Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, another house has erupted into flames and crumbling earth, an occurrence more and more familiar to locals. The Associated Press and other wire services report there has been no confirmation of responsibility for the missile strike; without a doubt it was the work of the US Air Force in Afghanistan and Pentagon pilots in Virginia. The increasingly brazen use of Predator drone aircraft to target suspected Taliban and local groups supporting them is one way in which Washington has demonstrated a willingness to break with the Pakistani government's unwavering position that its territorial integrity is not to be violated, even in the case of pursuing Taliban or Al-Qa'ida fighters.
Former President Pervez Musharraf can be remembered for bringing Pakistan to the United States after the attacks of 11 September 2001 and opening the doors of the Army and intelligence service to its American counterparts. What he can also be remembered for is a penchant for frustrating the US command by denying requests to cross into his northwestern provinces on numerous occasions when Taliban forces fell back to the safety of northern Baluchistan, Waziristan and the Northwest Frontier province. Elsewhere, Musharraf stymied US officials by refusing to take action the Bush administration and other government officials thought necessary to the regional 'war on terror,' from exerting the Army's full strength on the border frontier so as to squeeze Taliban and Al-Qa'ida taking refuge to at times putting more emphasis on the US carrot - foreign aid - than the road to be traveled. The invaluable role Pakistan has and will play in the war against the Taliban is unquestionable. Indeed, the way to eliminating the Taliban lies in Pakistan. However, the price that has been paid in American dollars, arms and lives far outweighs the results that have been achieved by the Musharraf government.
Forced to walk a delicate line even as a dictator, Mr. Musharraf was unable and/or unwilling to exert full control over the ISI, enforced his rule and that of the secularists in spite of a rising muslim movement in the south, placated US officials who always pressured him to do more to engage in the northern frontier, sought to keep those US officials loyal while convincing them of the need to continue and increase the foreign aid packages, successfully manipulated arms deals out of Washington to offset similar packages agreed to with the Indian government, and acceded to late US diplomacy aimed at softening his image as a dictator by returning Benazir Bhutto to power and empowering the opposition parties deeply outraged after his sacking of the increasingly critical Supreme Court. At once maintaining his own power, keeping the influential Army and ISI satisfied, holding opposition parties at bay, and doing enough to please his American financiers, his ten year reign - the 'war on terror' shaping eight of those years - was a remarkable achievement in holding to power. And depending on who you ask, he can be remembered as a great leader or an oppressive dictator or a necessary evil.
From an American perspective, putting aside all the public platitudes he received from the Bush administration, the rule of Pervez Musharraf would be hard to describe as anything more than a failed marriage. It was Pakistan's ISI that effectively ran Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and was the single most invaluable vehicle for covert US operations leading to the Soviet humiliation and withdrawal. It was also the ISI that never left while the Taliban appeared in the mid-1990's and quickly and violently asserted strict sharia control across Afghanistan, providing an open invitation to many of the Arab fighters who had since returned to the Gulf states, joined the Taliban or allied with one of the many warlords who govern the provinces. Maintaining a paternal influence over the country, not unlike Syria did in Lebanon from the 1960's-1990's, the ISI continued a relationship with the Taliban up until 9/11, after which they went through a cooling period that still did not sever ties entirely. Over the past five years, this relationship has since been renewed, although questions remain whether this is an officially sanctioned working partnership (did Musharraf approve this or perhaps look the other way?); for more on Pakistan, Musharraf and the ISI, this interview with Washington Post editor and author Steve Coll is worth a read. Put this together with Musharraf's unwillingness to swallow any more losses after a bloody and unsuccessful 2007 offensive along the frontier that ended with a truce agreement guaranteeing the northern tribes sheltering Taliban fighters would not be approached and the necessity of not appearing to be a whipping boy of the Americans by barring US and NATO commanders from crossing into Pakistan, and Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan has been as much an obstacle to military progress against the Taliban as an asset.
The decision by the Bush administration to allow presumably unauthorised flights into Pakistan's northern frontier (no unspoken arrangement permitting them has been reported anywhere I have read) to strike at suspected leadership of the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida has shown patience in Washington has also grown thin, a statement that was more concretely made last fall when the US-designed plan to bring Benazir Bhutto back into the fold was put into action, ending perhaps predictably and messily. For this attempt to liberalise the President-General, he can point to it as the most significant turnign point that led to his downfall this week.
This new-found willingness to take action in spite of Musharraf's objections is an encouraging sign for US and NATO commanders. But what will it do to relations with Pakistan and the new government? Who assumes the presidency will weigh heavily on what kind of alliance Washington has with Karachi; The New York Times addresses some of these questions here. If Nawaz Sharif, a prime minister whose terms heightened tensions with New Dehli and suggest he might share Musharraf's tolerance of the ISI's free reign while perhaps cracking down on the Army that ousted him in 1999, took power, he could be more, not less of a headache to US officials as a devout muslim to Musharraf's secularists and equally desirous of accumulating power. As happened in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Iran, the future of US foreign policy and the feasibility of conducting a productive campaign in the 'war on terror' in Central Asia ride on the next few months. That this is taking place while a new American administration is being decided adds to the high stakes game. For the next White House a decision on whether to continue the initiative taken by current commanders with the more regular Predator air strikes inside Pakistani territory is a crucial one. It is reported by The Times of London that Defense Department planning is anticipating 'an Iraq-style troop surge' next year in addition to a re-structuring of command that would see the US take the lead from NATO. For their part, both US presidential campaigns have hinted at taking such action if elected; Barack Obama and members of the Democratic Party have more openly suggested the troop surge concept for 2009. If these plans are utilised next year then it will give the US its largest presence in Afghanistan since the conflict began in late 2001. To stand a chance of achieving anything more than committing more troops to a socio-political guerrilla war amidst a nation-building campaign, US commanders and the next administration will have to take a more aggressive approach to Pakistan. Without major efforts on the part of the new Karachi government, including a crackdown on the ISI's activities and a renewed and sustained offensive in the northern frontier provinces, any military or political victories for the US, NATO or the Karzai government will be short-lived and easily erased by later losses.
The spot in which the US and NATO have found themselves can be largely attributed to Pervez Musharraf if also themselves. In Pakistan, his allies and even some nationalist opponents have noted this attitude coming from American officials and media, criticising these critics as unfairly blaming US military failures and setbacks on the now former president-general. If Musharraf can be blamed for US failures however, it is again because where Pakistan goes, so goes Afghanistan. And if the US has suffered setbacks in Afghanistan and struggled with the misconception that a more affecting achievement could be had in Baghdad, then it has also suffered from the mistaken belief that Pervez Musharraf was an imperfect but indispensable ally. In truth, lifting the foreign aid ban, placed on Pakistan after Prime Minister Sharif ordered nuclear tests in the late 1990's, once Pakistan became relevant to US interests again after 9/11 and since flooding Pakistan with billions in counter-terror-related funds and arms, including the numerous General Dynamics/Lockheed-Martin F-16 variations to balance its air force with India's, may have been a bridge that should not have been crossed at that time. Without Pakistani co-operation however, specifically that of the ISI whose contributions in intelligence have been critical if tainted by its ulterior activities, it is extremely uncertain where Afghanistan would be today.
The failure to push Musharraf's Pakistan to action more forcefully belongs to the Bush administration. Consistent with its manner of diplomacy, in which it kept its friends close and its friends of convenience even closer, this White House squandered years of potential progress against the group responsible for the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the nationalist religious group that it said was as guilty for harbouring them. As much as Pervez Musharraf owes his power to the Americans who always honoured his aid and arms requests, so too does he owe the Bush administration for many of their failures to come through on the fast-and-loose promises of 2001 and 2002, to catch'em 'dead or alive' and pursue any group that harbours those responsible.
Reilly
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Blank Check Congress'
I have written before that instead of trying to navigate the warren of defense and intelligence rabbit holes our government operates, either get it down to where and for what does money go or cut it off entirely until the establishment can get its house in order. Earlier this summer under the mantle of national security, Congress voted to give the White House $400 million for "special operations" in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other distant locales.
I have also written that our Congress should be turned over in full in the fall election. Why Senators Reid (D-NV) and Rockefeller (D-VA) should vote through another round of our hard-earned dollars to this White House after all that's happened rankles, let alone disgraces their offices and that of House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA). At a time when this nation is going through such trying and uncertain economic trouble, what arrogant gall do they have to write more blank checks for situations whose bottom line has been disappointing for years. Sure, Al-Qa'ida has taken some licks and the Taliban has been moved out of their strongholds in Kandahar. But they're still around and the Taliban's presence, more so than Al-Qa'ida's, guarantees a lengthy stay for America in the Stans. With successes that have only chased, dented and then reenergized these groups, its time the massive amounts doled out for these middling efforts to be reappropriated to areas where there is real value for the bucks, not just alleged value. If the defense establishment and civilian leaders expect billions then they should make sure their plans have better than a 50/50 shot at succeeding and their objectives are within the realm of feasibility, not high-brow presidential rhetoric (combating terror, got them on the run, scattering the leadership).
As much a discouragement the Bush administration has been, Congress' eagerness to throw money around, this after running the previous body out of office with pitchforks and torches while they decried their free-spending ways, is equally cavalier, and the fact that so much has been approved under the blanket term "national security" should anger taxpayers. For Congress, it should be just as outraged considering how much of what they went along with turned out to barely resemble what they voted for and, often, proved to be disastrous for national morale and the nation's reputation.
Despite statements from Reid, Rockefeller and Pelosi, they are just as bad as the administration. Their politics may be a different breed, but the attitude is nearly the same after all the screaming and condemning ceases. There's the national interest and national security and then there's politics and pandering, something both parties have pledged to remove from government during their revolutions (1994, 2006-2008) and seem to prove as hollow talking points just as soon as they get comfortable in their new offices.
John
I have also written that our Congress should be turned over in full in the fall election. Why Senators Reid (D-NV) and Rockefeller (D-VA) should vote through another round of our hard-earned dollars to this White House after all that's happened rankles, let alone disgraces their offices and that of House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA). At a time when this nation is going through such trying and uncertain economic trouble, what arrogant gall do they have to write more blank checks for situations whose bottom line has been disappointing for years. Sure, Al-Qa'ida has taken some licks and the Taliban has been moved out of their strongholds in Kandahar. But they're still around and the Taliban's presence, more so than Al-Qa'ida's, guarantees a lengthy stay for America in the Stans. With successes that have only chased, dented and then reenergized these groups, its time the massive amounts doled out for these middling efforts to be reappropriated to areas where there is real value for the bucks, not just alleged value. If the defense establishment and civilian leaders expect billions then they should make sure their plans have better than a 50/50 shot at succeeding and their objectives are within the realm of feasibility, not high-brow presidential rhetoric (combating terror, got them on the run, scattering the leadership).
As much a discouragement the Bush administration has been, Congress' eagerness to throw money around, this after running the previous body out of office with pitchforks and torches while they decried their free-spending ways, is equally cavalier, and the fact that so much has been approved under the blanket term "national security" should anger taxpayers. For Congress, it should be just as outraged considering how much of what they went along with turned out to barely resemble what they voted for and, often, proved to be disastrous for national morale and the nation's reputation.
Despite statements from Reid, Rockefeller and Pelosi, they are just as bad as the administration. Their politics may be a different breed, but the attitude is nearly the same after all the screaming and condemning ceases. There's the national interest and national security and then there's politics and pandering, something both parties have pledged to remove from government during their revolutions (1994, 2006-2008) and seem to prove as hollow talking points just as soon as they get comfortable in their new offices.
John
The State of Bush's Policy
As another turning point has been reached in one of the Bush administration's playgrounds, let's take stock of the neighborhood at the end of this foreign policy's run:
Afghanistan - the Defense Intelligence Agency reluctantly concludes that 50% of the country is controlled by the Taliban and that there are more than one million armed, battle-tested tribesmen in the mountainous regions, mostly along the frontier with Pakistan, resisting US, NATO and limited Pakistani efforts.
Pakistan - Washington's bought-and-paid-for military dictator Pervez Musharraf has resigned and exiled leader Nawaz Sharif looks to return to power, not the late corrupt Benazir Bhutto. The Taliban and its power remains virulent in Afghanistan and Pakistan thanks to the intelligence service's cooperation in the face of unquestioning US support expecting results on the 'war on terror' stage in the Stans.
Iraq - Perhaps the most telling truth of the US position is that Iraqi oil revenue surplus' are being ballyhooed in the Western press to signal that future reconstruction expenses should be borne by the victims, not the invader. Otherwise, the situation remains as tenuous as ever, with the exception that the Al-Maliki government is "standing up" for itself in ways more frustrating than encouraging to the US, including its all-consuming openness with Tehran.
**New Addition** Georgia - Putin is leveraging apart the US stick from Russia's eye. The Ukraine, Poland and the Balkans now stand as the next dominoes in danger of being tipped over. The precedent set on nations' sovereignty in Iraq by the US has certainly emboldened Russia and with plenty of territorial interests in Eastern Europe, there is a probable swing back toward Moscow's sphere of influence in the works after a decade of Western inroads partly tied to local oil sources.
Quite a legacy to leave behind for the next administration to deal with. But whomever takes office will be greeted by a disturbing reality: is the popular backlash to the aggressiveness of the Bush administration out of Washington's hands? Can any of these events be walked back or molded into a tolerable status quo instead of a net gain in both their challenges and degrees of difficulty?
John
Afghanistan - the Defense Intelligence Agency reluctantly concludes that 50% of the country is controlled by the Taliban and that there are more than one million armed, battle-tested tribesmen in the mountainous regions, mostly along the frontier with Pakistan, resisting US, NATO and limited Pakistani efforts.
Pakistan - Washington's bought-and-paid-for military dictator Pervez Musharraf has resigned and exiled leader Nawaz Sharif looks to return to power, not the late corrupt Benazir Bhutto. The Taliban and its power remains virulent in Afghanistan and Pakistan thanks to the intelligence service's cooperation in the face of unquestioning US support expecting results on the 'war on terror' stage in the Stans.
Iraq - Perhaps the most telling truth of the US position is that Iraqi oil revenue surplus' are being ballyhooed in the Western press to signal that future reconstruction expenses should be borne by the victims, not the invader. Otherwise, the situation remains as tenuous as ever, with the exception that the Al-Maliki government is "standing up" for itself in ways more frustrating than encouraging to the US, including its all-consuming openness with Tehran.
**New Addition** Georgia - Putin is leveraging apart the US stick from Russia's eye. The Ukraine, Poland and the Balkans now stand as the next dominoes in danger of being tipped over. The precedent set on nations' sovereignty in Iraq by the US has certainly emboldened Russia and with plenty of territorial interests in Eastern Europe, there is a probable swing back toward Moscow's sphere of influence in the works after a decade of Western inroads partly tied to local oil sources.
Quite a legacy to leave behind for the next administration to deal with. But whomever takes office will be greeted by a disturbing reality: is the popular backlash to the aggressiveness of the Bush administration out of Washington's hands? Can any of these events be walked back or molded into a tolerable status quo instead of a net gain in both their challenges and degrees of difficulty?
John
Monday, August 18, 2008
The President-General falls
Not since the long and tense days of the Iran hostage crisis has the span of a few months meant as much as the next ones for the United States and Pakistan.
President-General Pervez Musharraf's resignation - sparing himself the drawn out indignity of impeachment and the ensuing public humiliation when opposition parties would have come for him - is a watershed moment for democratic governance that is unlikely to be heralded in Washington. Losing a bulwark in arguably its most influential theatre of conflict, the US can be in no mood to celebrate a political transformation at a time when confidence in and tolerance of Pakistani ambiguity in the anti-Taliban campaign is growing thin. What's more, the re-emergence of the Taliban over the past three years has made Pakistani co-operation on Afghanistan, specifically that of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), equally critical to this war as it was when US officials began feeling out the possible reception for funneling support to armed Afghan groups after the 1980's Soviet invasion.
Now, faced again with a Pakistan lacking in leaders as accommodating, and frustrating, as President-Generals Zia Ul-Haq and Musharraf, Washington will be forced to re-assess its relationship in fundamental ways, and the next US president will be the one to steer that relationship in its new direction. For now, however, an aggressive media blitz to write the history of the US-Musharraf love affair should become clearer in the coming days; whether the testimonials bury Pervez or praise him could provide a hint to which way official Washington will lean in the deciding times of the friendship.
(More to come on Musharraf's legacy and the state of US-Paki relations going forward in the coming days)
Reilly
President-General Pervez Musharraf's resignation - sparing himself the drawn out indignity of impeachment and the ensuing public humiliation when opposition parties would have come for him - is a watershed moment for democratic governance that is unlikely to be heralded in Washington. Losing a bulwark in arguably its most influential theatre of conflict, the US can be in no mood to celebrate a political transformation at a time when confidence in and tolerance of Pakistani ambiguity in the anti-Taliban campaign is growing thin. What's more, the re-emergence of the Taliban over the past three years has made Pakistani co-operation on Afghanistan, specifically that of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), equally critical to this war as it was when US officials began feeling out the possible reception for funneling support to armed Afghan groups after the 1980's Soviet invasion.
Now, faced again with a Pakistan lacking in leaders as accommodating, and frustrating, as President-Generals Zia Ul-Haq and Musharraf, Washington will be forced to re-assess its relationship in fundamental ways, and the next US president will be the one to steer that relationship in its new direction. For now, however, an aggressive media blitz to write the history of the US-Musharraf love affair should become clearer in the coming days; whether the testimonials bury Pervez or praise him could provide a hint to which way official Washington will lean in the deciding times of the friendship.
(More to come on Musharraf's legacy and the state of US-Paki relations going forward in the coming days)
Reilly
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Deja Vu...almost
The predictable arguments by commentators and some experts that the US and Russia are rekindling their Cold War dance have already begun. While the fiasco of Iraq clings to the periphery of news, our military-industrial leaders need new causes and who better than the Russian bear. Secretary Rice has reappeared prominently on the diplomatic scene after disappearing into irrelevance for the last year or so. Her expertise on Russian issues makes her an obvious choice but also one with a lucrative future, either returning to the board of Chevron-Texaco, a major holder in Caspian oil and a potential victim of Moscow's Georgia action, or settling in to one of the scores of think tanks and foundations advising Congress and the White House.
If our media is hopeless in understanding the Middle East, it is undoubtedly more adrift on Russian satellite state geopolitics. Experienced hands and experts should not have been surprised at Mr. Putin's government's actions. So why is it that so many of these "experts" coming on cable news express shock and talk of the need to go for Russia's throat. As Reilly has written about on Lebanon, there are an unwritten set of rules that govern warfare. Many times, provocative acts aren't unprecedented or unwarranted and foreign reaction to bloodshed often carries the response to new heights. In Georgia, Moscow's incursion is hardly out of the blue; it may not even be unjustified looking at the course of this bloody war. Statements out of Russia have made perfectly clear that the government is taking a stand against the US and EU and moving forward with a reestablishment of some of its once widespread influence. Much of the media's portrayal and the reaction of politicians, however, is skewed toward the simplistic and old hat - old Soviet Russia is invading a small, defenseless, free nation it oppressed for decades and will try to again. As we wrote in a previous post on this conflict, the geopolitics of oil and gas control/access and the Eastern bloc buildup through missile defense and EU/NATO membership have contributed directly to Georgia's plight, and the US, Europe and Russia are all to blame.
For its part, Western Europe - half handcuffed bystander (energy dependency on Russia), half political/cultural foe - should not be expected to move against Moscow. Powers of "old Europe" who have resisted US pressure to emplace missile bases on their lands have held their breaths for many years waiting for the moment when Russia would reemerge from Yeltsin's break and move on strategic satellites. For the Bush administration and other corners of Washington to expect Europe to throw themselves on Georgia, let alone for the US to somehow talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk in light of prior commitments, is the sort of ideological drunkenness that led to so many misguided beliefs during the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to Viet Nam to Tehran in '79.
Beginning the familiar refrains, President Bush has led the way with some predictable and not-so-predictable gems:
Mr. Kubrick could've used these if he were making Dr. Srangelove today. The dark hilarity of some and the predictable emptiness of others highlights how routine the whole affair is being treated, as if coming from a playbook or a script everyone already has memorized. Although Putin's adventure in Georgia looks like the Cold War and the rhetoric and "diplomacy" criss-crossing the Atlantic sounds like the Cold War, this is no resumption of the Cold War. For one thing, it was not Russia encroaching on the United States through South and Central America but the US and Western Europe opening their economic doors to the bloc, knowing not only do they still serve purpose as a buffer to the Russian bear but also as the gateway to major energy resources. With Americans clamoring for the government to act to lower gas prices by drilling off our coasts if necessary, the potential to tap into one of the largest non-Mid-East sources of oil and gas is strategically and economically expedient now and nearly a decade ago when earnest international corporate interest picked up steam in the Caspian. Geopolitics at its best. And if you'd like to take the comparison further, to Moscow the US's trading of economic and security guarantees with bloc states for land rights to install its missile shield (a Cold War remnant so expansive as to only be useful against a Russian state's sizeable nuclear arsenal) is prima facie little different from Soviet Russia allying with Castro's Cuba to station ICBM's on America's doorstep. If you watched the news or listened to world leaders, you'd sure have a hard time telling the difference between the 21st century's energy-driven foreign policies and the 20th century's ideological competition.
But today it is not about political philosophy or capitalism vs socialism. Now foreign policy between the global powers center on access to resources and forming and strengthening trade alliances. In this way, Russia's adventure into Western Georgia is as alien to the Cold War as the United States' unfounded preemptive action on Iraq is to Revolutionary America. Certainly Russia intends to reassert power along its borders, but Georgia in particular is the Poland to the US and Russia's Germany - the country itself isn't important so much as what lies within its border or, in Georgia's case, along its shores. Moscow accomplishes not only intimidation and sends a not-so-subtle message to its satellites and the world at large, but also signify's that it will not allow its frontier to be exploited by international competitors. In addition, the feeling of loss after the bloc nations left the Union has remained in Moscow since 1991. To underestimate this grudge is to risk turning your back on a bear. On the other hand, to assume that pride and power are all that are in Putin's heart in moving on Georgia over-simplifies and falls into the Cold War mindset. This comfortable fallback is what we're hearing now.
If our media is hopeless in understanding the Middle East, it is undoubtedly more adrift on Russian satellite state geopolitics. Experienced hands and experts should not have been surprised at Mr. Putin's government's actions. So why is it that so many of these "experts" coming on cable news express shock and talk of the need to go for Russia's throat. As Reilly has written about on Lebanon, there are an unwritten set of rules that govern warfare. Many times, provocative acts aren't unprecedented or unwarranted and foreign reaction to bloodshed often carries the response to new heights. In Georgia, Moscow's incursion is hardly out of the blue; it may not even be unjustified looking at the course of this bloody war. Statements out of Russia have made perfectly clear that the government is taking a stand against the US and EU and moving forward with a reestablishment of some of its once widespread influence. Much of the media's portrayal and the reaction of politicians, however, is skewed toward the simplistic and old hat - old Soviet Russia is invading a small, defenseless, free nation it oppressed for decades and will try to again. As we wrote in a previous post on this conflict, the geopolitics of oil and gas control/access and the Eastern bloc buildup through missile defense and EU/NATO membership have contributed directly to Georgia's plight, and the US, Europe and Russia are all to blame.
For its part, Western Europe - half handcuffed bystander (energy dependency on Russia), half political/cultural foe - should not be expected to move against Moscow. Powers of "old Europe" who have resisted US pressure to emplace missile bases on their lands have held their breaths for many years waiting for the moment when Russia would reemerge from Yeltsin's break and move on strategic satellites. For the Bush administration and other corners of Washington to expect Europe to throw themselves on Georgia, let alone for the US to somehow talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk in light of prior commitments, is the sort of ideological drunkenness that led to so many misguided beliefs during the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs to Viet Nam to Tehran in '79.
Beginning the familiar refrains, President Bush has led the way with some predictable and not-so-predictable gems:
"We will continue to stand behind Georgia's democracy; we will continue to insist that Georgia's sovereignty and independence and territorial integrity be respected."
"Some Americans listening today may wonder why events taking place in a small country halfway around the world matter to the United States."
"Europe has moved beyond the world wars that killed millions of people, and the Cold War that divided its citizens between two superpowers."
"The Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us. A contentious relationship with Russia is not in America's interest."
"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."
Mr. Kubrick could've used these if he were making Dr. Srangelove today. The dark hilarity of some and the predictable emptiness of others highlights how routine the whole affair is being treated, as if coming from a playbook or a script everyone already has memorized. Although Putin's adventure in Georgia looks like the Cold War and the rhetoric and "diplomacy" criss-crossing the Atlantic sounds like the Cold War, this is no resumption of the Cold War. For one thing, it was not Russia encroaching on the United States through South and Central America but the US and Western Europe opening their economic doors to the bloc, knowing not only do they still serve purpose as a buffer to the Russian bear but also as the gateway to major energy resources. With Americans clamoring for the government to act to lower gas prices by drilling off our coasts if necessary, the potential to tap into one of the largest non-Mid-East sources of oil and gas is strategically and economically expedient now and nearly a decade ago when earnest international corporate interest picked up steam in the Caspian. Geopolitics at its best. And if you'd like to take the comparison further, to Moscow the US's trading of economic and security guarantees with bloc states for land rights to install its missile shield (a Cold War remnant so expansive as to only be useful against a Russian state's sizeable nuclear arsenal) is prima facie little different from Soviet Russia allying with Castro's Cuba to station ICBM's on America's doorstep. If you watched the news or listened to world leaders, you'd sure have a hard time telling the difference between the 21st century's energy-driven foreign policies and the 20th century's ideological competition.
But today it is not about political philosophy or capitalism vs socialism. Now foreign policy between the global powers center on access to resources and forming and strengthening trade alliances. In this way, Russia's adventure into Western Georgia is as alien to the Cold War as the United States' unfounded preemptive action on Iraq is to Revolutionary America. Certainly Russia intends to reassert power along its borders, but Georgia in particular is the Poland to the US and Russia's Germany - the country itself isn't important so much as what lies within its border or, in Georgia's case, along its shores. Moscow accomplishes not only intimidation and sends a not-so-subtle message to its satellites and the world at large, but also signify's that it will not allow its frontier to be exploited by international competitors. In addition, the feeling of loss after the bloc nations left the Union has remained in Moscow since 1991. To underestimate this grudge is to risk turning your back on a bear. On the other hand, to assume that pride and power are all that are in Putin's heart in moving on Georgia over-simplifies and falls into the Cold War mindset. This comfortable fallback is what we're hearing now.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Pyrrhic victory
Ask most people in this country and they will tell you we won World War II. But from a geo-strategic viewpoint, Mao Zedong gained absolute control of all mainland China and Joseph Stalin occupied all of Eastern Europe while the US and its allies took scraps of land in the Pacific. Those future foes took 100% more than what they had before the war as the US basked in a Pyrrhic victory.
Today, six years on in Iraq, the public is still being fed the mantra of winning and victory, at best a sporting cry meant to keep a narrow focus, excluding not just distractions from "the prize" but also trivial things like the human cost and questions of worth or necessity. Try selling this in the wards of Walter Reed or amidst the stony silence of Arlington.
Speaking realpolitik and unpolitically correct, we haven't won a major war on our own...ever. This continuing toleration of these vulgar victory and winning chants is obscene to me, speaking not only as an American but as a veteran whose family and life have traveled alongside the military. When human blood is spilled in the pursuit of fraudulent or pie in the sky notions, even a "justified" cause, there is no victory, only the echos that reverberate through the graveyards. If popular historians want to promote great American victories, then they should look to the times when peace has been secured without the blood of boots. Or, if bloodshed was unavoidable, promotion should be reserved for those leaders who did only what was required and never once excused their actions or shirked the responsibility that lay at their feet and theirs alone, as only a precious few have in our brief history, Mr. Washington perhaps best embodying that spirit. Sadly, so much of our history is wedded with times of war and in those times the ritualistic drum-beat of victory at all costs and always after the fact to keep the national focus less on those same costs than on what's next. Like ancient Rome, our warrior culture has made it so that battles are celebrated, if not at times welcomed, and in our brief history we have had our share. This attitude and mindset are the same that give us our capacity to think fondly of World War II as a great and just war that ended in victory, for us more than the side we joined years after the first shots were fired. And they are also that which permits such abuses of the fighting spirit as Iraq has been and as Viet Nam and the Spanish-American wars were.
This year we've been told again and again how much closer to victory we are in Iraq after the "surge." Mr. McCain promises a war's end under his watch but also "victory." Mr. Obama doesn't promise "victory" but neither does he promise "defeat" as he plans an end to the war. The truth is, it really doesn't matter because the only difference between the two is semantics - the candidate who says "victory" is naturally going to be more attractive. But "victory" in this case is just a word, and what it means (what constitutes "victory" or "winning") has become a routine of Campaign 2008.
If the status quo in Iraq remains for 5 or 50 years, that will not be enough to justify victory in the name of the tens of thousands of American lives that have been ended or debilitated by the war and the untold millions of Iraqi lives. Neither will winning be realized if Iraq becomes the faithful ally it was during the 1980's either. The disastrous or tolerable ends, to whatever degree they materialize, do not and will not justify the shameful means that brought this modern day Roman empire into a fraudulent war and have kept it there. Nonetheless, the mantra will continue and winning the war or securing victory will be heard well after the last boot finally leaves on whatever distant date from now, just as Viet Nam is still spoken of in mixed thoughts still struggling to avoid the simple truth that even when you win the battle, your victory will always be Pyrrhic so long as you leave the field with less men when your charge is counterfeit.
John
Today, six years on in Iraq, the public is still being fed the mantra of winning and victory, at best a sporting cry meant to keep a narrow focus, excluding not just distractions from "the prize" but also trivial things like the human cost and questions of worth or necessity. Try selling this in the wards of Walter Reed or amidst the stony silence of Arlington.
Speaking realpolitik and unpolitically correct, we haven't won a major war on our own...ever. This continuing toleration of these vulgar victory and winning chants is obscene to me, speaking not only as an American but as a veteran whose family and life have traveled alongside the military. When human blood is spilled in the pursuit of fraudulent or pie in the sky notions, even a "justified" cause, there is no victory, only the echos that reverberate through the graveyards. If popular historians want to promote great American victories, then they should look to the times when peace has been secured without the blood of boots. Or, if bloodshed was unavoidable, promotion should be reserved for those leaders who did only what was required and never once excused their actions or shirked the responsibility that lay at their feet and theirs alone, as only a precious few have in our brief history, Mr. Washington perhaps best embodying that spirit. Sadly, so much of our history is wedded with times of war and in those times the ritualistic drum-beat of victory at all costs and always after the fact to keep the national focus less on those same costs than on what's next. Like ancient Rome, our warrior culture has made it so that battles are celebrated, if not at times welcomed, and in our brief history we have had our share. This attitude and mindset are the same that give us our capacity to think fondly of World War II as a great and just war that ended in victory, for us more than the side we joined years after the first shots were fired. And they are also that which permits such abuses of the fighting spirit as Iraq has been and as Viet Nam and the Spanish-American wars were.
This year we've been told again and again how much closer to victory we are in Iraq after the "surge." Mr. McCain promises a war's end under his watch but also "victory." Mr. Obama doesn't promise "victory" but neither does he promise "defeat" as he plans an end to the war. The truth is, it really doesn't matter because the only difference between the two is semantics - the candidate who says "victory" is naturally going to be more attractive. But "victory" in this case is just a word, and what it means (what constitutes "victory" or "winning") has become a routine of Campaign 2008.
If the status quo in Iraq remains for 5 or 50 years, that will not be enough to justify victory in the name of the tens of thousands of American lives that have been ended or debilitated by the war and the untold millions of Iraqi lives. Neither will winning be realized if Iraq becomes the faithful ally it was during the 1980's either. The disastrous or tolerable ends, to whatever degree they materialize, do not and will not justify the shameful means that brought this modern day Roman empire into a fraudulent war and have kept it there. Nonetheless, the mantra will continue and winning the war or securing victory will be heard well after the last boot finally leaves on whatever distant date from now, just as Viet Nam is still spoken of in mixed thoughts still struggling to avoid the simple truth that even when you win the battle, your victory will always be Pyrrhic so long as you leave the field with less men when your charge is counterfeit.
John
No way out
Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review chatted with PBS' Charlie Rose Wednesday about politics. When asked what steps a new Congress and White House would take to censure the actions of the current administration regarding torture, for example, Gourevitch despairingly admitted probably nothing because the present Congress controlled by Democrats has not acted so far. It's depressing to me that after everything that's happened for the worse - "enhanced interrogation techniques," wiretapping, optional military aggression, bankrupt spending, incompetent crisis management - that the only thing left to say for posterity's sake is c'est la vie.
Contrary to the atmosphere of optimism at the prospect of better times in the near future, the reality most Americans aren't considering, or don't seem to be, is that there is no place left to look for hope of betterment. If the second Bush administration's years have yielded any truths, they are that once in office the American people may be totally ignored, not with the idea that the government is acting in your best interests even if you don't know it, but with the incomprehensible belief that no matter how much of the nation and the world are against a government's policies, theirs is the only opinion that matters; does this not dance dangerously close to monarchy? Unpopularity is one thing. Blind faith in the face of a high tide of opposition is another.
Another truth gleaned from the Bush administration is that top-down control of government, including the Supreme Court even if it's like minded judicial philosophy is the product of past administration's appointments, is the worst kind of government. In this echo chamber, one party rules, effectively ushering in a time of decidedly undemocratic rule. Sure other parties and voting Americans are represented, but if your representative holds no powers or ability to see his voters' wishes fulfilled then what is his worth, and what does Congress and the White House signify at that time other than a reminder that your view on America and her issues is not represented? I've always been in favor of recycling control every four years. No sense in letting any one party figure out all the doors the keys of power unlock.
As we're seeing the end of such a time of rule, Americans need to have returned to them a belief that they are being heard and that what they care about can be acted on at the highest levels of government. Barack Obama embodies that idea, but I can't help but consider that after his first term, and possibly six years after Democrats took control of Congress, it will be time again to shake things up. The question then is, who will be that time's agent of change and for what party?
John
Contrary to the atmosphere of optimism at the prospect of better times in the near future, the reality most Americans aren't considering, or don't seem to be, is that there is no place left to look for hope of betterment. If the second Bush administration's years have yielded any truths, they are that once in office the American people may be totally ignored, not with the idea that the government is acting in your best interests even if you don't know it, but with the incomprehensible belief that no matter how much of the nation and the world are against a government's policies, theirs is the only opinion that matters; does this not dance dangerously close to monarchy? Unpopularity is one thing. Blind faith in the face of a high tide of opposition is another.
Another truth gleaned from the Bush administration is that top-down control of government, including the Supreme Court even if it's like minded judicial philosophy is the product of past administration's appointments, is the worst kind of government. In this echo chamber, one party rules, effectively ushering in a time of decidedly undemocratic rule. Sure other parties and voting Americans are represented, but if your representative holds no powers or ability to see his voters' wishes fulfilled then what is his worth, and what does Congress and the White House signify at that time other than a reminder that your view on America and her issues is not represented? I've always been in favor of recycling control every four years. No sense in letting any one party figure out all the doors the keys of power unlock.
As we're seeing the end of such a time of rule, Americans need to have returned to them a belief that they are being heard and that what they care about can be acted on at the highest levels of government. Barack Obama embodies that idea, but I can't help but consider that after his first term, and possibly six years after Democrats took control of Congress, it will be time again to shake things up. The question then is, who will be that time's agent of change and for what party?
John
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
'There are many interpretations, political interpretations'
Another scorched bus, another thoroughfare stained with blood, another chance for Lebanon's parties to point fingers. How many times has this scene materialised in the Middle East? A carbonised vehicle was a daily sight in Iraqi streets for much of the war. Public buses surrounded by yellow tape as they sat with their seats upturned and burned to the metal framing are a fresh memory for many Israeli families. In poor Lebanon, an echoing boom accompanied by an ominous cloud of earth and flesh and flame is an all too familiar experience.
Early Wednesday the bomb detonated near a busy Tripoli roadway filled with civilians, apparently targeting an army 'gathering point,' hitting its target when a bus carrying nine soldiers passed by. As the dead await a family's claim and the wounded lie bleeding in hospitals, the accusations of responsibility have begun, the ritual of March 14 blaming Syria and the Hizb'allah-led opposition denying involvement or sanction. And indeed there is some question now to who is behind these and other acts of barbarity in Tripoli this summer. Is it another chapter in Lebanon's struggle for individuality from Damascus? Or is this something altogether different, something unleashed after the July War of 2006?
Agence France Presse quotes Oussama Safa of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies suggesting the attacks on the army are 'retribution' for the campaign in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared camp last year where the army attempted to eliminate an armed sunni group some claimed was a local agent of Al-Qa'ida. Indeed, the series of assassinations and targeted murder of Lebanese soldiers does support the idea. But if this is true then there is an even starker and more disturbing realisation - Lebanon is even closer to civil war than anyone thought. Certainly, the blatant bloodshed following opposition protests in the capital already made it perfectly clear that there are leaders and parties willing to back up their words with action and won't allow insult to pass unnoticed. But the battles have always been among the parties and the sects, not with the government or the perceived barter of stability, the Lebanese Army. Now, with Michel Suleiman serving as the compromise choice for president after last year's Doha broker, the attacks on the army are all the more significant as a watershed, crossing the line into open conflict with the state even if the sides are not yet clearly defined.
The dirty little words - civil war - may have been on the lips of more than a few veterans of the last in months and years past, but a palpable sense of fear continues to guide most of the parties. During the hopeless days of the government protest, there was always a perception that the sides were willing to go only so far, despite the always-heated and loaded rhetoric - Secretary-General Nasrallah's calls to arms; MP Walid Jumblatt's public expectation and embrace of martyrdom by Syrian hands.
In an era when cross currents roil the region from end to end and influences rise and fall, the possibility of imported grudges and forgotten costs are at an all-time high. Lebanon suffers not only from a demographic shift (shi'a) but the old games of cat-and-mouse (Israel, Syria) and the shockwave of Iraq whose side effects have reached like tentacles into every nation in the Mid-East. And even before the full brunt of Iraq was felt in Lebanon, she was already joining in by sending young sunni men to join the Iraqi insurgency.
Wednesday morning, all her battles crystalised on Masarif Street. Like the bomb that shattered another morning's commute and snuffed out nine lives, poor Lebanon sits as always on the edge of a blade with no one willing to give that last push yet no one willing to remove the blade.
Reilly
Early Wednesday the bomb detonated near a busy Tripoli roadway filled with civilians, apparently targeting an army 'gathering point,' hitting its target when a bus carrying nine soldiers passed by. As the dead await a family's claim and the wounded lie bleeding in hospitals, the accusations of responsibility have begun, the ritual of March 14 blaming Syria and the Hizb'allah-led opposition denying involvement or sanction. And indeed there is some question now to who is behind these and other acts of barbarity in Tripoli this summer. Is it another chapter in Lebanon's struggle for individuality from Damascus? Or is this something altogether different, something unleashed after the July War of 2006?
Agence France Presse quotes Oussama Safa of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies suggesting the attacks on the army are 'retribution' for the campaign in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared camp last year where the army attempted to eliminate an armed sunni group some claimed was a local agent of Al-Qa'ida. Indeed, the series of assassinations and targeted murder of Lebanese soldiers does support the idea. But if this is true then there is an even starker and more disturbing realisation - Lebanon is even closer to civil war than anyone thought. Certainly, the blatant bloodshed following opposition protests in the capital already made it perfectly clear that there are leaders and parties willing to back up their words with action and won't allow insult to pass unnoticed. But the battles have always been among the parties and the sects, not with the government or the perceived barter of stability, the Lebanese Army. Now, with Michel Suleiman serving as the compromise choice for president after last year's Doha broker, the attacks on the army are all the more significant as a watershed, crossing the line into open conflict with the state even if the sides are not yet clearly defined.
The dirty little words - civil war - may have been on the lips of more than a few veterans of the last in months and years past, but a palpable sense of fear continues to guide most of the parties. During the hopeless days of the government protest, there was always a perception that the sides were willing to go only so far, despite the always-heated and loaded rhetoric - Secretary-General Nasrallah's calls to arms; MP Walid Jumblatt's public expectation and embrace of martyrdom by Syrian hands.
In an era when cross currents roil the region from end to end and influences rise and fall, the possibility of imported grudges and forgotten costs are at an all-time high. Lebanon suffers not only from a demographic shift (shi'a) but the old games of cat-and-mouse (Israel, Syria) and the shockwave of Iraq whose side effects have reached like tentacles into every nation in the Mid-East. And even before the full brunt of Iraq was felt in Lebanon, she was already joining in by sending young sunni men to join the Iraqi insurgency.
Wednesday morning, all her battles crystalised on Masarif Street. Like the bomb that shattered another morning's commute and snuffed out nine lives, poor Lebanon sits as always on the edge of a blade with no one willing to give that last push yet no one willing to remove the blade.
Reilly
Monday, August 11, 2008
Mr. Putin's Georgian adventure
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his government (it is his in all but name especially so after protege Dmitry Medvedev took his place as president earlier this year) are not allowing their resorts on the Black Sea to be taken over by dissidents anymore than American President George Bush and his formerly Lone Star staff would allow the Cubans to usurp the sandy shores of South Padre Island. That said, Georgia and South Ossetia are important strategic territories for Russia, and the United States, and this gets to the heart of what the bloodshed is all about, apart from centuries-old tribal feuds.
For the duration of his administration and the latter part of his predecessors, Mr. Bush and his White House have orchestrated a military buildup in the disputed Caspian nation, including training and arming the loyalists of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with the clear intent of separating the state of Georgia permanently from Mother Russia. Despite some print commentaries downplaying the US presence there, the importance of Georgia to long-term US goals is as understated as any nation in the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, because there is nothing less than a significant fledgling source of foreign oil (Caspian Sea) at stake in the form of the Baku, Azerbaijan-to-Ceyhan, Turkey pipeline; the old Cold War game of geo-politics may be at the forefront (EU admission and NATO's continued relevance) but the energy angle is not one being left out of discussion in certain circles. Putin, wanting a new status quo for the next US administration has moved accordingly, making plenty of bold statements directed at Washington to stay out of its fight.
Much of the Western press is painting Russia as the aggressor along with some world leaders, both falling back into the Cold War habit. To do so, however, is to ignore the general strategy the US and Europe have adopted in the Eastern bloc and surrounding satellite states of former Soviet Russia, namely, the installation of a plainly belligerent and outdated ballistic missile defense shield whose purpose was outworn almost as soon as President Reagan's White House suggested the idea and the moves toward cultivation of an alternative flow of Caspian oil in bloc nations in direct competition with a Russia that has not yet conceded the permanent loss of such nations and whose act constitutes a continuation of post-Soviet realignments of power and control. Simply, the 'victors' (non-bankrupt?) of the Cold War are yet to be seen by Russian eyes as neighbors and trade partners rather than competitors and adversaries in some form if not military.
Georgia and its internal conflicts will be resolved from Moscow after this latest chest pumping, not in Whitehall or Washington. Western states are expressing concern in equal measure with hesitation to say much at all beyond disapproval at the loss of any life any where. But their ability to move Russia to do anything it is unwilling to do is severely limited, if only because of the way the UN Security Council voting rules are structured. The United Nations shouldn't be subjected to another round of 'for decorations purposes only,' yet there will be the inevitable emergence of those who view it as an obsolete institution to be tolerated only. Where perception stands at that point, muddled as it is likely to be when the Olympics and international grandstanding are on display and the US presidential race is mere weeks away from another consuming night-and-day spectacle, is surely to be a mix mash of opinion and lobbying from all manner of foreign policy circles that have little to do with what is actually happening, but rather what some think is happening or say is happening or believe is happening. At that time, the discussion won't go anywhere near to asking how did Russia come to strike at Georgia and now. But if it did, we doubt it will be said that anyone outside Russia and Georgia had anything to do with the whole bloody affair.
The bodies will be counted and buried, lives will be vaporized and crushed under tons of collapsed cement and twisted rebar. In another world, men and women in fine clothing will talk and issue statements; serious looking Ph.D's and "formers" from this institute or that will condemn and advocate. But those lives will remain lost, Russian and Georgian and Ossetian, now, in the past and the future, and their only lasting memory to the world will be the cacophony of opinion determined to drown out what are simply and monstrously crimes against humanity ordered and fostered from the grave and the cradle, a war reaching from the past and welcomed to the present.
For the duration of his administration and the latter part of his predecessors, Mr. Bush and his White House have orchestrated a military buildup in the disputed Caspian nation, including training and arming the loyalists of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with the clear intent of separating the state of Georgia permanently from Mother Russia. Despite some print commentaries downplaying the US presence there, the importance of Georgia to long-term US goals is as understated as any nation in the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, because there is nothing less than a significant fledgling source of foreign oil (Caspian Sea) at stake in the form of the Baku, Azerbaijan-to-Ceyhan, Turkey pipeline; the old Cold War game of geo-politics may be at the forefront (EU admission and NATO's continued relevance) but the energy angle is not one being left out of discussion in certain circles. Putin, wanting a new status quo for the next US administration has moved accordingly, making plenty of bold statements directed at Washington to stay out of its fight.
Much of the Western press is painting Russia as the aggressor along with some world leaders, both falling back into the Cold War habit. To do so, however, is to ignore the general strategy the US and Europe have adopted in the Eastern bloc and surrounding satellite states of former Soviet Russia, namely, the installation of a plainly belligerent and outdated ballistic missile defense shield whose purpose was outworn almost as soon as President Reagan's White House suggested the idea and the moves toward cultivation of an alternative flow of Caspian oil in bloc nations in direct competition with a Russia that has not yet conceded the permanent loss of such nations and whose act constitutes a continuation of post-Soviet realignments of power and control. Simply, the 'victors' (non-bankrupt?) of the Cold War are yet to be seen by Russian eyes as neighbors and trade partners rather than competitors and adversaries in some form if not military.
Georgia and its internal conflicts will be resolved from Moscow after this latest chest pumping, not in Whitehall or Washington. Western states are expressing concern in equal measure with hesitation to say much at all beyond disapproval at the loss of any life any where. But their ability to move Russia to do anything it is unwilling to do is severely limited, if only because of the way the UN Security Council voting rules are structured. The United Nations shouldn't be subjected to another round of 'for decorations purposes only,' yet there will be the inevitable emergence of those who view it as an obsolete institution to be tolerated only. Where perception stands at that point, muddled as it is likely to be when the Olympics and international grandstanding are on display and the US presidential race is mere weeks away from another consuming night-and-day spectacle, is surely to be a mix mash of opinion and lobbying from all manner of foreign policy circles that have little to do with what is actually happening, but rather what some think is happening or say is happening or believe is happening. At that time, the discussion won't go anywhere near to asking how did Russia come to strike at Georgia and now. But if it did, we doubt it will be said that anyone outside Russia and Georgia had anything to do with the whole bloody affair.
The bodies will be counted and buried, lives will be vaporized and crushed under tons of collapsed cement and twisted rebar. In another world, men and women in fine clothing will talk and issue statements; serious looking Ph.D's and "formers" from this institute or that will condemn and advocate. But those lives will remain lost, Russian and Georgian and Ossetian, now, in the past and the future, and their only lasting memory to the world will be the cacophony of opinion determined to drown out what are simply and monstrously crimes against humanity ordered and fostered from the grave and the cradle, a war reaching from the past and welcomed to the present.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
