This post has been swirling around on the outskirts of my conscious mind for months. It has to do partly with the politics of the war but even more so with the strategy for fighting global jihadism. As news from Iraq and Afghanistan gets more grim by the week and it is becoming apparent that anti-western and anti-American sentiment has spawned jihadist networks far beyond anything Osama Bin Laden ever imagined for al-Qaeda, we are confronted with the uncomfortable question of whether or not our actions in the Middle East and elsewhere have exacerbated the problem of terrorism.
In short, is there anything we could have done differently that would have made the United States safer while still dealing effectively with the global threat of terrorism?
In one way, the question opens the abyss beneath our feet in that it calls into question everything we’ve been doing for the past five years to fight terrorism. But in another way, the question challenges the assumptions of those who offer much in the way of criticism but little in the way of alternatives.
In what will possibly be seen as one of the seminal documents in the history of the Global War on Terror, a recently compiled National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism lays out in stark and unbending terms, what 5 years of our efforts in the War on Terror have wrought:
The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,†cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.
The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,†said one American intelligence official.
More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.
That’s the headline; Iraq War creates more terrorists and terrorism. But there’s much more to ponder, including the notion that terrorist groups today are much more diffused across the world and have little or no connection to the “original” al-Qaeda:
The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating†cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.
In the end, the NIE attributes this scattering of terrorists to both our efforts in taking out the Taliban and the fact that hatred of the west has thrown up many more radicals than most of us thought possible 5 years ago.
I am not disputing the conclusions in this leaked report. I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today.
I totally reject that notion. In fact, I believe it delusional thinking to say that we’d be any safer if we hadn’t invaded Iraq or if we had just lobbed a few cruise missiles at Osama Bin Laden following 9/11, or even if we had put enormous pressure on Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. All of this ignores the one overarching truth about the nature of our enemies (and their tens of millions of supporters around the world); what they seek, we cannot give them.
Whether it’s a desire for the west to disengage from the Middle East – a region that supplies the lifeblood of our civilization – or a demand that we change our laws, our values, and our principles to accommodate them, or to simply submit to the will of Allah as they interpret it, we cannot yield. The jihadists wish us to change, to join them in living in the past where women were chattel, holy men dictated lifestyle, and the Muslim Caliphate was the glory of the known world.
The “root causes” crowd is fond of pointing out what they believe the reasons that terrorism is practiced on the west. They rightly repeat ad nauseum that terrorism is a tactic not an ideology and that given the huge disparity in military might between the west and the jihadists, employing the tactics of terrorism makes a good deal of sense. They also point to the extreme poverty of Muslim countries and that in many ways, Muslims are a “people out of time,” a direct result of a post-colonial residual feeling of inferiority and resentment. Terrorism gives the poor jihadis a means to strike back against their former oppressors (or current ones if you believe some of the more radical western leftists).
First of all, identifying “root causes” is all well and good. But short of massive transfers of wealth, overthrowing the despots who are sitting on top of all that oil, and allowing the State of Israel to be destroyed, just what the devil are we supposed to do to assuage this massive rage against us? That’s why this kind of psychobabble applied to people who desire to murder us all is disturbing to those of us whose thinking isn’t muddled by guilt ridden dreams of western imperialism or a belief that if only we could all sit down and exchange views, the jihadis hearts would soften and the problem would disappear.
An unfair exaggeration of the “root causes” crowd’s positions? Perhaps a little. But “solving” the problem of poverty anywhere is a chimera under any circumstances. And given the obvious tension between addressing the concerns of people being oppressed by despots and those same despots holding life in the balance for the western world with their hands clasped around an oil spigot, one can immediately see where the real world so rudely intrudes on the fantasies of the “root causes” crowd. And this goes to another favorite “root cause” of terrorism; our overall foreign policy and the fact that we are, for better or for worse, the only superpower around.
We are a nation of nearly 300 million people with an economy 3 times the size of the next largest producer. The world may hate our support for Israel but they can’t resist McDonalds. They may despise our support for despots around the world but they line up in droves to see Hollywood movies. They may riot over cartoons of the prophet, but they will work for years in order to save up enough to come to the United States for the opportunity to have a better life for themselves and their children.
Our superpower status is the result of the fact that the United States of America exists. Destroy the large corporations, contract the economy, bring every soldier home, dismantle our armed forces, makes ourselves a vassal of the United Nations and America would still be a superpower, still annoying most of the rest of the world. Of course, if we did all of that there wouldn’t be much left of the rest of the world. The world needs America pretty much the way we are now, despite the fact that it suits the nations to pretend this is not so for their own domestic reasons.
But what about radically altering our foreign policy and abjure our own concerns in the interest of world comity? This is an interesting criticism because it presupposes that we elect Presidents not to formulate policies to protect American interests but rather to bow to the interests of other countries. In effect, this critique posits the notion that we would be better off if we forgot about our own vital interests and used our power to injure ourselves, to shoot ourselves in the foot so to speak.
Again, is this an exaggeration of the “root causes” position? Not if you listen to some of its more articulate advocates like Noam Chomsky. The belief, for instance, that solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem can be approached by the United States reversing 60 years of support for the Jewish state by taking the side of the Palestinians in the dispute. Nothing less will satisfy the Palestinians and most of the Arab world so why pretend otherwise? The only “honest broker” desired by the Arabs is an auctioneer who will take bids on the pieces that remain of Israel once their enemies are through with them.
This doesn’t deal directly with the question of whether or not our tactics and strategy that we’ve employed in the War on Terror so far have made the problem worse than if we had gone a different route. But it does highlight the paucity of options between outright confrontation of the terrorists and a kind of middling, muddled, pre-9/11 approach to terrorism that saw us clearly on the defensive and faced with the prospect of future attacks that would use weapons of mass destruction.
Opinions on alternative paths we could have taken after 9/11 are as many as there are Democratic candidates for President. But one thing they will all agree on is that we never should have invaded Iraq. Indeed, the NIE outlined above would seem to indicate that the war was a blunder in that it has created more terrorists, radicalized young Muslims, and generated hate and revulsion against America throughout the Islamic world.
The counterfactual argument is tempting in this regard. No invasion of Iraq would mean fewer terrorists, less hate of America in the Islamic world, and generally speaking, a quieter world.
Even with Saddam? Some think so. In September of 2001, the world was more than ready to lift sanctions against Iraq and welcome Saddam back into the fold. How that would have played out over the next 5 years I leave to imaginations better suited for nightmares than mine but I think it safe to say that a re-invigorated Iraq would have been unpredictable and, given Saddam’s history, extremely dangerous to the neighborhood.
This is no secret which is why the United States Congress was calling for regime change in Iraq as early as 1998. But it important to point out that there would be no box for Saddam if the sanctions were lifted. And when even the Pope was calling for an end to them, as John Paull II did in 2000, you know that eventually the French and Russians, eager to bring their clandestine dealings with Saddam into the open, would have successfully agitated to have to sanctions lifted.
This is old ground, well travelled here and elsewhere. But given the alternatives between confronting Saddam and, despite the myopic and ass covering reports from Congress and our intelligence agencies, his clear support for terrorists (can critics guarantee that Saddam never would have established operational ties with al-Qaeda?), the range of options regarding Iraq narrows considerably. One can argue that the timing was wrong in confronting Iraq. But as something we eventually would have been forced into doing as a result of a general conflict with terror and terror states, it is very difficult to see how we could have avoided it.
Despite the NIE’s conclusions, it should be noted that it is not saying specifically that we should not have invaded Iraq. What it is saying should make us think long and hard about the disadvantages of confronting the terrorism beast without preparing for the fallout. I think even if we had been able to look into the future 3 years ago and have seen this report, the stark choices facing the Administration would have been exactly the same. It may be triumphalism for some to be able to point to the NIE as proof that things would have been different if we had not invaded Iraq. But that doesn’t change what conditions were like in 2003 and what was on the horizon if we did nothing.
8:08 pm
Failed societies, failed states, and failed wars increase terrorism.
Things might have been much more different had Afghanistan not been treated as an hors d’oeuvre. Instead of winning one war and stabilizing one society, we’re losing two and have two destabilized, failed states to contend with.
9:34 pm
I see sveral issues here:
1. Did the Administration GROSSLY OVERSTATE the threat iraq posed to us in ‘the run-up to war’? I cannot come to any other conclusion. Our own troops have proven that.
2. Did the Administration GROSSLY OVERSTATE what iraq would become once we invaded? Look at iraq NOW, it is indeed a failed state and I don’t see anything we can do to change that fact. The massive input of troops and material that would be needed to FORCE stabilization of iraq are simply not available to us. We simply don’t have those resources to ‘’commit’’ to that task.
3. Your argument ‘’(can critics guarantee that Saddam never would have established operational ties with al-Qaeda?)’’ is quite frankly, a false one.
Can you ‘guarantee’ that saddam WOULD have established operational ties with al-queda?
It’s plain that hugo chavez is OPENLY trying to ‘establish operational ties’ with iran.
What’s NOT plain is that iran even has any interest in doing so.
The strongest case made so far that ‘saddam supports terrorists’ is the acknowledged fact that saddam paid bounties to the families of ‘palistinian’ suicide bombers.
What undercuts that argument is the fact that the saudis were ALSO doing so pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom and I’ve not seen any evidence that they have stopped doing so NOW.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=18326&only
Tell me do YOU think the saudis have stopped supporting terrorism?
Or for that matter have no formal or informal ties to al-quida?
The only thing I’m convinced is that Operation Iraqi Freedom has expended manpower and material that would have better served US interests elsewhere.
If anything, Operation Iraqi Freedom has made us appear WEAK to the iranians, north korea and now even to the government of venezula.
What do they see? A US Military THAT CAN’T IMPOSE ORDER in iraq (or for that matter, afghanistan).
THAT’S WHAT THEY SEE
Is it any wonder WHY they’ve gotten downright arrogant toward us?
I’ll use my own blog to expand on this.
9:54 pm
Coincidentally, this had been swirling around in my head too. I approached it from a slightly different direction at Protein Wisdom:
http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/21096/
I suspect I will have more to say about the NYT story—and related reprots—there in the next couple of days.
10:48 pm
the reason we are weak in Iraq is for the last few years the left has been attacking Bush. People are calling for us to leave.The terrorist see this weakness and kill more. We should stop being so PC and do to the Anbar province and Bagdad what we did to Falllusah (sp).
Then here in the USA we send home all Arab students and visitors. Then not allow any new people from any country in the middle east to come to the USA. I would not allow any muslims period.
Then the next big earthquake in Iran or Indonisia let someone else help them.
11:35 pm
You know, the military doesn’t even call it Al Qaeda anymore and hasn’t really for over a year. The acronym du jour is “AQAM” – Al Qaeda and Associated Movements. What this essentially means is that Al Qaeda as a venture capital organization for terrorism has largely been disrupted. But the slack has been taken up by independent groups and individuals who plan and conduct their own operations while giving their fealty to AQ. I think metastasized is a good way to describe it. Since all these groups are largely working toward roughly the same goal and they are often indistinguishable, they are lumped under one government acronym.
I believe the NIE’s conclusions as reported are largely correct. I know that some right-wingers will start with the liberal bias in the IC again, but that is BS. BTW, I’m glad you not only refrained from that, but, unlike some previous articles, didn’t talk about the NIE as a CIA construct. In fact you didn’t mention the CIA once – bravo!
Anyway, back to the point. The fundamental question is: Was invading Iraq ultimately worth the consequences? It’s a basic cost-benefit analysis, but, like you point out, it’s impossible to know how alternatives would have turned out. In addition, the story is still unfolding and there are consequences yet unseen in the future.
To give you my perspective, let’s look at the two primary options and try to determine which was ultimately more achievable (with some 20/20 hindsight):
(1)Containing/deterring or otherwise preventing Saddam from directly threatening US interests in a significant way until he dies or is overthrown.
(2)Invade, ensuring Saddam is removed as a threat, but in the process stirring a hornet’s nest of terrorism and increasing the terrorist threat to US interests.
At this juncture, keeping in mind that events are still playing out, I think containing Saddam was the more achievable goal for a variety of reasons I won’t belabor much here. Overall, the war has borne a large cost and has left us in a position of strategic inflexibility that limits our options in regard to other threats. The nightmare scenario of Saddam building nukes would have taken years or decades to unfold – time that might have been spent on other threats. But this is, naturally, just educated speculation.
I’m already cringing at the battle this NIE will bring between the right and the left and how it will be used by both sides divisively in this election season. Politicians will use it as a weapon instead of a learning tool. It’s the sad state of our Republic, unfortunately and my cynicism increases daily.
11:57 pm
Iraq and Terrorism NIE Leaked
The NYT is reporting tomorrow (HT: RWN) on a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) detailing the current state of international terrorist movements. Part of report concludes that the increase in Islamic terrorism is partly due to the ongoing insu…
5:28 am
Iraq War Increases Extremism / Terrorism According To US Intelligence Report
The reports also does not seem to take the following into account: perhaps it might increase in the short and middle-long run, but how about the long run? This battle, the battle against extremism, is not one that is won within the course of a couple o…
6:20 am
I’m just a dumb broad but I think if we had just done Afganistan we may or may not have found binladen and sadamn would have still been having terrorist training camps going on in Iraq, probably triple the amount, they would have gotten even stronger and more in number and would be over here by now, would have been over long ago reaking havoc and death, but like I said, I’m just a dumb broad.
6:33 am
Ah, Rick, you are once again so wrong. ‘Triumphalism’ is not point at the NIE, as you seem to want, it is instead precisely the mentality that led us into the mismanaged confrontations in Iraq and Afghanistan. You appear not to recall that triumphalism is the religious attitude that all is right and justified in pursuit of the kingdom as perceived by the believer. Perhaps you can see the malignant core of this notion: right makes might and vice versa, might makes right. This is a self-justifying attitude, exactly what Bush brought to the White House, that ignores any other view and assumes that all will automatically recognize the validity of the chosen view. This way lies madness as we well know. Bush and Rumsfeld underresourced the Iraq adventure on the assumption, trumpeted by Cheney, that Iraqis would fall in line before American democracy—triumphalism at its worst. We are still harvesting the consequences of this failed idea: they cannot change their minds; they believe and belive wrongly. There is no solution here but for them to be shown the door and new, wiser, leaders chosen.
9:00 am
[...] The 2002 NIE is the hammer the left uses to charge that "Bush Lied!" But the left is rushing to embrace this NIE because it is reported to echo their beliefs. That is human nature, of course. But if this one is more objectively "true" than others have been, what do we do? Ignore terror and it will go away? That's a hell of a strategy. Rick Moran takes a hard, hard look at this issue. I would direct people over there to read what he has put together. [...]
9:05 am
[...] I spent a lot of time this morning reading various opinions about this intelligence report. People from the left, right, and middle are all writing furiously, and a post by Rick Moran (among others) pulled some thoughts together for me. He wrote in part: In short, is there anything we could have done differently that would have made the United States safer while still dealing effectively with the global threat of terrorism? [...]
9:11 am
Rick,
I think that you miss the mark a bit with your focus on “root causes.” Think of it more operationally, more tactically. The war has created jihadi veterans, trained them, given them ‘street cred’ on their return home, etc. We all understand and agree that the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets was a boon to Islamic radicals of the Eighties. Not because the Soviets stoked the ‘root causes’ of Muslim anti-communist feelings, but because of the operational effect of that war.
You can read how Michael Ware described this. He makes exactly the same point as the NIE.
I’ll write a post on this, and link back.
9:20 am
I think the invasion of Iraq meeds to be evaluated in two segments. 1.) Was the decision to invade Iraq the correct one? This was a controverial from the beginning. Iraq was a major supporter of Islamic terrorism and the events of 911 showed it to be in America’s long range interests to change the situation in the middle east. Normally problems as complex as Iraq are kicked down the road to be dealt with later by the political establishment. In a post 911 world, the US government and the governments of about 30 allies felt we needed to deal with it now. I think the premise behind invading Iraq was a sound one but as, I said earlier, it was a controversial decision. 2.) The actual execution of the Iraq invasion needs to be evaluated. Here is where, to date, the Government has not succeeded. Once the decision was made ot invade Iraq, the Government owed it to the troops and to the American people to commit the appropiate resources. This was not done and we still don’t have the appropiate resources commited to the region. It is problematic, at this time, as to whether or not we can get the appropiate troop commitments to Iraq. Right now they likely don’t exist, however, the military can hold the line for the next couple of years or so. This gives us a window of opportunity to get the appropiate resources to the region.
At this time, I think the Administration’s critics would do better to focus on the execution of Iraq and the broader GWOT rather than on the decision to invade Iraq. The government made the decsion to invade Iraq. We are unable to undo that at this time. Specifically when we chose to conduct Afghanistan and Iraq at virtually the same time we bit off more than we were willing to chew. We can do better in Iraq by either 1.) commiting more troops or 2.) scaling back the mission. Option 1 is doable but it would be EXTREMELY hard. Option 1 will require a greater sacrifice than the American people are prepared to make, therefore option 2 will be the one that the government will choose.
I predict that by June of 2007 the Aemrican troop commitment to the Iraqi region will be under 10,000. These will be primarily special operations and air support that will be based in Kurdish areas. If I’m wrong, I will be the first to admit it.
I hope the troops who are no longer in Iraq will be used for border security and to project a credible deterent against Russia and China. Russia and China are the biggest threats to American national security, not Islamic terrorists.
Finally, what no one really wants to address is the war in Iraq that when it was launched was a war of choice because of inept management may have morphed into a war of neccessity. In the coming years, we will likely have to fight against Islamic extremists and project credible deterence to Russia and China. Policy makers will need to push for a massive increase to the strength and size of the military.
If this NIE were used properly, policy makers could probably learn much from it. Unfortunately they will probably insist on playing partisan politics with it. In other words, Republicans and Democrats will cherry pick anything that beneifts them and formulate political talking points. Truly disgusting!!
9:20 am
[...] Yeah, what he said: “The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,†said one American intelligence official.” But, but, but: “That’s the headline; Iraq War creates more terrorists and terrorism. But there’s much more to ponder . . .” Yes, quite so. Perhaps our resources in our defense need a bit of rethinking. [...]
9:38 am
The Hornet’s Nest
We’re assuming that the intel agencies were accurately tracking the threats posed by international terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism, all this time. We clearly did not believe that the threats posed by Islamic terrorists and the firebrand mul…
9:40 am
[...] Rick Moran reacts to the NIE with a lengthy, worthwhile post that ultimately notes that the report doesn’t say that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. [...]
9:59 am
I am not disputing the conclusions in this leaked report. I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today.
I think you acknowlege the thrust of the report and make a fair argument. However, you go on to conflate the report’s finding that the Iraq War spawned many jihadi recruits, with the general liberal “root causes” dogma. They are very different.
what they seek, we cannot give them.
Most of “them” seek stability and prosperity. You are right to point out that at this point, we cannot bestow these. But the War is the biggest reason that we do not now have the option of a gradual economic & cultural infiltration of these extremist societies. It would have taken a generation, but so will this war. It is interesating that the neocons derived so much inspiration from the cold war, when it was a military standoff, coupled with culutral perestroika and our superior economic system, that won it for us.
Like many right wing commentators you confuse any finding that the War will come back on us with a “blame America” view. Politics notwithstanding, we’re past the point where blame even matters.
10:11 am
from the WaPo article:
“a really big hole” in the U.S. strategy, a second counterterrorism official said, “is that we focus on the terrorists and very little on how they are created.
Your skepticism about other course we could have taken is legit, but then fail to deal with the fact that AQ and similar groups were at the fringe of the Arab world, and now they are a driving force. That was the price of ignoring how terrorists are created or, as you denigrate it, “root causes”. But this isn’t the root causes of late sixties anti-poverty program you’re sneering about.
What’s more, it is extremely hard to envision the War ending without one or more of them controlling the resulting government, and if the U.S. is not controlling that government, it is unimaginable. The fiction that the Iraq police/military will put the Mahdi Army back in the bottle is costing us so, so dearly.
10:50 am
What if Tokyo Rose ran the media during the Second World War? What if Benedict Arnold had been the opposition leader in the Continental Congress?
Yes, Bush did make one grave error in his war planning. He ignored some important members of the Axis of Evil…the MSM and the American Left.
If you looked at the amount of coverage that we see of the War in Iraq one would expect there to be hundreds of reporters there. One would be wrong; there are 9 embeds of which nearly half are from military affiliated press outlets. Fauxtography gets front page outlets. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib gets front page coverage and the, at the time. nearly daily beheadings virtually no coverage at all. Hardly surprising when a lazy press uses stringers with a partisan nature whose reports echo their own feelings.
While the Saudi and Iranian sources/governments pump millions of dollars into Radical Islamic Fundamentalist groups our “Loyal Opposition” constantly calls the President a weak, stupid and evil man.
Is it any wonder that we are losing the hearts and minds battle? If you read MEMRI or any other translation of the daily media reports in the Middle East you’ll see that the most powerful tools that the enemy uses to recruit followers are the words of the American MSM and America’s Democrat leadership.
In punishing George Bush for Florida 2000 his opponents have quite possibly delivered a great victory to the RIFs. I wonder in four years if they’ll think it was worth it…or even acknowledge that the assault on Dubya that began in November of 2000 ends with the spread of Dhimmitude across great swaths of the globe
11:07 am
What is all this Benedict Arnold, Tokyo Rose nonsense. Theese were respectively 230 and 60 years ago. Invoking them is a substitute for recognising that we have a large problem on our hands and according to the latest NIE we are largely responsible for creating it. This outcome, let’s face it, has been the view of many middle east analysts for a long time. Now the NIE confirms it, if the best we can do is start blathering about ancient history it suggests we are refusing to recognise reality in 2006. One would have to be very stupid to not recognize that perhaps there have been major flaws in our strategy for combatting terrorism and a bit of judicious reconsideration might be appropriate.
11:40 am
I had to use Tokyo Rose and Benedict Arnold because most people have not yet come to understand that Dan Rather and his ilk are no different than Tokyo Rode and that Pelosi, Reid and Fat Ted’s quest for personal power at the expense of national security no different than that of a snubbed Benedict Arnold.
It is absurd to imagine that fence sitters would not be pushed to action, joining groups like AQ, during a Low Intensity Conflict. There are literally thousands of studies which indicate that the propaganda war, which must be waged to limit that growth, is just as important as the traditional military mission. This is the so-called “hearts and minds” battle.
Just as in Vietnam we missed that the most powerful weapon that the enemy has in the propaganda war is American Made.
11:52 am
QM:
While I disagree with the thrust of your commentary, the moral blindness of the left in not taking responsibility for giving aid and comfort to the enemy is one of the most infuriating aspects of both the Viet Nam and Iraq conflicts.
Go ahead and be anti-war. It is a perfectly patriotic and moral position to hold. I was in Viet Nam. But to think that your opposition takes place in a vacuum – that the enemy does not take heart from the media and the left in their more unbalanced critiques of the war (“torture” that isn’t torture, “No blood for oil” ect)then you are mired in a kind of moral blindness that holds enormous consequences for any military action we take in the future.
12:34 pm
Rick,
Let me just add that the MSM and the Left are not solely to blame for our stalemate in Iraq. There are still great policy issues in several key areas of government that Bush has been unable to resolve. Policies that are often contradictory are being used at the same time by their various partisans. One such is what role should the military take in Nation Building?
A great case study can be made by looking at what happened just Southwest of Baghdad when the 48th Brigade(Enhanced), Georgia National Guard, was replaced by the 2 BCT of the 101st. There is a conflict between the policy of Civil Affairs and Find, FIx and F*** the enemy. In this case, the Guardsmen had forged strong bonds with the community…that’s what they do... but when the Warriors of the 101st went in the place exploded. They did kill a lot of insurgents, but at what cost?
The type of work that the GAANG did was what Schoonamaker wants, the type of battle the 101st did is what another contingent wants. This sort of conflict should not exist. But it does because open debate cannot be allowed. The Administration is terrified that any such admission of conflict will be used against them politically. The order to “shape up or ship out” cannot be given because the offended will run to the MSM.
Darn…in many ways back to the starting point.
12:48 pm
[...] And another from Rick Moran: I am not disputing the conclusions in this leaked report. I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today. [...]
12:49 pm
It troubles me to see this reduced to ‘’it’s all dan blather’s fault’‘. No, it’s not.
)
It wasn’t dan rather that ordered the invasion of iraq with the false premise of ‘’bringing the muslims freedom and democracy’‘.
It wasn’t michael moore who failed to realize that iraq was the middle east’s version of yugoslavia.
It wasn’t cindy sheehan (who makes me puke) who failed to realize that we would need to replace saddam’s death grip on iraq with our own and relax it very gradually (since we’re using WWII anologies, that’s EXACTLY how we handled Japan).
Nor was it rosie o’dimwit who failed to commit the resources nessessary to FORCE stability on iraq during this transition.
For those who use Vietnam as an anology, how effective was ‘’the ‘vietnamization’ of the war’‘?
And why are we repeating THAT blunder?
I lay the blame for our complete foulup in iraq squarely where it belongs; president homer simpson. (WHAT? 60% of iraqis support iran and not us? D’oh
12:55 pm
QM:
We have lost the hearts and minds battle big time despite the efforts of Karen Hughes which in itself is an indicator of how out of touch we are with what we are dealing with. Take Lebanon, did anyone see Nasrallah’s rally. It doesn’t have to be so, look at what we achieved in Western Europe and Japan in 1945-1955. What this report calls into question is the whole strategy we have pursued over the past five years. It was obviously leaked by professionals in the intelligence or diplomatic community, but that doesn’t make its assessments any less accurate, and they need to be faced or we are going to lose this in the long term. Dan Rather is as irrelevant as Tokyo Rose. We need to get beyond the knee jerk responses and ask ourselves a few hard questions.
1:14 pm
[...] Another rightie, Rick Moran, falls back on straw-man arguments to criticize the NIE: I am not disputing the conclusions in this leaked report. I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today. [...]
1:29 pm
QM said ‘’One such is what role should the military take in Nation Building?’‘.
I think back to the early 90’s when that term was coined. I remeber Rush Limbaugh spearing clinton with the phrase ‘’The purpose of the Military is not to be an ‘international meals-on-wheels’. The purpose of the Military is to kill people and break things’‘.
The phrase ‘’winning their hearts and minds’’ comes to mind here.
If we wanted ‘’to make an example’’ out of iraq we did it EXACTLY the wrong way.
We made iraq look like ‘threat #1’ in ‘the run-up to war’. So if iraq WAS INDEED ‘threat #1’ (and I never thought that it was) we should have left iraq as a message: ‘’SEE THAT? Be nice to us OR YOU’RE NEXT!’‘.
Instead by trying to ‘nation-build’ ‘a new iraq’ WITHOUT THROUGHLY ‘enemy-defeating’ it first, we have demonstrated our weakness to the iranians, north koreans, ect. ect.
How they are reacting to that does not suprise me at all.
2:33 pm
When wars are fight as indeciseivly as the US amd its allies have fought Iraq and Afghanistan, this will only serve to embolden the enemy. We either need to fight this more decisively or we need to withdraw to fortress America and go back to treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. On this note the Administration, needs to worry more about winning the war than how they look politically.
2:39 pm
Related Post:
Does Appeasing Terrorism Destroy One’s Soul?
Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House asks: "Does Confronting Terrorism Make It Worse?" It’s an interesting and thoughtful read.
But I have another question:
There’s something deeply wrong about appeasing or tolerating any form of tyranny. It rubs me the wrong way, and I am hardly alone in this. . . . .
Read more . . .
5:56 pm
Just wanted to say, excellent post
!
I continuously read blogs that want change…ok, but what changes do they want? They want a new administration, but this one was voted in not once but twice. When we get a new administration, what exactly do they want them to do? What steps do they want taken?
I hear nothing about that… I just hear how they want change. Seems no one has thought far enough ahead to know “what” change they want in actual actions. Just different people in office.
8:06 pm
Great topic and analysis. This is the type of post that has always attracted me to your blog:
well thought out and thought provoking. For what they’re worth – here are some of my thoughts on these issues:
INTELLIGENCE EQUALS ????
I have always personally believed that the primary reason that we went into Iraq was to SECURE THE OIL.
WMDs, overthrowing a dictator and trying to establish a democracy and strategic location (between Iran and the rest of the Middle East) were important, but secondary. I’ve never been sure of what role the “Intelligence Community†actually played in the decision to invade Iraq. Either the intelligence community – at the time – was a total failure, or the intelligence was intentionally manipulated to justify the invasion. I now tend to believe the latter. It follows, therefore, that ANY Intelligence Assessments, no matter which “government officials and outside experts†participated, must be taken with several grains of salt. Who knows what anybody’s agenda really is??? For me personally – and I consider myself as an independent thinker – the overriding question at the time was: “Why wasn’t Saddam Hussein – despite twelve years of sanctions and threats – allowing inspectors to verify what he did or did not have in terms of weapons. Logic said “where there’s smoke – there must be fire†That proved to be WRONG! I now believe that there were NO WMDS and NO CONNECTIONS with Al Queda. Of course, “no one can guarantee that Saddam never would have established operational ties with al-Qaeda?, but I do not believe that this would have happened. After 40+ years of total and complete control in Iraq, why would Saddam have wanted to enter into an alliance with Al Queda – or anyone else for that matter??? What did he have to gain?? Rather, Saddam was just being a defiant pain in the ass. Agreed he was a nasty SOB, but he was also his own man and a perfect counter point to Iran.
“â€One can argue that the timing was wrong in confronting Iraq. But as something we eventually would have been forced into doing as a result of a general conflict with terror and terror states, it is very difficult to see how we could have avoided itâ€. I totally agree with this assessment.
Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, but I do now believe that in fact we did have Saddam “in a boxâ€, and he would have stayed that way for as long as he remained in power. After he was out of power is a different story. If Qusay would have replaced him, I believe the status quo would have continued. Uday would have been another story. He was a psychopath, and I believe that with him in power operational ties with Al Queda or other terrorist organizations would have been a given. So I do believe it was just a matter of time before we would have had to go into Iraq.
“Iraq War creates more terrorists and terrorismâ€
“The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating†cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.â€
I believe the above statements to be true. There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden and Al Queda were HELPED by our invasion of Iraq. Bin Laden had hoped to draw us into an extended war in Afganistan (as he did with the Soviets) but he failed. Our actions in Afganistan – while being a no brainer – were swift and decisive. This was a big failure for Bin Laden.
He and his ideology were also “in a boxâ€, with no cause to champion. But everything changed – and he got exactly what he had hoped for in Afganistan – when we invaded Iraq and got caught up in the long, protracted war. And the worst part is he didn’t have to do anything – we handed this to him on a silver platter. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the promotion of the IDEOLOGY of groups like Al Queda were helped enormously because of our invasion – and subsequent failures in Iraq. This is what I believe to be the main reason why these independent cells have grown throughout the world. The more DRAMA that we create, the more drama will be created in return. Which leads me to my next point:
DRAMA, ATTENTION & MANIPULATION:
Dealing with leaders of terrorist groups and their blind followers is very much like dealing with my 17 year old daughter.
This is why: She was diagnosed at age 7 with ADHD, which has now progressed to ADHD with mood disorder.
Everything that affects her life – no matter how small – is always blown greatly out of proportion. She thrives on DRAMA, because drama will get her attention that she craves. If this doesn’t happen quickly enough, she DEMANDS attention. Once the drama has been created, and the acting-out behavior has escalated to a fever pitch, comes the MANIPULATION. She will typically say something like: “If I calm down and stop acting-out , what do I get? what’s in it for me? what will YOU do differently??? So how do my wife and I deal with these issues on a daily basis??? The textbooks – and we have read many – are uniform in recommending the correct approach: DOWNPLAY everything as much as possible, BE CONSISTENT, BE FIRM and BE IN AGREEMENT. If we do not follow this advice, our daughter will drive a wedge right through us every time. Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Chavez, they all have this in common. They require DRAMA and ATTENTION to thrive, and we give them plenty of it.
So how have we applied these concepts in Iraq???
DRAMA – we’ve had 3+ years of it – all bad – and it continues.
CONSISTENCY??? FIRMNESS??? AGREEMENT??? Draw your own conclusions…….
RESPECT EQUALS FEAR
I remember seeing Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed during the first week or two of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The question was about why terrorist groups and their leaders do not respect us. His response was very clear:
THEY WILL ONLY RESPECT YOU WHEN THEY FEAR YOU. But how is this accomplished???
Anyone would have to admit that the Israeli’s have been very successful in targeting their enemies for assassination. Why don’t we form a clandestine group that we can call “AMITEFâ€, ( All Muslim Islamic Terrorist Elimination Force).
This would be a highly trained and highly paid “Muslim Only†group, who believed – as I do – that the ideology, hatred and activities of the Muslim Extremist Groups will eventually have dire consequences for all Muslims around the world, and that they are truly helping all fellow Muslims by eliminating these elements. Let’s do a little “infiltrating†of our own. This force could work both within the USA (like the FBI) and outside of the USA (like the “old†CIA). In other words, DOWNPLAY the rhetoric and the military force, and operate like the Stealth Bomber – quiet, lethal and under the radar.
WHAT DO WE NOW DO IN IRAQ
One of the commenters to your post said,
“Look at Iraq NOW, it is indeed a failed state and I don’t see anything we can do to change that fact. The massive input of troops and material that would be needed to FORCE stabilization of Iraq are simply not available to us. We simply don’t have those resources to ‘’commit’’ to that taskâ€.
I agree with his assessment. If the #1 reason that we went into Iraq was for the OIL – as I believe it was, let’s now make our #1 PRIORITY to SECURE THE OIL FIELDS. (which we are in effect doing already), and start to withdraw our troops.
Why don’t we put some pressure on the current Iraqi government to work out a “business deal†re the oil fields??
The agreement could go something like this:
1.The United States military would provide 100% security for ONLY the Oil Fields throughout the country.
2.The United States would provide technology, equipment, maintenance and training to maximize the oil production.
3.ALL PROFITS from oil sales – which would be substantial – would go to the Iraqi government to use as they wished: to rebuild their country, pay decent wages to their police and army, etc. – with the United States paid only an agreed upon percentage (in oil and/or dollars) for the security, technology, equipment, management of and training at the oil fields.
4.This agreement would remain in effect ONLY if a coalition government remained in power in Iraq. If the coalition government were to collapse – no one in Iraq but the US would have access to the oil. Kind of a political blackmail for the betterment of Iraq. When we were satisfied that Iraq had a stabilized government and stabilized security forces, we would withdraw completely. If the best that we can do for the Iraqis at this point is to “help them to help themselvesâ€, then so be it.
“Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,†cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse.â€â€
“If only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today.â€
“I totally reject that notion. In fact, I believe it delusional thinking to say that we’d be any safer if we hadn’t invaded Iraq or if we had just lobbed a few cruise missiles at Osama Bin Laden following 9/11, or even if we had put enormous pressure on Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. All of this ignores the one overarching truth about the nature of our enemies (and their tens of millions of supporters around the world); what they seek, we cannot give them.â€
In summary, I agree with all of these statements. The die had been cast long before 9/11, when the colonial powers withdrew from the Middle East, left a vacuum, and opened up a free-for-all for who ever had “the biggest stickâ€. There is no going back. With or without our invasion of Iraq, NOTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT with regard to the Israel – Hamas – Hezbollah situations, NOR WOULD ANYTHING HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT with regard to the spread of the Global Jihadist Movement and the diffusion of jihad ideology. And as long as there is DRAMA, LACK OF CONSISTENCY, LACK OF FIRMNESS and LACK OF AGREEMENT in dealing with these movements, nothing will change. The War in Iraq – which has encapsulated all of the above – has only sped up the inevitable.
8:26 pm
[...] Rick Moran has an interesting take Despite the NIE’s conclusions, it should be noted that it is not saying specifically that we should not have invaded Iraq. What it is saying should make us think long and hard about the disadvantages of confronting the terrorism beast without preparing for the fallout. I think even if we had been able to look into the future 3 years ago and have seen this report, the stark choices facing the Administration would have been exactly the same. It may be triumphalism for some to be able to point to the NIE as proof that things would have been different if we had not invaded Iraq. But that doesn’t change what conditions were like in 2003 and what was on the horizon if we did nothing. [...]
10:20 pm
So why was terrorism going from 1993 to 2000 when Clinton was “trying but failing” ?
11:49 pm
Why history, Otto?
In 1861 Winfield Scott proposed a strategy for defeating the South. Essentially the plan involved blockading the South and cutting it in half by controlling the Mississippi. Scott, who was Lincoln’s General-in-Chief thought that such a technique would spare many lives. However, Major General George McClellan sent a letter directly to Lincoln which called for a more aggressive approach. McClellan also received a letter from Scott detailing the plan.
Portions of that letter were “leaked†to the papers. A cartoon was published that showed an Anaconda squeezing the South. Hence it’s popular name, and much ridicule. A direct invasion was thus forced, by the perception of popular demand, on Lincoln. (And just as Scott forecast they were not successful.)
It was done for McClellan’s personal political ambition. In the end Scott’s was essentially the strategy that the North used to defeat the South. Forewarned, the campaign to win the Mississippi was far more difficult than it should have been. Forewarned, the largely undeveloped South began an aggressive program of decentralized, domestic munitions manufacture. Which, alng with other reasons, forced generals such as Grant and Sherman to pursue a scorched earth program.
Athens should have defeated Sparta, for many reasons. But Athens continually purged its military leaders because differing political factions used the war for their own profit. Not to mention that Pericles’ vision of a stalemated Sparta had been fulfilled. The plague then decimated Athens and the “stalemated†Sparta eventually pulled down Athens’ walls.
The point here is that history is important in the same way that we learn that touching a flame burns. Two very different examples of Containment, but the common thread is the danger that democracies have when its political figures use war for their own personal gain.
PS: Victor Davis Hanson has a great book on the Ionic war called “A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War”. The parallels with today’s war are amazing.
8:19 am
[...] My friend Rick Moran responds to the NIE report as follows, emphasizing the futility of trying to address the so-called root causes: I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today. [...]
1:52 pm
You have created a straw man. There are plenty of people who supported the war in Afghanistan and even wanted to do more there but thought the war in Iraq would have a negative effect on us overall. There is no question here of root causes, and unless I am mistaken, we had the power to veto a lifting of the UN sanctions on Saddam.
3:29 pm
Actually the Director of National Intelligence says, and I quote:
“Although the NIE on Global Terrorism is still a classified document, I and other senior intelligence officials have spoken publicly, and in a way consistent with the NIE’s comprehensive assessment, about the challenges and successes we have had in the Global War on Terror. What we have said, time and again, is that while there is much that remains to be done in the war on terror, we have achieved some notable successes against the global jihadist threat.”
It seems the Times recieved leaked information, then twisted it a little bit, then added a few lies, then fed it to other media outlets… or as the Director put it, “distorted” the information.
Going to post his whole statement here, because it directly contradicts what the Times wrote. (Don’t worry, it isn’t long)
Statement by the Director of National Intelligence
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
20511
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 24, 2006
Statement by the Director of National Intelligence, John D. Negroponte, in response to news reports about the National Intelligence Estimate on Trends in Global Terrorism
“A National Intelligence Estimate is a comprehensive assessment comprised of a series of judgments which are based on the best intelligence our government develops. Characterizing only a small handful of those judgments distorts the broad strategic framework the NIE is assessing . in this case, trends in global terrorism.
“Although the NIE on Global Terrorism is still a classified document, I and other senior intelligence officials have spoken publicly, and in a way consistent with the NIE’s comprehensive assessment, about the challenges and successes we have had in the Global War on Terror. What we have said, time and again, is that while there is much that remains to be done in the war on terror, we have achieved some notable successes against the global jihadist threat.
“We have eliminated much of the leadership that presided over al Qaeda—our top global terror concern . in 2001, and U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts continued to disrupt its operations, remove its leaders and deplete its cadre. The Estimate highlights the importance of the outcome in Iraq on the future of global jihadism, judging that should the Iraqi people prevail in establishing a stable political
and security environment, the jihadists will be perceived to have failed and fewer jihadists will leave Iraq determined to carry on the fight elsewhere.
“Those statements do nothing to undermine the assessment that we have an enormous and constantly mutating struggle before us in the long war on terror. They simply demonstrate that the conclusions of the Intelligence Community are designed to be comprehensive and viewing them through the narrow prism of a fraction of judgments distorts the broad framework they create.”
Feel free to let me know if you want the address to the original pdf file release.