U.S. confrontation with Iran ready to boil over

Today’s New York Times had two stories about the escalating conflict between the United States and Iran now occurring inside Iraq.

In the first article, Iraqi and American officials investigating the killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala on January 20th are increasingly convinced that the raiders received sophisticated training, equipment, and support from Iranian intelligence operatives inside Iraq.

The alarm created by this development has reached Capitol Hill. At his confirmation hearing to be the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee repeatedly asked Mr. John Negroponte whether the U.S. was drifting toward a military confrontation with Iran.

The U.S. government intended to give a detailed presentation this week describing Iran’s military and intelligence activities inside Iraq. According to Fox News, this presentation has been postponed:

Officials had said a "dossier" against Iran compiled by the U.S. likely would be made public at a press conference this week in Baghdad, and that the evidence would contain specifics including shipping documents, serial numbers, maps and other evidence which officials say would irrefutably link Iran to weapons shipments to Iraq.

Now, U.S. military officials say the decision to go public with the findings has been put on hold for several reasons, including concerns over the reaction from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — as well as inevitable follow-up questions that would be raised over what the U.S. should do about it.

There are several good reasons for delaying this presentation.

First, the presentation indicting Iran could made more dramatic if it included Iran’s involvement with the Karbala incident. The investigation into that incident does not, by the New York Times’s reckoning, appear to be complete.

Second, the Bush administration may wish to delay the public escalation of the confrontation with Iran until all of its nominees for various national security billets – Admiral Fallon to Centcom, Mr. Negroponte to State, the new National Intelligence director, etc. are confirmed by the Senate and are at their posts. Stirring up controversy this week or next for the U.S. Senate might cause unnecessary delays getting these men to their desks.

Third, should the evidence of Iranian culpability in American deaths lead to a call for direct military retaliation against Iran, it would be highly desirable to have Admiral Fallon, the new Centcom commander, actually at his command post, familiar with his staff, and familiar with the off-the-shelf war plans against Iran. Assuming the Admiral’s testimony from yesterday to the Senate Armed Services Committee is truthful, he is not prepared to immediately command a Centcom military operation against Iran.

Being the large majority of Iraq’s population, the Shi’ites will run Iraq in the future. There is no way, even with American help, that the Sunnis will be in charge again. But this being the case, the Americans must cut Iraq’s Shi’ites off from Iranian support and influence.

Iran is destined to fade away as a significant force over the next two decades. Its oil industry is collapsing and its stock of military-aged males is also set to decline due to a sharp decline in Iran’s birthrate. If the U.S. could, through diplomacy, persuasion, and financial sanctions, keep foreign investment away from Iran’s oil industry, the “Iran problem” would solve itself “peacefully.” The Iranian economy would collapse, money for the nuclear program would dry up, and internal political chaos would likely ensue.

But the inevitable military confrontation between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq may now supersede this scenario. Such a confrontation may energize Iranian nationalism in the short run, and boost the sagging popularity of President Ahmadinejad. But military escalation favors the United States. Each step up the ladder brings to bear more American weapon and technology advantages.

Expect to see the Bush administration escalate the confrontation with Iran, but only after the new national security team members are at their posts. Iran will have to then decide whether to back off into the shadows, or to organize more assaults on Americans in Iraq. With either course, Iran will eventually lose.

Admiral Fallon wonders 'what's realistic and what's practical'

Today, Admiral William Fallon, USN underwent an examination by the Senate Armed Services Committee to determine his fitness to take over command of U.S. military forces in the Middle East. We wonder if the following statement by the admiral was cleared in advance by Secretary of State Rice and President Bush:

Fallon said that “we probably erred in our assessment” of the Iraqi government's ability to rebuild its society and establish a peaceful order after the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago.

“One of the things in the back of my mind that I'd like to get answered is to meet with the people that have been working this issue – particularly our ambassadors, our diplomats – to get an assessment of what's realistic and what's practical,” Fallon said.

“And maybe we ought to redefine the goals here a bit and do something that's more realistic in terms of getting some progress and then maybe take on the other things later,” he added.

When Admiral Fallon mentioned "take on other things later," what "other things" was he referring to? President Bush and Secretary Rice have always dreamed that Iraq's Sunni Arabs would accept the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad as their legitimate government, rather than as an Iranian takeover, as is their current view.

Might this cosmic transformation in the Sunni Arab worldview be one of those "things to take on later"?

Can Saudi Arabia control the price of oil?

Yesterday, the New York Times discussed Saudi Arabia’s goals for the world crude oil market:

Saudi Arabia, which benefited immensely from record oil prices last year, has sent signals in the past two weeks that it is committed to keeping oil at around $50 a barrel — down $27 a barrel from the summer peak that shook consumers across the developed world.

[…]

High prices have also emboldened rivals within OPEC, among them Iran and Venezuela, which have used their oil revenue to prop up their governments and export their more radical agendas. Saudi Arabia has worked cooperatively with Iran since the late 1990s, when oil producers were panicked by the decline of prices to around $10 a barrel. More recently, Iran has favored rising prices over the moderation that Saudi Arabia seeks. Venezuela also tends to favor higher prices but wields less political influence in the cartel.

“High prices are not in the interest of Saudi Arabia,” said Sadek Boussena, a former OPEC president from Algeria. “We’ve all seen what $70 does: it attracts alternatives, it reduces demand. On the other hand, I don’t think the Saudis want oil below $50. They need the revenue.”

[…]

Sometimes, the uncertainty gives rise to more conspiratorial theories. Oil traders have been buzzing in recent weeks about whether Saudi Arabia was seeking to depress oil markets in hopes of crippling Iran’s economy, as a Saudi analyst — albeit not one from the government — suggested late last year in an opinion article in The Washington Post. The Saudis quickly dismissed the claim, but given the tensions in the Middle East, oil and politics remain closely linked.

It seems logical that the Saudis, or any other rational producer, would want prices high enough to maximize revenue in the medium term, while also low enough to maintain their customers’ dependency. A $50 per barrel price for crude oil may accomplish this last goal, according to this report from Bloomberg News:

Ethanol, after almost doubling in price in five years, is falling as prices for corn, the main raw material for the fuel in the U.S., reach the highest in a decade. Crude oil has tumbled 29 percent from its July record to $55.06 a barrel, as of 2:49 p.m. London time, cutting gasoline prices. Oil must be above $70 for ethanol to be profitable, according to research by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

"The gold rush is over,'' said Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of London-based New Energy Finance Ltd., which advises investors in clean energy. "Many of the new [ethanol] plants that have been announced will never see the light of the day.''

Ethanol cost $2.04 a gallon in the U.S. on Jan. 17, based on data from wholesale distributors in Des Moines, Iowa, and other Midwest locations, 41 percent more than unleaded gasoline, before taxes. What's more, ethanol produces only 70 percent as much energy as petroleum.

[…]

Shares of Pacific Ethanol, in which [Microsoft founder Bill] Gates is the biggest holder, have slumped 61 percent since their May 11 record. The stock of Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc. has dropped 59 percent since a June 28 initial public offering. Verasun Energy, which had the biggest IPO of any U.S. ethanol company, has lost 42 percent since the offering June 13.

Commentary

Does Saudi Arabia have the tools necessary to control the global price of crude oil over any given time horizon? The current answer to that question seems ambiguous. In the future, whatever control Saudi Arabia may currently possess over oil prices will likely disappear.

In order to push down the price of oil from high levels it considers undesirable, Saudi Arabia must possess spare crude oil production capacity that it can use to bring additional crude oil supply onto the global market. The International Energy Agency reports these data in its monthly Oil Market Report.

In the late spring and early summer of 2006, the price of crude oil rose too high for Saudi Arabia, reaching $78.40 per barrel on July 14th. Did Saudi Arabia use its spare production capacity to push down the price? In theory, spare capacity should be high when the oil price is high – producers like Saudi Arabia would be holding production below potential in order to prop up the price. Conversely, when prices are lower, spare capacity should also be lower, as the producers use that extra capacity to push down the price.

The IEA’s data on spare capacity don’t support this theory. A table from May 2006 Oil Market Report (see page 14) displays OPEC’s spare capacity in April, just before the summer price spike began. Spare capacity, excluding Iraq, was 2.31 million barrels per day. By contrast, the data from November, after prices had receded, showed greater spare capacity, 3.19 million barrels per day of unused capacity. The pattern is the same for Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity: 1.30 million barrels per day in April versus 1.90 million in November. Lower prices occurred in spite of greater withheld production.

There are obviously numerous other factors at work, including weather, other seasonal factors, the actions of oil futures traders, and adjustments in demand by oil consumers. These factors, out of Saudi Arabia’s control, more likely explain the drop in the oil price that occurred between summer and winter.

The long run

Although economic logic suggests that an attractive price for crude oil ($50 per barrel and higher) will bring out additional supplies, economic logic will often lose out to political irrationality. The oil industries of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Mexico are very likely in long-term declines due to irrational long-term political policies in those countries. The governments in these countries have scared off foreign exploration partners, without which they will be unable to maintain, let alone increase production. In Iraq and Nigeria rebels are happy to smash the oil infrastructure rather than allow the government or the people to collect oil income. And what about the United States? Look at the politically-inspired shut-in production in Alaska, Florida, and California.

Although Saudi Arabia intends to increase its production capacity in the years ahead, any such increases might very well be swamped by steep declines in production elsewhere. Meanwhile sharp increases in the middle class in Asia will lead to strengthening demand for crude oil products.

Thus Saudi Arabia will likely lose whatever ability it may have to keep oil prices “moderate.” This means it will also lose its ability to keep alternative energy sources from competing, as it has in the past. Oil consumers in the West that were previously dependent on the Persian Gulf may find a way to break free.

Several decades from now, it may be the United States watching from the sidelines as China and India are forced to launch costly military expeditions to Arabia, as they struggle to protect their economic interests.

Al-Maliki can also ‘divide and conquer’

Ms. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is on a whirlwind “fact-finding” tour of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on the discussions she had with Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

BAGHDAD, Jan. 26 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), visiting Baghdad on Friday in her new capacity as House speaker, that he would like to see 50,000 U.S. troops leave by the end of the year, Iraqi officials said.

Pelosi's primary concern in meeting Maliki appeared to be to determine how soon he thought the United States could withdraw its soldiers from Iraq, said Ali Dabbagh, the prime minister's spokesman.

[…]

Pelosi, a critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, told the prime minister that she and fellow Democrats are eager to see a prompt transition of authority, Maliki's office said in a statement.

"The prime minister assured them that they could speed up the withdrawal of the troops if the equipment and training of the national forces could be speeded up," Dabbagh said Friday night in an interview.

As Westhawk has discussed in numerous previous posts (for example, here and here), Prime Minister al-Maliki and the vast majority of Iraq’s Shi’ite leadership know how to provide security in their Shi’ite neighborhoods. The Shi’ites have the numerical superiority, the organization, and the motivation to rout their Sunni tormentors once and for all. And they believe the Americans, retaining their impossible dream of political and social harmony among all of Iraq’s sects, are preventing the Shi’ites from protecting their own. Mr. al-Maliki opposes the American “surge” strategy, but for the moment has had to grit his teeth.

Now Ms. Pelosi may become Mr. al-Maliki’s new best friend. If we are to judge by their public statements, both would like to see American ground troops exiting Iraq. Mr. al-Maliki knows that American society and its government are now divided over Iraq policy. Having now established a relationship with the Speaker of the House, Mr. al-Maliki could now feed her “talking points” about how, in his view, the U.S. could better manage its effort in Iraq. Those talking points would include more guns for Mr. al-Maliki’s friends, more Iraqi authority over military operations, and fewer American troops. All points Ms. Pelosi could agree with.

But does she really? Ms. Pelosi called her trip a “fact-finding” mission. Those facts include deadly serious men in Baghdad, the kind she has never met in San Francisco or Georgetown’s salons, and the risk of butchery on a breathtaking scale if she were to actually get her way. Mr. al-Maliki knows about her ideas for American “redeployment” and he is now her smiling friend. Now that she has the responsibility for Congressional action on U.S. war policy, one wonders whether Ms. Pelosi understands the gravity of her position.

We would not be surprised if Ms. Pelosi forgets about Iraq and “moves on” to other subjects.

A ‘Phoenix Program’ for Iran?

The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Bush has authorized the U.S. government to capture or kill Iranian intelligence operatives inside Iraq. This particular authorization seems to be one element of a larger list of initiatives aimed at countering Iranian intelligence activity in the Middle East and beyond:

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

[…]

Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.

[…]

The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

As might be expected, there are skeptics within the U.S. government who are concerned that targeting the Iranians could get out of hand:

Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Officials said [CIA Director] Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.

[…]

In meetings with Bush's other senior advisers, officials said, [Secretary of State] Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

Commentary

It was inevitable that the American intervention in Iraq would eventually bring the U.S. into direct military confrontation with operatives of the Iranian government. It is only surprising that it took so long for this reality to come into the open.

In the Washington Post article, the U.S. government officials interviewed discussed their hope that the American initiative against Iranian intelligence personnel inside Iraq would eventually restrain Iran’s nuclear program. It is not likely that the Iranians, whom the U.S. government is trying to influence, follow the logic of this connection. And if the Iranians don’t follow the logic, they are not likely to bring forth the response the Americans are hoping for.

Still, President Bush’s authorization to attack the Iranian intelligence apparatus in the Middle East is wise, necessary, and long overdue. There are numerous reasons, unstated in the Washington Post article, why “senior administration officials” in the U.S. government are suddenly eager to discuss this new approach.

First, as a general matter the United States needs to acquire more leverage over the regime in Tehran. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report recommended negotiations with Iran over a broad array of topics. From a position of relative weakness, such a course for the U.S. would be downright dangerous. Achieving some coercive power over Iran improves the U.S. negotiating position, whenever the time is right for such an event.

Second, in order to have more influence over Shi’ite Islamist leaders in Iraq such as Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Prime Minister al-Maliki, and Moqtada al-Sadr, the Americans must cut these men off from Iranian support and sanctuary. When the U.S. cuts off Iranian influence in Iraq, it improves its influence over Iraq’s domestic political situation.

Third, stepping up its actions against Iran reassures other Sunni governments in the region that the U.S. will not let Iranian influence in the Middle East expand. This is designed to persuade governments like Saudi Arabia that their intervention in Iraq is unnecessary.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the President must reassure his soldiers and Marines that for him their welfare comes first. If Iranian agents are directly or indirectly killing American troops, those troops must know that the President will respond. Anything less would be demoralizing.

Those skeptics who argue against stepping up actions against Iran are concerned either that a new military front will open, tasking an overburdened U.S. military, or that the Iranians will respond with embarrassing or demoralizing direct actions against American forces in the region. As an example, Omar at Iraq the Model speculated that the attack last Saturday in Karbala that killed these American soldiers, was an Iranian operation.

These objections to more aggressive tactics against Iran are misguided. The more open and high-intensity combat between Iran and the U.S. becomes, the greater the advantage the U.S. will have. When Iranian operations in Iraq were exclusively covert, the Iranians held all of the advantages; they had long-established associates and networks in Iraq, they understand the language and culture better than the Americans, and they operated without local or international penalty.

Now that President Bush has decided to escalate the confrontation, the Iranians will have to make some serious choices. Their operatives in Iraq now face either sudden death or long-term confinement and interrogation by the CIA. The Iranians will have to either pull back their support from their Iraqi clients, who will be under American surveillance, or they will have to counterattack against the Americans. But as the situation escalates up the ladder of warfare, more American military and technical capabilities will enter the battle. Each step up the ladder will bring greater advantages to the American side.

The Iranian response to Mr. Bush’s escalation will be interesting to observe. Even more interesting will be the response of Iraqi players such as Prime Minister al-Maliki and power-broker Mr. al-Hakim. They, along with the Kurds, have been annoyed by the Americans’ trouble-making with the Iranians. The Iraqis know that they have lived with the Persians for thousands of years and will have to live with them for thousands more.

But now the Iraqis have to realize that the U.S.-Iranian confrontation is equally permanent. Whether the U.S. is allied with Iraq or not, and whether U.S. military forces are in Iraq or not, the U.S. is in a permanent, grinding struggle with Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf region. Iraq’s Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders have to get used to that reality and make their calculations accordingly.

A tale of two insurgencies (and two strategies)

Here is a description of two American allies:

Both countries are large and mountainous. Cities within these two countries are isolated by very rough terrain and poor infrastructure.

Both countries suffer from brutal insurgencies. The insurgencies in both countries are financed through the hugely lucrative trade in illegal drugs. The insurgents in both countries benefit from the presence of sanctuaries in neighboring countries, and support from foreign governments. In both cases, the insurgents are only partly motivated by ideology; the ability to exercise raw political and social power is likely a larger motivation.

In both countries, a poor security situation is diminishing economic potential. Pipelines to transport hydrocarbons could add to each country’s wealth. Existing pipelines in Country A are under threat of attack and new ones, although needed, may be impossible to build and defend. A pipeline transiting Country B has been discussed but is currently unfeasible due to the insurgency there.

The United States has excellent relations with the presidents of both countries, each of whom easily won fair elections in his country. For years, the United States government has supported these friendly governments with foreign aid, especially security assistance. American soldiers, along with other government employees and contractors, manage large military training missions in each country.

Country A has almost twice the population of Country B, and is in the American hemisphere, a few hours flight away. The U.S. has a total of 500 uniformed servicemen in Country A, a limit mandated by the U.S. Congress. Country B is on the far side of the world. The U.S. has over 23,000 soldiers in Country B, with the U.S. defense secretary inclined to add more. U.S. strike airpower is present and very active in Country B.

Country A is Colombia and Country B is Afghanistan.

General Peter Pace, USMC, the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, recently visited Colombia. During his visit, he discussed how the U.S. government has arranged for the Colombian government to provide advice and assistance to Afghanistan’s government on counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency strategies. This is an interesting and yet stunningly obvious idea. Given the many similarities of their circumstances, Colombian government officials would seem to have much useful knowledge and experience to share with their Afghan counterparts.

If the Colombian government could receive 23,000 American soldiers (35,000 if you count the entire NATO contingent in Afghanistan) along with all of their accompanying helicopter and fixed-wing air support, would Colombia’s leaders welcome these Americans in? If not, why not? And if not in Colombia, then why in Afghanistan?

We are sure there are good reasons why 500 American soldiers is the right number for Colombia and 23,000 and more is the correct number for Afghanistan. Colombia has a long history as a country. The territory on a map labeled “Afghanistan” has a much longer history, but only as a collection of tribes, not as a country. Colombia’s government and security forces, for all of their problems, have been around a long time. The Afghan government and army are infants.

Afghanistan’s tribes have rallied around the idea of “Afghanistan” only when invaded by foreigners. How much has the mere presence of the NATO force motivated Taliban recruits? Or are these Taliban foot soldiers mostly just poor mercenaries, lured by meager pay from drug barons?

The NATO strategy in Afghanistan walks a very fine line. On the one hand, the Afghan army must patrol with the Westerner soldiers as it builds its competence and confidence. And there is no doubt that many if not most Afghans appreciate the support they receive from West.

On the other hand, resistance will exist as long as NATO’s troops are there. The American, European, and Afghan generals understand this. They must wonder when they can “get to Colombia,” 500 troops instead of 35,000.

But it is hard to take the first step.

A scorecard for the American "surge" in Iraq

The American generals and diplomats attempting to implement President Bush's new plan for Iraq have to work with officials in the Iraqi government, along with other powerful Iraqis, to achieve the plan's objectives. But these players in the drama have different goals than the Americans. Each hopes to channel America's power in Iraq for his own purposes.

How does each of the major actors in Iraq hope to use America's beefed-up combat power to achieve his own objectives? Westhawk's latest article at TCS Daily provides a "scorecard" on how each major player in Iraq is hoping to take advantage of the situation there.

China reminds the U.S. to think twice

Although the Chinese government refuses to discuss the matter, U.S. government intelligence analysts revealed that last week the Chinese military used a non-explosive kinetic vehicle to destroy one of its communication satellites in orbit. This article from the New York Times discusses that although the Chinese government has professed a policy of a weapons-free space frontier, the Chinese military has demonstrated new space combat capabilities. The destruction of an orbiting satellite with a missile-boosted kinetic kill vehicle is only one such Chinese anti-satellite capability. The New York Times article describes how last summer, the Chinese successfully “painted” a U.S. satellite with ground-based laser energy.

The Chinese have apparently experimented with other means of disrupting critical nodes in America’s command and control infrastructure. Although denied by the Chinese government, analysts have traced “cyber attacks” on U.S. government computer systems back to points originating in China. Last July, USA Today reported on one such attack on the U.S. State Department. Strategypage frequently reports on attempted cyber warfare attacks originating from China targeting various U.S. Defense Department networks.

Page 35 of the U.S. Defense Department’s report Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2006 discusses China’s anti-satellite capabilities and its development of cyber warfare techniques. This report asserted that the Chinese only had the capability to destroy a satellite with a missile-launched nuclear weapon. In fact, the Chinese just used a terminally-guided non-explosive kinetic kill vehicle to destroy their target, an advanced capability the U.S. government apparently believed it would take the Chinese as long to master as it did the U.S. This is one more in a long line of misestimates by the U.S. intelligence community.

Last October, near Okinawa, a Chinese Song-class diesel submarine apparently sailed merrily along, undetected, with the USS Kitty Hawk carrier strike group before surfacing and revealing itself a mere five miles from the American aircraft carrier. This incident occurred just as the commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet was about to meet with Chinese military leaders in China.

These disparate incidents are joined together by a common theme: the Chinese government wants to remind U.S. officials that China has the ability to inflict pain, possibly severe pain, on the United States.

No one doubts that the U.S. Navy can send China’s naval power to the bottom in short order. The U.S. Air Force is expanding its capacity in the Pacific region; one of the first operational F-22A units will deploy to Japan. Chinese air power won’t stand a chance against America’s. And if the Chinese want to engage in space warfare against the Americans, they won’t like how that works out for them.

However, this is not likely how the Chinese leadership looks at the situation. If the U.S. decided it was in an existential conflict with the Chinese, U.S. leaders would likely demonstrate a willingness to accept the pain necessary for the U.S. to prevail. But over the next several decades, potential conflicts with China are not likely to involve existential U.S. interests. The most likely point of conflict, the status of Taiwan, has always been an ambiguous subject for U.S. policymakers. In a crisis over Taiwan, a future U.S president is likely to wonder how much pain America should be willing to suffer for Taiwan’s defense. This is exactly the question the Chinese want to bring up to the Americans. The recent Chinese actions involving anti-satellite operations, cyber-warfare, and a threat to USS Kitty Hawk are designed to cause the Americans to think twice.

No major country is more vulnerable to a disruption in the satellite constellation than is the United States. Military communications, surveillance, and navigation through satellites are well known. What may be less appreciated is the vulnerability of the U.S. civilian communication and finance industries to a disruption in satellite networks. The destruction of a dozen or so key commercial satellites would cause far more harm to the U.S. economy than was caused by the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. The shutdown of the terrestrial and mobile telephone systems, and with it, the functioning of the modern financial and transportations systems, would be breathtaking. In addition, planners now must wonder what surprises the Chinese may have in mind for disrupting U.S. computer networks. And the ability to ambush American naval forces with torpedo and missile attacks could cause U.S. military planners and policymakers to approach their war-planning tasks with more caution than previously.

For the Chinese, the purpose of these actions is to get the Americans to re-evaluate the trade-off between “pain” and “gain” concerning a possible confrontation over something, like Taiwan, than is not likely central to U.S. interests. Since the Nixon Administration in the early 1970s, the U.S. government switched to a more ambiguous policy regarding the defense of Taiwan. The U.S. accepted that there is only “one China” and that the government in Beijing is the one official government. On the other hand, the U.S. government strongly objects to settling the Taiwan issue by force. Further muddying the waters, the U.S. government remains ambiguous about whether it will defend Taiwan against a military attack under all circumstances; the U.S. government does not want to give the officials in Taiwan a free pass to either declare independence or to otherwise stir up trouble with the mainland, knowing that the U.S. military would always be there to defend Taiwan no matter how Taiwan behaved.

Thus, a U.S. president has wide latitude to wiggle out of a commitment to send U.S. military forces to defend Taiwan. By signaling to the Americans that the pain of intervention, through possible attacks on satellites, computer networks, or even naval forces, could be very high, the Chinese have given U.S. policymakers something on which to focus their minds during a potential crisis. Without these new Chinese capabilities, the decision to intervene to defend Taiwan would be easy to make. Now, the Americans may wonder how important Taiwan really is. Now, the Americans will have to think twice.

POSTSCRIPT

Please see this report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that assesses the vulnerability of commercial satellites.

Shi’ite arrests in Baghdad – just for show?

The Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been eager to announce the arrests of alleged Shi’ite militia leaders in Baghdad, as this article from Wednesday’s New York Times explains:

Mr. Maliki, in a meeting with foreign journalists on Wednesday, said 400 Mahdi militiamen had been arrested “within the last few days,” according to a tape of the interview made available to The New York Times. A senior government official said later by telephone that the total number arrested was 420 and that they had been detained in 56 operations beginning in October. Several dozen senior leaders have been detained in the past several weeks, the senior official said on condition of anonymity. He said the total number of senior commanders did not exceed 100.

[…]

Although the announcement seemed timed to deflect growing scrutiny by an American administration that has grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Maliki, American officers here offered some support for the government’s claims, saying that at least half a dozen senior militia leaders had been taken into custody in recent weeks.

In perhaps the most surprising development, the Americans said, none of the members had been prematurely released, a chronic problem as this government has frequently shielded Shiite fighters.

So far, so good. And on Friday morning, Iraqi and U.S. forces arrested a top aide to Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite cleric whose Mahdi Army militia seems to be leading the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis out of the Baghdad area.

By contrast, some close observers in Baghdad remain skeptical whether al-Sadr’s political and military power is really under attack:

An influential Shiite sheik, Adel Ibrahim Subihawi, said of senior Mahdi members, “They are making new passports right now to leave.”

It was not immediately clear whether the vanishing act was related to fear over the
arrests or was a calculated move to wait out the coming American troop increase and prepare to re-emerge later.

[…]

In an interesting twist, the militia’s leadership has not visibly fought back against the crackdown. American commanders say that the arrests do not draw the howling objections they used to in 2004, because Mr. Sadr’s militia has splintered so deeply since then that the members they are arresting are more criminal than political and considered by Mr. Sadr to be disloyal renegades.

In that assessment, Mr. Sadr could even be using the government and the American
military to purge his own ranks of undesirables.

At Iraq the Model, both Omar and Mohammed have reported (here and here) that al-Sadr’s Mahdis are implementing a plan to retreat, lay low, avoid confrontation with the Americans, and wait for the surge to dissipate. U.S. combat forces that have had their tours in Iraq extended in order make the upcoming “surge” in American troops meaningful will have to finally rotate home by early summer at the latest. Al-Sadr and the Mahdis can easily wait out the Americans.

The “surge” and the crackdown on Shi’ite militias, about which American officers are so eager, is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. The real end-state the Americans seek is political reconciliation inside Iraq. What matters is what change if any the arrests of these alleged friends of Moqtada al-Sadr will bring to Iraq’s political and social condition. Will the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis inside Baghdad subside? Will Sunni exiles return to their homes in Baghdad? Will al-Sadr’s power in parliament or over the prime minister decline? Will there be any permanent impairment of al-Sadr’s ability to rally an armed militia whenever he feels the need to influence events? Will Sunnis in Anbar province have greater confidence in the fairness of the central government in Baghdad? Will former Sunni soldiers be more willing to join the army and national police instead of the Sunni insurgency?

There is not yet a connection between the arrests trumpeted by Prime Minister al-Maliki and the answers to these questions. It will take a long time to remove the influence of militias from Iraq’s politics. Such a process has to begin somewhere, perhaps the way Iraq’s prime minister described. The lasting benefits to Iraqi society may arrive. But they haven’t yet.

U.S. brinkmanship against al-Maliki – part 2

In this report from NBC News, a “senior U.S. official” had a message to send to Iraq’s prime minister, Mr. Nouri al-Maliki:

Saudi Arabia believes the Iraqi government is not up to the challenge and has told the United States that it is prepared to move its own forces into Iraq should the violence there degenerate into chaos, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Tuesday.

[…]

The Saudi government has signaled in the past that it would oppose an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, fearing it would leave minority Sunni Muslims at the mercy of Shiite Muslim militias.

The Saudis’ primary concern is the Sunni population of Anbar province, the senior U.S. official. The official said the Saudis had informed Washington that they were considering a plan to send troops into the province if Bush’s plan failed.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the report, which Rice downplayed during a briefing for reporters. She said such a scenario was why it was important for the U.S. plan to produce a unified Iraq.

Why would an anonymous U.S. official feel the need to leak to the press this private conversation between Saudi and American officials (assuming that a Saudi official actually said such a thing to the Americans, which one can doubt)? It must be increasingly clear in Baghdad that Prime Minister al-Maliki and his officials are not showing much enthusiasm for getting tough with al-Sadr’s Shi’ite militia. Thus the Americans needed to pull out a club and wave it around a bit to get Mr. al-Maliki’s attention.

Unfortunately for the Americans, this particular club is made from toothpicks. In December, Westhawk explained why a regional war over Iraq is unlikely. The Saudi military doesn’t have the logistical capacity to project a meaningful expeditionary force into Iraq; covert Saudi support, which is already occurring, cannot tip the balance in favor of the outnumbered Sunnis; and Saudi Arabia risks too much to stir up trouble with either its American protectors or its Iranian adversary.

The Iraqis understand all of this and thus will not likely take the Saudi/American threat seriously. But there could be another purpose for the transmission of this message. With the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis from the Baghdad area already partially accomplished, it would suit all sides to agree on some enforceable demarcation line, a future boundary between Iraq’s Shia-land and Sunni-land.

At the beginning of the war, this boundary might have been the Tigris River. The bridges over this river could have served as control points to block the movement of truck bombs and armed militias in either direction. But the Shi’ites have pushed too far into western Baghdad, where the dense road network makes a defense impossible.

Perhaps the Saudis are calling for the Shi’ites to stop their ethnic cleansing campaign near the eastern border of Al-Anbar province, somewhere between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah. Here, where Baghdad’s road network thins, the two sides could find an agreeable boundary that each could successfully defend. Perhaps the Saudis are asking Iraq’s Shi’ites to leave Al-Anbar’s Sunni Arabs in peace.

In any case, the very fact that the Americans had to “show the club” this early does not bode well. The Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi government isn’t enthusiastic about President Bush’s dream of a happy multi-sectarian government in Iraq. They are not shy about letting the Americans know their feelings. Most importantly, they know the Americans can’t do much about it.

Will a larger military mean lower standards?

Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps. Is this really a good idea? Westhawk's latest article at TCS Daily discusses how a larger end-strength for U.S. ground forces will make the U.S. military less prepared to meet future national security challenges.

Baghdad’s Sunnis at the barricades

A Westhawk reader from Australia sent along this article from The Guardian newspaper. It discusses the view from the Sunni areas of Baghdad. The article’s author describes a meeting he had in late October with a mid-level Sunni insurgent commander:

"It’s not a good time to be a Sunni in Baghdad," Abu Omar told me in a low voice. He had been on the Americans' wanted list for three years but I had never seen him so anxious; he had trimmed his beard in the close-cropped Shia style and kept looking towards the door. His brother had been kidnapped a few days before, he told me, and he believed he was next on a Shia militia's list. He had fled his home in the north of the city and was staying with relatives in a Sunni stronghold in west Baghdad.

He was more despondent than angry. "We Sunni are to blame," he said. "In my area some ignorant al-Qaida guys have been kidnapping poor Shia farmers, killing them and throwing their bodies in the river. I told them: 'This is not jihad. You can't kill all the Shia! This is wrong! The Shia militias are like rabid dogs - why provoke them?' "

Then he said: "I am trying to talk to the Americans. I want to give them assurances that no one will attack them in our area if they stop the Shia militias from coming."

This man who had spent the last three years fighting the Americans was now willing to talk to them, not because he wanted to make peace but because he saw the Americans as the lesser of two evils. He was wrestling with the same dilemma as many Sunni insurgent leaders, beginning to doubt the wisdom of their alliance with al-Qaida extremists.

[…]

By December Abu Omar's worst fears were being realised. The Sunnis had become squeezed into a corner fighting two sides at the same time. But by then he had disappeared; his body was never found.

Four years ago, Iraq’s Sunni Arabs thought the Americans were their enemy. They conducted a murderous low-intensity insurgency against American troops in the center of the country, with the aim of driving them out. At any point the Americans would have been willing to negotiate an honorable truce and the entrance of the Sunni leadership into the daylight of Iraqi politics. Indeed, Iraqi political reconciliation is still the dream inside the West Wing of the White House and the main objective of the Bush administration’s program for Iraq. Now, much too late, Iraq’s Sunnis realize the peril of their situation.

When the Americans first arrived, most of Baghdad’s Sunni residents were not likely ready or willing to pick up a rifle or a bomb detonator. Most probably just wanted to figure out a way to get on with their lives as best as they could. By The Guardian’s description, those days are long past. Those Sunnis that could make it to exile are long gone. The rest have fled the mixed neighborhoods and reassembled in more defensible cordons. All of those Sunnis that remain are expected to be soldiers in the defense. And naturally, certain leaders, those with experience, organizational skills, and most importantly, a strong will, have organized the defense of these zones:

Like Abu Omar before him, Abu Aisha, a mid-level Sunni commander, had come to understand that the threat from the Shia was perhaps greater than his need to fight the occupying Americans. Abu Aisha fought in Baghdad's western Sunni suburbs, he was a former NCO in the Iraqi army and followed an extreme form of Islam known as Salafism.

[…]

"We have been deceived by the jihadi Arabs," he admitted, in reference to al-Qaida and foreign fighters. "They had an international agenda and we implemented it. But now all the leadership of the jihad in Iraq are Iraqis."

Abu Aisha went on to describe how the Sunnis were reorganising. After Sunni families had been expelled from mixed areas throughout Baghdad, his area in the western suburbs was prepared to defend itself against any militia attack.

"Ameriya, Jihad, Ghazaliyah," he listed, "all these areas are becoming part of the new Islamic state of Iraq, each with an emir in charge." Increasingly the Iraqi insurgency is moving away from its cellular structure and becoming organised according to neighbourhood. Local defence committees have intertwined into the insurgent movement.

"Each group is in charge of a specific street," Abu Aisha said. "We have defence lines, trenches and booby traps. When the Americans arrive we let them go through, but if they show up with Iraqi troops, then it's a fight."

Not unlike Berlin in March 1945, Baghdad’s Sunnis are preparing for the final assault from an enemy, the Shia, whom they know seeks revenge and will offer up no mercy.

Only the Americans, whom the Sunnis have bloodied, can save them.

The story of post-Saddam Iraq contains other resemblances to the past. In 1917, the Bolsheviks demonstrated how a small but highly disciplined and audacious group could prevail over larger but less decisive and less disciplined competitors. In Iraq, al-Qaeda, the smallest but most organized and most fanatical of the Sunni groups, set the agenda for Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. Among the Shia, al-Sadr’s organization was neither the largest nor the recipient initially of much respect. But al-Sadr’s organization was disciplined and moved quickly to establish its credibility on the street. Al-Qaeda’s discipline, audacity, and fanaticism will result in the cleansing of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs from Baghdad into the desert or beyond. As for the Shia, al-Sadr’s competitors will have to struggle to achieve the following he has established for himself in the Shia neighborhoods. One might call this the “Gresham’s Law” of civil conflicts, with the worst chasing out the merely bad.

On the one hand, those American policy makers still hopeful for reconciliation will be pleased to read that many of Iraq’s Sunni insurgents now want a truce and a deal. On the other hand, the Shia have the whip out and will see no reason to pull back on the reins. For them, the finish line is in sight and they intent to ride across it at a swift gallop.

Seeing the future through Somali-tinted glasses

According to this report from the New York Times, U.S. Defense Department strategists are encouraged by the results the U.S. government has engineered in Somalia, and hope the techniques it used there will be a model for similar situations:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for Al
Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe.

[…]

American officials said the recent military operations have been carried by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which directs the military’s most secretive and elite units, like the Army’s Delta Force.

The Pentagon established a desolate outpost in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti in 2002 in part to serve as a hub for Special Operations missions to capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders in the region.

[…]

But officials in Washington said this week that the joint command had quietly been returning troops and weaponry to the region in recent weeks in anticipation of a mission against members of a Qaeda cell believed to be hiding in Somalia.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of Congress on Friday that the strike in Somalia was executed under the Pentagon’s authority to hunt and kill terrorism suspects around the globe, a power the White House gave it shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Westhawk has expressed his hope (here and here) that the recent action in Somalia would result in a successful model the U.S. government could employ elsewhere to achieve American security interests. The U.S. used the Ethiopian army as a proxy conventional military force and supported this proxy with logistical support, intelligence, and perhaps air power. U.S. special operations troops and CIA Clandestine Service officers accompanied the Ethiopian army during its assault into Somalia. The Islamic Courts movement, a potential or actual ally of al-Qaeda, was routed from power at minimal financial cost to the U.S., little media exposure, and no U.S. casualties.

The New York Times article briefly discusses some of the history before the December Ethiopian blitzkrieg. According to the article, before the summer of 2006, the CIA attempted to employ native Somali militias to hunt down al-Qaeda suspects in the country. The failure of this effort illustrates a drawback of using proxies to achieve national security objectives – the available proxies may be unreliable or incompetent and thus unable to achieve the goals the U.S. government seeks. In this case, the U.S. government had the luxury of an additional option, the Ethiopian army. The U.S. and Ethiopia shared the interest of suppressing the Islamist movement inside Somalia. This fortunate convergence of interests will certainly not be present in every circumstance.

The U.S. will have to increasingly use the proxy/covert action model to achieve its national security objectives because the alternative approach, direct action with large-scale U.S. conventional ground forces, is no longer available for employment. Potential U.S. enemies have their own battle-tested model to thwart any sustained U.S. military presence. That model is a low-intensity insurgency, shown to be effective in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia (1993), Iraq, and perhaps one day, Afghanistan. If an American national security objective requires the long-term presence of U.S. ground troops for its defense against a hostile population, that hostile population has a proven plan to employ against the U.S.

Future U.S. decision-makers will in turn adapt to what these enemies have learned. There are soon to be 170,000 Coalition soldiers in Iraq and 30,000 coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. Those numbers of Western soldiers are deemed necessary to defend a new form of government installed in those places. Those governments, a strange form in those cultures, are still too feeble to stand on their own. In 2001 and 2002, when the Bush administration decided to transform the political cultures of Afghanistan and Iraq, it assumed that these cultural transformations would occur more smoothly than they actually have. And in light of the difficulties that have actually occurred, the American electorate has concluded that the reward for achieving these cultural transformations is not worth the cost.

Future U.S. administrations, having learned from the pain of the Bush experience, will likely place the burden of proof on the other side of the argument. Rather than assuming that democratic stability is the first obvious goal of an intervention campaign and automatically worthy of American soldiers and treasure, future presidents are likely to opt for merely thwarting the enemy’s objectives, even if chaos is left in the wake. Imposing a democratic peace with American force of arms will no longer be the basic plan. If it occurs as a by-product, fine. But creating enough chaos to thwart the enemy will in the future be sufficient.

No one ever thought Somalia would be a candidate for democratic nation-building – that is why it was so easy for the Bush administration to choose the chaotic proxy/covert action model. Future U.S. decision-makers, hardened as they will be by recent experience, are likely to view future situations through Somali-tinted glasses. When before they might have seen a modern, stable democracy wanting to be set free, now they will see tribalism and anarchy. And they will have a method for that, the proxy/covert action model employed so successfully in Somalia in December 2006.

“Realism” is now ascendant everywhere. How long will it take for the pendulum to pause and begin its swing the other way?

Mr. Bush confronts Iran

The biggest surprise in President Bush's speech on Iraq last night concerned Iran. In his speech, Mr. Bush explicitly described the direct harm Iranians are inflicting on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Mr. Bush then declared his intention to respond against Iranian actions. It seems as if clashes between U.S. and Iranian forces in Iraq will no longer be hushed up or discussed only by U.S. officials hiding behind deep background cover.

The offensive against Iranian infiltration commenced almost immediately after Mr. Bush finished his speech. U.S. soldiers raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil, apprehended five occupants, and seized documents from the building. This follows the apprehension of Iranians and their documents in Baghdad in late December.

During his discussion of Iran, Mr. Bush also noted the deployment of an additional U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the region and the deployment of additional Patriot anti-aircraft/anti-missile batteries to U.S. allies around the Persian Gulf.

These deployments, designed to deter Iran and reassure America's Arab allies, can be linked to Mr. Bush's plea to those allies to support the Iraqi government, something they have been reluctant to do. One gets the feeling that the new security crackdown in Baghdad is going to appear to be a largely anti-Sunni operation. Thus Mr. Bush needed to add the anti-Iranian words and actions to the speech in order to remind the Sunni Persian Gulf allies that the U.S. will increasing use military force to restrain their dreaded Iranian enemies.

What remains to be seen is whether the Iraqi government really will, as promised, direct its firepower against al-Sadr's militia in Sadr City. If Mr. Bush and his advisors are skeptical about whether this will effectively occur, cutting al-Sadr and other Shi'ite militias off from their Iranian support base would be the next best option.

Washington posturing over the surge

In his speech to the nation tonight, President Bush will announce that he is ordering 21,500 additional U.S. soldiers and Marines to Iraq, joining the 130,000 or so already there. Of the additional 21,500, 17,500 will go to Baghdad and 4,000 will reinforce the contingent in Al-Anbar province. The additional troops will begin arriving in five days (2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division is already in Kuwait), with more to arrive in phases between February and May. Many U.S. combat units already in Iraq are likely to have their tours extended through the spring.

Arguments about whether the “surge” will work (however that is defined) have raged furiously for several weeks. As this story from the Washington Post points out, Mr. Bush, who previously took pride in deferring to his generals, has now decided that he will take his own counsel on military strategy, after hearing answers from his top generals that were not to his liking.

Favoring the surge are Mr. Bush, his immediate White House staff, a few think-tank researchers at the American Enterprise Institute, and a very few number of politicians on Capitol Hill, most notably Senator John McCain. Opposing the idea of a surge is nearly everyone else, including the uniformed military and a large majority, including Republicans, in Congress (Westhawk explained why a surge would not work back on November 17th).

Rather than restate all of these points again, it might be more useful at this point to examine how the U.S. political system is dealing with Mr. Bush’s impending speech. The President’s speech and the actions following from it will have consequences. The U.S. military, executing the President’s orders, will either pacify Iraq, or (more likely) not. A U.S. politician, when contemplating how to boost his career, will have to place a bet on Mr. Bush’s chance of success. If he bets correctly, he will retain his relevancy on the Iraq issue, an issue that looks to remain paramount during the upcoming presidential campaign season. If he bets incorrectly, voters will rightly question why he should be trusted to make judgments about U.S. national security.

Thus, in terms of the political future, Senator McCain has the most to lose from the President’s new policy. Within the limits of manpower and logistics, Mr. Bush will be implementing what Senator McCain wants for Iraq. If the action fails to achieve the expected results, Senator McCain will be discredited. Indeed, Senator McCain may already be preparing for this possibility: Senator McCain apparently tried to distance himself a bit from the President’s plan during a January 5th speech at AEI – if the surge produces disappointing results, Senator McCain is likely to say that the President deployed too few additional troops for too short a period.

But a year from now, when the presidential primary season will be in full intensity, we wonder whether voters will be in the mood for such fine distinctions about troop levels and timing during the spring of 2007. They are most likely to remember that the President tried it Senator McCain’s way and it didn’t work. The question then will be whether Senator McCain is the best man to manage the Iraq war, beginning in 2009. (For other views about the impending political consequences on Senator McCain from the surge, see John C. Fortier at AEI and John Dickerson at Slate.)

The new Democratic leadership in Congress is also betting that Mr. Bush’s strategy will fail. Democratic congressional leaders are proposing only symbolic votes on Mr. Bush’s plan. They must see this as a clever political tactic, if they are highly confident that the President’s plan will actually fail. The symbolic votes will publicly express their bets against success. But they will allow the President to implement his plan and let it fail. The President will be discredited and no one will be able to blame the Democrats from preventing the possibility of winning in Iraq.

What is sadly forgotten during all of this clever scheming in Washington is the fate of the lance-corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants on Iraq’s dusty streets. If the Democrats are really so sure that Mr. Bush’s plan will only lead to more wasted American lives, one would think they would have a moral obligation to use their full powers under Article I of the Constitution to prevent these wasteful deaths. As for Senator McCain, if the President implements his prescription for Iraq and it fails, should Senator McCain then admit his faulty judgment and withdraw from the 2008 presidential race? Such resignations for flawed policy judgments happen all the time in parliamentary systems of government.

President Bush’s new policy for Iraq will have consequences extending far beyond his legacy. Although it is more than two years before the next president takes power, Mr. Bush’s new policy is already influencing that race. The President’s speech will affect the balance of power between the executive and the legislature. It will affect the prestige of the uniformed military. Most importantly, it will affect the lives of those Mr. Bush sends into harm’s way.

POSTSCRIPT

Mr. Leon Panetta, an Iraq Study Group commissioner, remembers a few months ago when General David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, opposed the surge idea. According to Mr. Panetta, none of the other generals the ISG interviewed liked the idea either.

Did Mr. Musharraf hear the news from Somalia?

On Sunday, the U.S. Special Operations Command conducted an air strike in Somalia. According to this New York Times article, an AC-130 gunship directed its immense gunfire at suspected al-Qaeda personnel. Among these al-Qaeda personnel are some suspected of involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The new government of Somalia has stated its support for this U.S. military operation.

This is good news for several reasons. First, it confirms that officers with the CIA's Clandestine Service are on the ground in Somalia; such U.S. personnel or other special operators would be required to identify targets for the U.S. Air Force. But the presence of clandestine U.S. forces on the ground confirms that the recent Ethiopian blitzkrieg against Islamist forces in Somalia received logistical, intelligence, and leadership support from the U.S. government. This means that the Bush administration is willing to employ the proxy war model to achieve U.S. national security objectives. President Bush and his staff might be learning from their experience in Iraq.

Second, recent events in Somalia should deter al-Qaeda leaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri from the notion that Somalia would be an easy new sanctuary for them and their organization. In this case, al-Qaeda would benefit from stability in Somalia while the U.S. benefits from chaos. Chaos reigns there now and this will force al-Qaeda to stay away. This is another lesson for future U.S. policymakers. As much as the U.S. fights and wrestles for stability in the world, chaos can actually be a better friend.

Finally, we wonder whether President Musharraf of Pakistan is following the news from Somalia. He might have hoped that the al-Qaeda men currently in Pakistan's mountains might have decamped to Somalia. That will not happen now. With Paksitan's relations with Afghanistan and possibly the U.S. heading downhill, pressure will increase to do something about the Taliban/al-Qaeda sanctuary on Pakistan's territory. It may not be long before the AC-130s range as freely over Waziristan as they do now over southern Somalia.

Whose definition of victory?

On Wednesday evening, President Bush will announce the new U.S. strategy for Iraq. Mr. Bush will explain why it is imperative that the United States achieve “victory” in Iraq. The U.S. government’s definition of victory has always been the establishment of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democratic government in Iraq that is subject to the rule of law, respects minority rights, and is at peace with its neighbors.

Regrettably, very few Iraqis, at least those who lead Iraq’s various factions, share this American vision. Yet the American government continues to insist that Iraq’s leaders accept and implement this vision. The leaders of Iraq’s factions have a far different view of “victory.” In addition to the unbridgeable chasm between Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and Iraq’s Shi’ites and Kurds is an unbridgeable chasm cleaving the American and Iraqi views of how to achieve personal security through governance. It is these multiple political chasms that have led to frustration and grief for all involved with Iraq.

The U.S. government’s definition of victory is stated above. How would Iraq’s Sunni Arabs define “victory”? This article from the San Francisco Chronicle sought out leaders of the Sunni insurgency and asked them:

The former Republican Guard general [now connected to the Sunni insurgency] said the current government must be dissolved and replaced with "a military or political command council." He did not explain how this council should be chosen, except that it would be made up of "patriotic Iraqis" who are "not loyal to Iran" -- a demand that presumably excludes members of the leading Shiite organizations.

Then, he said, the U.S. military must grant recognition to the insurgents and allow them to make a televised appeal to the former army to muster its ranks.

"What is most important is to call the former army back to service and implement the obligatory deployment of the army to show the national unity of Iraqis," he said. Within a month and a half, he claimed, more than 100,000 members of the former army could report to duty, followed two months later by withdrawal of one-half of all U.S. troops. Within another six months, new elections would be held, followed by departure of the remaining Americans.

At a Dec. 16-17 conference in Baghdad, al-Maliki's government announced a new open-door policy toward former members of Hussein's regime and invited former army officers to rejoin the military. So far, there appear to have been few takers.

There are obviously no Shi’ite or Kurdish leaders who would have anything to do with these demands - they amount to reinstalling the Baathists in power.

At this point, readers might object to the use of the insurgents’ manifesto as really being representative of Sunni Arab political goals. Those few Sunni Arab leaders who have survived assassination attempts and participate, at the margins, in Iraq’s government, exercise no authority over the insurgency. Nor are they helpful in ending it, either through negotiation or through revealing it. Thus, they are not very relevant to a solution.

From the Shi’ite perspective, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani seems to be the beginning, middle, and end of the Shi’ite political position. For nearly a year, the U.S. government, U.S. ambassador Khalilzad, and a selection of Sunni, Shi’ite, and Kurdish political parties have attempted to form a moderate, cross-sectarian political front. This front would include the Iraqi Islamic Party (Sunni), SCIRI (Shi’ite), and the Kurdish parties. It would isolate the extremists on both sides. This government would have been Iraq’s best shot at political reconciliation.

Yet Ayatollah al-Sistani continues to reject this formulation. For him, Shi’ite unity is paramount. He has rejected any proposal that would lead to the isolation of al-Sadr’s party and his Dawa allies, even if it means sectarian civil war in Iraq. No Shi’ite leaders have dared to defy Mr. al-Sistani.

Indeed, the Shi’ite Islamists have a very clear idea how to achieve “victory.” They blame the Americans for preventing them from achieving it:

“The American government must give the Iraqi government complete sovereignty, which means that the Iraqi army will have the authority to strike the takfiri Baathists with an iron hand, without any interference from the Americans," said Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia that has been largely incorporated into the Interior Ministry and, along with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, is widely blamed for death-squad attacks on Sunnis.

It isn’t that surprising that two weeks ago American soldiers stumbled upon two high ranking officers from Iran’s Al Quds special intelligence organization in Mr. al-Amiri’s Baghdad home.

President Bush demands for Iraq an outcome few if any of Iraq’s leaders want for their own country. After three decades of living in the stench of fear, Iraqis should be forgiven if they don’t see how Western political theories will help them stay alive from night to night. For them, personal security doesn’t come from a constitution’s fine checks and balances. It comes from raw firepower, and those who can best organize it – the family, the clan, the tribe, and a political party cum militia. This is how Arab societies have organized themselves for centuries. It is too much to ask them to discard this tradition in the best of times let alone in the midst of a smoldering civil war.

Sadly, Arab political development is about where Western European political development was six hundred years ago. President Bush thought he could help Iraq leap over the centuries in the span of a few years. It may not take six centuries for Iraq to catch up. But it seems certain to take more than four years.

What Pakistan’s minefields are really for

Never good, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are heading downhill fast. Responding to clear evidence that Taliban and al-Qaeda militants are using Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province as a sanctuary to support the Taliban rebellion inside Afghanistan, Pakistan has proposed laying minefields along the frontier to deter Taliban infiltration from the Waziristan sanctuary into Afghanistan. The Afghan government is neither impressed nor pleased, as this report from the Washington Post discusses:

Many Afghans have echoed [Afghan President] Karzai's assertion that [the minefields] would arbitrarily divide the Pashtun tribes that live on both sides of the border, while insurgents would continue to slip across.

Moreover, Afghanistan has endured terrible human suffering from hundreds of thousands of land mines laid during 25 years of military conflict, first by the occupying Soviet army in the 1980s and then by warring Afghan Islamic militia factions in the 1990s. The United Nations and other aid groups have spent millions of dollars on mine clearance, but many areas are still infested with the deadly devices.

"We are against planting mines on the border because we have many bad memories of mines in Afghanistan," Mir Wali Khan, a member of Afghan's parliament from Helmand province, said in a telephone interview Saturday. "This cannot possibly stop the terrorists, and it's not even clear where the border is. Pakistan always lies about trying to help us. They don't want a stable Afghanistan, they are just interfering in our affairs."

The Pakistan government insists that its proposal is sincere:

Pakistani officials, in turn, maintain that they have tried every possible means of reining in the Islamic fighters, first sending about 80,000 army troops to the restive border areas and then negotiating agreements with tribal leaders who pledged to control or eject armed Islamic groups. Both efforts have met with major problems.

"We have been the target of a whisper campaign that we are not doing enough, but no one has yet defined what enough is," Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan's minister of state for information, said in an interview Saturday. "We have gone the extra mile, and we have lost many troops. This is a joint fight and a joint struggle, but we can only look after our side of the border. The Afghans have to look after their side, too."

[…]

"If people take the legal routes, there will be no problem. They will be clearly marked," the information minister said. "Our intention is to go after those who want to move illegally," he said, comparing Pakistan's plan to the strenuous efforts made by U.S. authorities to stop illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico.

Since well before the founding of Pakistan in 1947, the Muslim population in that region has viewed Afghanistan as a refuge from periodic pressure inflicted on it from the massive Hindu population to the east. Afghanistan has been a part of Pakistan’s policy of “strategic depth” and remains so today. Its protests to the contrary notwithstanding, Pakistan remains opposed to a strong Afghanistan that would have the ability to defend its southwestern border against periodic migrations from Pakistan. The Pakistani government’s tolerance and covert support of the Taliban is a strategy to achieve this objective.

The Pakistani government knows that Afghan and American patience with its tactics are rapidly wearing thin. Afghanistan cannot become stable and peaceful as long as Taliban sanctuaries in Waziristan remain. Perhaps Pakistan is becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of covert Afghan or American raids against Taliban encampments inside Pakistan, a tactic Westhawk has recommended (Bill Roggio has passed on a report of increased American reconnaissance flights over Pakistan’s frontier areas).

Thus, Pakistan’s unilateral emplacement of minefields along the frontier would be designed to frustrate and disrupt Afghan and American patrols into Pakistan, not to keep Taliban militants out of Afghanistan. We should presume that the Taliban, working with their friends in the Pakistani intelligence service, will create whatever passageways through the minefields they need for their operations into Afghanistan. Possible Afghan and American ground patrols into Pakistan, by contrast, would have their planning and operations complicated by the increased presence of land mines.

From the Afghan government’s perspective, the Pakistanis are raising the stakes in the defense of their Taliban proxy. Whatever minimal trust that might exist between the two governments seems to now be draining away. American generals and diplomats have labored to bring the two sides together. But this remains a forlorn dream as long as Pakistan retains its perceived need for “strategic depth” at Afghanistan’s expense.

Observers should not fear a final breakdown in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The acceptance of hostilities between the two nations will clarify a situation that is now covered over with diplomatic obfuscation, to the detriment of Afghanistan, the U.S., and the NATO alliance. Recognition of a state of hostilities along the Durand Line would allow the Afghan army and the Americans to employ tactics they are currently forbidden to use. For their part, the Taliban and al Qaeda have never been under any similar restraint.

So let the bickering between Presidents Karzai and Musharraf intensify. “Cooperation” between the two has yet to be of much use to Afghanistan.

Job changes everywhere. Will they matter?

There will be a flurry of changes in American military, intelligence, and diplomatic leadership positions. In preparation for what will certainly be President Bush’s last chance to have an influence on Iraq, he is changing most of the senior personnel that will have to implement whatever policy he announces.

As Defense Secretary Gates (himself a significant change) announced today, here are the changes in military leadership:

General John Abizaid, Central Command: retired

General Peter Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff: retired (again)

General George Casey, from Iraq commander to Army Chief of Staff

Admiral William Fallon from Pacific Command to Central Command

General David Petraeus from the Fort Leavenworth schoolhouse to Iraq commander

Comments

From the summer of 2003 until early 2005, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. commander in Iraq, attempted to run a conventional U.S. military campaign against the Sunni and al-Sadr resistance. Only secondary attention was given to training Iraqi forces to replace the Americans. By the end of 2004, frustration in the “American-centric” military strategy was deep. General Petraeus was brought in to shape up the Iraqi training effort, which he did. General Casey replaced General Sanchez and ended, for the most part, what he thought was General Sanchez’s impracticable campaign against “a million –man Sunni army in Iraq” (referring to the number of Sunni military-aged males that would be willing to pick up a rifle). Generals Casey and Petraeus would train the Iraqis and put them in charge of security. Agreeing with General Abizaid, the U.S. presence would remain as small as possible, ensuring that Iraqis would remain motivated to take on their responsibilities.

Two years of this strategy have gone by but the frustration remains. President Bush now seems ready to go back to the Sanchez, American-centered military approach. If this is the strategy Mr. Bush wants, General Petraeus would seem to be the wrong leader to implement it. All of General Petraeus’s methods in Iraq, as commander of the 101st Airborne and running the Iraqi schoolhouse, reflected the Abizaid/Casey method. In General Petraeus, Mr. Bush may not have a commander who will be willing to have American infantrymen breaking into every house in Baghdad and beyond, as the “surge” proponents would like.

The transfer of Admiral Fallon to Centcom will be demoralizing to many of America’s flag officers. For the third time during his presidency, Mr. Bush is retaining a four-star officer after what is normally his career-ending billet (regional commander or Joint Chiefs) and instead of retirement, transferring him to a another similar posting (the first two instances were bringing General Schoomaker out of retirement and the transfer of Marine General James Jones to European Command after a full tour as Commandant). The United States will likely lose the services of 10-20 talented three and four-star officers who have been passed over so Admiral Fallon can have a second tour in one of the top few prestigious billets.

During his time at Pacific Command, Admiral Fallon has made a name for himself as a diplomat, most particularly advocating contact with the Chinese designed to avoid provocation and miscalculation. Beside his longevity in uniform, we don’t see what qualifies Admiral Fallon for Central Command more than the experiences of generals such as Conway, Mattis, Vines, McNeill, and others who have extensive experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before arriving at Pacific Command, Admiral Fallon’s career was in naval aviation at every level. We wonder if President Bush intends some significant application for this experience.


Changes on the intelligence and diplomatic side are:

John Bolton, UN ambassador: retired

John Negroponte from director of national intelligence to deputy secretary of state, a billet inexplicably vacant for many months

Zalmay Khalilzad from ambassador to Iraq to UN ambassador

Ryan Crocker from ambassador to Pakistan to ambassador to Iraq

Comments

Mr. Negroponte has served in many positions during his long career, but we can’t remember any notable effects ever delivered by his presence. Certainly the best news here is the removal of Mr. Khalilzad from Baghdad. His insistence on Iraqi national reconciliation, in fairness also a priority of all of his bosses, has only prolonged the war and is well on the way to alienating from the United States every party in the Iraq conflict. At one point the U.S. could have picked the winning side inside Iraq and could have had an ally that would have kept Al Qaeda and the Iranians at bay. But Mr. Khalilzad’s quixotic quest for reconciliation has only caused potential American friends in Iraq to instead distrust the U.S. and turn to Iran and elsewhere for safety. The UN post being an irrelevancy, Mr. Khalilzad will do less damage there.

In summary, American policy, decided by the President, will be more important than the personnel the president assigns to implement that policy. Mediocrities can successfully implement the right strategy, while brilliant talents, such as General Petraeus, will still flounder with a strategy that is impossible to achieve. Westhawk has advocated picking the winning side inside Iraq and supporting it. Moving Mr. Khalilzad out and General Petraeus in could be part of adopting that strategy. But we doubt it. There has been no indication that President Bush has changed his mind about the importance of Iraqi political reconciliation. In that case, all of the talents of these men will receive the severest test.

POSTSCRIPT

With Generals Abizaid and Schoomaker soon to be private citizens, Congressional committees will no doubt summon the generals for their public advice. Will they join the “Angry Generals” squad?

What’s the best oil price for U.S. security? High or low?

Which would be better for U.S. national security interests, a high price for crude oil or a low price? Two recent articles explore the competing claims. A low global price for crude oil could impoverish several U.S. adversaries. But a low price would increase American dependence on foreign oil sources and wipe away alternative fuel technologies. A high price for crude oil will stimulate energy alternatives and reduce U.S. dependence on energy from dubious sources. This would greatly boost America’s strategic freedom of action, giving U.S. policy makers new authority and options when dealing with unpleasant adversaries and situations. But in the short-run, a high price means high revenues for some adversaries of the U.S. So which would be better, a high or a low oil price?

The case for a low price

In his report titled The Iranian petroleum crisis and United States national security, Mr. Roger Stern, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, predicts the collapse of the Iranian oil industry. Under Mr. Stern’s most likely scenario, Iranian oil exports will decline to zero around 2014-2015. In Mr. Stern’s view, the cause of this collapse is Soviet-style economic mismanagement by Iran’s Islamic rulers. A xenophobic alienation of potential non-Iranian oil-production partners has prevented Iran from engaging essential foreign expertise to expand its oil production and refining capacity. Meanwhile, Iran’s existing oil and natural gas fields are declining, while domestic demand expands. The result is a rapid collapse of oil exports. Mr. Stern predicts no improvement in this situation as long as the Iranian regime continues its current policies of deterring foreign partnerships and subsidizing domestic gasoline demand. These policies seem to be intractable regime priorities.

Mr. Stern recommends that the West hurry along Iran’s economic collapse by adopting policies that will cause a sharp drop in the global price of crude oil. He recommends that the U.S., alone or in coordination with other global automobile manufacturers, increase the mandatory fuel economy standards for “light duty vehicles” (presumably referring to the dreaded sport utility vehicle). Mr. Stern asserts that this globally-enforced decrease in crude oil demand would create a crash in the global crude oil price similar to the price crash that occurred between 1981 and 1986. Mr. Stern claims that this crude oil price crash, combined with the predicted collapse in Iran’s crude oil exports, would do more than either economic sanctions or a military air campaign to contain Iranian expansionism.

The case for a high price

On the editorial page of Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Mr. R. James Woolsey, a former U.S. director of central intelligence, reminds us that high crude oil prices are now making a wide variety of alternative liquid fuels competitive. But the threat of a crude oil price crash, as has happened so often before, makes investors in alternative fuels nervous:

But in spite of the technological promise of alternative liquid fuels, skeptics rightly point out that it will take time to build production facilities and learn the practicalities of operating biorefineries and shifting industry from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates. Most of all there is a sense of investor caution, driven by memories of the mid-'80s and the late '90s when sharp drops in oil prices, driven in part by increased production from Saudi reserves, bankrupted such undertakings as the Synfuels Corporation. Also, industry support for moving away from oil dependence has long been weak outside agribusiness, and consumers see little immediate savings from using alternative liquid fuels.

But Mr. Woolsey predicts that oil-exporting countries (led by Saudi Arabia) will not get another chance to wipe out the alternative-fuels competition. He predicts that “plug-in” gasoline-electric hybrid cars will gain rapid acceptance. These cars combine the proven gasoline-electric hybrid power plant with the capacity to charge the car’s batteries from a garage wall-socket. Charging at night, when the current electrical power grid is vastly underutilized, the car can then travel twenty miles before the hybrid power plant takes over. Mr. Woolsey notes:

Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, [Department of Energy's] Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles.

[…]

If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors. Indian and Chinese demand and peaking oil production may make it much harder for OPEC today to use any excess production capacity to drive prices down and destroy competitive technology. But as plug-ins come into the fleet low electricity costs will stand as a substantial further barrier to such market manipulation. Since OPEC cannot drive oil prices low enough to undermine our use of off-peak electricity, it is unlikely to embark on a course of radical price cuts at all because such cuts are painful for its oil-exporter members. Plug-ins thus may well give investors enough confidence to back alternative liquid fuels without any need for new taxes on oil or subsidies to protect them.

Thus, in contrast to Mr. Stern, Mr. Woolsey describes a scenario where the global oil price remains high, but U.S. imports of crude oil will decline because electricity and alternative liquid fuels will remain economically competitive with oil and thus substitute for it.

The high price argument wins

We are more inclined to accept Mr. Woolsey’s view of the future. The rapid expansion of the middle class in the developing world, especially in China and India, seems likely to swamp other effects that would otherwise mitigate global demand for crude oil. And even as the economic “rents” enjoyed by oil producers remain stratospherically high, irrational national policies, now observed in places like Iran, Russia, Mexico, and Venezuela, combined with tribal conflicts in places such as Iraq, Nigeria, Angola, etc. may limit any useful expansion in crude oil production. Rising crude oil demand in the developing world will clash with stagnant crude oil output to keep the global crude oil price high. Creating a low price as Mr. Stern recommends is not likely a realistic policy option.

If Mr. Stern’s forecast of crashing Iranian production comes true, it will be a small matter whether the global crude oil price is high or low. Any crude oil price multiplied by zero exports still equals zero. A low price would inflict financial pain on Iran sooner, but the end result will be the same in either case. But a high price will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign imports, improving U.S. strategic flexibility.

Iran loses its shield

One of the strongest arguments against a U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear-industrial complex is the resulting price shock that would occur to the global oil market. Under Mr. Stern’s scenario, the world is going to have to adjust to declining oil exports from Iran, albeit over a somewhat longer time frame.

Once Iranian oil exports have declined to either zero or to a level that can quickly be offset with a production increase elsewhere, Iran will lose its most important shield protecting it from an American military air campaign. Of course, the need for such a campaign would presumably be moot; with its source of foreign exchange cut off, Iran could no longer finance its nuclear program.

Learning to like high oil prices

The bigger story here is how a perpetually high oil price, combined with the ideologically-motivated mismanagement of state oil industries, could very likely lead to a very favorable national security outcome for the U.S. A perpetually high oil price will create energy substitutes. In contrast to past episodes, Saudi Arabia may lack the spare capacity to offset declining production in Iran and elsewhere, let alone supply the rapidly rising demand in China, India, and the developing world. Alternative energy sources in the U.S. will create policy flexibility for U.S. foreign policy decision-makers. And ideologically-motivated mismanagement of state oil industries in Iran, Venezuela, and Russia will reduce the ability of these countries to cause trouble for U.S. national security interests (the possible collapse of Mexico’s Pemex may increase problems for the U.S., but that is a story for another day). As difficult as it is to imagine today, in a decade or so, the Middle East could become an extraneous backwater for U.S. policymakers.

POSTSCRIPT

See this article in the New York Times about how the U.S. government is persuading other governments, global banking institutions, and other large businesses to refrain from doing business with Iran. Even if the Iranian regime changes its policy about foreign partnerships in its energy industry, few may apply for the chance.

Mr. Bush risks losing control of Iraq policy

Might President Bush and his staff lose control over America's policy in Iraq? Westhawk's latest article at TCS Daily explains how this might happen.