House of War

Arnold Kling, drawing on the work of Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast, says in a January 2007 article for TCS that Iraq “under Saddam Hussein was a limited-access order, or “natural state.” And, furthermore, that “Iraq was never on the “doorstep” of becoming an open-access order.”

His analysis uses a model of macro-socio-economic development that begins with the simplest type of hunter-gatherer societies, referred to as “primitive orders”, progresses through “limited access orders” or “natural states”, the first and most enduring civilisational mode, and finishes with the historically recent advance of “open access orders”. A “limited access order” is North et al’s term for a society that “strictly limits access to positions of power within political, economic, and religious systems.” An “open access order”, on the other hand, is a society “characterized by open political and economic competition, rather than the limited political and economic privileges enjoyed solely by elites in natural states.” Transition between the two is rare (Spain, Ireland and Taiwan are some of the latest), because “the state’s foremost task is securing its own survival”, and so it feels the process of change as a threat to its very existence – and the existence of the elites it serves – which, of course, it is.

For that reason, Kling concludes that the US will never succeed “in its objective of establishing an open-access order in Iraq.” At present, the country is barely any kind of order, limited access or otherwise, and the thought of creating a liberal democracy with a vibrant market economy seems faintly ridiculous, certainly premature. Start with a limited access order, he advises, which can provide security and can establish and consolidate the necessary preliminary stage of economic development. Without the self-interest of an elite who feel that they have “a stake in peace”, Iraq will stall and remain a failed state.

I have previously wondered whether it is wise to be resuscitating, or helping to resuscitate, ethnic, tribal identities to shore up the fall-out from the destruction of the Iraqi state. Perhaps we are simply facilitating, entrenching and developing sectarianism. However, the implications of Kling’s article are that progression to a democratic market economy is impossible without first developing as a natural state, as unpalatable as that may be to westerners. “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” and as such we will have to give elites preferential access to political and economic power, or deny them at the cost of state failure and realising Iraq’s potential as an eventual open access order.

Robert Kaplan wrote a recent op-ed for The Atlantic, in which he noted that,

Iraq has had three elections that have led to chaos. Bringing society out of that chaos has meant a recourse not to laws or a constitution, but to blood ties. The Anbar Awakening has been a rebuff not only to the extremism of al-Qaeda, but to democracy itself. Restoring peace in Anbar has been accomplished by a lot of money changing hands, to the benefit of unelected but well-respected tribal sheikhs, paid off with cash and projects by our soldiers and marines. Progress in Iraq means erecting not a parliamentary system, but a balance of fear among tribes and sectarian groups.

It seems that a year since Kling wrote “Iraq’s Natural State” in TCS, the US military is acting out his suggestions. Petraeus, and the new COIN-as-anthropology approach he implemented, seeks to work with the grain of existing cultures rather than attempting to impose new rule-sets from the top down. As the natural state develops out of the centralisation of power in the hands of dominant groups, a natural state is precisely what is developing in Iraq with the empowerment of the tribes. Given a stake in the maintenance of order, i.e. they feel they have more to gain by participating, they uphold the state.

Perhaps this might even aid the state moving up the order-type value chain. Pluralism or plurality of access to economic and political power is, after all, part of what makes open access orders what they are. Such a situation is doubtless more fragile – Saddam found it easier to be a tyrant than the US is finding it to be a liberator – but also more worthwhile: for greater risk (and associated cost), there is greater return.

The still unanswered question is whether the various tribal powers, religious factions and ethnic groups can all be reconciled to the natural state of Iraq. Can be power be centralised and dispersed at the same time? Federalism is probably the most realistic and sustainable solution.

We certainly hope so (from The Financial Times):

Violence in Iraq has fallen at a rate that has surprised military commanders and even one of the architects of the “surge” that boosted US troop numbers in the country this year, according to figures gathered by the US.

The figures show the numbers of suicide attacks, roadside bombings, mortar and other attacks on US forces and on the Iraqi population have more than halved since 30,000 extra troops in June.

The military attributes the decline to the surge, the spread of local ceasefire deals across Iraq, a ceasefire by radical Shia militias and an improvement in the Iraqi security forces.

Jack Keane, the former army general who helped persuade George W. Bush, US president, to increase troop numbers in Iraq, said the decrease in violence was “phenomenal” and had occurred far faster than he had expected.

“When you understand you are dealing with the complexity of a counter-insurgency operation which can take years to resolve, to have this dramatic a success in a short period of time, it’s unprecedented,” he said.

The US military says the number of civilian deaths has also fallen 60 per cent since the surge took effect, with a drop of 75 per cent in Baghdad. According to icasualties.org, the average monthly US death toll dropped from 96 for the first half of 2007 to 66 in the past four months. The average monthly death toll for Iraqi civilians and security forces has dropped from 2,157 to 1,223 in the same period….

Martin Amis, writing in The Times on 9/11 and the Cult of Death:

Sayyid Qutb, like someone relaying a commonplace or even a tautology, often said that it is in the nature of Islam to dominate. Where, though, are its tools and its instruments? The only thing Islamism can dominate, for now, is the evening news. But that is not nothing, in a world of pandemic suggestibility, munition glut, and our numerous Walter Mittys of mass murder. September 11 entrained a moral crash, planet-wide; it also loosened the ground between reality and reverie. So when we speak of it, let’s call it by its proper name; let’s not suggest that our experience of that event, that development, has been frictionlessly absorbed and filed away. It has not. September 11 continues, it goes on, with all its mystery, its instability, and its terrible dynamism.

General Petraeus reports to Congress:

As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met. In recent months, in the face of tough enemies and the brutal summer heat of Iraq, Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces have achieved progress in the security arena. Though the improvements have been uneven across Iraq, the overall number of security incidents in Iraq has declined in 8 of the past 12 weeks, with the numbers of incidents in the last two weeks at the lowest levels seen since June 2006.

One reason for the decline in incidents is that Coalition and Iraqi forces have dealt significant blows to Al Qaeda-Iraq. Though Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq remain dangerous, we have taken away a number of their sanctuaries and gained the initiative in many areas.

We have also disrupted Shia militia extremists, capturing the head and numerous other leaders of the Iranian-supported Special Groups, along with a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative supporting Iran’s activities in Iraq.

Coalition and Iraqi operations have helped reduce ethno-sectarian violence, as well, bringing down the number of ethno-sectarian deaths substantially in Baghdad and across Iraq since the height of the sectarian violence last December. The number of overall civilian deaths has also declined during this period, although the numbers in each area are still at troubling levels.

Iraqi Security Forces have also continued to grow and to shoulder more of the load, albeit slowly and amid continuing concerns about the sectarian tendencies of some elements in their ranks. In general, however, Iraqi elements have been standing and fighting and sustaining tough losses, and they have taken the lead in operations in many areas.

Additionally, in what may be the most significant development of the past 8 months, the tribal rejection of Al Qaeda that started in Anbar Province and helped produce such significant change there has now spread to a number of other locations as well….

The post at SWJ includes the full transcript and briefing slides for both General Petraeus’ and Ambassador Crocker’s Congressional testimonies.

Additional Assessment:

Col. Pat Lang - Petraeus and Crocker - Intersting

B. Smith & J. Martin - The Candidates Respond to Petraeus

E.J. Dionne - The Surge Has Succeeded… in Washington

Michael Yon - Don’t Ask Me What I Think about the Petraeus Report

Thomas P.M. Barnett - Petraeus’ report was everything we were told it would be

Karen DeYoung & Thomas Ricks - The General’s Long View Could Cut Withdrawal Debate Short

Jonathan Rauch - Be Angry… but Patient

Jacob Laksin - Surgin’ General

Frederick W. Kagan - No Middle Way

Tony Bey - Gen. Petraeus on Iran, Hezbollah and Syria in Iraq

The Times editorial - Listen to Petraeus

Gerard Baker - General Petraeus polarises Washington

Babak Dehghanpisheh & John Barry - The Brains Behind the Petraeus Iraq Report

The air of the blogosphere is currently thick with rumours that the US government is preparing the ground for an attack on its most trenchant enemy in the Middle East: Iran. Iran has been a determined ideological foe of the United States of America since the time of the Iranian Revolution and the inception of Komeini’s regime. It was responsible for the kidnapping of American embassy personnel in 1979, the attack on the USMC barracks in Beruit in 1983 and the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, as well as regularly excoriating America as, using the now notoriously familiar epithet, “the Great Satan”. In fact, according to noted “neo-con” and Iranian expert Michael Ledeen, “for nearly thirty years, the Iranians continuously attacked us, and, aside from some harsh rhetoric from time to time, we never responded.” In addition, Ledeen states in a recent NRO interview, that Iran and Al Qaeda have “been working together since 1994, and we are now up to our uvulas in evidence showing Iran’s support for al Qaeda in Iraq.”

Even if you believe, as many seem to, that Ledeen is unreliable and ideologically suspect, the broad consensus on Iranian involvement in Iraq is hard to ignore. The narrative is now well established: Iran is historically the regional powerhouse, and the liberation of Iraq removed its chief rival and peer, as well as empowering Iraqi Shia co-religionists. The US also removed the militant Wahabbi regime in Afghanistan, another country which, like Iraq, shares a border with Iran. Hence the Iraq war has provided an incredible boost to the aspirations of the Iranian leadership, who desire to become a regional hegemon in the style of their historical predecessors. Absent even the facts (such as they are), and common sense still tells you that Iran must try to aid its political or religious allies in Iraq (and even groups that one would consider its natural enemies), frustrate its foes (be they American, Sunni or otherwise), and protect its interests. Only a fool or someone who doesn’t care about holding power would do otherwise. More broadly, it is surely the case that no regime in the Middle East who fears reform and “Americanisation” (i.e. opening up the country to globalised trade and liberal democracy) could possibly welcome the establishment of a secure and successful secular state on its doorstep. Iran follows the same logic.

Obviously, the chief worry at the present time is the Iranian search for a nuclear bomb, which would make it a nuclear Islamic power, an elite group that currently consists of just one country: Pakistan. According to the American strategist Thomas Barnett,

Tehran’s reach for the bomb, quite frankly, makes a ton of strategic sense given: 1) our recent wars on its right and left and our avowed talk of regime change and 2) Schelling’s historical point that the bomb ends your vulnerability to U.S. invasion (in fact, invasion or attack from anyone–in short, deterrence works, whether you’re Tehran or Tel Aviv).

In short, Barnett’s view is that Iran’s desire for the bomb is merely common sense; unfortunate that it will further destabilise the region and increase the potential for nuclear war, yes, but common sense nonetheless. It is this struggle that is adding tension to a Middle East already brimming with nervous anxiety. There is a time limit now, for “dealing” with Iran. After they build a nuclear weapon, even the small amount of leverage we currently have from the threat of punitive military action will be removed. And of course, the prospect of adding nuclear weapons to the heady regional brew of radical Islam, failing states, simmering resentment, inter-faith rivalry and nascent anti-Americanism is not an altogether pleasant one.

Faced with this appalling scene, the Bush administration is thought to be marshalling its resources to prepare the ground with the American public for an invasion of Iran, or possibly just the bombing of its nuclear facilities. Daniel Drezner has a decent round-up of relevant articles in the US press. For instance, Drezner links to a Washington Times op-ed which states that, after meeting with the Bush family in Maine, “Sarkozy came away convinced his U.S. counterpart is serious about bombing Iran’s secret nuclear facilities.” Underlying all of this, of course, is the fear that someone has let Cheney near the reigns again.

Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency recognises the danger that an Iranian bomb poses. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, he stated that, “we stand at a crossroads, and we are moving rapidly toward an abyss.” It is obvious that the current state of affairs is neither desirable, nor sustainable. So what, if anything, should be done?

Even a hawk like Ledeen, who considers the Iranian threat to be greater than that posed by the Sunni extremists in the global Salafi Jihad, is against direct military intervention with Iran. In his new book The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction, Ledeen warns that “it’s time for us to fight back … using political and economic weapons,” but, “not military power.” Barnett believes that,

America has to grow up a bit and realize that the Big Bang [meaning the United States' activities in the Middle East post-9/11] leads to the Shia revival and that it’s only through that path that we’ll foster genuine pluralism and less religious extremism in politics.

So we need to foster the rising Shia revival, because the alternative is merely the same old brutal Sunni extremism that led to the terrible events of 9/11. However, an angry and powerful Iran, with its proxies frustrating our efforts at Middle Eastern reform in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, is obviously to no one’s benefit. Can we craft a set of policies that empower the Shia, without merely appeasing and encouraging a new set of extremists to counter-balance the old set of extremists that we helped to create in Saudi Arabia? What chance of peace and development is there in the Middle East while theocrats and dictators have power?

Obviously, these are difficult questions, and I certainly can’t provide the answers that are needed. However, we can try to predict what will happen. I would not necessarily be against pinprick military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. I do expect that the US military will be wargaming this scenario and drawing up plans for such an eventuality. However, according to a recent piece in the Sunday Times, at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a prominent conservative journal,

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

However, as Drezner points out, “This time around, Bush and Cheney will face a sizeable domestic opposition, a hostile foreign policy community, and opposition from within the executive branch.” And not only that, but there is also the small matter of the strength of the American military and its ability to open a third front in the Middle East. And as Pat Lang and others have pointed out, should Iran choose to, they could play havoc with the logistical supply lines that the Americans use to move supplies from Kuwait straight up the motorway to Baghdad and other areas in the north of the country. The issue will be further complicated by the withdrawal of British forces from the region, and the need for Petraeus to further stretch his forces to fill the power vacuum there. So for those reasons, it seems very unlikely to me that America will be going to war with Iran any time soon. Barnett, in a short review of Ledeen’s new book, states that

Where Ledeen intrigues more is with a connectivity-style counter-the-revolution strategy of seeding the mullahs’ downfall from within using dollars and PCs. In principle, this is how we took down the Sovs (infecting them with the hard-currency dollar that revealed the falsehood of their economy and the information revolution, the economic advance the Sovs couldn’t command their way through), starting this process with Nixon’s brilliant detente.

Surely, that would be the best method of defeating Khamenei’s regime, and the one that would come with the least monetary and human cost, to say nothing of regional stability and strengthening the hand of the Mullahs by appearing once again to be the “imperialists” of common Arab parlance. It is also the case that fear of foreign-sponsored regime change is encouraging the regime to clamp down hard on any perceived dissent.

In any case, and irrespective of the media hype, as Yorkshire Ranter demonstrates, there is a distinct lack of indicators pointing to military action against Iran. For instance, “currently, there is one US Navy carrier group in the Middle East (Enterprise and Co). This is down from two for most of this year, and is the lowest for some time”. And,

As before, Vinson, Roosevelt, and Washington are all in dockyard hands. Lincoln is in the early stages of workup, having done flight deck and carrier qualifications in July. Eisenhower took part in a JTFEX during July, but please note that as she only returned from deployment in May, she probably has significant yard time in her future. The next ship in the cycle is therefore Harry S. Truman, whose JTFEX it was, and who has also recently done her COMPTUEX.

Yorkshire Ranter also discusses the lack of financial indicators here.

Although I would love for America to be the ass-kicking, liberal hawk of my fantasies, I don’t believe that it is, or probably ever will be. I agree with Ledeen that our best option for regime change is not military, but political and economic. The idea of another Islamic bomb is not a pleasant one, but we’ve dealt with nuclear dictatorships enough to be able to make sensible decisions and not get panicked into doing something that will be not only costly, but also unsustainable given the current state of international relations and the general consensus in the minds of the public in free countries around the world. In addition, America has none of the “sympathetic capital” it acquired (and spent) in the wake of 9/11. These are all unfortunate facts, but facts nonetheless. Here’s hoping for the positive, non-military action described by both Ledeen and Barnett. Or perhaps, all we need to do is listen to Zenpundit:

If the Bush administration really wants to cripple Iran, instead of planning an EBO attack or using IO scare stories about nuclear weapons, we should simply encourage Iran to adopt Ahmadinejad’s economic program.

Well, perhaps not. I don’t want Iran to continue down the path of economic disaster and become another Zimbabwe or Venezuela. But why play the Mullah’s game by being the enemy that they desire to shore up their failing state and useless ideology? Instead, we should adopt the tried and tested method that worked with the USSR: kill them with connectivity.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.
Rev 6:12

According to World Tribune,

Israel is preparing for an imminent war with Iran, Syria and/or their non-state clients. Israeli military intelligence has projected that a major attack could come from any of five adversaries in the Middle East. Officials said such a strike could spark a war as early as July 2007.

On Sunday, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that the Jewish state faces five adversaries in what could result in an imminent confrontation. Yadlin cited Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and Al Qaida.

Across the Middle East there is the sense that pressure is building, and that its release will unleash a huge storm across the region. Various conflicts appear to be coalescing, as once bitter enemies join together under the banner of defeating American-Israeli “hegemony”. In a recent op-ed in Opinion Journal, Joshua Muravchik wrote that “a bigger war… is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.” The belief that American resolve is weakening, that the tide of public opinion in the west has turned firmly against Israel, and that at last Islam is a power once more is increasing the likelihood of regional conflagration.

Iran and Syria already believe that Israel was defeated by their proxy, Hezbollah, in last summer’s war in the Lebanon. Following the conclusion of that campaign, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad crowed “we tell [the Israelis] that after tasting humiliation in the latest battles, your weapons are not going to protect you — not your planes, or missiles, or even your nuclear bombs.” Ahmadinejad was also triumphant, stating that “God’s promises have come true”.

The Israeli “problem” is of central importance to the Arab psyche. Ahmed Sheikh, Editor-in-Chief of Al Jazeera has said that all the problems in the Middle East originate here. “It’s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego.” And in the final analysis, it’s that perception that counts, rather than whether or not destroying Israel really would improve the political and economic realities of life in the Middle East. The prospect of war with Israel and victory for Arab forces is a powerful attraction that is drawing various different, ongoing regional conflicts together.

To that end unlikely alliances are forming. The Shiite theocracy in Iran is collaborating with its supposed religious enemies, the Sunni Al Qaeda, in Iraq. Syria, lead by a Baathist regime that draws its members from a Shiite sect, the Alawites, has also been collaborating with Al Qaeda groups, despite its secularity and Al Qaeda’s religiosity. The Iranian network is spreading, with reports of Iranian weapons being supplied to the Taliban and their sphere of influence widening to include even those jihadists who consider their religion apostasy. Their missiles point at Israel from Lebanon and Gaza, and their Revolutionary Guards tie down American counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dangerously, the Islamic radicals have begun to hope. As Muravchik notes, “A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behaviour.” If Iran feels that victory is within its grasp (a feeling fed by Western leftists and apologists), it could lead to a five sided war with Israel later this summer, ultimately involving America as it comes to the aid of its ally. Should that happen, defeat for Israel seems unlikely, though misery and hardship are certain to be widespread. The region will probably begin to resemble contemporary Iraq: an area lit up by “low intensity conflict” and criss-crossed by a splintered web of terrorist factions.

Once again, the Middle East hangs upon a precipice.

There are plenty of things to be depressed about, at present. However, there are occasional chinks of light amidst the darkness. Here are two:

Dave Kilcullen

Thomas P.M. Barnett