moscow's perspective may fail to consider that remains important. Arming Azerbaijan, which certainly has one eye on Armenia, will not go unnoticed in Moscow, nor will the spreading of the Israeli-Iranian conflict into Azerbaijan. And given the current charged political climate in the U.S., any paw swipes by the Bear reminiscent of its behavior in Grozniy or Georgia will surely ruffle the Eagle's feathers. 


From the perspective of U.S. national security, the warning implicit in this convoluted and multi-layered regional competition should be clear: its complexity almost beyond any regime’s capacity to manage, the potential both for a war of choice and a war by accident constitutes a significant threat. Several specific concerns relate to U.S. national security. 1) By giving its Israeli proxy such a long leash, Washington may get itself bit on the leg.  As Israeli policy becomes more provocative, the likelihood of reactions that harm the U.S. (e.g., alienation of Turkey) will increase. 2) Washington's particular combination of a very active but not very effective policy from Somalia to Afghanistan is leading to a power vacuum combined with chaos in the region. This vacuum will suck in Russia, which might not be a problem except that it will, under these conditions, re-enter the Mideast as an opponent of the U.S., a result likely to make Washington's dilemma even worse. 3) Washington may come to regret establishing the precedent that powerful countries have the right to violate the borders of weaker countries with drones. Drones are rapidly proliferating and their rising use by shortsighted politicians happy to have an unmanned weapon suggests that their potential for exacerbating tensions is being overlooked. In the kind of complex situation developing in the region around Iran, drones may prove to be just the spark needed to light exactly the conflagration that Americans--desperate for time to put their own house in order--do not need.

A Practical American Plan For Iran

The current U.S. policy toward Iran is more emotion than calculation, born more of desperation than calculation. Bilateral acceptance of a positive-sum strategic attitude would be a game-changer.

Just as a chess game does not begin with checkmate, a state’s strategy should not begin with war. Threats, sanctions, the invasion of states bordering an adversary, the construction of archipelagos of military bases surrounding an adversary, terrorist campaigns to murder enemy scientists, references to “preventive” war, and the open consideration of using weapons of mass destruction against a non-threatening state simply because that state might be building or researching weapons of mass destruction are extremist options that should be saved for extreme circumstances. The possibility that an adversary will want some of the same weapons that everyone else has is not an extreme situation.

The current U.S. policy toward Iran is more emotion than calculation, born more of desperation than calculation. History teaches us that it has little likelihood of succeeding. It is much more likely to provoke momentum toward precisely the disaster it claims to be designed to avoid. The further one pushes the current policy the more intense will become the resistance of a cornered adversary and the more nervous will become the rest of the world.

The alternative is a new grand strategy, a real strategy thoughtfully constructed of an incremental series of consistent, mutually supporting, and logically consistent steps that build on each other to create a political atmosphere in which momentum builds toward a beneficial outcome. The most effective way to achieve this is by designing a positive-sum strategy while keeping one’s gun in one’s holster; everyone knows the gun is there.

A simple positive-sum American strategy for dealing with Iran should include the following components, implemented more-or-less in the following order, with Steps 1-7 to be implemented over a period of days, Steps 8-10 over subsequent weeks, and Steps 11-13 presented slowly, keeping time with Iran's quid pro quos, over the ensuing months:

Step 1. Call Larijani’s Bluff.

In initial response to the offer by Mohammad Javad Larijani of “permanent human monitoring” to watch over Iranian nuclear transparency, Obama should respond positively to this conciliatory signal.

Step 2. End Anti-Iranian Terrorism.

Washington cannot demonstrate that it is negotiating in good faith with Iran unless it takes action to address the Israeli point on the triangle. A delicate first step vis-à-vis Tel Aviv would be a public statement by Secretary of State Clinton that the U.S. opposes the murder of scientists, a statement that should privately be underscored at a minimum by the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, if not at a higher level.

Step 3. Terminate Rhetorical Threats. Obama should order that no one in his administration make any further public threats about the U.S. or Israel launching a war of choice against Iran. Anyone who violated this order should immediately be fired.

Step 4. Recognize the Islamic Republic.

It exists; it governs; therefore, recognize it. Then, figure out how to deal with it.

Step 5. Offer to Negotiate Naval Rules of Engagement.

States go to war, sometimes with good reason, but no one wants a war by mistake. The greatest risk of war by mistake now appears to be a naval incident in the crowded Persian Gulf. Obama should suggest technical talks to develop mutual naval rules of engagement for the Persian Gulf.

Step 6. Combat Illegal Narcotics.

An obvious positive-sum issue begging to be addressed is the flow of illegal narcotics out of Afghanistan, where the war is setting up a situation analogous to that in Colombia during the Cali heyday of Pablo Escobar. Washington should move promptly to identify precise technical solutions designed to minimize smuggling into Iran.

Step 7. Avoid provoking sectarian conflict.

The U.S. should avoid any participation in minority campaigns either by Baluchis or Kurds to dismembering the Iranian state.

Step 8. Offer to Discuss Regional Sectarian Issues. Along with avoiding the provocation of sectarian conflict, Washington should at least discuss cooperation on regional sectarian issues of concern to Iran, specifically in Iraq and Bahrain, according to the following principles:

1. Start with cautious exchanges of views;
2. Offer broadened venues including other regional states;
3. Expect slow progress;
4. Use these talks initially as an indicator of Iranian sincerity and be ready to respond quickly to Iranian signs of cooperation.

Step 9. Ignore Insults/Threats From Tehran; Condemn Anti-Iranian Insults/Threats By Tel Aviv. Washington should ignore any threatening rhetoric from Tehran and express displeasure at any threatening rhetoric from Tel Aviv, setting, as it were, a new standard of politeness.

Step 10. Put Mutual National Security on the Table.

Washington must concede up front that Iran, like every other state, has legitimate national security concerns. This gives Iran a key reason for being cooperative. It also has the advantage of permitting Washington to introduce the other side of this three-sided coin – the security concerns of the U.S. and Israel.

Step 11. Make Rejection of WMD a National Security Gain.

Washington should make the case that rejecting weapons of mass destruction can lead to enhanced security. The logical case is straightforward: “we” promise not to use weapons against you that “you” do not have. Many attractive offers can be made in this context in return for Iranian nuclear transparency:

1. Offer to support the idea of Russian sales of defensive missiles for protection against an aerial attack in return for nuclear transparency;
2. Offer to terminate drone overflights of Iran;
3. Offer to limit Israeli offensive capabilities by removing U.S. bunker-buster bombs from the Israeli arsenal, constraining the use of AWACS, rationing the supply of jet fuel;
4. Offer to advocate Iranian-Israeli talks to constrain the routes of Israeli nuclear-capable submarines. 

Step 12. Present a Plan for Resolution of the Nuclear Dispute.

1. Offer to support the Iranian-Pakistani gas pipeline in return for nuclear progress;
2. Offer to trade the end of sanctions for permanent human monitoring.

Step 13. Afghanistan.

1. Offer to discuss resolution of the Afghan conflict;
2. Include Iran in multinational effort to plan for the future of Afghanistan.

The point of defining a positive-sum strategic plan for dealing with Iran is not to solve all the problems but to create a context within which the problems can be discussed rationally. Doing business rationally does not mean all cooperation/no conflict, but it does mean the possibility of mutual benefit exists. Mutual recognition of that would be a game changer.

War in the Eyes of the 99%

Sometimes the average American man or woman in the street seems so abysmally ignorant about the world that politicians can trick them into buying the junkiest lemon of a used political-mobile ever seen rusting on the lot. And yet, on other days, the average American appears vastly more intelligent than the average high-paid member of the ruling elite. 

Yes, almost all Americans bought the neo-con line about the "war on terror" after the horror of 9/11, but today the 99% appear, judging from various polls, to have learned something. We are told, for example, that nearly 70% now want the war in Afghanistan ended. Interestingly, in stark contrast to the war-mongering by the Netanyahu clique, 62% of Israelis also oppose a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran! In both cases, it seems reasonable to assume that many if not most of the individuals have little knowledge of the real historical facts (which are carefully hidden by Israeli and American politicians) and little appreciation for how the world looks from the perspective of the two countries being targeted. Yet, very large American and Israeli majorities evidently oppose, in the case of Afghanistan, an incompetent and brutal war, and, in the case of Iran, an unprovoked war of aggression. Just imagine how large the anti-war majorities would be if Washington and Tel Aviv made an effort to present accurate portrayals of global affairs to their otherwise-occupied populations.

Polls in the U.S. are notoriously biased by the questions avoided and the framing of questions asked, but at least polls are legal. In Iran, polling can get you jailed. Nevertheless, there are indications that in Iran as well, the population tends to be far less extremist than the elite. This suggests that a U.S. effort to develop a policy sensitive to the interests of the Iranian public rather than threatening to starve or bomb the Iranian public would be of long-term advantage to the U.S.

Unfortunately, no generalization about America makes much sense unless one differentiates the 99% (who fight) from the 1% (who don't fight). More accurately, the distinction should probably be between the 99.9% and the 0.1%, though that remains a research area--and one worth serious investigation. In any case, it is too bad that the opinions of millionaire members of the ruling elite (top politicians as well as CEO's of financial firms, oil companies, and war profiteer corporations) are not polled separately. After all, while ultimately we all die, in the meantime, the interests of these individuals and the interests of the other 99% really do not overlap very much, and--more to the point--the 1% have demonstrated in the last decade or two that they do not think their interests overlap with ours.

These comments certainly should not be misconstrued as an argument for democracy. As noted above, the general population can quite easily be manipulated and can panic. But the evidence certainly does not support government by the rich either. While I personally may be biased in favor of government by political scientists, I would be willing to settle, as a first step in the right direction, for government by those who earn  their living and pay at least as high a tax rate as the average. Would that make government officials more responsible? A first step toward figuring out the answer would be to conduct polls so as to differentiate between the opinions of the two groups.

Therefore, I propose that henceforth the following distinction be made when polling or generalizing in any way about what Americans (or perhaps Israelis, though I am not familiar with Israel's tax code) think:

If more than 50% of your income is earned and derived from income taxed in the normal way just like everyone else, you are in the category "normal;"

If most of your income is unearned, i.e., derived from privileged sources that are taxed at low rates (e.g., the U.S. rich man's welfare program known as "capital gains"), then you will be classified in the category "privileged."

Then, we will all have a much easier time figuring out why so many of the rich, who never fight, want war.

Mideast Sectarian Threat and Opportunity

If Washington aspires to change the world and implement a positive-sum grand design, current conditions in the Mideast not only present a potentially fatal threat but also offer an unusual opportunity.

Grand Strategy

U.S. foreign policy since the beginning of the 21st century has been a strategy of military empire, with results that arrogant Washington politicians might not have been able to foresee but that Marcus Aurelius certainly would have had something to say about. Offering the obvious alternative--peace, compromise, searching for positive-sum outcomes--is easy to do, but what, exactly, might such a grand strategy be built of?

Israeli Attack's 'Dire Consequences' for U.S.

Pentagon recognition of Israeli threat to U.S. national security is rising.

American Terrorist

This single act of terrorism by an American in uniform representing his whole nation overseas raises fundamental questions about the moral nature of American society. We need answers.

Mossad & CIA: No Iranian Bomb Program

Both Mossad and the U.S. Intelligence Community agree that Iran not only has no nuclear bomb but does not even have a program to develop a bomb.

Algeria As Prologue

In the book of America's conflict with politically active Islam, Algeria is the prologue.