by Paul R. Pillar

The newest issue of Foreign Affairs features the theme of “America’s Forgotten Wars,” with a cover illustration that juxtaposes a carefree scene of Americans enjoying a picnic with that of American soldiers fighting and incurring casualties in some sandy and desolate battle space. The picture depicts truthfully the detachment between, on one hand, the daily interests and attitudes of most Americans and, on the other hand, the disturbing reality of the United States engaged continuously in a variety of lethal military operations in multiple lands overseas. Andrew Bacevich has elsewhere provided several reasons why, as he puts it, “the vast majority of the American people could not care less” that their country has become mired in what amounts to permanent warfare abroad. These reasons include, for example, that the true costs of these military expeditions have not been completely tabulated and that “blather crowds out substance” in American public discourse about foreign policy.

The pattern of permanent U.S. involvement in warfare, which has prevailed for the past 16 years, departs markedly from what had been the traditional American approach toward war and peace. Therein lies an additional set of reasons why Americans at home are not now up in arms over how fellow citizens have had to take up arms and fight endlessly overseas. That tradition grew up throughout the nineteenth century and was cemented by America’s greatest overseas military effort ever: World War II. The tradition was one of war being a relatively infrequent necessity that involved the United States sallying forth to slay a clearly defined monster of the moment and then, after a clear and victorious ending, returning to peacetime pursuits.

As I have discussed at greater length elsewhere, the application of this template of what war is expected to look like—and especially the expectation that any war will have a definite, identifiable end—has entailed numerous problems when applied to more continuous American activities abroad. The problems have included the quandary of what to do about some of the detainees at Guantanamo. The past experience of holding prisoners of war until the end of hostilities does not apply, not only because of any distinction between legal and illegal combatants but also because events that led to the current detentions will never get to a point that can be identified as the end of hostilities. Another problem has been the difficulty Congress has had in exercising its constitutional responsibility to define clearly the objective and scope of U.S. involvement in any foreign war.

Faith That a War Will End

The mental template of finite war also underlies the carefree American public attitude toward the unending American involvement in warfare abroad. At some level of the American psyche is the belief that today’s combat, like most of yesteryear’s, will have a clear (and victorious) end. Thus, most Americans feel no need to contemplate and discuss what ought to be the very disturbing prospect that Americans will be fighting abroad forever.

That the current unending warfare was launched as a “war on terror” has added significantly to these problems. (Bacevich lists as another of his reasons for the acceptance of permanent war that “terrorism gets hyped and hyped and hyped some more.”) The “war on terror” label, and the associated concept, never were logical. As the late Zbigniew Brzezinski once commented, calling this a war on terror makes as much sense as calling World War II the “war on blitzkrieg.” Terrorism is a tactic that has been used for millennia, and in that regard the countering of it is endless. The “war” terminology also has encouraged the excessive militarization of counterterrorism.

On top of this was George W. Bush’s encouragement to Americans to respond to terrorism by going shopping and to “get down to Disney World in Florida…take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” These words were in one sense prudent advice not to do terrorists’ work for them by overreacting with fear. But they also encouraged the very sort of detachment and lack of concern about endless warfare that is depicted on the Foreign Affairs cover.

Then there are the additional American tendencies in thinking about America’s involvement with the world—especially the tendency to believe that any problem abroad can be solved with enough determination and effort, and that the United States is the party that should take the lead in solving it. There is great reluctance to leave any situation that still looks like a mess, because the leaving looks like failure, regardless of what specific U.S. objectives may have been accomplished. These American habits of thought are added to the more general human tendency to treat sunk costs as investments. The result is recurrent mission creep, in which expeditions that began in the name of countering terrorism morph into a nation-building enterprise or an effort to counter the influence of some other state.

That the current streak of warfare already has gone on for so long has further encouraged acceptance of it as the new normal. Much of a generation has come of age knowing the United States as always engaged in warfare abroad. Permanent warfare, and refusal to accept anything that could be depicted as defeat, has become a frame of reference not just for the general public but also for foreign policy cognoscenti.

Endless War in Iraq and Afghanistan

That framework is readily evident in the articles on Iraq and Afghanistan in that issue of Foreign Affairs. (A refreshing contrast is the piece by former ambassador Robert Ford on Syria, titled “Keeping Out of Syria: The Least Bad Option,” which concludes that the one useful thing the United States can do is to help neighboring countries provide for Syrian refugees.) The article on Iraq, by Emma Sky (who was political adviser to one of the U.S. military commanders in Iraq), is titled “Mission Still Not Accomplished in Iraq.” It repeats most of the now-familiar arguments for the United States to keep plodding on militarily in Iraq. This includes the idea that, even with the reduction of the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate, the outcome of a civil war in a Middle Eastern country is supposedly a key determinant of international terrorism in the West. It includes Sky’s assertion that “U.S. support is still needed to discourage other countries in the region from filling the power vacuum”—disregarding how misleading is the metaphor of a vacuum when applied to international politics.

Sky’s ultimate rationale for staying militarily in Iraq seems to be, as is true of many such rationales these days, to counter Iranian influence—never mind that Iran has been on the same side as the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. Sky writes that if Iranian influence is left unchecked, “this could lead not just to an Iranian-Saudi confrontation but to an Iranian-Israeli one as well.” This sounds like as much of a problem with Saudi Arabia and Israel as with Iran. It is, moreover, a reflection of how the mission creep has moved beyond expansive notions of counterterrorism and even beyond nation-building to immersion in someone else’s regional rivalries. This rationale also forgets how the whole Iraqi mess, including increased Iranian influence, that Sky does not want to leave while it is still a mess began with a U.S. military invasion.

The article on Afghanistan, by former military commander Stan McChrystal (co-written by his former aide-de-camp Kosh Sadat) sounds more self-aware than Sky’s about how the military effort in question is akin to endless plodding on a treadmill. McChrystal acknowledges that the course he recommends is open to the charge that it “would meet the definition of insanity—which, as that old adage has it, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Although McChrystal has some suggestions for tweaking the policy, his basic conclusion is that the United States is “stuck” with doing more of the same.

In neither of these treatments of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is there a basis for identifying or expecting a conclusion to the expeditions. Sky and McChyrstal offer barely any light at the end to the tunnel, let alone a view of the tunnel’s end itself. With knowledgeable observers succumbing to the idea that permanent warfare is normal, it is no surprise that the American public does not seem to be bothered more than it is by the current wars.

Photo: U.S. troops in Afghanistan (Wikimedia Commons).

by Giorgio Cafiero

Nearly five months after the Anti-Terror Quartet (ATQ)—Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—severed diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar, Washington is coming to terms with its limited capacity to push the involved parties toward a settlement. Following Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s stops in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as the first two legs of his weeklong trip to the Persian Gulf, Asia, and Switzerland, America’s chief diplomat concluded that Riyadh had rebuffed his efforts to bring the ATQ and Doha to roundtable talks. As Tillerson put it, “We cannot force talks upon people who aren’t ready to talk.”

As the Gulf dispute continues, the diplomatic establishment in Washington is visibly irritated with the ATQ’s rigid refusal to ease their action and rhetoric against Qatar. The crisis has undermined Washington’s interests in the region by pitting America’s close Sunni Arab allies against each other and enabling other countries, chiefly Iran and Russia, to assert more influence in the Arab world’s volatile state of affairs. The State Department is becoming increasingly frank about its view that Doha is not responsible for the lingering row in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Citing a “real unwillingness” on the ATQ’s part to engage in negotiations, Tillerson stated days before leaving for the Gulf that the burden is on the Saudi/UAE-led bloc to “engage with Qatar because Qatar has been very clear—they’re ready to engage.”

The ATQ members and Qatar are close US military and economic partners deeply linked through counter-terrorism initiatives, business, academia, and investment. Since the GCC’s establishment in 1981, all US administrations have sought to capitalize on the benefits of relative unity within the Council to pursue interests shared by Washington and the Persian Gulf’s Arab monarchies. Maintaining stability in the GCC has always been an important interest of Washington, which has depended on military bases in the Arab sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf to serve as platforms for military operations across the Middle East, including ongoing ones in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. On past occasions when disputes broke out in the GCC, with the spat of 2014 being a prime example, the US pushed for the parties to manage their disagreements behind closed doors which always occurred.

Back in June the ATQ’s actions against Doha puzzled officials in Washington who were uncertain about exactly what the Saudi/UAE-bloc was actually demanding from Qatar. Although the ATQ later issued a series of 13 demands, and later a list of six principles, the goals of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were still unclear. Whereas the US government had previously taken aim at Qatar, albeit in limited capacities, for its failure to do a better job of cracking down on terrorism financing, the general consensus in Washington’s diplomatic establishment has been that Qatar has made significant progress and that other GCC states are legitimately subject to such criticism too on this front. “The United States felt very strongly that a common standard should apply to each of the countries as they look at Qatar,” according to Timothy Lenderking, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Arabian Peninsula Affairs, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. “In other words, what is being asked of Qatar should also be asked of those countries as well.”

Washington is reluctantly realizing that the longer the dispute persists, the dimmer the prospects for settlement. The increasingly harsh media coverage of countries involved in the crisis has furthered poisoned the GCC’s environment and heightened nationalism at the expense of the Council’s deteriorating political and social fabric. Efforts by the ATQ to encourage leadership change in Qatar will only fuel more nationalism in the Arabian emirate and strengthen Qataris’ support for their emir, ultimately undermining any hope for restoration of trust between Doha and the Saudi/UAE-led bloc.

The Saudi leadership has concluded that the costs of maintaining the ATQ’s blockade on Qatar are worth bearing, at least for the time being. Without face-saving measures to ensure that the Saudi/UAE-led bloc does not appear weak in engaging Qatar, the ATQ seems to have no interest in making concessions at the roundtable to resolve the Gulf dispute. At this juncture, how the Trump administration can use Washington’s levers in the GCC and Egypt to change this calculation without pushing ATQ countries closer to Russia and other powers remains unclear. Any hopes that President Donald Trump’s October 13 speech on Iran and announced decertification of the Iranian nuclear accord would lead to greater Saudi cooperation on the Qatar file were plainly unrealistic.

The prolongation of the diplomatic row heightens the risks of institutional damage to the GCC. Amid reports that the GCC’s summit in Kuwait in December will be postponed by six months due to the Qatar rift, the Council’s de facto breakup would inevitably have a negative impact on Washington interests in the Middle East.

In the aftermath of a failed war in Iraq, there has been little appetite among the US public for a major deployment of US ground troops to Middle Eastern countries to combat the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. Within this context, as violent extremists in the Arab world’s shattered countries threaten the security of the United States and its Middle Eastern allies, the Trump administration has followed the Obama-era strategy of calling on Washington’s partners in the Gulf to play a more proactive role in countering such menaces.

Yet the Qatar crisis has underscored how Saudi Arabia’s vision for countering terrorism is at odds with the United States. For all of the symbolism behind Trump’s address at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh in May, his trip to the kingdom still did not put the US government and the Al Saud rulers on the same page on the question of who in the Middle East constitutes a terrorist. The Saudis are blockading Qatar in large part for Doha’s support for Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which the ATQ’s three main countries but not the United States have designated as a terrorist group.

Viewing Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism, Saudi Arabia is determined to continue to keep its relations closed with the emirate. Tillerson’s inability to push Riyadh toward engagement with Doha truly underscores Washington’s limited influence in this GCC dispute—and its growing frustration with its erstwhile Saudi partner.

Photo: Rex Tillerson meets Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir (State Department via Flickr).

by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

In 1988, as legislators were creating the legal basis for the modern use of economic sanctions as a tool of American foreign policy, an important amendment was added to two laws, the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA) and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The so-called Berman Amendment was devised to withdraw the president’s authority to use sanctions to prohibit the import or export of informational materials, whether directly or indirectly.

Former Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA), who put forward the amendment, felt that support for access to information was a cornerstone of American foreign policy and should not be undermined by any program of economic sanctions. He stated: “The fact that we disapprove of the government of a particular country ought not to inhibit our dialog with the people who suffer under those governments…. We are strongest and most influential when we embody the freedoms to which others aspire.” In 1994, the provisions in the Berman Amendment were expanded in the Free Trade in Ideas Act in response to the fast changing media landscape. The definition of “informational materials” came to apply “regardless of format or medium of transmission” to “any information or informational materials.”

Since then, American sanctions policy has generally sought to ensure that the targeting of commercial and financial channels does not inhibit the transmission of information. This is perhaps best exemplified in the case of the sanctions regime levied on Iran, the most extensive ever devised. Even in the case of Iran, exemptions exist in the sanctions regulations for activities such as, publishing, journalism, Internet communications, and even organizing events. In addition, more specific permissions are granted in the form of so-called General Licenses issued by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). These include General License D-1, which permits the use of certain software or hardware for personal communications, and General Licence G, which licenses the export or import of educational services to and from Iran. Companies can also apply for specific licenses, which have been awarded to enable publishing, research, and communications activities that may be more commercial in nature, but are still consistent with the notion of “free trade in ideas.”

However, recent developments suggest that American regulators have lost sight of the absolute importance of protecting informational exchange. On October 13, the U.S. Treasury designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT) As several sanctions designations had already blocked the IRGC, the new action made little difference to the prohibitions around commercial and financial dealings with the Guards. But the push for a terrorism designation did have one new and substantive outcome.

In the FAQ note issued to clarify the new designation, OFAC explains that the new designation draws upon a counterterrorism authority, Executive Order 13224, which was not previously applied to the IRGC. As a result of this new authority, the IRGC “may not avail themselves of the so called ‘Berman exemptions’ under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) relating to personal communication, humanitarian donations, information or informational materials, and travel.”

This represents one of the first instances in an Iran sanctions designation in which OFAC has specifically clarified that the provisions of the Berman Amendment do not apply. Sanctions experts are quick to point out that, despite the new designation, OFAC will necessarily prioritize enforcing possible illicit financial support for the IRGC above the possible transmission of information, which could be as innocuous as usage of social media platforms or distribution of news media. But if the loss of the exemptions is the only substantive legal consequence of the new designation, then the stakes are actually quite high. As sanctions attorney Clif Burns sharply observed in a blog post, “It is now a federal crime for a U.S. person to give a copy of The Bible to anyone in the IRGC.”

American policymakers may not harbor any sympathies for members of the IRGC, but the manner in which the designation affects informational exchange is emblematic of a general failure in US sanctions policy to adequately consider or protect the free trade in ideas with people and entities, even those on the opposing sides of an adversarial relationship. Beyond the nefarious IRGC, members of Iranian civil society also see their access to information increasingly restricted. In August, Iranian apps were removed from both Apple’s App Store and Google Play, causing an uproar among Iranian users. In September, the online-course platform Coursera began to limit a wider range of content for users based in Iranian, citing sanctions regulations.

For now, the likes of Apple, Google, and Coursera are making voluntary decisions to limit their service provision to Iranian users. But the moves were likely spurred by the marked shift in Iran policy between the Obama and Trump administrations. These companies may have changed their policies in accordance with a stricter interpretation of General License D-1, which had previously been used to justify providing Iranian users access to these online platforms. During the Obama years, the “spirit” of OFAC’s enforcement mandate was clear and informational exchange was in fact encouraged within the scope of exemptions and general licenses.

It may seem tenuous to link the IRGC’s new designation with the recent experiences of Iranian Internet users. But in both cases, the overall disposition of American sanctions policy has clearly moved away from the political and ethical intentions behind the Berman Amendment. Even if the impact on information flows is so far inadvertent and primarily reflective of voluntary actions by the companies operating informational platforms, OFAC could absolutely be doing more to provide comfort around the general permissibility of informational exchange.

The consequences of any reduced “trade in ideas” with Iran will be profound. The United States is limiting its means to influence decisionmaking within the IRGC at precisely the same moment that it is undermining the ability of Iranian civil society to freely access informational services. It is unclear how removing the Berman exemptions for the IRGC weakens the organization. If anything, it may make it harder for Iranian and foreign stakeholders to help influence key reforms that would help mitigate the IRGC’s political and economic might.

For example, with the new designation, a non-governmental organization can no longer seek to treat IRGC affiliates as subjects in any research or technical-assistance programs. This is particularly concerning as Iran’s government seeks to push forward with a program of economic liberalization and attempts to induce the IRGC to sell assets and reduce their economic footprint. The Rouhani government needs foreign assistance to cleave the IRGC from its role in the economy, but that assistance may now be prohibited if the informational materials in question are ultimately earmarked for IRGC affiliates.

In March of this year, American University in Beirut agreed to pay a penalty of $700,000 to settle claims in a civil suit brought by the United States. The penalty was tied in part to the provision of “material support” to Jihad al-Binaa, an organization linked to the SDGT-designated Hezbollah, on a university database “for the stated purpose of connecting Non-Governmental Organizations (“NGOs”) with students and others interested in assisting them.” The IRGC has a much wider range of affiliated entities than most organizations designated under counterterrorism authorities, including commercial entities, welfare organizations, and educational institutions. If even listing these entities in a database can be seen as tantamount to material support, warranting an enforcement action, then the SDGT designation could significantly reduce the scope for responsible dialogue with the IRGC, whether direct or indirect.

Considering the fundamental role that both government-backed and independent research and technical assistance programs played in fomenting political and economic liberalization in formerly embargoed countries such as the former Soviet Republics, China, and Vietnam, any policy that blocks informational exchange will deprive the United States of some of its best foreign-policy tools.

There are times when blocking economic relations is necessary. But there is no situation in which the total denial of the free trade of ideas is sensible. The Berman Amendment is much more than a quirk of sanctions policy. It is among the most lucid formulations of liberalism in American foreign policy. In devising its approach to Iran, the Trump administration would do well not to lose sight of how the exchange of ideas has long made American foreign policy great.

Photo: Howard Berman

by John Feffer

The Middle East today is enduring a replay of World War II — with the Islamic State in the role of Nazi Germany.

Having seized much of Europe and parts of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany reached the peak of its expansion by the fall of 1942. Then, stopped at Stalingrad and unable to overwhelm Britain, the Nazis began to fall back, and the war turned into a race between the Soviet troops marching from the east and the Allied soldiers surging from the west. After the war, as a result of the competition between these two sets of armed forces, Europe would remain divided for the next half century.

The Islamic State likewise reached its peak expansion in mid-2014 when it controlled large chunks of Iraq and Syria. It has experienced a rise and fall even more precipitous than the Nazis’. By mid-2016, a mere two years later, it had already lost 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent of its territory in Iraq.

Today, with the fall of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the Islamic State has dwindled to a swath of land around the border of the two countries. Once a “state” of 11 million people with an economy worth about $1 billion a year — the size of Great Britain, the population of Greece, the economic output of Gambia — ISIS is now little more than the several thousand fighters desperately fending off attacks from all sides. From the west, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is attempting to retake as much of Syria as it can. From the east, Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga operating under the cover of U.S. air support have been steadily ejecting the would-be caliphate from Iraqi territory.

In both Iraq and Syria, significant divisions exist among the anti-ISIS fighters. Indeed, the lands encompassing Iraq and Syria would be lucky to experience the frozen hatreds of a Cold War in the wake of the fall of the house of ISIS. The shrinking of the caliphate will more likely lead to a new level of fighting — over the future structure of both Iraq and Syria and, more ominously, the dispensation of the region as a whole.

In Syria

It not only feels like 1945 in Syria, it looks that way as well. After months of saturation bombing, the cities that ISIS once controlled look like Germany after it had been reduced to rubble in the final months of World War II, as the Allies and the Soviets tightened their vise grip on the Nazis.

Thanks to the help of both Russia and Iran and to its ruthless aerial campaign, the Syrian government has managed to regain 60 percent of the country. Syrian forces have continuously bombed civilian targets, such as hospitals. Of the 1,373 attacks on civilian infrastructure in 2016, for instance, Syrian and Russian forces were responsible for 1,198. Last month, September, registered the largest number of casualties for 2017, with nearly 1,000 civilians killed, including over 200 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Assad regime has specialized in the comparatively low-tech barrel bombs, which maximize civilian casualties, dropping nearly 13,000 of them in 2016.

The U.S.-led coalition, meanwhile, has been equally brutal in its effort to dislodge the Islamic State from its capital of Raqqa. The city now looks like Dresden after the firebombing of World War II, as the Russian government has rightly pointed out. According to Syrian activists, over 1,000 civilians died in the bombing.

The third leg of brutality in Syria is Sunni extremism. True, ISIS is on the decline. But other militant forces aspire to kick Assad aside, keep the Kurds down, and beat back the Americans, Russians, and Iranians. After several name changes, the latest collection of al-Qaeda-like factions in Syria — which may or may not maintain a link to al-Qaeda itself — is the Levant Liberation Committee (Tahrir al-Sham or HTS). With its ISIS rival shrinking daily, HTS could emerge as the insurgency of choice for those who hate Assad as well as anything associated with the Americans.

Large tracts of ISIS territory in Syria were thinly populated desert, but the caliphate possessed some jewels in their crown. This weekend, on the heels of the liberation of Raqqa, U.S.-backed militias took over the Islamic State’s largest oil field. Syrian government forces were reportedly within a few miles of the strategic asset, but were pushed back by ISIS fighters. The Syrian Democratic Forces that took over the Omar oil field are led by Kurds, but some of the soldiers are also Arab. Although the SDF as a whole is putatively fighting for a secular democratic Syria, the Kurds are more pragmatically trying to gain leverage to safeguard their gains in the north where they have established the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.

Hatred of ISIS has been the lowest common denominator for a broad range of actors in Syria, from American neocons and Syrian generals to Kurdish militias and al-Qaeda sympathizers to Kremlin geopoliticians and Hezbollah. ISIS has been a knife stuck deep into Syria. There’s no argument that the knife is life threatening. But remove it, and Syria risks bleeding out.

In Iraq

On his recent swing through the Persian Gulf, where he failed to get Qatar and Saudi Arabia to kiss and make up, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also made some especially ill-conceived comments about Iraq.

“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home,” he said.

There aren’t any Iranian militias in Iraq. The Popular Mobilization Forces that have played a major role in pushing the Islamic State out of Iraq are largely Shiite, but they also contain Sunnis and Christians. Many of the brigades in this coalition force have links to Iran, but at least one major unit so far has been incorporated into the Iraqi army. In other words, the so-called “Iranian militias” are already home. They’re Iraqis, after all.

Tillerson also said, “Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home, and allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors.” Was Tillerson announcing that all U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq — 5,262 according to the Pentagon, but possibly as high as 7,000 — are about to go home? If so, everyone in the media and the U.S. government seems to have missed this second “mission accomplished” announcement.

Thanks largely to the United States and its earlier decision to invade and occupy the country, Iraq faces the same kind of fragmentation problem as Syria. Iraqis have divided loyalties. Now that the acute threat of ISIS has passed, the fissures in Iraqi society are once again widening.

Consider the ongoing conflict between Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad. The residents of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq went to the polls last month and overwhelmingly endorsed independence. The central government immediately went on the offensive, putting economic pressure on the wayward province and sending army units to seize the disputed oil-rich region around the city of Kirkuk. With ISIS on the decline, anti-Kurdish sentiment can unite the rest of Iraq. As Juan Cole points out, the Kurdish move brought out Iraqi nationalism even in the Shiite militias that helped the Iraqi army retake Kirkuk.

In retrospect, Kurdistan President Mahmoud Barzani’s bid to use the independence referendum to boost his own political fortunes was, according to veteran Kurdish politician Mahmoud Osman, a “miscalculation.” It may revive Iraqi nationalism and thwart Kurdish aspirations. Or it could trigger more centrifugal forces. With ISIS on its way out and the U.S. military presence relatively modest, Iraqis may well turn back to their post-invasion preoccupation of fighting each other to the point of the country’s dissolution.

After ISIS

The war against ISIS is like a matryoshka “nesting doll” from hell. The campaign against the caliphate is inset in the larger Syrian civil war and the Iraqi federal conflict. These are in turn nested within a larger confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And this regional tug-of-war is itself part of an even larger competition for influence between the United States and Russia.

Now, imagine giving this matryoshka doll to a six-year-old child prone to tantrums. Enter Donald Trump. He has done just about everything he can to make a bad situation worse short of destroying the doll with nuclear weapons. He has antagonized the Iranians at every turn, encouraged the worst tendencies of the Saudis, done little to keep Iraq together, made no effort to push the warring sides in Syria back to the negotiating table, and pursued a woefully inconsistent policy toward Russia.

Yes, the looming defeat of ISIS is to be cheered, but the costs have been huge. There’s the enormous loss of civilian life and the destruction of ancient cities. There’s the uptick in ISIS attacks abroad. Iraq remains fragile, though the Kurds have offered to freeze their independence vote. Syria is no closer to an end to its civil war, though more rounds of peace talks are set to begin shortly. Human rights violations by the Assad government continue, though the first trialshave taken place in Europe to hold those responsible for those violations.

Most importantly, no one is tackling the nested conflicts in the region. The first step is to take the matryoshka doll out of Donald Trump’s hands. Give him something else to play with, perhaps another tour of his favorite campaign stops in the United States. Then let some real adults — the UN, the EU, Jimmy Carter? — grapple with the post-ISIS realities of the Middle East.

Reprinted, with permission, from Foreign Policy in Focus. Photo: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr

by Paul R. Pillar

In Iraq, as in Syria, the imminent extinguishing of the mini-state of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or IS) is raising the question of whether U.S. objectives in Iraq really are focused on countering IS or will balloon into some other reason to keep American forces there indefinitely. The most common rationale voiced by those arguing for an indefinite stay is to counter Iranian influence. The rationale echoes alarms sounded by the Trump administration and others about an Iran supposedly on the march and threatening to bring most of the Middle East under its sway. The alarms are filled with unsupported zero-sum assumptions about what any Iranian action or influence means for U.S. interests.

Those tempted to succumb to the alarms as they apply to Iraq should bear in mind two important realities about the Iraqi-Iranian relationship.

The first is that the biggest boost to Iranian influence in Iraq was the U.S. invasion of March 2003. One effect of the whole costly, unpleasant history of the United States in Iraq—including the initial conquest, later surge, and all the ups and downs of occupation—is that Iranian influence is much greater now than it ever was while Saddam Hussein was still ruling Iraq. If Iranian influence were the overriding worry about the Middle East that the rhetoric of the Trump administration makes it out to be, this record strongly suggests that an unending U.S. military expedition would not be a smart way to assuage that worry.

The second key reality is that Iraq and Iran, for reasons of geographic proximity and a bloody history, are necessarily huge factors in each other’s security. Outside actors can’t shove aside that fact by talking about filling vacuums, pursuing their own self-defined rivalries, or imposing zero-sum assumptions that do not correspond to ground truth in the Persian Gulf region.

The extremely costly Iran-Iraq War, begun by Iraq and fought from 1980 to 1988, is the most prominent part of the bloody history and a formative experience for leaders in both countries. Accurate figures on the war’s casualties are not available, but deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands for each country. According to mid-range of estimates of those killed in the war, the combined death toll was probably somewhere around three-quarters of a million. The war was the deadliest conflict in the Middle East over the past half century.

Against that historical backdrop, it behooves the leaders of both Iraq and Iran to keep their relationship on an even keel. Although the two neighbors still have differing interests, it is in their larger security interests for cordiality to prevail over conflict in their bilateral relationship. The governments in both Baghdad and Tehran appear to realize that.

It helps that the two countries have, along with their differing interests, some important parallel interests. Chief among those right now are their interests in quashing IS and in not letting Kurdish separatism tear pieces out of each country’s sovereign territory. These interests also align with declared U.S. objectives about fighting IS and upholding the territorial integrity of Iraq, although this fact often seems to get overlooked in the United States amid the obsession with opposing Iran and confronting it everywhere about everything.

Interests in Peace and Stability 

Many countries, including the United States, share a general interest in peace and stability in the Middle East—for numerous reasons, including how the lack of peace and stability encourages the sorts of violent extremism that can have consequences beyond the region. It follows that having more cordiality than conflict in the Iraq-Iran relationship, which was so disastrously explosive in the recent past, also is in the general interest.

That peace and stability inside Iraq is in Iran’s interest as much as in other countries’ interests gets overlooked amid obsession-related caricatures of Iran as fomenting instability wherever and whenever it can. Persistent instability in a country with which Iran shares a border of more than 900 miles is not in Iran’s interest. It is ironic that this fact seems hard to accept by those who habitually use the term “spread of instability” in opining about security issues in the Middle East.

Iranian leaders also are smart enough, and informed enough about Iraqi affairs, to realize how destabilizing narrow-minded sectarian favoritism would be and how easy it would be to overplay their own hand. However empathetic the Iranians are to their Shia co-religionists, they realize that Sunni-bashing policies do not constitute a formula for stability on their eastern border. They also are aware of Iraqi nationalist (and Arab) sensitivities. They can see such sensitivities even in cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, commonly described as a Shia zealot, who recently made friendly visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the chief regional rivals of Iran.

Amid these realities, it is jarring and inappropriate for the United States, in obsessively seeking confrontation with Iran, to lecture the Iraq government about how the Iranian-supported militias need, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “to go home.” It is not surprising that such preaching raised the dander of the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, which pointed out that the militias in question, although armed and trained in part by Iran, consist of Iraqis. Abadi further stated, in response to this U.S. effort to tell the Iraqis how to organize their internal security efforts, “No side has the right to intervene in Iraq’s affairs or decide what Iraqis should do.”

Abadi later understandably expressed his frustration with Trump administration efforts to make his country a playing board for Washington’s game of seeking confrontation with Iran. Abadi said, “We would like to work with you, both of you [meaning the United States and Iran]. But please don’t bring your trouble inside Iraq. You can sort it [out] anywhere else.”

Iraqis are contemplating not only how the Iranian-backed militias have done much of the heavy lifting in defeating IS in Iraq. They also can see most recently the constructive behind-the-scenes Iranian role in resolving the standoff with the Kurds over Kirkuk and nearby oilfields in a way that advanced the objective of Iraqi territorial integrity and sovereignty with minimal bloodshed. Abadi’s own government can rightly claim most of the credit for this result, and the prime minister’s domestic political stock has risen as a result. But to the extent that any outside player played a positive role, it was Iran. The United States does not appear to have contributed to the outcome to any comparable degree.

American Lack of Understanding

Two basic reasons explain the U.S. obtuseness in failing to recognize and understand the regional geopolitical realities mentioned above. One is the demonization of Iran and fixation on opposing it everywhere on everything, to the exclusion of attention given to the many other facets of security issues in the Middle East.

The other reason is the chronic difficulty that Americans, relatively secure behind two ocean moats, have had in understanding the security problems, and responses to those problems, of nations without similar geographic blessings. This was the reason that, during the Cold War, “Finlandization” became a U.S. term of derision aimed at countries that deemed it advisable to observe certain policy limits in order to live peaceably as neighbors of the Soviet Union. It is today a reason for failing to appreciate fully how Iraqis analyze what is necessary to live peaceably in their own neighborhood.

Such understanding would come more easily to Americans if they had experienced wars with their North American neighbors that had been as bloody as the Iran-Iraq War. And perhaps such understanding would come if today Iran were lecturing the Canadians and Mexicans about how to organize their internal security and how they need to reduce U.S. influence.

Photo: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

by Tom Engelhardt

Honestly, if there’s an afterlife, then the soul of Osama bin Laden, whose body was consigned to the waves by the U.S. Navy back in 2011, must be swimming happily with the dolphins and sharks. At the cost of the sort of spare change that Donald Trump recently offered aides and former campaign officials for their legal troubles in the Russia investigation (on which he’s unlikely to deliver) — a mere $400,000 to $500,000 — bin Laden managed to launch the American war on terror. He did so with little but a clever game plan, a few fanatical followers, and a remarkably intuitive sense of how this country works.

He had those 19 mostly Saudi hijackers, a scattering of supporters elsewhere in the world, and the “training camps” in Afghanistan, but his was a ragged and understaffed movement.  And keep in mind that his sworn enemy was the country that then prided itself on being the last superpower, the final winner of the imperial sweepstakes that had gone on for five centuries until, in 1991, the Soviet Union imploded.

The question was: With such limited resources, what kind of self-destructive behavior could he goad a triumphalist Washington into? The key would be what might be called apocalyptic humiliation.

Looking back, 16 years later, it’s extraordinary how September 11, 2001, would set the pattern for everything that followed. Each further goading act, from Afghanistan to Libya, San Bernardino to Orlando, Iraq to Niger, each further humiliation would trigger yet more of the same behavior in Washington. After all, so many people and institutions — above all, the U.S. military and the rest of the national security state — came to have a vested interest in Osama bin Laden’s version of our world.

Apocalyptic Humiliation

Grim as the 9/11 attacks were, with nearly 3,000 dead civilians, they would be but the start of bin Laden’s “success,” which has, in truth, never ended. The phrase of that moment — that 9/11 had “changed everything” — proved far more devastatingly accurate than we Americans imagined at the time.  Among other things, it transformed the country in essential ways.

After all, Osama bin Laden managed to involve the United States in 16 years of fruitless wars, most now “generational” conflicts with no end in sight, which would only encourage the creation and spread of terror groups, the disintegration of order across significant parts of the planet, and the displacement of whole populations in staggering numbers.  At the same time, he helped turn twenty-first-century Washington into a war machine of the first order that ate the rest of the government for lunch.  He gave the national security state the means — the excuse, if you will — to rise to a kind of power, prominence, and funding that might otherwise have been inconceivable.  In the process — undoubtedly fulfilling his wildest dreams — he helped speed up the decline of the very country that, since the Cold War ended, had been plugging itself as the greatest ever.

In other words, he may truly be the (malign) genius of our age. He created a terrorist version of call and response that still rules Donald Trump’s Washington in which the rubblized generals of America’s rubblized wars on an increasingly rubblized planet now reign supreme. In other words, The Donald, Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were Osama bin Laden’s grim gift to the rest of us. Thanks to him, literally trillions of taxpayer dollars would go down the tubes in remarkably pointless wars and “reconstruction” scams abroad that now threaten to feed on each other to something like the end of (American) time.

Of course, he had a little luck in the process.  As a start, no one, not even the 9/11 plotters themselves, could have imagined that those towers in Manhattan would collapse before the already omnipresent cameras of the age in a way that would create such classically apocalyptic imagery.  As scholar Paul Boyer once argued, in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Americans never stopped dreaming of a nuclear attack on this country.  Our pop culture was filled with such imagery, such nightmares.  On that September day, many Americans suddenly felt as if something like it had finally happened.  It wasn’t happenstance that, within 24 hours, the area of downtown Manhattan where the shards of those towers lay would be dubbed “Ground Zero,” a term previously reserved for the spot where a nuclear explosion had taken place, or that Tom Brokaw, anchoring NBC’s non-stop news coverage, would claim that it was “like a nuclear winter in lower Manhattan.”

The sense of being sneak-attacked on an apocalyptic scale — hence the “new Pearl Harbor” and “Day of Infamy” headlines — proved overwhelming as the scenes of those towers falling in a near mushroom cloud of smoke and ash were endlessly replayed.  Of course, no such apocalyptic attack had occurred.  The weapons at hand weren’t even bombs or missiles, but our own airplanes filled with passengers.  And yes, it was a horror, but not the horror Americans generally took it for.  And yet, 16 years later, it’s still impossible to put 9/11 in any kind of reasonable context or perspective in this country, even after we’ve helped to rubblize major cities across the Middle East — most recently the Syrian city of Raqqa — and so aided in creating landscapes far more apocalyptic looking than 9/11 ever was.

As I wrote long ago, 9/11 “was not a nuclear attack.  It was not apocalyptic.  The cloud of smoke where the towers stood was no mushroom cloud.  It was not potentially civilization ending.  It did not endanger the existence of our country — or even of New York City.  Spectacular as it looked and staggering as the casualty figures were, the operation was hardly more technologically advanced than the failed attack on a single tower of the World Trade Center in 1993 by Islamists using a rented Ryder truck packed with explosives.”

On the other hand, imagine where we’d be if Osama bin Laden had had just a little more luck that day; imagine if the fourth hijacked plane, the one that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, had actually reached its target in Washington and wiped out, say, the Capitol or the White House.

Bin Laden certainly chose his symbols of American power well — financial (the World Trade Center), military (the Pentagon), and political (some target in Washington) — in order to make the government and people of the self-proclaimed most exceptional nation on Earth feel the deepest possible sense of humiliation.

Short of wiping out the White House, bin Laden could hardly have hit a more American nerve or created a stronger sense that the country which felt it had everything was now left with nothing at all.

That it wasn’t true — not faintly — didn’t matter. And add in one more bit of bin Laden good luck. The administration in the White House at that moment had its own overblown dreams of how our world should work.  As they emerged from the shock of those attacks, which sent Vice President Dick Cheney into a Cold-War-era underground nuclear bunker and President George W. Bush onto Air Force One — he was reading a children’s book, My Pet Goat, to school kids in Florida as the attacks occurred — and in flight away from Washington to Barksdale Air Base in Louisiana, they began to dream of their global moment.  Like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the partially destroyed Pentagon, they instantly started thinking about taking out Iraq’s autocratic ruler Saddam Hussein and launching a project to create a Middle East and then a planet over which the United States alone would have dominion forever and ever.

As befitted those Pearl Harbor headlines, on the night of September 11th, the president was already speaking of “the war against terrorism.” Within a day, he had called it “the first war of the twenty-first century” and soon, because al-Qaeda was such a pathetically inadequate target, had added, “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there.”

It couldn’t have been stranger.  The United States was “at war,” but not with a great power or even one of the regional “rogue states” that had been the focus of American military thinking in the 1990s.  We were at war with a phenomenon — “terrorism” — on a global scale. As Rumsfeld would say only five days after 9/11, the new war on terror would be “a large multi-headed effort that probably spans 60 countries, including the United States.” In the phrase of the moment, they were going to “drain the swamp” globally.

Even setting aside that terrorism then had no real armies, no real territory, essentially nothing, this couldn’t have been more wildly out of proportion to what had actually happened or to the outfit that had caused it to happen.  But anyone who suggested as much (or something as simple and unimpressive as a “police action” against bin Laden and crew) was promptly laughed out of the room or abused into silence.  And so a call-and-response pattern that fit bin Laden’s wildest dreams would be established in which, whatever they did, the United States would always respond by militarily upping the ante.

In this way, Washington promptly found itself plunged into a Global War on Terror, or GWOT, that was essentially a figment of its own imagination.  The Bush administration, not Osama bin Laden, then proceeded to turn it into a reality, starting with the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.  Meanwhile, from the passage of the Patriot Act to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, a newly national-securitized Washington would be built up on a previously unheard of scale.

In other words, we were already entering Osama bin Laden’s America.

The War Lovers

In this way, long before Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson began downsizing the State Department, George W. Bush and his top officials (who, except for Colin Powell, had never been to war) committed themselves to the U.S. military as the option of choice for what had previously been called “foreign policy.”  Fortunately for bin Laden, they would prove to be the ultimate fundamentalists when it came to that military.  They had little doubt that they possessed a force beyond compare with the kind of power and technological resources guaranteed to sweep away everything before it.  That military was, as the president boasted, “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” What, then, could possibly stop it from spearheading the establishment of a Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East and elsewhere that would leave the Roman and British empires in the shade?  (As it happened, they had absorbed nothing of the twentieth century history of insurrection, rebellion, and resistance in the former colonial world.  If they had, none of what followed would have surprised them in the least.)

And so the wars would spread, states would begin to crumble, terror movements would multiply, and each little shiver of fear, each set of American deaths, whether by such movements or “lone wolves” in the U.S. and Europe, would call up just one response: more of the same.

Think of this as Osama bin Laden’s dream world, which we would create for him and his fellow jihadists.

I’ve been writing about this at TomDispatch year after year for a decade and a half now and nothing ever changes.  Not really.  It’s all so sadly predictable as, years after bin Laden was consigned to his watery grave, Washington continues to essentially do his bidding in a remarkably brainless fashion.

Think of it as a kind of feedback loop in which the interests of a domestic security and surveillance state, built to monumental proportions on a relatively minor fear (of terrorism), and a military eternally funded to the heavens on a remarkably bipartisan basis for its never-ending war on terror ensure that nothing ever truly changes. In twenty-first-century Washington, failure is the new success and repetition is the rule of the day, week, month, and year.

Take, for example, the recent events in Niger. Consider the pattern of call-and-response there.  Almost no Americans (and it turned out, next to no senators) even knew that the U.S. had something like 900 troops deployed permanently to that West African country and two drone bases there (though it was no secret). Then, on October 4th, the first reports of the deaths of four American soldiers and the wounding of two others in a Green Beret unit on a “routine training mission” in the lawless Niger-Mali border area came out. The ambush, it seemed, had been set by an ISIS affiliate.

It was, in fact, such an obscure and distant event that, for almost two weeks, there was little reaction in Congress or media uproar of any sort.  That ended, however, when President Trump, in response to questions about those dead soldiers, attacked Barack Obama and George W. Bush for not calling the parents of the American fallen (they had) and then got into a dispute with the widow of one of the Niger dead (as well as a Democratic congresswoman) over his condolence call to her. The head of the Joint Chiefs was soon forced to hold a news conference; former four-star Marine General and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, whose son had died in Afghanistan, felt called upon to go to the mat for his boss, falsely accuse that congresswoman, and essentially claim that the military was now an elite caste in this country. This certainly reflected the new highly militarized sense of power and worth that lay at the heart of bin Laden’s Washington.

It was only then that the event in distant Niger became another terrorist humiliation of the first order.  Senators were suddenly outraged.  Senator John McCain (one of the more warlike members of that body, famous in 2007 for jokingly singing, to the tune of an old Beach Boys song, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”) threatened to subpoena the administration for more Niger information.  Meanwhile his friend Senator Lindsey Graham, another war hawk of the first order, issued a classic warning of this era: “We don’t want the next 9/11 to come from Niger!”

And suddenly U.S. Africa Command was highlighting its desire for more money from Congress; the military was moving to arm its Reaper drones in Niger with Hellfire missiles for future counterterrorism operations; and Secretary of Defense Mattis was assuring senators privately that the military would “expand” its “counterterrorism focus” in Africa.  The military began to prepare to deploy Hellfire Missile-armed Reaper drones to Niger.  “The war is morphing,” Graham insisted. “You’re going to see more actions in Africa, not less; you’re going to see more aggression by the United States toward our enemies, not less; you’re going to have decisions being made not in the White House but out in the field.”

Rumors were soon floating around that, as the Washington Post reported, the administration might “loosen restrictions on the U.S. military’s ability to use lethal force in Niger” (as it already had done in the Trump era in places like Syria and Yemen).  And so it expectably went, as events in Niger proceeded from utter obscurity to the near-apocalyptic, while — despite the strangeness of the Trumpian moment — the responses came in exactly as anyone reviewing the last 16 years might have imagined they would.

All of this will predictably make things in central Africa worse, not better, leading to…well, more than a decade and a half after 9/11, you know just as well as I do where it’s leading.  And there are remarkably few brakes on the situation, especially with three generals of our losing wars ruling the roost in Washington and Donald Trump now lashed to the mast of his chief of staff.

Welcome to Osama bin Laden’s America.

Reprinted, with permission, from TomDispatch. Photo: Osama bin Laden (via Flickr).

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, as well as John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, John Feffer’s dystopian novel Splinterlands, Nick Turse’s Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt’s Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World. Copyright 2017 Tom Engelhardt.

by Paul R. Pillar

Donald Trump’s tweets in response to the terrorist attack along a bike path in Manhattan demonstrated some of what we already knew all too well about the president, but they also reflected more widely shared and counterproductive American ways of thinking about counterterrorism. Among the Trumpian habits exhibited is the inclination to use any occasion, no matter how solemn or tragic, to excoriate or smear political opponents. In this case, instead of expressing solidarity with all citizens of his native New York City, Trump assailed Senator Chuck Schumer for sponsorship of a 27-year-old visa program that had bipartisan support and under which the Uzbek perpetrator of this week’s attack had entered the United States.

Whatever “extreme vetting” Trump may have in mind for governing legal immigration, it is unlikely it would have eliminated the offender in the Manhattan incident, Sayfullo Saipov. When he came to the United States in 2010, Saipov was a hotel accountant showing no radical or violent streak. It evidently was only after living in the United States and experiencing disappointment in finding desired employment that Saipov evolved into an extremist who, according to those who knew him, became heated when he discussed American policies toward Israel.

Saipov’s Uzbek origin also highlights how disconnected from actual patterns of terrorist threat have been the various versions of the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban. The arbitrary list of countries has never included Uzbekistan. Perhaps Central Asia is just too far removed, compared to the Middle East, from the preoccupations and prejudices that underlay the devising of the ban for it to have made the cut.

Trump also quickly maligned the U.S. criminal justice system as a “joke” and “laughingstock” and called for the suspect to be sent to the military detention facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. Such a blurt reflected complete ignorance of what has and has not worked in bringing terrorists to justice. Trump’s later backing away from his statement about using Guantanamo must have come from aides confronting him with how far his comment was removed from reality. Civilian federal courts have proven to be efficient and effective as well as fair in handling terrorism cases. According to Stephen Vladeck, an expert on national security law at the University of Texas, prosecution of terrorist cases in those courts has resulted in more than 600 convictions since 2001 with almost no reversals upon appeal. The Southern District of New York, which presumably would be the venue for a trial of Saipov, has an especially long and impressive record of handling even the most sensitive and difficult terrorism cases.

In contrast, the military tribunal system at Guantanamo is still having trouble getting its act together after years of fits and starts. This very week, a trial there of accused perpetrators of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 was thrown into disarray amid a dispute over legal representation of the defendants. This spectacle featured an Air Force colonel (the trial judge) sentencing a Marine Corps brigadier general (the head of legal defense at Guantanamo) to 21 days confinement and a $1,000 fine for refusing to obey an order of the judge regarding configuration of the defense team. The brigadier general—John Baker, the second-highest ranking lawyer in the Marine Corps—has been unsparing in his own criticism of the tribunal process at Guantanamo. Last year he said, “Put simply, the military commissions in their current state are a farce. Instead of being a beacon for the rule of law, the Guantanamo Bay military commissions have been characterized by delay, government misconduct and incompetence, and even more delay.”

As is true of so many other rhetorical excesses of Donald Trump, his latest comments play to misconceptions and prejudices that had already gained wider currency—which is why, of course, Trump uses such rhetoric and why it was effective enough to win him the presidency. (Trump was not the only political figure who spoke favorably about sending Saipov to Guantanamo; so did Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).) The principal misconceptions and prejudices involving terrorism to which Trump’s rhetoric about the New York attack appeals include the following.

One is the notion that terrorist violence against Americans is overwhelmingly a problem with foreigners and not with other Americans. This has led to the conflation of immigration issues with counterterrorism issues, added respectability to a preoccupation with building walls, and diverted attention and resources from security measures that are not border security measures.

A related notion is that terrorism is overwhelmingly a problem with certain foreigners, and especially Muslim ones. This does not square with the pattern of violence, and of political violence, in the United States since 9/11.

A further notion is that terrorism is a problem with a fixed set of bad guys, the elimination or exclusion of which would solve the problem. This ignores how once-peaceful people like Saipov can come to adopt extreme tactics such as political violence. It also ignores the issues and grievances that may lead people to make that transition.

A broad, underlying misconception inheres in the “war on terror” label, with everything that implies regarding the militarization of counterterrorism. This not only leads to anomalies, such as colonels trying to order around generals in attempting to put justice into a military framework when it does not fit. It also has led to military expeditions overseas that have stoked anti-U.S. terrorism more than they have diminished it, through the knock-on effects of collateral damage and perceived affronts to someone else’s homeland.

Photo: Sayfullo Saipov

by Eldar Mamedov

Expanding on his vision of a new Saudi Arabia, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) announced a pledge a few days ago to promote “moderate Islam” and “eradicate all remnants of extremism in the near future.”

Saudi officials and media have been busy amplifying this message, positioning the kingdom as a force for moderation, stability, and development in a turbulent region. This talk is supposed to translate into the relaxation of the rigid Wahhabi religious norms governing the country. For example, in addition to allowing women to drive (as of summer of 2018), the government has now also promised to admit them to sports stadiums. Officials talk about setting up tourism and entertainment industries, and even building an opera house and establishing a symphony orchestra.

It is tempting to see these efforts as merely a ploy by the Saudi authorities to airbrush the country’s international image, which took a severe hit in recent years as a consequence of the Saudi-led war in Yemen and growing awareness in the world of the Wahhabi ideological-religious roots of Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and al-Qaeda terrorism. After all, the “moderate Islam” project does not involve any democratization of Saudi governance. To the contrary, Riyadh has been at the vanguard of a regional, post-Arab-Spring, counter-revolutionary pushback against grassroots movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. It certainly is not going to experiment with democratic reforms in its own country.

Even within the narrower perimeters of social liberalization, there is not much evidence of change beyond talk. Liberal secular dissidents such as Raif Badawi—a laureate of the Sakharov prize, the EU highest human rights award—are still in prison, even though they could be the government’s natural allies if it were serious about liberalization. The fundamentals of the male guardianship system, which effectively consigns Saudi women to the status of life-long minors, remain largely in place. And, as the country’s Shia residents and Christian guest workers can attest, the kingdom is still not showing more openness “to all religions,” as MBS vowed to do in his “moderate Islam” speech.

Still, despite this skepticism, it would be a mistake to completely dismiss the rhetoric of change. After all, Saudi society is evolving. With about 70% of the population younger than 35 and one of the highest per-capita rates of Twitter users in the world, Saudis are painfully aware of their country’s inadequacies. The old social contract—sustained by high oil prices and popular acquiescence to the absolute rule of the House of Saud, in alliance with the Wahhabi clergy—is eroding. There is a broad understanding that this order should be replaced by a new one, with more and better jobs and a measure of social and cultural, if not political, liberalization at its heart. The decision to rescind the drive ban for women, for instance, has met remarkably little conservative backlash so far. MBS, as the first crown prince of this young generation, seems to be responding to these winds of change. Young pro-reform Saudis, even those critical of the top-down, autocratic manner of the reforms, reckon that MBS may be their best bet to push for a liberalizing agenda.

For the prospects of reform to be bright, however, Saudi Arabia must enjoy a modicum of security and safety in its regional environment. Currently this is not the case. The exaggerated Saudi fear of Iran is one of the major factors contributing to such a state of affairs. The concept of “moderate Islam” itself is partly an ideological construct seeking to link all religious extremism in the region to the Iranian revolution of 1979, conveniently forgetting that the siege of the Grand Mosque of Mecca in the same year by Wahhabi fundamentalists, ideological precursors of al-Qaeda and IS had domestic Saudi roots. Obsession with the Iranian threat led Saudi Arabia to engage in impulsive, ill-conceived, and ultimately self-defeating adventures such as the war on Yemen, support for extremists in Syria, and meddling in Lebanon when a power-sharing agreement between the pro-Saudi and pro-Iranian forces in the country seemed to be working. This is a dangerous gamble, since Iran has amply demonstrated that it has both the will and capacity to retaliate when its core national interests are at stake.

Nor were the Saudi efforts to isolate Iran internationally successful. It’s only Israel’s right-wing government and elements within the Trump administration who agree with Riyadh in depicting Iran as the source of all trouble in the Middle East. Although welcoming cooperation with Saudi Arabia, other major players such as the European Union, Russia, China, India, Japan, and even some members of the Gulf Cooperation Council are not ready to do so at the expense of their re-emerging post-JCPOA ties with Iran. Thus, Saudi insistence that its partners choose between Riyadh and Tehran is futile and counter-productive. It also siphons the energy and wealth needed for domestic reforms to geopolitical struggles Saudi Arabia has little chance of winning.

Ultimately, then, learning to share the region with Iran, in the words of former President Barack Obama, offers the Saudis a chance to prove the skeptics wrong and show that Mohammad Bin Salman’s reform vision is more than just a PR stunt.

Photo: Amnesty International Finland via Flickr.

This article reflects the personal views of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the European Parliament.

by Daniel Wagner and Giuseppe Del Vecchio

Cyberspace is the ideal platform for terrorists because, unlike conventional warfare, barriers to entry into cyberspace are much lower. The price of entry is an Internet connection. The surreptitious use of the Internet to advance terrorist group objectives has created a new brand of Holy War—“virtual jihad”—that gains thousands of new adherents each day. Long after the current terrorist groups have ceased to be a major threat from a physical perspective, they will remain omnipresent in cyberspace, promoting a virtual caliphate from their safe haven behind computer keyboards around the world. Islamic extremists are natural candidates to transition to a virtual world that offers them automatic citizenship beyond the nation-state.

Since the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) was founded, its leaders have deftly and continually rewritten the narrative to claim that the group’s desired caliphate exists, has a specific location, and maintains a defined group of adherents. Unconstrained by the absence of a definitive Quranic guideline for what constitutes a caliphate, IS created its own self-promoting doctrine. The group expanded its caliphate narrative to include a wide range of options for participation: membership included everyone from the passive observer reading a blog or curiously following a Twitter feed to the keyboard jihadist editing Rumiyah or hacking a website to the real-world operators attacking a nightclub or running down holiday celebrants with a delivery truck.

IS has successfully exploited the sociopolitical environment and young adults’ obsession with technology to establish a growing community of devotees in the ungoverned territory of cyberspace, ensuring its ability to continue to coordinate and inspire violence well into the future. IS has found its own salvation via the Internet, particularly since it has already passed the peak of its real-world power.

IS has also capitalized on the world’s evolving propensity to integrate online activities with real-world activities. Social media has had an incredible multiplying effect on radical messaging, and IS has had great success publishing online, which has resonated particularly well with disenfranchised Muslims and youths, inspiring some to act on inspiration and guidance received online. IS has exploited their search for meaningful identity by promising to restore their dignity so that they may find personal fulfillment and purpose.

The virtual world is in some ways more compelling than the real world, because storylines can be artfully crafted for maximum appeal, while omitting anything that may be perceived as negative. A promise is much easier to make online, as is the vision of fulfilling aspirations. The IS has created virtual messaging that is wildly at odds with the reality of life as an IS fighter on the ground. Cyberspace has enabled IS to turn tactical defeats on the battlefield into glorious martyrdom operations that highlight the bravery and commitment of its fighters. The loss of territory and the deaths of key leaders have served to feed propaganda efforts that are used to prove the resiliency of the caliphate.

Since all that is required to be a virtual planner is an Internet connection and good encryption, they can operate from anywhere, although being geographically dispersed carries heightened risk of detection in some nations. The virtual planner model has revolutionized jihadist external operations. IS has taken advantage of recent advances in online communications and encryption so that the group’s top operatives can directly guide lone attackers, playing a central role in the conceptualization, target selection, timing, and execution of future attacks. Virtual planners offer operatives the same services once provided by strictly physical networks. They seamlessly execute the group’s guiding strategy and maximize the impact and propaganda value of attacks waged in its name, while avoiding many of the risks typically associated with physically training operatives, such as being tailed or getting caught returning to a home country.

Integrated into the group’s geographical command structure, virtual planners function much like theater commanders but in the cyber realm. IS virtual planners are also assigned areas of responsibility according to their nationality and linguistic skills, and are tasked with actively recruiting and handling attackers from these areas.

The advancement of Internet-based communication and the explosion of social media have enabled the planner to reach a larger audience than ever before. By building an “intimate” relationship with a potential attacker, the virtual planner provides encouragement and validation, addressing the individual’s doubts and hesitations while generating confidence and a strong desire to carry out an attack. Virtual planners can replicate the same social pressures that exist with in-person cells. Individuals can simply wander into searchable online networks rather than identify with and be socialized by covert in-person networks. Unlike with physical networks, the virtual planner model does not risk the capture or punishment of the network’s key operatives.

Individuals inspired by IS can directly reach out to virtual planners for guidance and assistance in carrying out attacks. In addition to recruitment and operational guidance, virtual planners can bring disparate individuals and cells together to form larger attack networks. IS virtual planners allow the group to effectively seize ownership over what would previously have been considered lone-wolf attacks. Virtual planners transform these individuals into ambassadors for the IS global brand at relatively low cost. Virtual planners help maximize the psychological and reputational impact of violence committed in the IS name, further enticing other potential devotees to join its cause.

The success of the virtual-planner model underscores the ongoing process of organizational learning by jihadist groups. But the model also has disadvantages, such as the inability to provide in-person training or be optimally nimble during an attack to modify plans as circumstances change. Cells directed by virtual planners are also at greater risk of being detected by Signals Intelligence, despite advances in end-to-end encryption. Nonetheless, the virtual planner approach is a low-cost, high-reward strategy with enormous destructive potential, especially as IS and other terrorist groups continue to refine the model.

Adaptations to jihadists’ modes of operation have continually outpaced states’ ability to effectively counter them, and will likely continue to do so. Virtual jihad has not only gained prominence and credibility as an alternative to traditional conceptions of jihad but has also progressively outpaced physical jihad. Although physical jihad continues to appeal to a great many actors, virtual jihad has supplanted traditional notions of jihad for a new generation of adherents who are either unwilling or unable to engage in physical violence themselves. The rise of the virtual jihadist has assumed an important (perhaps irreplaceable) role in rejuvenating the concept of jihad and facilitating the dissemination of its “counterculture” narrative to new audiences for many years to come.

Daniel Wagner is author of the new book Virtual Terror, founder of Country Risk Solutions, and managing director of Risk Cooperative. Giuseppe Del Vecchio is a research analyst with CRS.

by Paul R. Pillar

Anyone willing to think carefully and critically about the use of armed force against a target such as the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) would do well to read the intensively researched piece in The New York Times by investigative journalist Azmat Khan and Arizona State professor Anand Gopal about civilian casualties from the air war waged by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. The key conclusion is that those casualties are far higher—probably many times higher—than what the U.S. military acknowledges.

Such a discrepancy has been suspected for some time, based on earlier work by private organizations that comb press reports and other publicly available information from afar. Khan and Gopal went beyond that work by selecting three areas in Nineveh province as samples in which they performed an exhaustive on-the-ground investigation, interviewing hundreds of residents and sifting through the rubble of bombed structures. They compared such direct evidence, incident by incident, with what the responsible U.S. military command said it had in its records about airstrikes it had conducted in the area and the results of those airstrikes.

The authors were given access to the operations center at a U.S. airbase in Qatar that has directed the air war, and their article includes the U.S. military’s side of this story, with a description of the procedures used to select targets and assess damage, including civilian casualties. The impression left is not one of willful deception or malfeasance. Rather, the problem is partly a matter of lacking the time and personnel to do the sort of detailed after-the-fact, on-the-ground investigation for every target that Khan and Gopal did with their sample. It is partly a matter of deficient recordkeeping. It is in large part a matter of the fog of this kind of war making much faulty and woefully incomplete information almost inevitable. Although some of the civilian casualties represent collateral damage in the form of people who were in the vicinity of bona fide IS targets, others were in places that the targeters mistakenly identified as having an IS connection.

The conditions in which civilians were living when under IS control worked against accurate analysis by the military of potential targets, which relied heavily on aerial observation. The observing of people going in and out of buildings in what looked like normal everyday activity was taken as a sign either that the building itself was a normal civilian structure or that there were too many innocent people in the immediate vicinity to hit it. The absence of such innocent-looking activity tended to be taken as confirmation that malevolent IS operations were going on inside. But in the so-called IS caliphate, many people who otherwise would have been moving around freely tended instead to stay at home. They in effect had the choice of increasing their exposure to the vagaries and brutality of IS or of raising suspicion at that airbase in Qatar that their home had something to do with IS.

Khan and Gopal are unable to extrapolate from their data, being only a sample, to any comprehensive number of innocent civilians killed and wounded in this air war. They note, however, that the concentration of civilian casualties is likely to be even higher in some areas, such as the western part of Mosul, where IS held out longer against coalition bombardment than it did in the areas that the authors investigated.

These findings provide disturbing food for thought in at least three respects. One concerns the values and morality involved in a U.S. military operation in which so many innocents suffer so much. The human faces that Khan and Gopal attach to some of the specific cases of suffering they have investigated underscore the fundamental wrongness of what has been occurring.

A second concerns the counterproductive aspects of an offensive that is supposed to be combating terrorism. The Donald Rumsfeld question—are we creating more terrorists than we are killing?—is still quite pertinent. The unsurprising resentment against the United States that results from U.S. aircraft killing and maiming innocent people, or destroying their homes, tends to create more terrorists. At a minimum, it fosters the sort of sentiment that existing terrorists exploit and win them support.

A third implication involves the ability of the American public and political class to assess adequately what is going on with a military campaign of this sort. The biggest problem as always is an unwillingness to pay adequate attention to information at our disposal. But in this case there is the added problem of bum information. Khan and Gopal write that the huge disparity between official numbers and probable actual figures of civilian casualties means that this aerial offensive “may be the least transparent war in recent American history.”

There are important policy decisions ahead about a continued U.S. military role, if any, in the areas where the IS caliphate once stood. Civilian casualties, and the importance of having an accurate sense of the extent of casualties that U.S. forces cause, need to be part of any debate about those decisions. But probably the lessons of the anti-IS air war apply at least as much to other states and regions where the United States has assumed the role of aerial gendarme, using either manned or unmanned means, against groups such as IS or al-Qaeda. One thinks in particular of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in the absence of any geographically defined congressional authorization for such use of force, there is no limit to where the United States will bombard from the sky and where, given the intrinsic difficulties in assembling accurate targeting information against such shadowy adversaries, more innocent civilians will die. This is one of the continuing dark sides of a “war on terror” that has been militarized to the extent that ill-chosen metaphor implies.

Photo: U.S. air strike in Iraq (U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway)

by Paul R. Pillar

President Trump’s placement of North Korea on the official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism continues a manipulation, by several administrations, of this list for reasons other than terrorism. Neither an earlier removal of North Korea from this list (by the George W. Bush administration in 2008) nor Trump’s return of North Korea to the list this week had anything to do with any changes in North Korea’s conduct as far as terrorism is concerned. The Bush administration’s delisting was part of an unsuccessful effort to do something about Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The Trump administration has seized upon relisting as supposedly another form of pressure on North Korea, with the concern again centered on nuclear weapons.

Rationales for the newest move show what a stretch it is from the criteria, defined by statute, for placement on the state sponsor list. Some defenders of the move refer to North Korean actions three decades ago. Pyongyang really was doing international terrorism in the 1980s, mainly aimed against South Korea. It was responsible for a bomb in Rangoon that killed several visiting members of the South Korean cabinet in 1983. It planted a bomb on a Korean Air civilian airliner in 1987, killing more than 100 people. But North Korea got out of international terrorism in subsequent years, with the hope of gaining some degree of international political rehabilitation. In terms of the legal standards for remaining on the state sponsor list, the delisting of North Korea in 2008 was overdue.

A more recent North Korean-perpetrated incident was the assassination in Malaysia this February of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un. This killing, performed clandestinely on foreign soil, technically meets the definition of international terrorism. And it is yet another example of the Pyongyang regime’s repugnant and brutal behavior. But it had nothing to do with any campaign of terrorism that poses a threat to anyone other than Kim’s own family or those in the regime whom he perceives as a possible threat to his rule.

Other countries besides North Korea have been the subject of misuse of the state sponsor list. The Reagan administration took Iraq off the list as part of its tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. The George H.W. Bush administration returned Iraq to the list after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Neither move had to do with any change in Iraqi behavior regarding international terrorism. Cuba remained on the list, for reasons involving anti-Castro domestic U.S. politics, long after it had ceased doing anything that could be construed as international terrorism.

Barack Obama made more of an honest effort than most other U.S. presidents to respect the legal criteria associated with the state sponsor list. The belated removal of Cuba from the list was part of this. The Obama administration reportedly considered relisting North Korea but refrained because it could not identify a sound legal rationale for doing so.

Other administrations’ misuse of the state sponsor list has been a sloppy way of expressing disapproval of regimes they didn’t like. The sloppiness hides how such regimes may exhibit multiple forms of objectionable conduct, each posing its own problems and each of which can be addressed through different means. Blurring everything together into a miasma of undifferentiated rogue-state behavior undermines the possibility of using diplomacy and carefully crafted incentives to ameliorate any one form of objectionable conduct, be it terrorism or weapons proliferation or something else, even if the United States can’t solve every problem it has with a regime.

Misusing the list of state sponsors of terrorism sends the message that the United States does not care all that much about terrorism itself. It undermines the credibility of efforts that really are focused on countering terrorism. Most fundamentally, it diminishes the incentive of the targeted regime to get out or stay out of international terrorism. If the North Korean regime sees that it is going to be branded a state sponsor of terrorism regardless of what it is doing terrorism-wise, it has that much less disincentive against sliding back into the reprehensible behavior it exhibited in the 1980s.

This is one form of poor statesmanship in which Trump is not alone. His move regarding the state sponsor list indicates a deficit in careful and creative thinking about ways to counter the North Korean nuclear challenge.

Photo: Secretary of Defense James Mattis visits the DMZ.

by Robert E. Hunter

President Donald Trump’s official proclamation that the US accepts Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, along with preparations to move the American embassy there from Tel Aviv, has predictably upset apple carts across the Middle East and beyond. The period just ahead will be dominated by diplomatic responses, an increase in violence, and perhaps terrorist acts.

Any positive payoff is hard to see. One of Trump’s obvious motives was to fulfill a presidential campaign promise, especially to some large campaign contributors. Another was to show “courage” on this issue, as he sees it, compared to his predecessors. A third was to appeal to domestic political constituencies, mostly major elements of the Jewish and Christian evangelical communities. Despite these personal political gains, little if any good can come from the president’s decision. Ironically, despite Trump’s claims to be a great dealmaker, he sought nothing from Israel in return, including on contentious Israeli settlement-building on the West Bank. Trump may believe his decision will advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but that would place him in the tiniest of minorities.

Much debate will now ensue about the impact of the president’s action. In a larger perspective, however, this is a good time to revisit the basic premises that have for so long kept the United States pinned to the Middle East, and, if they are found wanting, to mandate major changes in US policies. Given that even the United States has limits on its power, that its government can deal with only so many issues at a time, and that the American public has a narrowing tolerance for presidentially determined actions abroad, choices must be made and priorities assigned. Thus, to decide US engagement in and policies toward the Middle East, a global perspective must come first.

The Fundaments of National Power and Influence

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been overdue for “zero-based budgeting” on its foreign policy. Some was indeed done, notably when George H.W. Bush proclaimed the grand strategy of trying to create a Europe “whole and free” and at peace. But regarding the rest of the world, the US has done little of the basic analysis needed at the level of grand strategy, other than the vague notion of some “rebalancing” to East Asia and wondering what to do about China’s rise.

To promote US interests in the post-Cold War world and to continue being taken seriously as a top economic power, the most important requirement has been to ensure that the US economy performs at its highest possible standard and has the wherewithal to be effective, not just at home but also abroad. Yet every administration—along with Congress and the private sector— has consistently underinvested in key areas such as public education, a health system that includes everyone, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, and support for the middle class on which the strength of any free nation depends.

At the same time, a succession of US administrations has failed to understand that, for the United States to maintain significant influence in a world lacking a commonly understood threat (like, previously, Soviet power), it must nurture a wide variety of instruments. (It must also, as Trump has rightly argued, persuade traditional allies and partners to share more of the security burden.)

The Trump administration is augmenting the US military instrument and strengthening its ability to act virtually anywhere, which does confer on the nation a significant degree of influence, including the knowledge on the part of allies and partners that it will be available when needed, notably in Central Europe and East Asia. Nevertheless, the military’s day-to-day ability to shaping the world in which we now live is decreasing. As President Barack Obama said, “Just because we have the best hammer [military power] does not mean that every problem is a nail.” Indeed, save for North Korea’s soon-to-exist ability to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, the United States is almost entirely secure against all other plausible military threats to the homeland.

At the same time, however, the administration is slashing diplomatic and development instruments on which the US increasingly depends. In the case of the State Department, that amounts to perhaps 30% of its budget. This is the falsest of false economies. It is weakening the overall capacity of the United States to act effectively abroad, to continue setting much of the agenda for global economic relations, and to be taken seriously everywhere.

This distortion of priorities—military instruments over the diplomatic and economic—is as evident in the Middle East as it is elsewhere, and the nation has been paying the price in terms of a lack of coherence in its regional policies and engagements, as well as the international respect required to secure its national interests.

In general, the United States has too long neglected the necessary non-military sinews of its great power status. The United States has also fallen short in developing methods to enable it to concentrate on what is truly important for US interests abroad. Actions taken by both Russia and the West (especially the United States) are engendering a new Cold War in Europe. Meanwhile, with the growth in power and influence of other states, notably China and India, the United States faces competitors of a very different nature from the Soviet Union. It is also abdicating leadership in promoting a rules-based global society and dealing with climate change, the most important challenge facing everyone.

Reassessing US Interests in the Middle East

This is background to this week’s Trump decision on Jerusalem and the predictable, negative reaction almost everywhere. In major part because the United States must make difficult choices about what to do, where to do it, and to set priorities, there is an insistent question: just what are US interests in the Middle East and what should the Trump administration best be doing to secure them? The following are key topics for the national debate that must take place.

First, US interests in the region are not as compelling as they were only a quarter century ago. Certainly, their nature has changed significantly. The Soviet Union is gone and with it the need to contain Soviet power and communism, which preoccupied the United States from the late 1940s, when it began assuming key responsibilities for protecting the West’s Middle East interests. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did the need for the whole containment edifice, including that for the Middle East, notably the 1980 Carter Doctrine.

Second, every US administration since the 1950s has labored to provide security for Israel. Yet with the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty (1979) that ended any serious Arab-state military threat to Israel, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015) that contained the Iranian nuclear program, and the decisive military edge that the US always provides Israel over all comers in the region, its security is better protected now than ever before in its history, despite what its current government wants Americans to believe.

At the same time, the United States has for many years had lead responsibility for fostering Arab-Israeli peace, now focused on the Palestinians. The Trump administration, however, has cleaved tightly to most Israeli positions, including ambitions elsewhere in the region that go beyond reasonable security requirements. This almost lock-step relationship with Israel does impose costs on the United States across the Middle East. It is grist for the mill for its state enemies (now principally Iran), promotes anti-Americanism, and is used by Islamist recruiters.  What President Trump did this week only made the US problem even worse than it was, without helping to promote either Israel’s security or the peace process.

Third, every regional country that produces oil has a vital interest in ensuring its export, including freedom of transit through the Persian Gulf. No country poses a threat to the flow of oil and natural gas to the outside world, which should condition the deployment of US naval power beyond what’s engaged in current fighting, especially against the Islamic State, which is likely to be relatively short-term.

Fourth, no one has been able to make a compelling case that Afghanistan is of serious strategic interest to the United States. The initial invasion in 2001 was more an act of revenge after 9/11 than a calculated act of national self-interest. Trying to build a Western-style society in that country was always a fool’s errand, as proved by 16 years of pathetically poor successes at staggering cost.

Fifth, there are legitimate concerns about Iran’s ambitions in the region. But the Iranian revolution’s appeal, which was never great beyond the country’s borders, continues to dwindle. As a Shia country, Iran could never dominate the more populous swath of Sunni countries. The principal interest of virtually everyone in Iran, except the clerical elite and the Revolutionary Guard kleptocracy, is to become fully engaged in the outside world, and America is more popular among the Iranian people than in any other country in the region. And Iran is a modernizing, Westernizing country with a free flow of information, which demonstrates that the recent comment by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the Iranian regime is “totalitarian” to be radically misinformed.

Sixth, additional US interests in the region center on completing the task of assaulting the so-called Islamic State, while also opposing all forms of terrorism, Islamist and otherwise. At the same time, however, the United States continues to buy into the fiction, put forward by Iran’s competitors, that Teheran is the principal source of regional terrorism. On the contrary, the overwhelming bulk, both in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Moslem world, is Sunni-based, sourced by Saudi inspiration and cash. It proceeds apace with little more than lip-service opposition by the US government.

Two other current challenges in the region, the continuing Syrian civil war and renewed Russian presence in the Near East, stem in part from America’s own actions or those of regional partners. The misbegotten US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, ripped apart the region, provided fertile ground for terrorists, and continues to plague everyone.

During the ill-fated Arab Spring, the United States made declarations regarding Syria—drawing a “red line” on chemical weapons and asserting that President Bashar Al-Assad “must go” — that it was either unwilling or unable to implement, thus providing a chance for a relatively weak Russia to reengage in the Near East.

The Risks of the “Free Pass” to Saudi Arabia

In addition, on his trip to Saudi Arabia last May, Trump gave Saudi Arabia and its ambitious young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), a free pass to do whatever they want in the region. The crown prince has used this latitude to continue (with US support) Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression in Yemen, with its massive human suffering, under the thin pretext that without Iran in the mix there would be no civil war there.

MbS also led several of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, plus Egypt, to confront and isolate Qatar, whose alleged sins notably include its operating the only free media outlet in the entire Arab world. Now he is promoting a direct relationship with Israel, but not designed to show long-overdue acceptance of the Jewish state. Rather, he wants to advance joint competition with Iran while, in the process, supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to crush the few remaining hopes the Palestinian people have for their own state.

The US has finally woken up to the fact that Saudi and US interests may not be entirely aligned. Secretary of State Tillerson has now said, “With respect to Saudi Arabia’s engagement with Qatar, how they’re handling the Yemen war that they’re engaged in, the Lebanon situation, we would encourage them to be a bit more measured and a bit more thoughtful in those actions to, I think, fully consider the consequences.” This gentle tap on the Saudi wrist may be the beginning of recognition in Washington that one of the compelling US interests in the Middle East is to oppose the efforts of any country, whether Iran or Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey or Israel, to dominate the region.

Further, by tolerating the spread of Wahhabi-based terrorism, providing material support for Saudi brutality in Yemen, and backing Israel in almost all things, especially on Israel-Palestine issues, US credit among Moslem peoples continues to decline. The downward momentum has picked up speed because of President Trump’s travel ban on people from several Moslem states and now the red-flag decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. Ironically, in his proclamation on Jerusalem, Trump reasserted US commitment to “final status negotiations,” while predetermining one of its key elements—even though Israel’s right to have its capital in Jerusalem (along with that of a Palestinian state) will no doubt be included in any package of agreements.

One thing is clear: unless the United States at long last undertakes a root-and-branch analysis and debate about its post-Cold War role in the world, notably in the Middle East and about that region’s relative priority compared with other interests, the United States will continue to see both a distortion of its engagements abroad and a decline in its influence, reputation, and leadership in the world faster than the rise of other powers would otherwise dictate. This will also have an impact on the way American society develops at home (and vice versa). The only “winners” will be those leaders who must this week be bemused but encouraged by America’s shooting itself in the foot over Jerusalem: Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin and, even more, China’s president, Xi Jinping.

Photo: Rex Tillerson and Benjamin Netanyahu (Wikimedia Commons).

by Paul R. Pillar

The other day we learned that there are four times more U.S. troops in Syria than any earlier official figure had acknowledged. The discrepancy did not get much public attention perhaps because the numbers are small— about 2,000 troops in Syria, with the earlier official figure being 500—compared to some other U.S. military deployments. The incomplete count evidently had omitted personnel on short-term assignments and some others performing sensitive missions. A Pentagon spokesman said that the release of the newer, more complete figure is part of an effort by Secretary of Defense James Mattis to be more transparent.

Less transparent than the new data about the numbers of U.S. troops is the reason any of those troops are staying in Syria. The one uncontested rationale for the deployment in Syria has been to combat the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or IS), an unconventional nonstate actor that presented conventional sorts of military targets when it established a state-like entity occupying significant territory in Syria and Iraq. The IS mini-state is now all but eliminated. Nonetheless, the U.S. military presence in Syria, although down from its peak strength, shows no sign of ending. Mattis has said that the United States “won’t just walk away” from its efforts in Syria.

The United States is exhibiting mission creep in Syria, with some observers spinning new rationales to replace the mission of armed combat against the IS caliphate. Underlying the mission creep are some familiar patterns of thinking that have been behind other U.S. military expeditions as well. Donald Trump did not originate these patterns, but his administration has slid into them.

Mattis’s comment about not walking away from where the United States already has been involved points to one of those American habits of thought, which is to believe that the United States is best equipped, and should be most responsible, for setting right any troubled country in which the United States has had more than a passing interest. To believe this about Syria goes well beyond the mission of combating IS and gets into pacification and even some elements of nation-building.

Other patterns of thinking about the Syrian case entail amnesia about recent relevant experiences and the lessons that should have been drawn from them but evidently weren’t. American attitudes toward IS, the Syrian regime, and Syria’s Russian and Iranian allies are all involved.

The dominant American perspective toward counterterrorism, and thus toward IS, has been a heavily militarized one inherent in the notion of a “war on terror.” Use of the military instrument has been appropriate insofar as IS, as a mini-state, presented military targets. But IS, which lives on as more of a clandestine movement and ideology, no longer presents many such targets. Non-military counterterrorist instruments are now relatively more important.

Too often forgotten is how much war itself, and specifically the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, was a boon to IS. Also too often forgotten is how much the collateral casualties and damage that are almost unavoidable byproducts of U.S. military action in complicated conflicts tend to boost rather than reduce anti-U.S. extremism, including extremism that takes the form of international terrorism.

One habitual thought about IS has been that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be toppled if there is to be any hope of killing off IS. Max Abrahms and John Glaser catalog the many iterations, voiced over the past two years, of the theme that defeating IS would require defeating Assad. Today’s situation, with the IS caliphate extinguished while Assad remains ensconced in Damascus, demonstrates how erroneous that argument was. Many who propounded the argument are among those now pushing for continuation and expansion of the U.S. military expedition in Syria, with no acknowledgment of the error of their earlier assessment. This demonstrates anew how little accountability there is for faulty policy analysis among the Washington chattering classes.

The dream of felling Assad does not die, even though with the help of his friends he does not appear to be going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Persistence of the dream involves more amnesia, in at least two respects. One is to forget the consequences of earlier U.S. or U.S.-backed efforts at regime change in the region. These include the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which gave birth to the group that we later came to know as IS, and the chaos-fomenting ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

There also seems to be forgetfulness of how long the Assads—including the father Hafez, who put down internal opposition at least as brutally as his son Bashar—have been in power. Forty-seven years, to be exact. Anyone arguing that continuation of Bashar Assad in power is intolerable needs to answer the question “why now?” and to explain how the world and U.S. interests somehow have survived nearly a half-century of the Assads.

As for Bashar Assad’s Russian and Iranian friends, the dominant American perspective is the zero-sum assumption that any presence or influence of either Iran or Russia is ipso facto bad and contrary to U.S. interests. This perspective makes no effort to sort out the respects in which Russian or Iranian actions conflict with U.S. interests, parallel U.S. interests, or are irrelevant to those interests. This absence of effort persists despite the glaring example (not just in Syria, but also in Iraq and beyond) of the fight against IS as a parallel interest. Joined to this habitual perspective is the also habitual use of the misleading vacuum metaphor, according to which not just U.S. involvement but physical and preferably military involvement to fill a space is needed to counter bad-by-definition Iranian or Russian influence in that same space.

These habits of thinking, taken together, close off an escape route from Syria. They imply no end to the U.S. military expedition there. They preclude declaring victory (that is, a military victory against IS) and going home. Vladimir Putin, more conscious than most American pundits are of the hazards of indefinitely being stuck in Syria, is doing that now.

Thus Syria is becoming one more place, like Afghanistan, in which the United States endlessly wages a war. Meanwhile, the Russians will keep reminding everyone that they were there at the invitation of the incumbent government and the United States is not. The Turks will keep getting angry about U.S. tactical cooperation with the Kurds. Sunni extremists will keep exploiting for propaganda and recruitment any damage done by the United States or its local clients. And the Pentagon may or may not tell us how many U.S. troops are actually there.

Photo: Vladimir Putin hugs Bashar al-Assad 

by Graham Fuller

With the emergence of demonstrations and rioting in various Iranian cities earlier this month, Washington’s neoconservatives and interventionist/ imperial-minded “liberals” have been given a new lease on life in promoting their aspirations for “regime change” in Tehran. Indeed, of the three current potential global flashpoints—North Korea, Russian borderlands, and Iran in the Gulf—Iran arguably presents the most likely situation to actually turn into war. The other two regions, Russia and Korea, pose such potentially appalling nuclear dangers that, rhetoric aside, one would hope will seriously deter national leadership from contemplating.

War with Iran, on the other hand, presents no such nuclear threats. It is therefore perhaps the more dangerous situation since conflict with Iran is therefore quite “thinkable” and could potentially drag in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, Russia, Turkey, and of course the supreme fomenter of war with Iran, Israel.

In American eyes Iran, almost by its very existence, remains a deep geopolitical affront. It humiliated the US in holding American hostages for 444 days starting in November 1979. (Grounds for Iranian anger—the US/UK 1953 coup against Iran’s first democratically elected government that put the Shah back on the throne—is all but forgotten in the US.) Iran has consistently defied the American-constructed “international order” and continues to maintain a spirited resistance to US goals of geopolitical domination in the region. This by definition transforms Iran into a “rogue state.” And rogue states anywhere are fair game for US-directed regime change.

But the Middle East today is no longer what it was. The character and profile of international relations there have undergone considerable change, starting at least since 9/11 and even before. This new profile markedly constrains American freedom of maneuver. Key characteristics of this new profile involve the following major shifts in geopolitics:

-The gradual evolution of Turkey over the past 16 years from “a loyal ally of the US in NATO” into an outspokenly independent regional power; Turkey’s historic, cultural, political and economic interests today reach from Europe to Eurasia, Russia to Africa in which Washington now represents only one influence among many. Realists should note that when President Erdogan and his AK party eventually leave the scene, Turkish foreign policy will likely change very little, regardless of new leadership. It’s a different Turkey, a different ball game.

-The return of Russia to Middle Eastern geopolitics after twenty years of impotence following the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Russia is merely reaffirming, with both skillful diplomacy and modest military input, a tradition of involvement in the Middle East that dates back centuries to the time of the Tsars. And when Putin, whom America now loves to hate, leaves the scene Russian geopolitics are unlikely to change significantly either.

-The emergence of China as a major international player is increasingly willing to exert powerful economic incentives and a new geopolitical vision for the future of Eurasian and beyond. This reality will surely grow and Washington thinking seems to respond primarily in military terms.

-An EU, or its individual states, are now discussing a more independent EU policy. This reflects decades-long discomfort with US policies in the Middle East, based on Washington’s unswerving support of Israel on virtually all issues, and a military-dominated foreign policy to the exclusion of diplomacy. The EU is now ready to part company with Washington on Iran.

Note that all four of the above elements have nothing to do with Trump’s presidency. Trump has unquestionably further exacerbated global distaste for US policies, but the roots of regional shift well predate his presidency. He has simply made it easier and more plausible for Europe to part company with innumerable US policies.

The US is therefore arguably an increasingly weaker political actor; it reigns supreme militarily, but flounders in diplomatic bankruptcy. The US is in absolute decline given its longer-term crippling domestic obsessions and crises and a foreign policy largely out of touch with  world reality. But American decline must also be seen as relative to the absolute rise of other regional powers.

Add to this equation a new, invigorated and adventuristic foreign policy of Saudi Arabia under its king-to-be Muhammad bin Salman, abetted by UAE’s Crown Prince, prompting Riyadh to abandon previous characteristic caution and to intervene boldly—if failingly—in regional politics. Washington is now far less able to control or determine Saudi behavior or policies than ever.

But ideological elements also enter into this shifting scene in the Gulf.

The first such force is a kind of not very “historic” rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional power and influence. Never mind that these two states have almost never in history been at war with each other. Yet today they represent the two major states on the two sides of the Gulf—although Iraq should not be dismissed as a Gulf power either. And yes, since Riyadh is trying to build up a strong geopolitical case against Iran’s presence, it trumpets the threat of sectarianism—stressing that Iran is Shiite and not Sunni. (Yet note that Iran’s image of Saudi Arabia rarely characterizes it in sectarian terms as a Sunni power as such, but primarily as representing a xenophobic, narrow and intolerant form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism.)  And then the fact that Iran is Persian in language and culture while Saudi Arabia is Arab adds to the list of alleged alienating factors.

But all this—sectarianism, language, ethnicity—is so much window-dressing. Arab states go to war with other Arab states vastly more often than Arabs ever have with Persians; Sunnis go to war with other Sunnis far more often than they do with Shi’a.

So what else is going on here?

It’s worth examining the true nature of the “Shiite threat.” To a considerable extent it is a Sunni creation. Shiite Arab populations heavily populate the Arab side of the Gulf. They are minorities in every single Gulf Arab state. Furthermore, in most states they are an oppressed minority, and above all in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Shi’a are both legally and traditionally discriminated against in countless ways, their religious culture reviled and isolated. Yes, the Saudis do fear Shiites—and partly with good reason: a deeply unhappy, embittered and angry minority within the state (as such maybe12-15% of the population) can readily be turned into active enemies of the Saudi state if Riyadh continues to mishandle the situation—and there are no signs of change in Riyadh at all. So Saudi Shi’a do represent a potential fifth column. On the other hand, If they were granted equal legal and social rights in the Kingdom, the Kingdom would have little reason to fear them or the likelihood that some of them could be recruited by Iran to act against Riyadh. But Wahhabism’s doctrinal hatred of Shiism runs so deep that one wonders if it can be overcome.

Interestingly, Iran does not pursue a “Shi’ite policy” in the region as such. Iranian religious doctrine and ideology speak in Islamic and not Shi’ite terms. It does not call itself a Shi’ite state. It has long supported Sunni Hamas in Palestine and has enjoyed good relations with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in the past.

There is no doubt Iran, under current conditions of isolation, often skillfully exploits Shi’ites in the region into occasional supporting roles. But Hizballah in Lebanon and the Huthis in Yemen constitute deeply-rooted legitimate political forces within their own states and did not need to be invented by Iran. Israel and the US seek to destroy Hizballah, but Hizballah has long been an integral element in Lebanese politics and governance and is seen by many Lebanese as a barrier to Israeli aggression in Lebanon. It is not going to go away.

The more the Saudi-Israeli axis whips up anti-Shi’ite sentiment in the region, the more it actually creates a sense of solidarity among Shi’a that grows in strength to the extent that it perceives itself threatened and persecuted. Shi’ite solidarity is not a given, it is the product of Sunni attack.

Perhaps more important is the revolutionary character of Iranian ideology. It has challenged the legitimacy of kingship in Islam in the past—as do many Islamists. With Iran’s  partially authoritarian, partially democratic government and its quite real parliamentary and presidential elections it threatens those Arab autocrats who reject genuine parliaments or presidential elections, and who stand for kings-for-life. And Iran, like Syria, has been an unceasing advocate of Palestinian rights.

Here we come to an awkward question about our own western political values. Is Iran, by dint of its genuine parliamentary and presidential elections and partially free press, more “progressive and modern” that the Saudi or UAE or Bahraini state? If movement towards democratic institutions is the criterion the clear answer is yes, although admittedly Iran is a quite imperfect democracy: not everyone is permitted to run for office and the Supreme Leader has powerful veto powers. But elections in Iran are surrounded by sharp debate and campaigning and a press representing multiple ideological views. Iran’s elections affect state policy mightily, as the world recognizes. Iran, not as politically and socially advanced as Turkey, but on its way, operates to a great extent as a modern state. It’s transition to greater democracy down the road will be far easier and familiar than anything in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or Bahrain (already fairly much owned and operated by Riyadh.)

So these three states plus Israel are eager to nip Iran in the bud, to bring it down, to avoid the dangerous model of transition to more open democratic rule and a genuinely vibrant public culture. These monarchs ironically are now even willing to ally with Israel if need be to protect their thrones. And they work hard to enlist Washington to crush Iran as well.

So Trump’s Washington, in which regime-change-loving neocons have powerful sway, has recently rejoiced at the demonstrations and riots within Iran. They sense blood although are almost certain to be disappointed. Iran has a tradition of public demonstrations; indeed, it is far easier to have a demonstration in Iran than in Saudi Arabia.

Iran, like Turkey, is a socially strong and grounded nation that is moving down the road of modern institutions with a modern broad-based economy and advanced culture. It is not likely on the brink of revolution. Iran, like Turkey, has a deeply rooted nationalist culture that is far less timid—under any ruler—than most Arab states. In any Iranian conventional military confrontation with the US there is no contest, but Iranians are masters of irregular and home-grown military solutions (much encouraged by decades of sanctions against them.) The massively-armed but brittle armies of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against a weak Iran in the Iran-Iraq war found out this reality to their dismay. Washington might find itself in a difficult position if it engages in war with Iran where Tehran possesses skilled unconventional force and fierce national impulses.

We should hope that the regime in Tehran will learn from these signs of domestic discontent with domestic roots —particularly economic—and take steps to alleviate problem areas. Public pressures are supposed to work that way, even with US domestic riots and demonstrations. If Washington succeeds in provoking a war with Iran—easily concocted—the repercussions will be broad, far-reaching and long-lasting. It is a war in which the US can only  win temporarily on the ground—win the war but lose the peace. Iranian skills at irregular warfare are legend, and could well draw in other states in the periphery. But if we go looking for a war we will find it.

And finally, US neocons notwithstanding, if the present Iranian regime gives way to something less religious and more nationalist, Iran’s posture towards the US and its neighbors will probably not significantly change and could be worse. It will remain an intensely prickly nationalist state with its own national interests, as it is now even under the clerics.

It is unfortunate if the US has so far resolved to throw its weight behind an autocratic king whose state religion of Wahhabism represents the most regressive, intolerant and ultimately radical branch of Islam in existence. Wahhabism is the ideological god-father of ISIS. Saudi Arabia is not a model for the ideal Middle Eastern state. We should be working towards opening doors towards inclusivism with Iran rather than slamming doors and stirring up troubled waters for some fanciful regime change sought by a few nervous and retrogressive Arab kings and hard-line Israelis.

Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is “Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American’s crisis of conscience in Pakistan.” (Amazon, Kindle). Reprinted, with permission, from grahamefuller.com. Photo: Ayatollah Khamenei (Wikimedia Commons).

by Jordan Street and Murray Ackman

The evidence that mainstream counter-terror strategies need a rethink is crystal clear. Will 2018 be the year that decision-makers begin taking it seriously? The failure of current counter-terror strategies—in countries like Afghanistan, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria—is painfully obvious. Reducing the global threat of terrorism will not happen with a doubling down on past approaches, but instead requires a strategic focus on resolving conflict by addressing its causes.

Terrorism has spread into more countries since the “war on terror” began. Although there has been a decrease in the overall deaths from terrorism, evidence shows that for the first time ever, two out of every three countries—106 out of 163 in the Institute of Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index—experienced a terror attack in 2016.

Although terror attacks in Britain, Europe, and the US have dominated news cycles and political debates worldwide, three-quarters of terror attacks occur in just five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria. The Global Terrorism Index shows that countries in the Global South remain on the sharpest end of the terror threat with a 67% increase in attacks in 2016 and a nearly sixfold increase in deaths between 2014 and 2016.

There are countless examples of how international counter-terror and stabilization strategies are exacerbating the drivers of conflict.

The US and UK continue to arm—and provide diplomatic cover for—the Saudi-led coalition in its bid to reinstate the government of Yemen, precipitating a devastating humanitarian crisis and further destabilizing the wider Gulf region. Early in 2016, we reported on how the Western-backed Saudi intervention was exacerbating the conflict and enabling groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) to transform and grow within Yemen. Yet the indiscriminate aerial bombardment and blockade of Yemen drag on.

Western actors continue to act based on superficial understanding and continue to rely on untrustworthy partners. Last August one side of a clan conflict in Somalia seemingly manipulated U.S. forces to target the other side under the pretext that it was al-Shabaab. This resulted in a disastrous counter-terrorism operation that killed many civilians and, in turn, appears to have motivated the car bomb attack in Mogadishu in October that killed over 500 people.

The physical elimination of terrorist fighters remains front and center in many counter-terror strategies, despite the poor track record of military action in bringing conflicts and violent movements to an end. In places supposedly cleared of IS in Iraq and Syria, the lack of reconstruction initiatives is offering fertile ground for violent actors to regroup within a society long brutalized and now abandoned. A comprehensive strategy to address the conditions that gave rise to the likes of al-Qaeda, IS, and Jabhat al-Nusra and its successors is still glaringly absent.

Fear of blowback does not appear to alter policies. Huge quantities of Western arms have leaked into the hands of IS, al-Shabaab, armed groups in Yemen, and al-Qaeda. Yet foreign governments continue to pour weapons into volatile regions to back unpredictable allies in dangerous ways. Currently American weapons are being channelled into countries like Lebanon, despite its obvious vulnerability to future instability that could easily divert them into the wrong hands.

It is high time to consign such counter-productive international counter-terror approaches to the dustbin of history. Decision-makers and leaders need a new game plan to halt the upward trend in violence and stop making the same strategic mistakes. Ultimately, the current strategy benefits only arms companies, politicians who posture as tough on terrorists, and the violent groups themselves.

Research shows that in almost every case, the prevalence of terror attacks is closely tied to an increase in political unrest and conflict, yet Western actors continue to embrace allies who are part of the problem. In 2016, the Global Terrorism Index shows that 99% of all deaths from violent attacks associated with terror and 96% of all attacks globally occurred in countries that were both involved in an armed conflict and had high levels of political terror.

A recent study by the United Nations Development Program shows that counter-terrorism strategies and overzealous militarized responses have led to distrust in government institutions and alienation in segments of the population. In interviews with over 500 former violent group members in Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan, 71% of respondents affirmed that “government action” was the tipping point for them to join a violent group.

If international leaders are genuinely interested in reducing the threat of terrorism around the world, their strategies should focus on resolving conflict by addressing its causes. Successful counter-terror strategies would focus on preventing abuses by security forces, challenging and improving weak or corrupt governance, supporting equitable access to services, protecting and empowering civil society, and investing in peace and reconstruction processes that accord conflict-affected people and societies the leading role.

When counter-terrorism approaches are replaced by more comprehensive peace strategies, real results can be achieved. In Garissa County in Kenya, which has suffered terribly from terror attacks, a 2017 study highlighted the positive impact of a new strategy that tackled abuses by security forces and restored trust and partnership with the population, leading to a marked decline in attacks and improved perceptions of security.

Becoming secure in the West paradoxically depends on focusing strategy on the problems conflict-affected people see as most important. Western security cannot be achieved at the expense of others. Unless policymakers in the West reframe strategy based on this understanding, as Global Terrorism Index data shows, communities living in conflict-affected and fragile countries will continue to suffer the most—but the blowback will increasingly impact the world’s most economically advanced countries.

Casualties from terror attacks have risen more than seven-fold since the “war on terror” began. The mounting pressure on leaders to act fast and achieve results makes it harder to adopt the smart, long-term solutions the problem requires. To tackle the issue of terrorism in a serious way, leaders need to reflect on the reasons for failure and forge better foreign and domestic policies. If not, the threat of terrorism at home and abroad will persist and grow in coming years.

Jordan Street is policy coordinator at Saferworld. Murray Ackman is a research associate at the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). Photo: Simulated chemical terrorist attack in Thailand (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. James R. Smith).

by Paul R. Pillar

Behind a façade of continuity, the deployment of U.S. armed forces in Syria for the purposes that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described in a speech this week represents a departure from what such forces were originally sent to Syria to do. The Trump administration is having U.S. troops participate indefinitely in someone else’s civil war, for reasons that are quite different from the original stated objective of helping to quash the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). The new reasons do not stand up to scrutiny in terms of defending any threatened U.S. interests. The administration has in effect made a decision to immerse the United States in yet another foreign war.

The territorial presence—the mini-state—that IS created in Iraq and Syria provided the occasion for the use of military force to go after the group. Many terrorist groups do not present good military targets. This one, because of the mini-state, did. But the mini-state is no more. Tillerson himself correctly said, “Today, nearly all territory in Iraq and Syria once controlled by ISIS, or approximately 98 percent of all of that once United Kingdom-sized territory, has been liberated, and ISIS has not been able to regain one foot of that ground.” IS can still cause trouble as a more traditional terrorist group and as an inspiration for jihadist violence. But as a military target, it has lost. The appropriate U.S. response to that defeat, given what was supposed to have been the mission of U.S. forces in Syria, would be to declare victory and go home.

Tillerson tried to make a case for an extended U.S. mission, partly by resurrecting the now-familiar assertion that the United States had made a “premature departure” of its troops from Iraq several years ago. As with the other times this assertion has come up, the secretary did not mention that the group that became IS did not exist prior to any U.S. troops entering Iraq, and that the group emerged as a direct result of the U.S. invasion and the ensuing internal war. Nor did Tillerson address how a continued modest troop presence could have done what an earlier U.S. military presence in Iraq of 160,000 troops could not do. Nor did he address how the George W. Bush administration, which negotiated the troop-withdrawal agreement, could have done anything substantially different in the face of strong Iraqi government resistance to extending the U.S. military presence.

Of course, the Syrian government has never agreed to the presence of the U.S. military. As the Russians never tire of reminding people, this makes the U.S. military presence different from that of Russia or Iran, and it means that the U.S. presence has no basis in international law.

Tillerson also tried to retain an IS-relevant basis for extending the U.S. presence by linking the Syrian regime to the group. It is true that in earlier stages of the Syrian civil war the regime was fighting less against IS than against other Syria opposition groups, mostly as a reflection of geography and of who posed an immediate threat to the more heavily populated regime-controlled areas in the western half of the country. And the regime was happy to make the propaganda point that it was a bulwark against such an abhorrent terrorist group.

But that was then, and now is something different. The Assad regime and IS are on the opposite ends of any political or religious spectrum imaginable. They are enemies. To the extent that IS still threatens to have an impact in Syria, the Syrian regime has at least as much of an incentive as anyone else to eliminate that threat.

The persistence of an IS threat in Syria will be less a function of a continued Assad regime than of a continued Syrian civil war. It was the war that gave IS a big boost a few years ago. It is the war that continues to breed the conditions that an extremist group—whether IS, al-Qaeda, or some other—can exploit. The U.S. policy course that Tillerson described, which includes not only the direct U.S. military presence but also the building up of a client militia, is a prescription for continuation of the war. The secretary said what one would expect the chief U.S. diplomat to say regarding the importance of resolving the conflict, but U.S. diplomacy has been playing at most a backseat role.

New Objectives

The U.S. military expedition in Syria is now, according to Tillerson’s own words, aiming at three things other than IS or terrorism. First, the notion of regime change lives on. Tillerson was explicit about that, saying that stability in Syria “requires post-Assad leadership” and that the United States will discourage every other nation from having any economic relationship with war-torn Syria until Assad has gone. Nowhere did the secretary explain why the end of a regime that, under Hafez as well as Bashar al-Assad, has been in power for 48 years should suddenly have become such a U.S. objective. Nor did he explain how, given that Assad, with the help of his Russian and Iranian supporters, has clearly shored up his regime’s position, what Tillerson prescribes will mean anything other than prolonged instability and confrontation in Syria.

Second, as with anything the Trump administration mentions about the Middle East, there is always the bogeyman of Iran. And as usual, Iran is described in general pejoratives—the lead adjective on the subject in Tillerson’s speech was “malignant”—without addressing exactly how Iran’s position in, and relationship with, Syria threatens any U.S. interests. Nor was there any recognition of the inconsistency of justifying a U.S. military intervention that was supposed to be about opposing IS by talking about malignancy on the part of a regional power that itself has been opposing IS, in Iraq and well as Syria.

Third, whenever there is a U.S. mention of Iran, the government of Israel cannot be far away. And indeed, Tillerson said, “Iran seeks dominance in the Middle East and the destruction of our ally, Israel. As a destabilized nation and one bordering Israel, Syria presents an opportunity that Iran is all too eager to exploit.” Of course, the United States and Israel have no mutual assistance security treaty. Nor did Tillerson suggest anything the United States would get out of doing Israel’s desired work in Syria. He also did not mention that Israel has the most powerful military in the Middle East and that any thought of Iran trying to achieve the “destruction” of Israel, from Syria or anywhere else, is something between folly and fantasy.

Other Problems

Besides helping to prolong war and instability in Syria, the course Tillerson describes is a prescription for increased trouble within real alliances. He said, “We must have Turkey’s close cooperation in achieving a new future for Syria,” without mentioning how the client-arming scheme in northern Syria is anathema to the Turks. So now Syria may become the theater for a proxy war between two members of NATO.

The administration’s new policy is launched with disregard for the role of Congress in authorizing the overseas use of military force. For the past decade and a half, U.S. policy through three administrations has stretched the applicability of congressional resolutions centered on countering terrorism. Notwithstanding Tillerson’s words about a continued concern with IS, the new objectives in Syria turn the stretch into a break. The United States is putting its forces at war overseas to try to overthrow one Middle Eastern regime, to confront a second one, and to do the bidding of a third. None of those objectives involves combating terrorism, and none of them has been authorized as a mission for U.S. armed force by Congress.

It’s not clear exactly how this posture on Syria evolved and who had leading roles constructing it. But it is a far cry from the impression candidate Trump once gave that he favored contracting missions for U.S. armed force overseas rather than expanding them.

Photo: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei

by Joshua Landis and Matthew Barber

This article is a “part-two” to the previous article “U.S. Policy Toward the Levant, Kurds, and Turkey,” which warned that the United State’s decision to back Kurdish nationalism in Northern Syria in an uncompromising fashion would provoke negative consequences. The push-back against this policy has begun. Turkey’s invasion of Afrin and campaign against the YPG—the U.S. backed Kurdish militia in Syria—is being launched to counter Washington’s decision to stay in Syria and arm and train a Border Guard for the emerging North Syrian state that the U.S. is sponsoring.

U.S. accomplishments in the region now stand thus: No regime change has been effected in Syria. Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq all have pro-Iranian governments and Iran has more influence in the Levant/Iraq than ever before. By promoting Kurdish nationalism to “rollback Iran,” the U.S. has pushed its ally Turkey into the sphere of Russian influence and caused Turkey’s interests to align with those of Damascus. And finally, even the sole partner the U.S. has in the area—the Kurds—are now upset because they’ve lost one of their important homelands in Syria. Such is the price of a policy based around an obsession with Iran.

Trying to play the game of making the Kurds into an obstacle to Iranian influence, the U.S. has now had to sacrifice Afrin in order to assuage Turkey’s ire; simultaneously, it has to convince the Kurds to exercise restraint and not to allow Turkey to provoke them into a strong reaction. If Kurds fight with Turkey in Afrin, it will give Turkey a pretext to attack and invade Kurdish areas further east; this may very well be what Turkey hopes will happen. The PYD will probably get a message from the U.S. urging them not to resist much in Afrin, but the problem facing the U.S. is not over, as Afrin may not be where Turkey stops.

The purpose of the previous post was to highlight several essential points regarding American interests in the region. The theme here is how we are now witnessing the (hopefully reversible) loss of an important U.S. ally, Turkey. After a long civil war that has ultimately boosted Iranian influence and distanced Turkey from the U.S., the U.S. must now think about what it can salvage in terms of its longer-term interests.

U.S. policy should focus on these objectives:

• Retaining Turkey within its orbit rather than losing it to Russian influence
• Fulfilling our responsibility to the Syrian Kurds in a way that ensures their safety and future while also assuaging Turkey’s concerns
• Positioning itself as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia rather than going all-in on one side
• Promoting the recovery and rebuilding of the region, not keeping it broken and poor

How Far Will the U.S. Go in Supporting Kurdish Nationalism?

The U.S. has set up Turkey’s choices thus: either side with the U.S. and the Kurds against Iran and Russia—OR—side with Russia (and thereby Iran) against the U.S. and the Kurds. Of course, Turkey will never compromise on its national interests; the first choice is simply not an option from Turkey’s point of view and the invasion of Afrin underscores that fact. Turkey does not like Iran, but it is willing to throw in its lot with Russia (and by proxy Assad and Iran), in order to protect its own national interests. We are forcing Turkey into the embrace of Russia and Iran; this is the price of promoting Kurdish nationalism to this extreme.

Regarding Damascus’ perceptions, Syria does not want to lose the fertile and oil-rich territories in its northeast. It must rely on those resources to rebuild following this war. A U.S. policy that facilitates the complete secession of Syrian Kurdistan from the state poses a serious risk in the eyes of Damascus.

The U.S. has done the surprisingly unlikely in uniting two enemies against the U.S. itself. Turkey and Syria are not natural allies—they are opponents—yet the direction that U.S. policy has begun taking is driving them together through this shared concern. If the U.S. helps the Kurds take 25% of fertile and oil-rich Syria, we will drive Damascus and Turkey together and they will both oppose Kurdish state-building over the long-term.

In addition to losing our major ally, Turkey, to Russian influence, the fact that the Kurdish project will be opposed on all sides over the long term must be kept in mind. Will this really be the best thing for Syria’s Kurds in the long run? And continuing our current level of support for a Kurdish nationalist project will mean a minimal commitment of 30-40 years, very expensive, with an ongoing presence of U.S. military on the ground. Further, the U.S. will have to be prepared to respond to Turkey militarily if Turkey does not stop with Afrin and continues by bombing other Kurdish areas across the border.

This is a terrible policy and one lacking long-term vision.

What About Our Responsibilities to the Kurds?

The fact that the U.S. helped the Kurdish-led forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to conquer Arab-majority areas north of the Euphrates has created a dilemma. The U.S. cannot now withdraw from those areas without abandoning the Kurds.

Further, the Kurds were the most important ally in Syria in the fight against ISIS and the U.S. now has a duty to protect Kurds from revenge originating with Damascus.

Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds must be aided in coming to an understanding that will promote stability; the U.S. can broker this and help to guarantee it. In this arrangement, neither Turkey, Damascus, nor the Kurds will gain everything they want, but all three will get more than they now have. Already in places like Hasakeh province in northern Syria, the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities have worked out and respected revenue sharing deals for oil exploitation that have been in effect during the civil war.

The U.S. can help the Kurds make an advantageous deal with Damascus that protects their autonomy. A safe future for the Kurds means a federal region. Of course the Russians and the Syrian government will make demands of their own. Such demands are likely to focus on the economy and sovereignty. The Syrian government is eager to have the main road to Baghdad opened. The U.S. presently blocks it at Tanf in order to stop Syrian trade. The Damascus government will also ask that the U.S. facilitate the opening of the main highway between Damascus and Jordan, which is also blocked by U.S. and Saudi-backed militias. Damascus needs money to rebuild. The U.S. can use its leverage over Syria’s economy to get a good deal for the Kurds. It cannot use that leverage to drive Assad from power. The U.S. does not have enough leverage through control of 28% of Syrian territory to unseat the Assad regime; it does have sufficient leverage to provide security and a useful autonomy deal for the Kurds, who have fought so hard in partnership with the United States to destroy ISIS.

Assad fears and dislikes Turkey, which serves as the main home and advocate of the Syrian opposition. By promoting an understanding between Damascus and the Kurds, the Syrian Kurds would gain a level of autonomy that they did not enjoy before the war. The Kurds will also be able to renegotiate their share of income from Syria’s oil and water from a position of strength.

For its part, Damascus will gain back some of the oil, water, and agricultural resources it needs to rebuild the country and which the U.S. now denies it. It will also ensure the unity of country.

According to this plan, the Turks will gain assurances that the Kurds will not be an independent nation and will not be free to assist the PKK separatists in Turkey militarily. Turkey, for its part, would prefer to stay in the orbit of the U.S., rather than move to Russia’s; an agreement between Damascus and the Kurds that keeps Syrian Kurdistan “Syrian” will allay some of the Turks’ fears, reduce their perceived need to attack more areas inside Syria, and begin to restore Turkey’s relationship with the U.S. Ultimately, all of these approaches will serve the objective of a gradual reaffirmation of the integrity of international borders, which the U.S. has pledged to respect.

By using its leverage to make a deal between Turkey, Syria and the Kurds, the U.S. can maximize its interests in the region. It will guarantee security for the Kurds, promote its counter-terrorism agenda by helping to create jobs and tamp down conflict, and retain Turkey as an ally and friend.

The Alternative

The alternative is for the U.S. to trap itself in a “forever war.” If it decides to support the formation of an independent Kurdish state in North Syria with its own military, Turkey, Syria, Russia, and Iran will be forced together despite their usual rivalries in order to expel America and destroy the new state which threatens the interests of them all. The Kurds will be boycotted and kept poor, just as the US will sanction and boycott Syria in order to keep it poor and weak. Both sides will be losers; both sides will commit themselves to destroying the other; and both sides will destabilize and radicalize the region. America will play a divisive and destabilizing role, rather than a constructive and unifying role. This current policy erodes U.S. influence in the Middle East. Turkey’s invasion of Afrin is only the first salvo.

The consequences of the “rollback Iran” policy have now become evident. This policy will continue to be detrimental to long-term U.S. interests in that it will perpetuate the instability of the region. Maintaining the current approach of unrestricted support for a Kurdish nationalist project at the expense of the national interests of two large states (Turkey and Syria) will mean the loss of an important U.S. ally, ongoing sanctions, fragmented states, American troops in the Syrian desert for years, and so forth. This is a miserable, petty, and destructive path forward. This Iran-obsessed policy may serve Israeli and Saudi short-term interests—it may mollify Washington’s anger at failing to dislodge the Assad government—but it does not serve U.S. interests.

American interests are served by the reconstruction of the region. Promoting stability in Syria and Iraq will enhance long-term U.S. interests through preventing the return of ISIS and promoting the success of American counter-terrorism strategy.

What the region needs more than anything else is to revitalize its economy. But the U.S. must recognize that the only way to do this is to unleash the Iranian economy. Iran is indispensable for the restoration of the region’s economy and only Iran is capable of supporting the level of rebuilding needed after these years of war. This is why I said in the previous post that the unprecedented alignment of the governments of all four countries—Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran—presents a new opportunity for stability and recovery in the region.

The U.S. should help promote prosperity in the region, rather than working to inhibit it. Keeping the region fragmented and poor is a recipe for longer-term instability and extremism.

U.S. policy in the region since 2003 has largely facilitated a shift toward Shi’i ascendancy. America has to recognize that Iran has now come out largely victorious in the proxy conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq—and it is the U.S. that has largely helped them win this victory. The U.S. has helped facilitate the emergence of a new level of Shi’i power and has seen Shi’i forces as the champion of American interests, including deposing Saddam Hussein, combatting al-Qaida, and destroying ISIS. Both President Bush and President Obama promoted Shi’i interests, arming Shi’is aligned with Iran to serve in these objectives. The U.S. Air Force pummeled one Sunni city after another: Falouja, Takrit, Ramadi, Mosul, and Raqqa. Now the Shi’is have largely won the battle for preeminence in the Northern Middle East—in no small part because of U.S. support. Washington has built up an army in Iraq that is commanded by Shi’is and is quite sectarian in outlook; consequently it looks toward Iran. It also distrusts Saudi Arabia, which has championed and supported Sunni Arab militias. This is not something that we can undo.

If this region is going to rebuild, the U.S. must recognize that Iran has won this war—and the U.S. must come to terms with the fact that it was its own policies that were largely responsible for that victory. The U.S. will do a disservice to the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon conflict zone if it simply sides with the Gulf States and Israeli interests without long-term foresight. The way forward is to follow the Obama policy of balancing Iran and Saudi Arabia. By doing this, the U.S. can protect Israel and limit any aggression of Iran toward Israel and the Gulf.

Lift sanctions on Iran and proceed with the Iranian nuclear deal. Work to engage Iran. Don’t pursue a policy that alienates our Turkish ally and requires a decades-long commitment for supporting an ethnic-nationalist project that will be opposed by every neighbor of the Kurds—this is a terribly high price to pay in order to gratify Israeli and Saudi interests and a price that Washington will eventually back away from. It will not benefit the Kurds in the long run. They are too poor to stand alone, without a U.S. no-fly zone or a military force paid for by Washington. These expenses are unsustainable. If the Trump administration absorbs costs upholding Kurdish independence that are too high, some future administration will abandon the Kurds, letting them down with a thump. The U.S. must not launch a “forever war.” The moral obligation to the Kurds can be fulfilled by making sure that they strike an advantageous deal with both Turkey and Syria for autonomy and get a healthy share of Syria’s resources. Working for a negotiated solution to Kurdish autonomy, rather than one that alienates the regional powers, isolates Washington, and beggars the Syrian people is in America’s interest.

Joshua Landis is the director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. Matthew Barber is PhD student at the University of Chicago. Reprinted, with permission, from Syria Comment. Photo: YPG fighters (Wikimedia Commons).

by Javad Heiran-Nia and Somayeh Khomarbaghi 

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirate are supporting the Sahel Joint Military Force, the latest indication of a competition for influence with Iran in West Africa. The force falls under the rubric of G5 Sahel, which brings together Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad for regional cooperation on political and security issues.

To bolster the finances of this organization, France invited UAE, Saudi Arabia, Germany. and Italy to coordinate with this organization. Saudi Arabia committed $118 million and the UAE offered $35 million to fund the joint military force. In addition, the UAE has promised to establish a “school of war” in Mauritania.  

Support for this joint force allows Saudi Arabia to claim that it is leading the fight against global terrorism, alongside the creation of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition of 40 Islamic states. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in particular, wants to prove his leadership in this fight. It also allows both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to plan for a long-term presence in the region, with an eye toward countering Iran.

Iranian Presence in Africa

The presence of Iran in Africa dates to the 1980s. During the Cold War, Iran was located in the bloc of US-aligned states. After the Islamic Revolution, Iran became interested in spreading Shiite thought in West Africa through cultural, economic, diplomatic, and media initiatives.

Most African countries are rich in natural resources such as gas, oil, gold, iron, copper, diamond, platinum, and phosphate. Poverty in the Sahel Region and West Africa, however, opened the doors of the region to Iran. Iran implemented hundreds of economic projects in many African states like Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leon, Benin, Nigeria, and Ghana. Iranian leaders—Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, Sayyed Muhammad Khatami, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travelled to these states and signed many bilateral agreements.

Iran also benefitted from these deals, and not just the expansion of Shiite thought. The deals allowed Iran to break out of the international isolation generated by its nuclear activities. They created new markets for Iranian products, particularly the oil that was under global sanctions, and provided access to raw materials, like uranium. Iran earned billions of dollars from the implementation of joint projects, including facilities that refined Iranian oil.

Saudi Concerns

Saudi Arabia’s concerns about increased Iranian influence have prompted it to push back, particularly after the ascension of King Salman. Saudi Arabia poured investments into the public and private sectors in West Africa and the Sahel. But Saudi penetration also extended into the religious realm, with a focus on the Maliki Muslims who compose the majority of West African population. Since 78% of African Muslims are Sufis, their beliefs generally stand in contrast to a Saudi culture that features elements of Salafism.

To compete for influence, then, Saudi Arabia has gone beyond economic projects and religious programming. That’s why it has created an unofficial coalition with Mauritania and Senegal and is also preparing a new coalition with Libya and Chad. The presidents of Senegal and Mauritania travelled to Riyadh in April 2015, and Senegal has committed to sending hundreds of troops to the Asefah Al-Hazm military operation under Saudi command.

Saudi Arabia has contributed to the joint military force of the Sahel to earn international legitimacy in the fight against terrorism and to further its political and economic interests in West Africa. But countering Iran is the main rationale. Stemming Iranian influence in this region and globally remains one of the cardinal pivots of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy.

Javad Heiran-Nia is the head of the international desk of Mehr News Agency (MNA), a semi-official, state-funded news agency and one of Iran’s biggest agencies. Somayeh Khomarbaghi is a journalist with MNA. Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with Speaker of the Senegalese Parliament Moustapha Niasse.

by James J. Zogby

Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration’s disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate, and the mass mobilization that was organized in opposition to the war.

In the end, then President George W. Bush ignored American public opinion and the sage advice of senior Republican statement like former Secretary of State James Baker and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and invaded Iraq leading to the most consequential disaster in recent US history.

The Iraq war has had a staggering impact that continues to grow over time. The magnitude of this disaster can be measured in lost lives, treasure, capacity, and prestige. 

From 2003 to the formal withdrawal of US fighting forces in 2011, the war took the lives of 4,500 Americans and well over 150,000 Iraqi civilians. And more than 600,000 US thousand veterans of these wars are now registered as disabled. To fully understand the war’s impact, however, we must also factor in the number of young men and women, who after multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (400,000 served three or more tours of duty in these two wars) have returned home suffering from post-traumatic shock disorder (PTSD)—about 10% of veterans suffer from PTSD. A great number of them have tragically joined the ranks of the homeless or the addicted or they have committed suicide. Studies show that on an average night almost 40,000 veterans are homeless. And in recent years, the average number of suicides among this group of PTSD veterans is a staggering 22 per day—meaning that more young veterans of these two wars die each year at their own hands out of despair than died in battle in both wars combined.

The direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been estimated to be almost two trillion dollars, with trillions more needing to be factored in to cover the long-term health care and disability payments to the wars’ veterans.

The two long unwinnable wars resulted in grounding down and exhausting the US military. It also demonstrated their inability to decisively beat insurgencies and resistance movements. This proved demoralizing to US troops and also established the limits of the world’s most powerful and expensive military machine.

At the same time, the Bush administration’s reckless and arrogant unilateralism (“you’re either with us or against us”) caused friction with allies and contempt for public opinion world-wide. By the end of the Bush administration, US favorable ratings were at their lowest point, worldwide. US abhorrent behaviors exhibited during the war (Abu Ghraib, torture, Guantanamo, etc) also fueled extremist currents giving new life to al Qaeda which, though routed in Afghanistan, metastasized, spreading their anti-American hate across many continents. And the weakened and depleted US military spawned the unforeseen consequence of enabling the emergence of multiple and competing regional powers who were emboldened to expand their influence.

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. As envisioned by the wars’ main protagonists, the neoconservative “Project for a New American Century,” a decisive US victory in a war like the one they encouraged in Iraq was needed to secure American hegemony in the New World Order. They worried that at the end of the Cold War the US had to project decisive strength to dissuade any would-be competitors. After a display of overwhelming force, they were convinced that the danger of a multi-polar world could be averted and the 21st Century would be an American Century.

As they rushed to war, the Bush administration and its neoconservative acolytes engaged in a massive propaganda campaign of lies to win support for an invasion. When I say that they lied, I don’t mean their fabricated case about Saddam’s “nuclear program” or their false efforts to portray the Iraqi regime as the region’s principle sponsor of terror—this was the brief presented by then Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations in his failed effort to win international backing for the invasion. No, the more serious lies they told were done so in their effort to sell the war to the American as an easy, cheap, and lofty venture.

In congressional testimony and press briefings, high-ranking administration officials argued the war would only require between 60,000 to 90,000 troops (in fact, the administration fired the Pentagon general who at a congressional hearing had admitted that the invasion and occupation of the country, if they were to succeed, would require over 350,000 troops). The fighting, administration spokespeople said, would be over in a few weeks. US troops would be greeted as liberators. And the total cost to the US treasury would be between $1 to $2 billion before Iraqi oil production would kick in and cover the rest. If all this were not fanciful enough, the promoters of the war repeatedly told the American people that when the dust settled Iraq would become a “model democracy” that would serve as a “beacon for the New Middle East.”

In his speeches leading up to the invasion, Bush went further saying that the war “will free people” and that his motivation was to bring “God’s gift of freedom” to the Iraqi people. “We will go into Iraq…to make sure the hungry are fed, those who need health care will have health care, and those youngsters who need education will get education.”

In the end, Bush succeeded only in mobilizing his base of right-wing evangelicals and neoconservatives both of whom were sold on the infantile fantasy, they shared, that a decisive blow delivered by a superior moral force would vanquish evil and lead to a “new order.”

It did not. And 15 years later we and most especially the people of Iraq and the region are living with the consequences of the disaster they brought down on us all: a shattered Iraq, an emboldened Iran, a weaken, war weary, and wary America, and a Middle East in which multiple regional and international powers are engaged in a number of deadly conflicts.

James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

by Paul R. Pillar

The cauldron of intervention known as the Syrian war has recently become even more likely to boil over than it was just a few weeks ago. There are two immediate dangers of escalation.

One is the outbreak of another war between Israel and its neighbors. A reminder of this danger has come from events that began when Israel said it shot down an Iranian drone that had entered its airspace. Israeli F-16s then attacked a command center in Syria, during which Syrian air defenses downed one of the Israeli warplanes (a rare event for Israel). Israel subsequently launched a much more widespread set of aerial attacks within Syria. The Israelis have conducted scores of attacks in Syria over the last five years, but this most recent assault may have been the largest Israeli attack there since the 1980s.

A new war involving Israel would surely also involve Lebanese Hezbollah. There is no indication that Hezbollah seeks such a war. The group has incurred significant costs by participating in fighting within Syria and has many wounds to lick. Its leaders still have regrets about the brinksmanship that last got Hezbollah entangled in a war with Israel. Even though it could get in some hits with cross-border rocket fire, Hezbollah would get badly bloodied by its militarily more capable foe—and its leaders know it.

The inclinations of the Israeli government are less apparent. Its clear military superiority would make it the winner on most scorecards in a new war. The Israeli itch to escalate was in full view this past week. The reported Iranian drone did not, according to the Israeli account, get off a shot, and it may not even have been armed. A fresh war with Iran’s ally Hezbollah also would serve for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu the purpose of emboldening anti-Iran U.S. hawks and rallying them to isolate and punish Iran even more, perhaps tipping the Trump administration into repudiation of the agreement that restricts Iran’s nuclear program.

An added wild card are the corruption allegations against Netanyahu and the possibility he would use a foreign clash to divert attention from the scandal and shore up his domestic political position. The veteran Israeli commentator (and critic of Netanyahu) Uri Avnery writes:

When the police chief hinted on TV about the coming police decision to recommend indictment, my first impulse was to rush and clean the air-raid shelter at my home. When you are prime minister and in deep domestic trouble, the first thing you think about is a military crisis.

The other current danger is on the northern side of Syria, where there is a significant chance of proxies of the United States and maybe even U.S. troops clashing directly with the forces of a fellow NATO member, Turkey. The standoff revolves around the Syrian Kurdish militia. The United States, accurately, views the Kurdish militia as among the most effective fighters against the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). Turkey, also accurately, argues that the Syrian Kurds in question are organizationally tied to the PKK, the Turkish Kurdish group that has waged terrorist campaigns and large-scale insurgency against Turkey. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s just-completed talks in Ankara appear to have cooled things a bit for the moment, but the underlying cause of the tension has not been resolved. Don’t expect the Turks to budge much on this one. To get an idea of how they feel, imagine that some foreign power was supporting in an enclave in northern Mexico rebels who were tied to insurgents who had tried to separate a chunk of the southwest United States while conducting terrorist campaigns against U.S. targets.

IS Is Out, Assad Is In

To deal with both these problems and to avoid the substantial damage that eruption on either of these fronts would cause, two realities need to be recognized. One is that the IS caliphate has been defeated. U.S. officials talk a lot about the importance of recapturing that last two percent of IS-held territory, but they are mistakenly treating the problem of this group as if it were exclusively a matter of seizing ground. When IS had a mini-state holding much Syrian and Iraqi territory, it was indeed in part such a military problem.

But the mini-state is no more. IS is now more of a traditional international terrorist group, and dealing with it requires more traditional counterterrorist methods. To give disproportionate priority to that last two percent of soil—and, in the interests of capturing it, to do things like maintaining proxy militias that cause other problems—risks passing a point not only of diminishing returns but of counterproductivity as far as counterterrorism is concerned.

Another reality, less comfortable to accept than IS being defeated, is that the Syrian regime, with the help of its Russian and Iranian supporters, is the winner of this civil war. Given the divisions and ineffectiveness of the Syrian opposition and especially the supposedly moderate parts of it, there probably was never much of a chance for a different outcome. Now, there certainly is no such chance. For an outside intervenor such as the United States to continue, either directly or through proxies, to try to keep control of a piece of Syrian territory becomes the Western equivalent of the Russians continuing to muck around in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

As a sovereign state, Syria can choose its friends. And none of the main facts about this regime or its alliances is new. Not only have the Assads been around for decades, so too have been the ties between Damascus and both Moscow and Tehran. And during these decades the Assad regime, with its Russian and Iranian support, has been for Israel the devil it has come to know—with Israel enjoying a remarkably quiet frontier, notwithstanding its occupation of a piece of Syrian territory. It has continued to enjoy this relative quiet, despite the war raging within Syria. The shots fired across the frontier have been almost all from Israel into Syria, not the other way around.

U.S. Responsibilities

To do its part in avoiding a boiling over, the United States should stop its Donbass-like effort to keep a piece of Syria under the control of itself or its proxies. There is no justification for continuing this effort in terms either of what is most needed to minimize IS terrorism against Western targets or what would induce the other players in Syria to de-escalate or disengage. The United States should do what the Trump administration has not been doing so far, which is to participate in serious, inclusive, multilateral diplomacy aimed at containing and damping down the Syrian conflict. It has left most of the diplomatic action to Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

A comprehensive resolution of the Syria conflict may well be out of reach for the time being, but more feasible would be adjustments, redeployments, and tacit limitations that reduce the chance of explosive escalation. Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran all have firm bottom lines on what they see as their core interests in Syria, but they probably are flexible on some matters outside the core that make the Israelis (or the Turks) nervous. Such matters might include the specific positioning of forces within Syria or activities such as manufacture of munitions. Neither Russia or Iran has an interest in endless, let alone escalating, warfare in Syria, no matter how strong are their basic interests in maintaining political and security ties to Syria.

Adjustments and limitations cannot be all in one direction. Avoidance of escalation requires Israel to move away from its penchant for seeking absolute security even if this means absolute insecurity for someone else, and for launching airstrikes at the mere possibility that someone else might try to acquire a capability that Israel already has. The journalist Ronen Bergman reports that a “furious phone call” last weekend from Russian President Vladimir Putin dissuaded Netanyahu from an even greater military escalation than the one in which Israel indulged. It is interesting that such a message came from Russia. Now would be a good time to test whether $3.8 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel buys any influence at all. Some furious phone calls from Washington would be in order.