More Thoughts On The Bush Doctrine And The GWOT
Mark Steyn looks at the War on Terror and comes to some of the same conclusions, but some rather different ones, as well, from the Warshawsky piece we discussed earlier today.
Where the two agree is on the fact that our strategy has morphed into more of a mission for democratic reforms in the Middle East than a convential war:
If the “war” is now a push for democratization and liberalization in Middle East dictatorships, that’s a worthy cause but not one sufficiently primal to keep the attention of the American people. You’d have had the same problem in the Second World War if four years after Pearl Harbor we were postponing D-Day in order to nation-build in the Solomon Islands.
Four years ago, I thought the “war on terror” was a viable concept. To those on the right who scoffed that you can’t declare war on a technique, I pointed out that Britain’s Royal Navy fought wars against slavery and piracy and were largely successful. Of course, since then we’ve had the shabby habit of presidents declaring a “war on drugs” and a “war on poverty” and, with hindsight, that corruption of language has allowed Americans to slip the war on terror into the same category — not a war in the sense that a war on Fiji or Belgium is a war, but just one of those vaguely ineffectual aspirational things that don’t really impinge on you that much except for the odd pointless gesture — like the shoe-removing ritual before you board a flight at Poughkeepsie. The “war on terror” label has outlived whatever usefulness it had.
Steyn, however, sees that strategy as largely a success on the ground, but one that the European and American media and public refuse to acknowledge:
The war is being won — in Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader Middle East and many other places where America has changed the conditions on the ground in its favor. But at home the war about the war is being lost.
I think both pieces reinforce the point I was hoping to make earlier; the public is weary of war, and in the absence of ‘victories’ that are tangible and final, the biggest challenge facing this president, and the next one, will be to rally the homefront to finish the job we’ve started.
The cover article in yesterday’s New York Times magazine section (“Is Osama Winning?” ) has a much less hopeful outlook on the war on terror. The main thesis is that Osama led the US into a trap similar to the Russian debacle in Afghanistan. In the 1980’s, American financing of the Mujahadeen brought the Russian Army into a quagmire it could not escape from. Among other factors, the bleeding of Russian military resources led to the end of the Cold War. The article speculates that Osama’s goal was to strike within the US and cause a reaction where America would get bogged down in a war of attrition in a Muslim country. The author sees this as a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda – he answers Rumsfeld’s question in saying that the madrasses and the mosques will create terrorists faster than we can find and kill them.
The author notes that while Al Qaeda’s “center of gravity” in Afghanistan was destroyed, but then Osama’s movement became viral – he became the leader of a movement without being the leader of an organization. Hence the events of Bali, London, Madrid, etc., had the trademarks of an Al Qaeda attack without necessarily having Al Qaeda players involved. He further goes on to say that our response to 9/11 used the Cold War as a template, as Americans were familiar with the struggle against communism and initially reacted to Islamic terrorism in much the same way that we viewed Russia and China as our global enemies. However, Islamic terrorism is a much different enemy, and in the author’s view military conflict against a country which was not involved in the 9/11 attack is precisely the wrong strategy to fight Osama and Hussein. In addition to providing the spectacle of American troops fighting in a Muslim country, the increased pressure placed on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. by their fundamentalist elements weakens the lynchpins we have been using for decades to maintain whatever modicum of stability the Middle East has known.
This is a bare-bones summary of an article which had about a dozen densely reasoned pages. It is not a Maureen Dowd / Frank Rich type polemic. A lot of media coverage of the fight against terrorism is facile and treats the struggle somewhat like a football game – I recommend it to anyone looking for a clear-eyed and unsettling perspective on Islamic terror.
peter, I saw that article, but have not had a chance to read it yet…I’ll try to work it in tonight and see what I think…thanks for the heads up…
Peter-
The NYT has an article that’s pessimistic on the GWOT? Stop the presses!
Is this the article? (It’s titled “Taking Stock of the Forever War” on-line…)
Brief summary: Professor Danner declares the war a failure because in four years we have “not succeeded in ‘ridding the world of evil.’” He suggests that the extraordinarily rapid conquest of two formidable regimes makes us appear weak because we have “failed”. He presents, as evidence of this military failure, polls showing the war is unpopular.
He reasonably points out that 9/11 was intended to make us look weak — yet he doesn’t seem to understand when Assad backs out of Lebanon and starts rooting out “insurgents” from their side of the border, or when Quaddafi hands over his whole WMD program, it wasn’t because they thought we are weak. We’ve at least convinced unfriendly autocrats in the region that we are anything but weak.
Only a professor at Berkeley could possibly watch a fledgling nation wrangling over its Constitution and electing its first representative leaders and confidently assert: “[it] looks increasingly like a failed state.”
First, he ridicules those who fell into the current war through facetious comparisons to the Cold War. A few pages later, he implies that the present strategy is ludicrous because the “rollback” (as opposed to “containment”) strategy would have been ludicrous in the Cold War — apparently not recognizing the vast difference in the relative strengths of the players.
He observes the steady decrease in the scale and skill of the terrorist attacks Al Quaeda produces — and sees this as clear and convincing evidence that they are growing stronger. In the alternate future in which Al Queda instead grew more centralized and state-based, would Professor Danner truly have us believe that a nuclear-armed Taliban government would have been less dangerous to us than the increasingly amature attacks inspired by Al Quaeda’s web-site?
It’s hard to know where to begin contradicting such learned and refined balderdash.
The single lesson that GWOT hawks learned from 9/11 that GWOT doves did not is this: the status quo in the Middle East was not acceptable.
I respectfully disagree. The truth or falsity of Danner’s thesis won’t be known for years — and I hope he is wrong — but I wouldn’t dismiss it as balderdash (albeit learned and refined balderdash). His perspective is much more subtle than Howard Dean / Micheal Moore / Maureen Dowd, and it is informed by what seems to be a thorough understanding of the Middle East and its history. I find his predictions, as unsettling as they may be, to carry a lot more weight than is often seen from either the right or the left.
1) I think his point is much more than “the war (is) a failure because in four years we have not succeeded in ‘ridding the world of evil.’” First, he notes that this is not a realistic goal (and, moreover, of all the reasons which could have been used to defend the war — protecting Isreal, ridding the Middle East of an unstable dictator, securing the oil supply, etc., the major reason which was given was the only one which could be proven false: the imputed existence of WMD. So the fact that the war is unpopular has much to do with how it was sold and the lack of candor with which the government told the people what the true cost of a war would be which could be actually won). Secondly, he notes that the length of time between 9/11 and today is less than the interval from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day. Third, he notes that violence certainly hasn’t abated and may well be increasing — not the hallmarks of a successful war.
Moreover, I certainly wouldn’t consider Afghanistan to be a “formidable regime” — it is about as far on the other end of the spectrum I could imagine. I also would consider the Iraqi army to be far from formidable. It does not take anything away from how well American forces fought to acknowledge that both wars were mismatched and nobody was surprised by the speed and thoroughness with which we defeated two third world armies.
2) I would not agree that Assad has backed out of Lebanon — the uniformed troops have left, but the fifth column remains and by all appearnces Syrian henchmen assassinated Hereiri (spelling?). Also, it doesn’t appear that Qaddafi had that much of a WMD program to hand over in the first place. Regardless, I believe that we appear to unfriendly autocrats now to be much weaker than we looked two years ago. We are quite visibly unable to control the situation in Iraq. We have essentially been abandoned by all of the allies in the “coalition of the willing” except England. We certainly don’t seem to be scaring the mullahs in Iran, and Kim Il Jong knows that we can’t fight two major wars at once.
3) Well, it does increasingly look like a failed state. It is too early to say that Iraq has spiralled into endless ethnic conflict — but it is too early to claim the opposite too. Given the lack of Sunni support, the anonymity of candidates running for the consitutional assembly (so they wouldn’t be identified and assassinated), the interference from Iran, and the uncertainty of whether the constitution will be ratified, it’s hard to make the case that Iraq is a successful state…
4) It is a misstatement to say that “he observes the steady decrease in the scale and skill of the terrorist attacks Al Quaeda produces — and sees this as clear and convincing evidence that they are growing stronger.” Rather, his point is that the viral nature of Al Qaeda is spawning a lot of freelance terrorists and the number of attacks is increasing (as evidenced by the fact that 2004 had more terrorist attacks than any year in recent memory). However, they seem to lack technical expertise (he notes that had all of the bombs in Madrid exploded, the death toll would have exceeded 9/11). Because Iraq is now a place where terrorists can learn their trade, he sees the increasing number of people willing to commit terrorist acts combined with the training they can receive in Iraq and on the Internet as “as clear and convincing evidence that they are growing stronger.” Don’t you?
5) Whether “Professor Danner (would) truly have us believe that a nuclear-armed Taliban government would have been less dangerous to us than the increasingly amature (sic) attacks inspired by Al Quaeda’s web-site” is something he would have to answer for himself. I did not see anything in the article which indicated that he thought the overthrow of Afghanistan was a bad thing. Moreover, while the attacks may be increasingly amateur, a) so was Timothy McVeigh and b) he notes that it does not take a lot of expertise to terrorize a population — witness the two nut jobs who were shooting people randomly in Washington two years ago.
peter, Clint, great job of presenting both sides, you’ve covered the opposing viewpoints so well I have little to add – just one quibble, peter. You say nobody was surprised by the speed and thoroughness with which we defeated two third world armies, yet I distinctly recall certain prominent Washington and New York media figures and columnists practically willing to surrender the first time we hit any sort of delay in both wars. The slightest bump in the road brought out the ‘quagmire’ columns; and that makes me doubly suspicious of those who claim it’s all bad news in Iraq today…
Agreed — but my (porous) memory recalls that these voices were few in number — certainly both events went so quickly that anyone who predicted defeat was quickly proven wrong –
Peter-
If I recall correctly, rather than admitting that they’d been proven wrong, those voices rapidly moved to “defining up failure”, harping on secondary issues (Abu Ghraib) and predicting other disasters — remember the famine in Afghanistan? the tens of thousands of American dead in Baghdad? the failure to hold free elections in either country? the Islamic fundamentalists in power? the Sharia-based Constitution? Me neither.
Peter-
Responding to your points in order:
(1) I certainly agree that “Ridding the world of Evil” is not a realistic goal. It’s also a strawman. Unless you can point to a speech where someone in the administration announced a four-year plan to “rid the world of evil”.
Go back and read the President’s excellent speeches (like the SOTUs) on this — he did present many of these other justifications for the war. The focus on WMD disarmament and violation of the Gulf War cease-fire conditions was the major legal justification for the war — not the reason it was worth fighting.
The only way you can calculate that violence has increased is by changing parameters of what counts — for example, violent deaths in Iraq post-invasion count, but violent deaths in Iraq pre-invasion don’t. This makes sense if you’re trying to figure out what can semi-plausibly be blamed on the U.S. It doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to figure out the net costs and benefits of the invasion.
(2) You are welcome to believe anything you wish — but can you give a single example of an unfriendly autocrat behaving as though he has less respect for our power than five years ago? Denigrating the practical benefit of Assad’s and Qaddafi’s retreats doesn’t change the fact that they are retreats.
You state that we’ve been abandoned by all our allies but England. Rather than give a list of current allies in response (and have you pick one and sneer at it) — can you name three allies who have actually abandoned us?
(3) It is indeed too early to say. That was my point.
(4) It’s not just about “technical expertise” — it’s also about the technical resources that state sponsorship provide. Smashing this is exactly what the President said he was going to do. And he’s doing it quite successfully.
In case I wasn’t clear — no I don’t consider a hypothetical increasing number of volunteers and potential training on the internet to be a greater threat than state-sponsored openly operating terrorist training camps combined with chemical and biological weapons programs in Libya and Iraq. How could any reasonable person?
(5) Here is a sample of Mark Danner’s writings on Afghanistan, in 2001, that he’s still proud enough of to highlight on his website. He clearly considers it to have been a mistake.
Of course individuals can conduct terror — and even amateur terrorists can scare and kill. My points here are two:
(a) The damage terrorists can cause is greatly reduced when they are denied state sponsorship, extensive training, and large-scale organization. To see the fragmenting of Al Quaeda (which he describes as smashing a ball of quicksilver with a hammer) as a failure gets it spectacularly wrong.
(b) Decreasing the stream of volunteers can best be accomplished, in the long term, only by making fundamental changes in the Middle East. Which is exactly what this President is trying to do.
I’m late to the dance here but:
“I also would consider the Iraqi army to be far from formidable.”
Compared to what? This is the most serious war we’ve been in since Korea, against the largest and canniest opponent. Seriously, Zarqawi and Izzy Izz fling bling like Le Duc Tho couldn’t've *dreamed* of.
What more formidable opponent would you like us to have? Iran? China? If we can’t pull this one off (and that’s still up in the air, unfortunately), we might as well throw in the towel and join the Eflippin’U.
I know this Danner guy. Enjoyed very much seeing Hitchens slap him around in a debate pre-invasion. Now as always, the truth and the wisest course would have been one between their positions … but still, it was fun to see the guy get schooled. Never bring an American knife to a Britorical gun-fight.
“single example of an unfriendly autocrat behaving as though he has less respect for our power than five years ago?”
Kim Jong Il.
Thanks for the well thought out response. Here is where we disagree:
Post 1:
1) I’m not sure if Danner was one of “those voices” – I never heard of him until I saw his piece in the Times – so I don’t know if he was wrong in predicting famine in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of American dead, etc. However, as for the last two – Islamic fundamentalists in power and a Sharia-based constitution it is far too early to know, as thingst could go either way.
2) You didn’t include the disasters that did occur – a steady stream of car bombs, the lack of consistent electricity in Baghdad, the lack of a safe passage from the airport to the Green Zone, frequent disruptions of the oil supply, etc. – so maybe “those voices” were right about disasters but picked the wrong ones. They were certainly closer to the mark than those who thought it would be a cakewalk.
3) I wouldn’t consider Abu Ghraib to be a secondary issue – I think it goes to the heart of how we are perceived in the Middle East. How do you think things might be different if, for example, the prison had been closed as a symbol of its notoriety under Hussein and instead the President leaned on Microsoft and Dell to donate a thousand computers so it could be turned into a school?
Post 2:
1) I’m not sure if I agree that it would be wrong to change the parameters of what counts before and after the invasion. If your argument is that you take the number of people who died because Hussein killed them and compare that with the number of people who died after the war – a sort of crude utilitarian comparison – then my answer would be that a) death of innocents is only one evil which came from the war and b) at least we do not have the moral responsibility for those who died under Hussein. However, the point is that violence has increased since we invaded Iraq, not when compared to under Hussein’s rule.
2) Examples of unfriendly autocrats behaving with less respect: Kim Il Jong, Hugo Chavez, the mullahs in Tehran. Three allies who have abandoned us: Spain, Canada, Kuwait
3) Agreed
4) I don’t think that the resources which state sponsorship provide are that critical. The 9/11 hijackers used box-cutters, Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer, and the Madrid and London bombers used easily available chemicals. As to the role in state sponsorship of biological or nuclear terror: I’m not so sure. It seems to me that (at least to the point of dirty bombs) the technology and materials are available to those who can afford it. I would be shocked if a well-funded terrorist could not obtain WMD in places like North Korea, Russia, the ex-Soviet republics, or Pakistan. Certainly enough terror has occurred since we invaded Afghanistan – whether even worse attacks would have occurred if there were states to sponsor them is, of course, impossible to know.
5) a. Well, I dunno: multiply Timothy McVeigh by ten and you will have a country in the grip of terror. Hannah Arendt wrote something like “if you give me one hundred people who are willing to die, I can change the course of history.” I think she is right.
b. I agree that an end to terror will only come after fundamental changes in the Middle East. The question is whether the changes come from within or without. The Economist recently had an article which found striking similarities between Islamic terrorism and the anarchist movement of one hundred years ago. Despite vigorous efforts by governments and brutal repression – neither of which achieved much – the anarchist movement ended only when it withered from within. I’m not suggesting a passive approach to terrorism, but this may be how things play out. Your last sentence – “which is exactly what this President is trying to do” – hits the point squarely on the head. Nobody faults the President for trying to end terrorism. I agree with Danner insofar as the problem is not whether the President is trying or not – the problem is that he is doing the wrong things.
Most serious war since Korea? I’m old enough to remember VietNam — with over 55,000 US dead and a span of eight or nine years, seems like a much larger conflict than Iraq (so far) –
Peter:
I’m also old enough to remember Vietnam and it WAS a larger and longer conflict then Korea. And while I’m not going to get into a debate about whether the war was right or wrong, I will say this:
1) Soviet-equipped North Vietnam and the Viet Cong never came close to having the military strength of the Soviet-equipped North Korean or PRC armies seperately, let alone combined. Whether the North Vietnamese had Soviet pilots flying combat missions for them is unknown (to me at least). The North Koreans did.
2) Our defeat (and that’s exactly what it was) could be attributed less to the quality (or lack thereof) of our forces and the ARVN vis-a-vis the NVA and VC, then to the bungling incompetence and micro-managing of the war by LBJ and his chief advisors. This, combined with an MSM that played up both the anti-war movement (which, to my knowledge,never achieved a majority in this country) and the “successes” of the NVA (which took heavy casualties) and the VC (which was virtually destroyed as a coherent fighting force) during the Tet offensive, convinced LBJ and his advisors that war was unwinnable. At a point when Ho Chi Minh himself thought the South was lost and was prepared to sue for peace, Ho’s advisors told him to hang on and the Americans would sue for peace. He did, we did and the rest, as they say was history.
The point to this rambling, amatuer history lesson is this: we succeeded in our goal in Korea (maintaining the status quo). We failed in our goal in Vietnam (again, maintaining the status quo). The difference? We lost our stomach for the war in Vietnam, but not in Korea. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and the others conducting the guerilla war in Iraq don’t have the luxury of virtually unlimited re-supply and manpower as North Korea did. They don’t have virtually unlimited re-supply as the North Vietnamese did. And they don’t have an enemy willing to settle for a return of the status quo. The only thing they do have is the hope that if they bloody us enough, we’ll lose our stomach for THIS war. And a MSM that seems all too willing to help them.