blatham wrote: george
. Whatever you've been reading, I'd like some. Please advise.
But that would constitute an extra charity above what I'm about to ask.
Let me introduce the dilemma this way. Casey is being replaced by Petraeus. ...he did his doctorate on historical insurgencies and while posted in Iraq applied his understandings to unusually good effect. He also tried to convince others in this enterprise, those above and parallel, to deal with the population and problems emerging per his understandings of the best ways to go about this difficult task. In that, he wasn't so successful.
So, his appointment looks wise and hopeful, if not too late. Yet, for reasons related to much of what you have been discussing here, serious doubts about what the Bush crowd are now up to are clearly merited.
The central question is the degree to which Bush administration policy (in the middle east most acutely) is being influenced/determined by the Likud element in Israel and its powerful circle of interest groups in America.
I believe I read less of current political and strategic analysis than do you. Mostly I read history, and that mostly of things a generation or more back (if for no other reason, to keep up with Setanta). For the subjects you are asking, I depend more on my own experience - knowledge of some of the actors; understanding of the motives & behaviors of the government institutions involved; as well as my own estimate of what I believe are the central related historical trends underlying these situations.
During my days at the War College at Newport, and for some years later, I was more up on this stuff and in some direct contact with those circles. That is fading now.
Assessment of the net effect of the Israeli Lobby (AIPAC & related, as well as activities of the Israeli government) is difficult - a mixed bag in which specific and net effects can be hard to determine. The political forces operating on Presidents and legislators are fairly easy to see. However that is now a more dynamic situation and the effect is no longer always beneficial to Israel - though they have been consistently positive & decisive in the past..
The situation within the permanent organs of government is quite mixed. For example, within the military establishment the supposed benefit of the Israeli alliance is balanced (in their view) by the attendant responsibility to protect Israel, and sometimes even to restrain it (the Gulf war provides a good example). In addition, as a result of the large financial credits we give Israel for purchase of U.S. military hardware, and the close links between the IDF and Israeli industry, a good deal of U.S. military technology has found its way to third parties via Israeli commercial activities, despite our prohibition of that (and repeated objections). There is a good deal of suspicion and resentment for Israel within the pentagon as a result of this kind of activity. Same goes for the intelligence services. Memories of the USS Liberty and the espionage of Jonathan Pollard and others don't help them either. The supposed anti Israel attitudes of the "Arabists" in the State Department have got a lot of attention as well. However I believe that is now old news, a relic of decades past.
Given their dependence on our goodwill and assistance ( as noted, partly a result of their own short sightedness and greed) the attention Israel gives to influencing our governments is quite understandable - if often contrary to our long-term interests.
I believe the reassignments of the key military leaders now ongoing is timely and appropriate. (Lincoln did it several times during the Civil war.). It also fits in with my own estimate of what went wrong, and what that requires.
I don't know what were the real motives for the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq. However, as you know, my theory was that they intended to create models of relatively modern, tolerant, and democratic government in an Islamic world that so far has been unable to escape its historical backwardness relative to the western World - a relative decline that started between three and four centuries ago, and which is for them increasingly a source of widespread discord, frustration, and reversion to the fanaticism of past centuries.
Afghanistan and Iraq were the obvious targets of all this; the former as a direct result of 9/11, and the latter (in my view) because, unlike Afghanistan, Iraq appeared to have a better chance of forming a modern, relatively non-sectarian, democratic and tolerant government - this a result of the historical political and commercial development of the region; the enormous investment in infrastructure that had occurred there beginning in the late ?'70s; and finally because of the secular (if fascist and tyrannical) government that overlaid the competing sectarian and ethnic groups. The urgent and continuing need to contain the activities of Saddam's government and the central position of Iraq undoubtedly added to all this.
I suspect the administration proceeded with a good grand strategy and an excellent military plan for seizing Iraq, with appropriate (and necessary) economy of force. I believe their failure was in failing to integrate them into a coherent strategy for the specific problem of seizing and then transforming Iraq. The top and bottom of the plan were OK, but the middle was missing. A small example may be illustrative. The term "shock and awe", which was so overused by our spokesmen at the outset of the war, was a familiar bit of military jargon -- meaningful in uniformed circles, but truly stupid when used through the media to describe our actions to the world public, which was far more interested in knowing what we would do with Iraq, than in the arcane military techniques used to bring down their military organizations. Why didn't anyone think about that and do something different? I believe this example is illustrative of a pattern of errors of this kind.
It is clear that we should have worked hard to quickly restore the broken organs of the Iraqi government, including the Army - even despite their Baathist leadership. (We faced the same problem in post WWII Germany as the real intentions of the Soviet Empire became clear. We had to very quickly restore the security and intelligence services, as well as civil services, and that required the us of and collusion with various functionaries of the old regime - even in Germany, an advanced country (despite all the destruction) and with a long history of effective government and democracy. While we then took the practical steps necessary, neither end of our political spectrum learned the lessons implicit in this event. Our persistent belief remained that bad guys and those associated with them had to be swept away completely to restore the good light. Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way.
Who was responsible for developing and implementing this missing middle of the strategy? I believe the main actors were in the White House, The State Department, and the Pentagon. Why it wasn't done will be the subject of extensive historical investigation and analysis. (at the time I thought that Powell, who clearly knew - or should have known - better, just gave up, and, in an oddly passive way merely neglected his responsibilities.) Clearly the president is accountable, and very likely the whole team contributed to this remarkable failure. In this context I believe that a fairly wholesale replacement of the leadership structure is indeed in order. It helps just to get everyone's attention. It remains to be seen how well Bush understands what must be done, and if he can explain it to the world.
Our military is remarkably effective and efficient in its own sphere - particularly so, compared to the other organs of our government. It is very effective in producing polished, confident leaders, - but they aren't always able to function well outside their familiar domain. (Though, my observation is that, once they put on that fourth star, most believe they are, even if they are not.) We were very fortunate during WWII to have generals as gifted as MacArthur, Eisenhower and Lucius Clay, whose upbringing, prior experience and experience during the long war enabled them to function effectively as post-war proconsuls.. That isn't generally the case. Nowadays we both undervalue such roles and look to other sources to fill them, (but the picking outside the military are even slimmer). Where the hell did we find Mr Bremmer, and what were his supposed qualifications (or delegated powers, for that matter). Finally, I suspect that modern communications may have created the illusion that both the war and the initial governance of the country could be run by overtaxed bureaucrats and political appointees in Washington, subject to the peculiar focus and day-to-day political storms of that environment.
blatham wrote: We know, for instance, from the recent book on Colin Powell, that before the outset of the war when Powell was arguing against other voices, that he expressed to another (perhaps Armitage, I've forgotten) that "Bush is under the sway of the JINSA crowd". That was a new acronym for me. If you check their site, and look at the wikipedia entry, you'll find many of the same key names that turn up with AIPAC, the Project For a New American Century...the crowd of folks we've come to know as neoconservatives. Influencing American policy, foreign, domestic and military in directions deemed favorable to Israel (from the Likud perspective, importantly) is their raison d'etre. So far as I can discern things, it looks very much like Bush next week will announce a plan which derives as much from Frederick Kagan as anyone else.
You've been very balanced in your previous analyses here of Israel's historical complicity in their own present dilemmas.
Thus we are to my request. Please describe your perception and understanding of what policy goals this administration is forwarding in the middle east that are NOT derived from out of this same set of Likud-friendly or Likud-inspired or Likud-like beliefs. If not already clear, I'm asking you to avoid a perspective which, in its possible support for either Bush or the Republican party, will miss or excuse critical factors. .
The mess we inherited and now face in the Middle east and the Gulf region is largely the result of past misdeeds and crimes of Great Britain, France , and Germany, and, as well, some inherently rigid and (now) backward elements in the structure of Moslem Society and governance - about which much has been written. This mess, of course is nested in the growing confrontation between the Moslem World and the West that I believe is destined (with or without our Iraqi intervention) to dominate the early part of the new century. I know, beyond doubt, that Cheney, Powell, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz and others are well aware of all this
I believe that the foolish appellation of a "War on Terrorism" was probably the result of a misguided, narrow focus on 9/11 and an attempt to soften the idea of a confrontation with Islam in a public mind already muddled with the euphemisms of political correctitude. I also believe the focus on WMD was an unfortunate side effect of an understandable, but unwise, attempt to give PM Blair domestic political cover (with the UN) for his support of our intervention.
In short, I don't believe that Israel's activities had much to do with our intervention, though they undoubtedly agreed with, welcomed and supported the enterprise, both diplomatically and politically. Domestically the (odd in my view) affinity of American Evangelicals for the most extreme versions of Zionism (rejected even by most Israelis) certainly lessened the political problem of motivating the American electorate (or a part of it). It is entirely possible that this contributed to Bush's (and his advisors) failure to outline the basic issues (at least as I see them) to the American public (and to the world).
The alternative view of a nefarious conspiracy and a dull, credulous White House doesn't ring true to me. Even government isn't often that stupid. In particular, I can't imagine that coming from Cheney, Powell, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, et. al.
In summary, I believe I have outlined a theory for the war that is both compelling and known to the "neocons", and also quite independent of Israel interests. I can't be sure it was this that motivated the decision, but it seems much more likely to me than the alternative you suggest.
For me the interesting question is how such bright men managed to execute it all so badly. They failed to credibly explain their motives to public and allies alike. They overestimated their potential support from our European Allies. They too easily became distracted and entangled in Tony Blair's domestic political problems, and sought political cover for him with a UN that would never give it, and distorted their (unstated, but best) motivating argument for the intervention in the process. They underestimated the challenge of post war recovery, and completely failed to craft a strategy for it and for integration with the war plan. They unwisely decided to destroy all of the organs of the former Iraqi government (itself a key part of the reason for intervening there) without any provision or capability for quickly replacing them. They appointed as post-war proconsul a nonentity who had no power or voice.
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