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IRAQ SCORECARD: Cordesman Picture Bleak
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My own views were captured in this lead editorial today in the Philadelphia Inquirer, but I think that this roster of benchmarks that CSIS's Anthony Cordesman sent TWN is extremely useful.
It ought to become the "mantra card" for serious political opponents of this administration's Cheney-led national security team.
Just by way of preamble, in contrast to Cordesman, I opposed the war against Iraq and supported the military action against bin Laden, the Taliban, and incursion into Afghanistan. I thought America had a "thug management system" in place that had Saddam Hussein mostly managed and that the risks of attacking him under circumstances that were not ideal posed the chance of America showing its limits -- which she has done.
Like Cordesman, I worked hard to suggest ideas on how to get the occupation "right" (if there is such a thing) -- such as my New York Times piece suggesting an "Alaska Permanent Fund Model for Iraq." But now I disagree with him about staying and agree with his CSIS colleague Zbigniew Brzezinski that America's presence is preempting leading Sunni and Shiite chiefs from striking the deals that they are going to have to make unless the place explodes in total civil war. That may be coming anyway, with American troops caught in the middle.
But that said, Cordesman has one of the single best rosters specifying false promises, false rationales, failed execution, unclear objectives, and just all the ingredients of an epic failure.
The compelling roster of what has gone wrong makes his plea at the beginning to stay the course and try and work out some good results seem naive, but I respect Cordesman and respect our differences on this point.
Now to his thoughtful piece sent by email:
The Iraq War Three Years On: A ScorecardAnthony H. Cordesman
Let me preface the following points with the statement that I do not oppose the war, and that I believe we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to pursue our current strategy, to try to end the insurrection and prevent civil war, and help them create an inclusive and stable government.
I believe that we have made major advances in creating effective Iraqi forces, that the US Embassy is pursuing the best political approach it can in trying to create the government Iraq needs, and that we are making slow progress towards taking the aid process out of disastrously incompetent US hands in Washington and making Iraqis responsible for their own economic progress.
But, this should not blind us to the strategic consequences of the war to date. We may well fail in all our efforts because they came far too slowly, involved years of inept execution, and face a scale of problems that we still tend to deny. There is a real risk that Iraq will degenerate into full-scale civil war or a level of divisiveness that will paralyze or limit Iraq's progress for years to come.
It is also clear that creating a unity government with a small Sunni minority isn't going to stop the insurrection or risk of a major civil war during 2006, and perhaps for years to come. At best, it will take years to create a fully stable and functioning new political structure and defeat the insurgency.
As a result, I believe it is time to look quite frankly at the war in terms of how it has achieved it is original its objectives after three years, and consider what this means the need to avoid rushing into wars we do not really understand or prepare for in the future:
Objective One: Get Rid of Iraqi WMD Threat: Happened before the war. The main stated objective of the war was pointless.
Objective Two: Liberate Iraq: Security for the average Iraq is now worse, and the new political freedom is essentially freedom to vote for sectarian and ethnic divisions. Some progress to be sure, but much more limited than the Administration claims. It will be 2007-2008 at the earliest before stability can be established -- if it can. We essentially used a bull to liberate a china shop, without any meaningful plan to deal with the consequences. We have tried to fix the resulting problems, but we still don't know whether we can salvage our early mistakes.
Objective Three: End the Terrorist Threat in Iraq: There was no meaningful threat in the first place. Neo-Salafi terrorism now dominates the insurgency and is a far worse threat. Al Qaida now has serious involvement in Iraq. The impact on the region has alienated many Arabs and Muslims and has aided extremists. It has given Iran leverage that has added a new risk of Shi'ite extremism.
Objective Four: Stabilize the Gulf Region and Middle East: The war has been extremely divisive. It has created a major new source of anger against the US and new tensions over the US presence. Iran, Turkey, and neighboring Arab states have all become involved in destabilizing ways.
Objective Five: Ensure Secure Energy Exports: There have been consistently lower Iraqi exports than under Saddam. The predicted increases in Iraqi production have never occurred, and will not for years to come. There has been no meaningful renovation of oil fields and export facilities and serious further wartime disruption. The previous problems have spilled over into the other Gulf exporting states.
Objective Six: Make Iraq a Democratic Example that Transforms the Middle East: Iraq is not a model of anything. Public opinion polls in region show that our efforts at reform to date have created new Arab fears of US, and distrust of US efforts at reform in other countries.
Objective Seven: Help Iraq Become a Modern Economy: The flood of wartime, oil for food, and aid money has put tens of billions of dollars into the Iraqi economy and raised the GDP and per capita income on paper. So have record oil revenues. Even the latest US quarterly report, however, has oil not only dominating the GDP, but rising as a percentage in the future. Most new businesses are shells, starts ups or war related. Youth unemployment easily averages more than 30% nationwide and is 40-60% in the trouble Sunni areas. As yet, no meaningful sectoral reform in agriculture, state industries, or the energy sector. A shift to focused short term aid and letting the Iraqis manage more of the money may help, but largely a wasteful, highly ideological and bureaucratic failure.
In short, being a superpower is not enough. Fighting wars requires both a realistic grand strategy and the ability to implement it.
We may salvage the Iraq War on a national level, but there is little or no chance of salvaging the war in terms of our broader strategic objectives.
In 821 words, Cordesman -- an Iraq War supporter -- lays out one of the most candid salvos against the White House's vision and prosecution of the Iraq War that I have read.
-- Steve Clemons
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Funny, I didn't see him mention Objective One: INSTALLING PERMANENT US AIRBASES.
Wonder why he left that one off.
He also failed to note that a president on permanent vacation cannot lead a war effort, and turning things over to Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon is equivalent to KILLING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT, and bragging about it.
So it's shocking, just shocking that this hasn't worked out as advertized.
Hey, Saddam wasn't producing. He wasn't kiling enough Arabs. The old wolf lost his teeth, and became a vegetarian. So the US had to bring its teeth and show everyone again just who was behind Saddam to begin with, and why.
Cordesman no doubt still thinks that Santa brings the gifts down the chimney, too.
Just curious, are you going to comment on the Stephen Walt (Harvard) John Mearshiemer (Univ. of Chicago) study "The Israel Lobby" that the London Review of Books has just published?
For anyone interested in connecting the dots between the neo-cons/AIPAC/ Christian Zionists/ US Congress' craven kowtowing to the pro-Israel lobbies/ the invasion of Iraq, etc., this study is a must read!
A short version can be found here, with a link to the longer, foot-noted study:
Steve,
Have you suggested to Cordesman that he submit his piece as an op-ed? It should get wider distribution than just on WTN.
This excellent piece by an Iraqi physician shows how health care and health status for the average citizen has deteriorated to be worse than before the war. www.alternet.org/waroniraq/33771/
______________________________
The 821 words can be whittled down to 5:
"... disastrously incompetent US hands in Washington..."
And the rebuttal to that quintessence is just this:
God spoke to Bush. God does not err.
In other words... against God himself, Cordesman's 821 words contend in vain.
We are in for three more years of the same policy...
Get used to it.
Sarcasm aside, we are seeing the dangers of a politician with a "direct" line to God. How do you reason someone with a divine mandate?
Steve,
I agreed with the Afghanistan/Taliban action but I was against the Iraq action because I did not believe the claims of this administration nor did I believe they would do a competent job of changing leadership in Iraq. They have proven me right. Nevertheless, why can't we have people like Cordesman to discuss this issue with instead of the fools crying "aiding terrorists" or " your not a patriot" .......
Oh, and by the way, anybody watching how well things are progressing in Afghanistan???
Cordesman has been building up to this. He says it bluntly: Iraq is not yet lost but the war is a strategic failure.
He underplays the Iran factor. The broader consequences of this war look both uncontrollable and potentially dire in a way that Vietnam never was.
Everyone talks about the "strategic failure" as a definable entity. What is that? We don't get to control the Middle East? (No one else is in a position to control it. So this seems like a pretty phony issue.) What might fall over Iraq is not Western Civilization but the careers of latest incarnation of the Imperial Civil Service. All our Napoleons will have to focus on really necessary tasks--like developing an economic strategy for the next 20 years--instead of attempting to "play" Churchill circa 1922.
@Paul in LA: To his credit, Cordesman has been saying publicly since at least summer 2005 that the administration should state that its official policy is that there will be no permanent bases in Iraq, that when troops withdraw they will do so completely.
The downside, of course, is that Cordesman's idea of when we should withdraw those troops recedes steadily into the future -- always about two years away.
Bush's assertion that the security of the United States is inextricably bound up with the Iraq democracy is a total falsehood. Why is he allowed to get away with it?
In regards to Cordesman's Objective Five -- Greg Palast had an interesting piece yesterday in The Guardian:
Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED
With a timely reminder that the original name of this campaign was Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), he proceeds to show how SUPRESSING Iraqi oil production in order to boost OPEC prices was the underlying reason for this debacle all along.
Excerpt:
It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just LOVE it.
Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.
No so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 -- compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it's been a good war for Big Oil.
So, after 3 years, things aren't perfect in Iraq and our goals have not been fully accomplished. Guess by that reasoning, the North lost the Civil War and we lost WWII. Yet, I see that the South is still part of the United States and we aren't all required to speak German. Go figure.
RAP
RAP,
I find that optimism misplaced. The U.S. hasn't accomplished any of their war goals in Iraq, except for kicking out Saddam. To the contrary, they are losing grip on the political process there. There's a good chance that in 15 years there is a Shia strongman in Baghdad who's just as bad as Saddam was.
Worse, Bush has hoisted Iran into an almost unchallangeable position atm, and cannot do anything but fret about it. The military option would be excessively costly. Political options towards Iran are near zero, and there is a good chance that the U.S. cannot exercise influence over Iraq's politics by any means short of cutting funding or exercise of military force. The Shia are taking over, period, and the Kurds want autonomy at least. Iraqi unity more and more becomes a mirage.
Spill-over of conflict from Iraq to neighbouring countries is a reality, as the attacks by Iraq's new Al Quaeda branch (didn't exist before the invasion) in Jordan have shown, or the know how transfer from Iraq back to Afghanistan - so the dire pre-war prediction that the Iraq war would destabilise the region have been largely vindicated.
You too ignore the miserable standing and loss of U.S. influence around the world, that was the price for Bush's way and deed of attacking Iraq (and some other bad habits, treaty busting not being the least of them). Besides, this Bin Laden dude is still on the run, and that Anthrax mailer still hasn't been found. Minor point. After all, wasn't this about terror in first place? So where are those culprits?
To me that does not exactly sound like a brilliant exercise in problem solving, and it does not inspire much confidence. Optimism and Can-do-spirit are both marvellous things, but a poor substitute for a realistic strategy, or sensible priorities.
PS: ... in the sense that courage is a poor substitute for armor.
"So, after 3 years, things aren't perfect in Iraq and our goals have not been fully accomplished. Guess by that reasoning, the North lost the Civil War and we lost WWII."
Well, let's see. Timewise, at this same point in World War II the allies had liberated France, destroyed the most important German army group (Group Center) on the Russian front, taken Rome, Warsaw and Budapest -- as well as Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Pacific. The Wermacht was on its last legs, with Hitler frantically stripping all available reserves to launch a hopeless, last-gasp offensive in the Ardennes. The Manhattan Project was humming along, with the first A-bomb almost ready for testing. The war, for all intents and purposes, had been won -- against two of the most powerful imilitary machines on the planet (plus the Italians).
At this point in the Civil War, the Mississippi had been cleared, splitting the Confederacy in two, Lee and his army had been soundly defeated at Gettysburg, and the western Confederate army at Chattanooga, and Sherman was getting ready to invade Georgia. The war was not yet won, but the writing was on the wall.
Now compare that to the three-year U.S. track record in Iraq -- against a bunch of fragmented, disorganized militia gangs and a much smaller gang of crazed religious cultists.
Are you SURE you want to make that argument?
"incompetent" ? what would be a COMPETENT way to wage an un-just War ?!!
You Americans still don't get it... blaming a few bad apple LEADERS for the horrific suffering wrought by your incompetent and morally perverse TROOPS:
YOUR LEADERS aren't THE PROBLEM...
...YOU are the problem.
Monsieur, there have always been unjust wars of exploitation, punishment and destruction. They just like to pretend it's for some other noble causes - civilizing savages, opening trade, spread democracy, fight terrorism, etc. - to make themselves look good. A competent unjust war is nonetheless better than an incompetent one as it inflicts less damage on the invaded, exploited nations and peoples.
This talk about 'losing Iraq' reminds me of the talk about 'losing China' during the 1950s and 1960s (some of which I only read about as a young student).
Iraq was never ours to lose, and never will be.
And neither was Korea, Vietnam, or the Phillippines.
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