Posted on 08/12/2002 12:52:06 PM PDT by Axion
The Iraq Obsession Summary
12 August 2002
Opposition to a U.S. attack on Iraq is increasingly being voiced internationally and within Washington. Despite the divisions it is causing, the Bush administration is not abandoning its strategy because it sees a successful campaign against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a prime way to shatter the psychological advantage within the Islamist movement and demonstrate U.S. power.
Analysis
The diplomatic and political walls began to close in on the Bush administration's Iraq policy last week. First, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder very publicly announced something Berlin had been saying privately for years: The German government wants no part in any invasion of Iraq. Then Republican House majority leader Dick Armey said he saw little justification for an Iraqi operation.
Schroeder's stance may be mainly a political ploy aimed at Germany's Sept. 22 elections as he currently is trailing conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber, who has taken a more pro-U.S. military stance. But Washington must still take seriously the opposition to an Iraq campaign within the German government and populace. Germany is a key staging area for U.S. forces. There are pre-positioned equipment and forces based in the country that undoubtedly would be needed for any attack. Depending on the opposition, U.S. bases in Germany might not be available for use.
The statement from Armey also means that in addition to expected opposition from liberals, Bush could face the same from his own political base. At this point it seems there are very few outside the Bush administration who want an Iraq invasion, with the possible exception of the British government and Israel.
Since the Bush administration has a strong national security team, it is reasonable to assume that its strategy is not frivolously formulated nor mechanically adhered to. Therefore, the question of the week is why the White House remains obsessed with Iraq, when the issue is tearing apart its international alliance as well as its domestic political base.
As always there are multiple reasons, the top one being that as the United States presses in globally on al Qaeda, it has realized that the problem it faces is not the actual network per se. The administration has concluded that there is a broad and deep anti-Americanism permeating the Islamic world, due to both U.S. support for Israel and to the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia in particular and in the Islamic world in general.
However, Washington believes that shifting positions on either of these issues would not defuse this anti-American sentiment. On Israel, the administration has concluded that the Palestinians are not interested in an independent state except as a springboard for further militant attacks. In its view, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has done everything possible to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state while seeking to shift the responsibility to the Israelis.
Were a Palestinian state to be created under current circumstances, the result would be ongoing operations against Israel within its 1948 boundaries. Even if a Palestinian government wanted accommodation with Israel, a substantial faction of the Palestinians would refuse compromise and continue attacks. Israel would inevitably respond, and the status quo of chaos would quickly be restored. Moreover, the administration believes it is detecting increasing collaboration between al Qaeda and Palestinian groups.
The hostility toward an American presence in Saudi Arabia is a deeper issue. In many ways, the modern emergence of the Arab and Islamic world was a European contrivance and convenience. Regimes from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian subcontinent to the South China Sea were as much expressions of European imperialism as of local nationalism. Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait created two contradictory tendencies.
First, the Arab world reacted violently to Iraq's absorption of another Arab country. However, after the war, attention throughout the region -- particularly in Saudi Arabia -- focused on the re-emergence of a foreign, imperial presence in the Arab world. The United States was not seen as the savior of Kuwait but as the despoiler of the Saudi heartland.
From Washington's point of view, the problem of al Qaeda has become the problem of U.S. relations with the Islamic world in general and with al Qaeda in particular. The Bush people also see this as unsolvable. The creation of a Palestinian state simply will be the preface for the next generation of the war. Repudiation of Israel might satisfy some -- while destabilizing Jordan and Egypt -- but it still would not solve the core problem, which is the desire to expel the United States from the region.
That leaves abandoning the region altogether, which is seen as impossible. First, there is oil. Although the development of Russian oil reserves is underway, the fact is that Persian Gulf oil is a foundation of the Western economic system, and abandoning direct and indirect (through client regimes) access to that oil would be unacceptable.
Second, al Qaeda's dream is the creation of an integrated Islamic world in confrontation with the non-Islamic world. This is a distant threat, but were the United States to leave the region, it would not be unthinkable. That itself makes withdrawal unthinkable.
The al Qaeda problem cannot be confined simply to al Qaeda or even to allied groups. It is a problem of a massive movement in the Islamic world that must be contained and controlled. Placating this movement is impossible. The manner in which the movement has evolved makes finding a stable modus vivendi impossible.
What may be possible is reshaping the movement, which would mean changing the psychological structure of the Islamic world. Five events have shaped that psychology:
1. The 1973 oil embargo
2. The survival of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
3. The defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan
4. The perceived defeat of the United States in Somalia
5. Sept. 11, 2001
Each of these events served to reverse an Islamic sense of impotence. From 1973 until Sept. 11, the Islamic world has been undergoing a dual process. On the one side, there has been a growing sense of the ability of the Islamic and Arab worlds to resist Western power. On the other side, there has been an ongoing sense of victimization, a sense predating the United States by centuries.
The center of gravity of Washington's problem is psychological. There is no certain military or covert means to destroy al Qaeda or any of its murky allied organizations. They can be harassed, they can be disrupted, but there is no clear and certain way to destroy them. There may, however, be a way to undermine their psychological foundations, by reversing what radical Islamists portray as the inherent inevitability of their cause. Sacrifice toward victory is the ground of their movement. Therefore, if the sense of manifest destiny can be destroyed, then the foundations of the movement can be disrupted.
Hence Iraq. Hussein is one of the pillars of the psychology aspect because his ability to survive American power in 1991, and live to see the day that former President George Bush fell from office, is emblematic of the ability of Arabs and Muslims to resist and overcome American power.
It is essential for the Bush administration to reverse that sense of manifest destiny. The destruction of the Iraqi regime will demonstrate two things. First, that American power is overwhelming and irresistible. Second, that the United States is as patient, as persevering and much more powerful than the Islamist movement
Moreover, an attack on Iraq, unlike the destruction of al Qaeda and militant Islam, can be achieved. Wars with nation-states possessing large military forces are something that the United States does very well. Destroying a highly dispersed global network is something that nobody does very well. The United States cannot afford an atmosphere of ongoing stalemate.
Whatever the strategic virtues of an attack on Iraq, it psychologically would break the stalemate. It would set the stage for changing the psychological configuration in the Islamic world and imbuing the movement with a sense of failure and hopelessness, undermining its ability to operate.
This is why the Bush administration is obsessed with an attack on Iraq. Its reasoning is not easily explainable in conventional terms, which is why the plan generates intense opposition from those who cannot see its benefit but can see the risks. The opposition to such an attack is not frivolous. All warfare has a psychological component, but this elevates the psychology radically. Moreover, the psychological consequences are never predictable. Who knows how the Islamists will react in the end?
Nevertheless, this is the best explanation for the Iraq obsession. It is about psychology and long-term relationships and not about immediate impacts. It is designed to weaken al Qaeda's soul, not to cripple its operational capability. If you see al Qaeda as fundamentally a psychological response, the strategy might just work.
These wannabe intel officers at Statfor are as anti-Israel a bunch as you'll find. A week after 9/11 they predicted - hoped? - that there was going to be a sea change in U.S./Israeli relations in the coming months, and that a complete break in relations isn't out of the realm of possiblity.
Basically, they're idiots.
Trouble is, the writer neglected to mention another reason to knock Saddam off his throne.
If we do nothing, practice containment/appeasement, he will surely give a nuke bomb to al-queda, or a bug bomb. Maybe millions of Americans turned to ash in a moment.
Not cool.
How can Stratfor neglect to mention such an obvious eddy in the stream?
I agree with your sentiments. Unfortunately that isn't what we'll do. We'll spend billions installing some marginally friendly muslim diectator that promises to have elections now and then. He won't be able to control his own "hardline" factions and we'll have the same issues then that we have now.
Saddam Hussein must be removed - obviously, by force - and his ability to develop WMD ended. The practical as well as the psychological advantages to this plan are inescapable.
The recognition of the Palestinian desire to destroy Israel, not to live in peace, is correct and the Bush administration now recognizes it, too. A good move forward.
I believe the oil issue is overblown but it will always be a factor. More importantly, what do we do with Saudi Arabia after Iraq has been defeated and a friendly government installed? I expect the Saudi King and his Princes will roll over and either flee for europe or else become solid U.S. allies. I would bet on the former. Good riddance.
I don't think we are waiting, we are just getting prepared to do it right. As the article points out, the key aspect of the invasion will be its theatrical value. We had better be prepared and thorough.
We have to demostrate the Islamic world that we are a dedicated and methodical exterminator.
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