Contrary to current conventional wisdom, Bush’s Big Bang strategy will be treated very favorably by history
Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 7:10PM COLUMN: “Keeping the Faith in Democracy: Arab reformers bet on the Islamists,” by David Brooks, New York Times, 26 February 2006, p. WK13.
EDITORIAL: “Democracy Angst: What’s the alternative to promoting freedom in the Middle East?” Wall Street Journal, 27 February 2006, p. A14.
OP-ED: “Are We Playing for Keeps? In Iraq, Iranian practice outsmarts American principle,” by Michael Rubin, Wall Street Journal, 27 February 2006, p. A14.
ARTICLE: “Chaos in Iraq Sends Shocks Waves Across Middle East and Elevates Iran’s Influence: Fear that a conflict between Iraqis could become contagious,” by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 27 February 2006, p. A9.
ANALYSIS: “What a Civil War Could Look Like,” by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 26 February 2006, p. WK1.
OP-ED: “We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran: Deterrence and containment can still work,” by Barry R. Posen, New York Times, 27 February 2006, p. A23.
COLUMN: “Nixon to China, Bush to India: Thirty years of lectures on nonproliferation and sanctions have done nothing to stop, slow down or make India’s nuclear program safer,” by Fareed Zakaria, Newsweeks, 27 February 2006, p. 45.
I will admit it: for all my bitching and carping for how badly the Bush team bungled the immediate postwar situation in Iraq (slowing recovering thanks to the generals, not the diplomats or civilian overseers), the strategy of laying a Big Bang on the Middle East is going amazing well.
Well, that is, if you find the notion that Hamas replacing Fatah is good and you like Hizbollah’s rise in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood giving Mubarek electoral fits in Egypt--all of which, quite frankly, I do welcome.
I welcome all these developments because they will either scare the current crop of surviving autocrats and dictators into action or they will be swept away far more rapidly than they anticipate, and I would rather take Islamists in power across the board than stay with the status quo, which I know begets transnational terrorism and social rigidity and poor economic connectivity for the masses throughout the region.
So either we go somewhere or we stay stuck where we are, and I see far more freedom of action in motion than stagnation.
To say that we tread a dangerous path is self-evident, but certainly not one any more dangerous than the one we’ve been stuck on for decades in our support for authoritarian regimes the region over. Bitch all you want about Ahmadinejad and Hamas, but at least they had to get elected, and they’ll have to get re-elected. No, these countries don’t have the wide selection of candidates like we do here in the States, where 98% of the Congress gets reelected each time and we go from administration to administration trying to decide which Bush or which Clinton we’ll select this time.
All superfluous comparisons aside, I think Bush has done history a huge help by setting all this in motion in the Middle East, no matter how opaque the rationales for invading Iraq were or how poorly we prepared ourselves for the second-half effort at waging peace. We’ve got the game board in motion, all right, with the key question now being how to keep things moving in such a way that we ultimately get what we want: a Middle East that opens itself up to the world and globalization.
Will that process be pretty? Sometimes yes, it will be quite thrilling, but many times no, for it will unleash a lot of social anger and age-old disputes. But again, either we speed the killing or we delay it, and I vote for speeding it because it keeps the violence overwhelmingly over there, where it belongs, along with all the social and economic and political change.
9/11 was never about us, and neither was the Big Bang. Both were always all about the Middle East, and say what you will about Bush, he’s made sure the center of gravity in the Global War on Terrorism remains where it should.
Yes, we could wait on the “third path” of enlightened democrats, but all those years of dictatorship across the region has left those ranks depleted. Instead, the most able networkers are those who’ve suffered the most pressure and suppression: the radical Islamists. Unless you want to wait forever for change or are prepared to change regimes the region over, the radical Islamists are the only Option B out there, and evidence suggests that we’ll see plenty such radicals moderate their movements over time if that’s the price of retaining power in a Middle East where free elections aren’t just a dream but a growing reality.
Hell, as Brooks’ piece points out, even the Arab moderates are siding with the Islamists over the autocrats. If they are willing to take that risk, why should we Americans show such little faith in the concepts of democracy?
As the WSJ editorial puts it, what’s the alternative? Waiting on the alleged magical influence of “soft power”? Hoping for more modernizing autocrats in a region where none have previously succeeded (save for those tiny city-states on the Gulf)?
Or do we just pull out a la Friedman by cutting off our alleged dependence on Middle Eastern oil (we consume less than a fifth of the oil produced in the Persian Gulf), thus accepting Osama’s offer of civilizational apartheid?
The WSJ’s point is a valid one: “In five years, [the Bush Administration] has brought four democratic governments to power in the Middle East: by force of arms in Afghanistan and Iraq, and through highly assertive diplomacy in Lebanon and Palestine.” Francis Fukuyama may be ready to give up on democracy, as the WSJ editorial points out, but should we be so quick to give up on the Middle East now that we have such positive change roiling?
Ah, but what about all the deaths? Sad to say, the Iraq war/peace still hasn’t cost us in combat deaths what we once lost on the beaches of Normandy in one June morning. Or what we lost in civilians on 9/11. That sort of sacrifice back in WWII defined a “greatest generation.” Maybe we need to start valuing our loved ones lost with the same sort of historical perspective--even respect--because their sacrifice is tilting world history for the better in no less important a manner.
In the end, then, I think history will judge this to be a very “good” war, one in which personal service and sacrifice resulted in significant positive change in the global security environment.
As for local deaths triggered, there we’re also still in the historical weeds. If you want to locate real death totals, look to Africa. Hell, look to Sudan alone in the last three years. In that country alone we see deaths that make all the tumult in the Middle East seem quite small in comparison.
And the only reason why it makes sense to support the Big Bang in all its messy glory is that it pushes us toward dealing with Africa all the more quickly, because it is to there that the radical jihadists will retreat in coming years and decades to replicate this fight all over again. Let’s just hope we’ve figured out how to enlist China’s help in Africa by then.
Of course, the regional experts will decry all this change, saying we’re in far worse straits now than we were before. We’re “losing” Iraq and al Qaeda, we are told, is “winning” if Iraq is split into pieces. How Iraq-the-pretend-country’s break-up would equate to al Qaeda’s victory is beyond me, but I lack the subtle defeatism of some, and I guess I just don’t swallow Osama’s propaganda like the regionalists do, having watched this idiotic program before with the Sovs in another life.
Clearly, Iran benefits from Iraq’s break-up or weak federalism, but hey! We made that choice a long time ago, and there’s no question that we picked an easier fight with a weakened Saddam than we could have with an Iran with more than triple the population. Plus, why fight with what you could better “corrupt” with the soft kill of connectivity (never a real option with Saddam)?
All Iran’s growing stature says is that the Big Bang will benefit the region’s minorities more than the majorities, which means the Shiites more than the Sunnis. But that only clues us to the reality, long preached here, that co-opting Iran is a strategic imperative.
Instead, the Bushies have tried to play hardball with Iran, quickly realized their current political-military limitations, and now seem content with the slow diplomatic squeeze, which, quite frankly, doesn’t answer the mail as far as extending the Big Bang’s reach goes.
My only hope is that the Big Bang slows down just enough to let the next administration run with this ball more effectively than Bush, in his growing post-presidency, seems able to do.
Of course, the regionalists will despair that Iran is “becoming” the dominant regional power in the meantime, to which I give a hearty “DUHHHH!”
But so long as Iraq doesn’t slip into outright civil war (always a possibility and yet, a muddling-through scenario of not-quite-right-civil-war-but-never-quite-the-dreamed-of-ceasefire won’t be that bad either, so long as U.S. troops get to continue their withdrawal behind the wire and let the Shiite militias increasingly engage in the inevitable squelching of the Sunni-based insurgency that seeks it’s survival through civil war), it’s continuing source of Big Bang pressure on the rest of the region will serve a lot of good purposes. And to the extent that civil war is threatened, again, autocrats are more deeply incentivized toward change, lest their own populations catch similar fevers.
Yes, yes, we must also worry about Iran’s slow-motion reach for the bomb, but as Barry Posen so reasonably argues, even that much-dreaded long-term scenario changes very little in the region, except perhaps to, yet again, freak the Saudis out more, something I think most reasonable people welcome.
In the end, Iran gets the bomb because Iran is logically a great power--the great indigenous power in the Gulf. And we’ll figure out how to accept that “unacceptable” outcome just like we have with India, and Israel, and Pakistan.
And our efforts, along with those of other interested great powers, to achieve regional security will be accelerated--not derailed--by Iran’s inevitable achievement. And in that pathway Israel’s security will finally be achieved.
Again, all more risky than sitting with the status quo. But if you want the Long War to get done as quickly as possible, you accept that risk, and that tumult, and the lost lives, and you commit yourself more and more to the real task at hand: spreading the connectivity of the global economy and shrinking the Gap.
Holding the line on the Sovs was acceptable in its day and age, because containing the threat meant weakening the threat. That situation no longer defines our global security environment. Today we either shrink the Gap or we grow the threat, and that means accepting the logic of speeding the tumult, speeding the killing, and speeding the democratic process in all its destructive glory.
I have criticized Bush plenty in the past for pushing democracy too hard, but I’m beginning to refine my criticism of that focus for those regions of the Gap where dictatorship has proven far too resistant to globalization’s embrace. There, like in the Middle East, I have to admit that Bush’s simplicity in vision may yet prove to be his greatest strength.
We will never push the autocrats to reform on our own, and we will never co-opt the Salafi jihadists. Both of those groups are hunted down by history. But co-opting the nationalist Islamists is a legitimate choice: the least of three evils and the vessel through which the Big Bang reaches its near-term fruition.
Reader Comments (10)
"So either we go somewhere or we stay stuck where we are, and I see far more freedom of action in motion than stagnation."
As I recall reading somewhere, "It's hard to steer a parked car." Movement of some kind will at least allow people to see where things are going.
A Post on the Weekly Standard's blog refers to a WSJ article that mentions the lack of corelation between average income and terrorism tendencies, along with the direct corelation between lack of freedom and terrorism tendencies.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2006/02/democracy_suicide_bombers.html
I agree totally! Often out of chaos comes civility. Look at the 60's or further back to the Fall of Rome. Hopefully it won't take the Arabs that long to get their act together.
The People and Plans We Do Not Have
With the plethora of Iraq failures showing that the USA had an inadequate plan for rebuilding Iraq, now we see that Afganistan has troubles too. Appearing with Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, Maples (Defense Intelligence Agency) said attacks within Afghanistan were up 20 percent between 2004 and 2005, suicide bombings increased "almost fourfold" and use of makeshift bombs, similar to those used in Iraq had "more than doubled."
The People and Plans We Could Have
President Bush issued a December 7 Directive to empower the Secretary of State to improve coordination, planning, and implementation for reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) assistance for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife? It is called the Office of the Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction (S/CRS). With neither the congress nor the president supporting this directive, how can it help Iraq or any other country?
Experts Have Been Saying We Need These People and Plans
Thomas PM Barnett, James Dobbins, John Shattuck, General Shinseki, and scores of other experts have been showing that we need these People and Plans for more than 10 years. Even tiny countries needed enough People and Plans to rebuild those countries: Bosnia 50,000 people for 19,741 square miles and Kosovo 60,000 troops for 4200 square miles. Now here we are with countries the size of Afghanistan (251,825 square miles) and Iraq (171,599 square miles) with too few personnel to get the job done.
Conclusion
We need to send enough people to Iraq to get the job done or negotiate a settlement, such as a federacy, confederacy, partition or some form of government that all can accept. The USA can ask for help in reconstruction. If other countries are not willing to help, then it may simply be too expensive (dollars, lives lost) to stay there, even if Iraq could become successful. If the USA asked for international help and could not get it, then we in the USA need to negotiate an end to our participation. It is not in our interest.
Bush has lost enough support now (NSA, Geneva Convention, Dubai, Patriot Act, Harriet Myers) that a bipartisan group may be able to get us out of Iraq.
Maybe Tom will comment of how this negotiation might look: the people and what they have to negotiate. If the USA would talk with Iran, then Iran could help. Civil war in Iraq is not in Iran’s interest. Besides, if you read the Tehran Times, you will see that Iran just wants to be treated like everybody else, in the Core, that is.
While I generally agree with your analysis about the long run benefits of a "succesful" big bang strategy, I do wonder about the risks of a shorter-to-medium term failure. Suppose, for instance, you are wrong about Ahmedinijad in Iran? Suppose Iran *does* transfer nuclear weapons to a terrorist group? All of the grand strategy in the world may not innoculate us from the risk of a catastrophic terrorist attack - after which a decidedly different U.S. grand strategy would emerge.
My concern is with obtaining clarity on the risks that we are running, and making sure that the execution of interim actions does not prejudice the ultimate value -- a narrowing of the gap and a more flexible world order -- due to the expedient decisions of morally flawed or intellectually challenged decision makers.
Frankly, I think you're giving George Bush credit for gravity. This administration "ran with the ball" for about 7 days... That's from the start of the invasion until the looting began in Bagdad. The ball hasn't been in their hands since.
Great post, Tom. I saw you aways back on C-SPAN and was surprised and dismayed at your sharp criticism of the administration taking on this task (during Q&A, I think). I'm very happy to see your "mind's right" now.
Engagement, engagement, engagement. Think of everything we're putting in the bank - equipment (uparmored HUMMVs, vests), training (US as well as Iraqi), tactics (ala Kaplan's Imperial Grunts), intelligence (NSA, EU), etc. Even Rumsfeld's service changes are more comprehensible to the polity and the country's support of the military is better than it has been for the last 30 years. All lessons that we sorely needed to learn. The fact that we are doing so at minimal cost is a windfall unappreciated by most.
And all needed for the next go around. Once Iran gets half-assed connected, and we've put the Syrians in their cage along with Turkey facing the prospect of a real Kurdistan, we'll be free and clear to take on the Saudis and finis Stage One. Then onto Africa as you say while we push and pull and whine and wheedle to keep the whole herd of cats moving with us. Great times ahead.
williak
David Mussington said: Suppose, for instance, you are wrong about Ahmedinijad in Iran? Suppose Iran *does* transfer nuclear weapons to a terrorist group?
I recently wrote a post on the internal situation in Iran. As I argued in that piece, the best way to get Ahmedinejad in a position where he has the power to do what we, including the establishment (both hardliner and reformist) in Iran fear, is to squeeze, sanction and generally continue with our failed policy of refusing to engage the regional hegemon.
hmedinejad, it is true, wants to isolate Iran, he wants to disconnect it from the world, to cleanse it of the corruption that has crept in since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. In short, he is a true believer in the Theocracy, and he wants to go back to the Khomeini days. Thus, he is using his rhetoric in much the same way Bush or any politician uses it, to appeal to his core constituency and to force the opposition to take a position on an issue they would rather not do so (i.e. Israel, the US, etc.). In so doing, he is trying to gain legitimacy at the expense of the establishment figures, so that when the election for the Council of Guardians comes (who elect the Supreme Guide) he can get his people elected, and with them assure that the next Supreme Guide will be Ayatollah Yazdi (a trained cleric and ultra conservative firebrand in the mold of Ayatollah Khomeini).
By playing Ahmedinejad's game, overreacting everytime he says anything (even when we know he doesn't have the power to effect change) rather than engaging Iran to secure the continuation of the Big Bang, and coopting it into the world system, we do more to help Ahmedinejad in his quest, and more damage to our own. In short, the best way bring about the self-fulfilling prophecy of a "revolutionary" Iran with nukes and the will to use them is to continue with our current strategy and knee-jerk responses to Ahmedinejad's rhetoric. Tom is right, we need to engage Iran, the sooner the better. The revolution might be a spent force, but there are still those within Iran (the true believers) who are trying to rekindle its spirit. The best way to ensure that the revolution remains a spent force, is to bring Iran in from the Cold.
Ya, heh, and then there is Iraq. If in two or three years it is a 'democractic' country and elects a religious right person ,like President Bush or Pat Buchanan, won't they turn out to be like Iran is today?
Every President since Carter has tried in one way or another to coax and cajole Iran into entering the community of nations, to do, as NYKRINDC put it, "bring Iran in from the cold." During the Reagan years, Bud McFarlane actually went to Tehran and BROUGHT A CAKE, as a form of good will, a peace offering, so to speak. The cake didn't work. Maybe they considered it yet another satanic temptation of the West, a delictation designed by the Great Satan himself. Who knows? Besides our own diplomatic overtures, Europe has tried naked bribes to entice Iran into coming "in from the cold." But Europe has had as little success as we have. So almost on the verge of entering the third decade of endless diplomatic "engagement," what exactly is left for our State Department to offer, what arrow remains in the quiver that has yet been left untried.
I would like to see some specifics on the proposed additional engagement that will somehow succeed, when so many previous efforts, all made in good faith, have ignominously failed. To suggest further engagement is easy, but could someone provide some details of what this engagement is going to consist of.
I agree that Iran is ultimately going to become the regional power. And we should definitely try to co-opt them. But that does not mean that we need to accept the present noxious regime in Tehran.
Why are we conceding that the Iranian President was "elected" to anything. He's no more the selection of the Iranian people than I am. He was selected by the religious council. Michael Ledeen had friends in Tehran who told him who was going to win, and they told him days prior to the vote. Curt Weldon also said the same, and made it public beforehand, so that his sources could either be vindicated publicly, or rubbished publicly.
So we must all be incredibly cautious before we begin making projections of intra mullah power plays. And after these many years, it would do well for us all to recall that not one of those mullahs is really acceptable to us. The search for the moderate mullah in Tehran is taking on the dimensions of the epic quest for the mythical el dorado, and the 7 cities of gold. Always reports thereof, vague stories, snatches of information, old wives tales that just lead on and on, and on. But ultimately only lead to some parched wasteland in the American southwest, {with appaches and commanches closing in no doubt}.
Professor Barnett recalls well the endless speculation of the inner workings and conivings in the Kremlin, most of which was utterly fatuous. Not necessarily ill-intended mind you, but still, all in all, worthless conjecture, which never played out. I can recall well the hue and cry to support Gorby, and not Yeltsin, when the former was under house arrest, and the latter standing up on an APC, bull horn in hand.
One more question, how do we know that a sufficient "big bang" was laid on the mideast? Did the tutorial take?
I would like to see you take on more directly Fukuyama, and Niall Ferguson too, by the way, who has a rather snide piece in the Sunday Telegraph. We haven't even had two or three general elections yet in Palestine or Iraq, and Ferguson has already damned and blasted the entire project.
And Ferguson was the guy but a few years ago urging us to take on the responsibilities of neo-colonialism. He can't escape his British past, and their deep devotion for setting one group up to rule and quell the others, divide et impere. THAT'S NOT the purpose of this exercise, we have a far more ambitious and audacious policy in mind.
I would like to see some specifics on the proposed additional engagement that will somehow succeed, when so many previous efforts, all made in good faith, have ignominously failed. To suggest further engagement is easy, but could someone provide some details of what this engagement is going to consist of.
See Tom's blog for Iran related content. Also see his
Esquire article on how Bush could save his second term.
I agree that Iran is ultimately going to become the regional power. And we should definitely try to co-opt them. But that does not mean that we need to accept the present noxious regime in Tehran.
Iran already is the regional hegemon. You want a different regime in Iran, then we have to coopt them into opening up to the world. You get the connectivity flowing and you'll change the regime forever. It won't be able to stop the connectivity, and eventually will either have to reform or die. You want to keep the mullahs in power, or get more radicaliszed ones into power, continue with the present strategy.
Why are we conceding that the Iranian President was "elected" to anything.
That may be, but Ahmedinejad was, and is popular with many in Iran because of his perceived incorruptibility as major of Tehran.
So we must all be incredibly cautious before we begin making projections of intra mullah power plays. And after these many years, it would do well for us all to recall that not one of those mullahs is really acceptable to us.
We need to know what is going on within Iran to come up with a strategy for dealing with it. Further, while I agree that the none of the mullahs is acceptable as the leader of Tehran, there are some that are better than others. For example, Ayatollah Khameini is an establishment figure,a nd as such has a vested interest in the status quo. Ayatollah Yazdi and Ahmedinejad want to rekindle the revolution and make Iran more active in promoting it outside its borders even if it means war. Given the choice, I would rather have Khameini, because in the long run, with him, the revolution remains a spent force, and that gives us an opening to reconnect Iran to the world.
how do we know that a sufficient "big bang" was laid on the mideast?
That's a difficult question. We know that the region is changing, things are influx that absent our intervention would not have been (some proof of it), the main problem now is how to keep the ball moving, and get what we want in the end. The only thing we sought through the big bang was to send a ripple effect, no lesson involved with that other tahn the US will use force if need be.