SubscribeEven their names reflect this artificiality: Iraq was a medieval province, with borders very different from those of the modern republic, excluding Mesopotamia in the north and including a slice of western Iran (Lewis, 2003, xxi)The modern plight of Iraq goes back to the days of British colonialism, and the "exploitation model" of empire they developed in the conquest of India. It wasn't an entirely new strategy—Julius Caesar had done much the same with the Gauls—but the British learned they could conquer and control far larger populations by exacerbating and manipulating the internal tensions in the country.
The British first gained control of what is now Iraq after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. The value of controlling Iraq’s oil wealth was not lost on the British, even during the war, as the secretary of the War Cabinet, advised Foreign Secretary Arthur Belfour in writing that control of Persian and Mesopotamian oil was a “first-class British war aim.” The territories gained from the Ottomans were quickly divided up by British cartographers into units more compatible with the exploitation model: Kuwait was parceled off from Mesopotamia (later to be renamed Iraq) in an action quite reminiscent of Gerrymandering, ensuring that the Shi’ite majority in Iraq could be effectively managed by the British-supported Sunni minority, and that the British could in-turn exploit internal Shi’ite divisions in Kuwait. (Vail, 2004)When the world wars forced European powers to recognize the sovereignty of their former colonies, this strategy proved most effective in maintaining de facto control where de juris rule had to be relinquished. At the time, Lawrence of Arabia proposed a map that respected the natural cultural boundaries of the Middle East: it provided a country for the Palestinians and seperated the Kurdish and Arabian areas of Iraq under seperate governments, among other things. It was taken fairly seriously, but ultimately rejected, largely because it fulfilled the objective of creating a peaceful Middle East too well. A peaceful Middle East is a stable Middle East, and a stable Middle East might not need (or appreciate) European intervention. More than a matter of political boundaries, empire is about patterns of dependence, and maintaining those patterns was crucial for the continued prosperity of Britain and other European powers.
With rise in expectations for independence and self-determination beginning in the 20th century, Britain had to adapt their model to the changing geo-political arena. They had to permit the appearance of independence to their colonies, while maintaining the flow of wealth and resources on which they depended. The Exploitation Model adapted quite well to this end: if a minority group depends on your support to control an “independent” country, then you can exert the exact same level of influence on this “sovereign” nation as you can over a colony – perhaps more, because you are no longer as culpable in matters of starvation, poverty and human rights. In addition to adapting the exploitation model to the changing world stage, the British carefully used their monopoly over cartography to ensure that these newly independent entities were cut up into chunks that would perpetuate ethnic strife and provide a ready pool of minority groups bidding for British support to their power with offers of enhancing British influence over the nations affairs. (Vail, 2004)In other words, Iraq was set up to fail. The Sunnis in Iraq were hated by the Shi'ites for the excesses they had indulged in under British rule, and no group that has enjoyed power ever willingly gives it up.
Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different and perhaps barren outcome. (Bush, 1998)The animosity between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq is not a problem that can be resolved peacefully. The Iraqi army and police that the U.S. is so diligently supporting is just one side in a civil war: the Shi'ites taking their revenge on their former Sunni oppressors. The "insurgency," a.k.a., "the terrorists," are the other side—Sunnis fighting back against the Shi'ites, partly to restore their own power, but largely trying to defend themselves against the raids the army conducts on Sunni targets with little media coverage, to which our military generally turns a blind eye. Even the best case scenario proposed by the Bush administration is an unmitigated disaster: the triumph of one side of this civil war over the other, an end which can only concievably end with genocide. The primary loyalties in Iraq are not to the fictions drawn on maps by European oppressors as they left the land; they are the tribal and sectarian loyalties that provide actual security and physical needs. State failure is a simple question of Maslowe's hierarchy of needs.
From this point, up until 1990, the US and Britain effectively used the Exploitation Model to control Iraq through support to the Sunni minority. This raises the question: what is the US doing to control Iraq at present? The January 3oth elections scheduled to create a new Iraqi government seem, on the surface, to violate every tenet of the Exploitation Model: the 60% Shi’ite majority will clearly win control of the government, they have very close ties to Iran, and will essentially exclude the US from significant control in the affairs—especially the economic affairs—of Iraq. In fact, the new Iranian/Iraqi Shi’ite position will assist Iran’s power play in the region, also at the expense of US influence. So does the US have a plan? Or are they stuck between a rock (Shi’ite Control, Shi’ite/Sunni civil war) and a hard place (Fixing the election and inciting Shi’ite/Iranian violence), and are simply pressing ahead with the better of two very bad positions? Is it time for the Exploitation Model to take another evolutionary leap… is there some entirely new US strategy afoot?In this case, the "exit strategy" is clear. Permanent bases rooted near strategic reserves, like oil fields, can be erected. The region can be allowed to dissolve into civil war, allowing the U.S. the opportunity to remove itself from general view and withdraw to said bases, where they can use the ongoing conflict to justify continued prescence in the region (as per the plan outlined by so many of the Bush administration's principal players even before Bush was elected, e.g., Rebuilding America's Defenses, PNAC, Sept. 2000).
What I am proposing is the possibility that the US is intentionally pressing ahead with an entirely new model, what I am calling the Intentional Instability Model. The impetus for this development is the understanding that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate significantly no matter what happens on January 31st (it will likely be accelerated by the election), and that it is critical to US economic health to stabilize the interrelated crises in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia simultaneously. (Vail, 2004)
'Cut and Run' is a tactic that is seen as 'weak' and 'cowardly' by Western culture as far back as the Roman empire.
What is needed is to 'turtle' and draw out the enemy. Setting up a central fortification and forcing the enemy to come to you is the only option.
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (shouting, as usual): "Why is Private Pyle out of his bunk after lights out?! Why is Private Pyle holding that weapon? Why aren't you stomping Private Pyle's guts out?"I think there's quite a bit of both the utter dolt and the sneaky bastard genius going on in the administration collectively, so both of your takes are correct from different angles, paulsc and jefgodesky. I lean more towards jef's call on this part though:
"And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them--"If you can't deal with that kind of ambivalence and ambiguity, if you need charicatures and dehumanized enemies, then war is a subject that you simply cannot comment upon intelligently.
"You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding.
"No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist."
From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.Is it still a conspiracy theory, when they publish it beforehand and tell everyone exactly what it is they intend to do? I used to wonder how it was that Germans were so surprised by the Holocaust, when Hitler specified that he would do exactly that before he reached power, in Mein Kampf. I now understand how that happened.
Like any group of permanent Washington revolutionaries fueled by visions of a righteous cause, the neocons long ago decided that criticism from the establishment isn't a reason for self-doubt but the surest sign that they're on the right track. But their confidence also comes from the curious fact that much of what could go awry with their plan will also serve to advance it. A full-scale confrontation between the United States and political Islam, they believe, is inevitable, so why not have it now, on our terms, rather than later, on theirs? Actually, there are plenty of good reasons not to purposely provoke a series of crises in the Middle East. But that's what the hawks are setting in motion, partly on the theory that the worse things get, the more their approach becomes the only plausible solution.Now, granted, this is merely a supporting piece. My primary source here is "Adapting the Exploitation Model: Does the US have NO plan, or a NEW plan?" by Jeff Vail. Vail was an intelligence officer in the USAF who helped plan a good bit of the Iraqi invasion, and is currently a counter-terrorism expert with the Dept. of the Interior. He writes:
There are some pretty simple issues that underlie this problem. The US economy is dependent on the regular supply of petroleum from the Middle East. The US economy is dependent on the continued use of the petrodollar (dollar denomination of petroleum sales) standard. The US has the most powerful and projectable military force in the world, and will maintain this advantage for the next 10+ years. The Intentional Instability Model is based on the principle that fostering, not resolving instability in a region is the most effective way to ensure acceptance of the use of dominant military force to exert influence. Intentional Instability creates the kind of permanent-crisis mentality first suggested by George Orwell’s continuous state of “war” in his book “1984”. Intentional Instability facilitates the kind of Keynesian stimulus favored by the power elite: defense spending and economic subsidies that concentrate power in the hands of the few. Intentional Instability in the region will provide the context to support the House of Saud when that crisis matures into a full-blown insurgency. Intentional Instability provides a context to contain Iranian ambitions – especially those of establishing an Iranian/PetroEuro alternative to the Saudi/PetroDollar standard upon which the entire US economy hangs. The January 3oth elections will create a civil war in Iraq along Sunni vs. Shi’ite lines, and will ensure the US presence in the region for decades. In classic Exploitation Model manner, the US military will continue to leverage local fighters and governments against each other, attempting to reserve its military power behind protective barriers to launch lightning-quick strikes against carefully planned targets. In my estimation, the Intentional Instability Model will work, and it will work well. That is, until adversaries learn the tactics of net-war, understand how to amplify the effects of their attacks by targeting critical nodes, and realize the fundamental weaknesses of hierarchy. But that could take years, and in the mean time, the situation in the Middle East will take only one path: increasing instability. The most important question, in my mind: is this the result of a new, intentional US strategy, or is it simply incompetence on the part of American foreign policy.The report is referring to the existing US bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other neighboring states (as of 2000), not hypothetical bases in Iraq.
After eight years of no-fly-zone operations, there is little reason to anticipate that the U.S. air presence in the region should diminish significantly as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power. Although Saudi domestic sensibilities demand that the forces based in the Kingdom nominally remain rotational forces, it has become apparent that this is now a semi-permanent mission. From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.This was not one of PNAC's (many) papers advocating an invasion of Iraq, but this is very clearly making the case for permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq should that possibility arise. A few pages earlier, on page 14, they write this:
Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.Emphasis mine.
Although Saudi domestic sensibilities demand that the forces based in the Kingdom nominally remain rotational forces, it has become apparent that this is now a semi-permanent mission. From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene.So, we have two possible alternatives. In one, there is no one in the White House or the Department of Defense who knows anything about Iraq, and they pushed to invade it without any persuasion from the neoconservatives who are so intimately involved in the upper echelons of both the White House and the Department of Defense; they invaded Iraq for oil, but had no plan, leading to the current debacle.
The third striking thing about Wolfowitz is an optimism about America's ability to build a better world. He has an almost missionary sense of America's role. In the current case, that means a vision of an Iraq not merely purged of cataclysmic weaponry, not merely a threat disarmed, but an Iraq that becomes a democratic cornerstone of an altogether new Middle East. Given the fatalism that prevails about this most flammable region of the world, that is an audacious optimism indeed.After 9/11, they convinced Bush that transforming the Middle East, starting with Iraq, was a good counter-terrorism strategy.
Wolfowitz says he worries deeply about the risks of going into Iraq -- about disabling the small arsenal of Scud missiles before one possibly delivers poisons to Israel or the Saudi oil fields, about persuading Israel (as he personally helped do during the gulf war) not to join the war even if attacked, knowing that would tend to mobilize the Arab world against the United States, about the potential mess of urban warfare and civilian casualties. 'I think the getting in is the dangerous part,' he says."Stupidity" isn't really the problem. It's lack of humility. Hans Morgenthau:
He worries considerably less about the day after.
'I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Iraq, properly managed -- and it's going to take a lot of attention, and the stakes are enormous, much higher than Afghanistan -- that it really could turn out to be, I hesitate to say it, the first Arab democracy, or at least the first one except for Lebanon's brief history,' he says. 'And even if it makes it only Romanian style, that's still such an advance over anywhere else in the Arab world.'
Mr. Rostow has a powerful, brilliant, and creative mind. How could such a mind produce such trash? The answer lies in the corruption of power and the defenselessness of the intellectual in the face of it. The intellectual as a social type is singularly deprived of the enjoyment of power and eminently qualified to understand its importance and what it means not to have it. Thus campuses and literary circles abound with empire builders, petty politicians, and sordid intriguers—all seekers after power, the substance of which eludes them. When an intellectual finds himself in the seat of power he is tempted to equate the power of his intellect with the power of his office. As he could mould the printed word to suit his ideas so he now expects the real world to respond to his actions. Hence his confidence in himself, his pride, his optimism; hence, also, the absence of the tragic sense of life, of humility, of that fear and trembling with which great statesmen have approached their task, knowing that in trying to mould the political world they must act like gods, without the knowledge, the wisdom, the power, and the goodness which their task demands.I'm still curious what evidence you have, if any, to support Vail's "intentional instability" theory.
The new US embassy being constructed in Baghdad is a prime example – the world's largest such building, and indeed not so much an embassy as a small town. Constructed largely by non-Iraqi labour, with the lead contractor from Kuwait, the $592 million complex is already one third finished and is scheduled for completion in mid-2007. It will have an estimated 1,000 staff, comprise two office blocks and a number of apartment buildings, contain its own leisure facilities, be independent of the thoroughly unreliable Baghdad electricity and water supplies, and boast exceptionally high levels of security, including a substantial marine-corps barracks.A parallel universe
The complex will maintain the closest of relationships with future Iraqi governments, not least because such governments will be dependent on a substantial US presence at a series of "super-bases", four of which are currently being developed. The most advanced is Balad, north of Baghdad, which had $228.7 million allocated to it in 2005; two other facilities are getting substantial upgrades – al-Asad in the west (with a $46.3 million expenditure for 2006) and Tallil in the south (aiming for $110.3 million).
Balad is strategically close to Baghdad but sufficiently away from major urban concentrations to avoid continual attacks from insurgents, and the other centres – including al-Qayyarah in the north – are similarly remote. At the same time, the three bases away from Baghdad are very usefully located to secure the main oil reserves. Iraq's current oilfields are either in the south (covered by Tallil) or in the north (covered by al-Qayyarah); there is an expectation that future exploration will uncover substantial further reserves in the western desert (conveniently watched over by the camp at al-Asad).
All four bases have been built up from ones originally developed by the Saddam Hussein regime, but the rate of building and modernisation has been remarkable. Al-Asad currently has 17,000 troops and construction workers stationed in an area of forty-two square kilometres, with Burger King, Subway and Pizza Hut franchises already open and a car dealership and Hertz rental agency within the complex. Two bus routes connect different parts of the base, which is sixteen kilometres from the nearest town. At Tallil, a 6,000-seater mess hall is planned. At all four installations, most of the personnel never leave the protected areas.
Balad airbase and the adjacent Camp Anaconda are the most notable examples. Balad alone has 25,000 military and civilian personnel and has been the subject of a massive expansion of its facilities for handling aircraft and helicopters (with a large involvement by Turkish companies). Two large air transport ramps (hard-standings) have been constructed: one for C-5 cargo planes – the largest in US airforce service – and another for the C-130 Hercules workhorses to service the C-130 squadron that was transferred in January 2006 to Balad from Kuwait.
Perhaps most indicative of all, though, are the new helicopter facilities. These include a recently completed ramp that accommodates 120 helicopters, one of the largest military concentrations anywhere in the world. According to the site commander, Brigadier-General Frank Gorenc, Balad is now averaging 27,500 air movements a month, making it second only to London's Heathrow airport in the world.
...Balad, Tallil and al-Qayyarah are well within the borders of Iraq, set back a long way from the border with Iran and therefore within heavily-protected airspace. At the same time, they stretch from north to south along the western side of Iran, making them eminently suitable for air operations against Iran. Their size and capabilities make them superior to aircraft carriers in this respect, especially if an initial attack on Iranian nuclear facilities resulted in Iranian responses that required long-term bombing campaigns against a range of targets in Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we can. You are calling radio stations to tell people to get out and vote. What do you say to people who feel that the two parties are bought by corporations, and that they are ... at this point feel that their vote doesn't make a difference?I mean, who knows what a person's motivations really are, all we can do is look at the patterns, look at the outcomes..
PRESIDENT CLINTON: There's just not a shred of evidence to support that. That's what I would say.
The third striking thing about Wolfowitz is an optimism about America's ability to build a better world. He has an almost missionary sense of America's role. In the current case, that means a vision of an Iraq not merely purged of cataclysmic weaponry, not merely a threat disarmed, but an Iraq that becomes a democratic cornerstone of an altogether new Middle East. Given the fatalism that prevails about this most flammable region of the world, that is an audacious optimism indeed.Why did they decide to try this great democratizing project, while also trying to demonstrate the overwhelming superiority of the American military with a tiny expeditionary force?
the dilemma between the requirements of domestic politics and foreign policy. In order to be able to pursue its foreign policies, a democratic government must make these policies acceptable to the people. Yet what is acceptable to the people is frequently at variance with the conditions for success in foreign policy. What the people usually want is quick and spectacular success achieved at a minimum of cost and effort; what a successful foreign policy generally requires is patience and the sacrifice of short-term advantage for the attainment of long-term objectives. The conciliation of these two requirements demands a high order of courage and statesmanship.This is an administration which puts tax cuts above sound fiscal policy. They're not exactly big on patience and short-term sacrifice.
The United States has managed its position in Iraq -- to the extent that it has been managed -- by manipulating the Sunni-Shiite fault line in the Muslim world. In the same way that Richard Nixon manipulated the Sino-Soviet split, the fundamental fault line in the Communist world, to keep the Soviets contained and off-balance late in the Vietnam War, so the Bush administration has used the primordial fault line in the Islamic world, the Sunni-Shiite split, to manipulate the situation in Iraq.like they're ppl who want fatah and hamas to tear each other apart...
Washington did this on a broader scale as well. Having enticed Iran with new opportunities -- both for Iran as a nation and as the leading Shiite power in a post-Saddam world -- the administration turned to Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and enticed them into accommodation with the United States by allowing them to consider the consequences of an ascended Iran under canopy of a relationship with the United States. Washington used that vision of Iran to gain leverage in Saudi Arabia. The United States has been moving back and forth between Sunnis and Shia since the invasion of Afghanistan, when it obtained Iranian support for operations in Afghanistan's Shiite regions. Each side was using the other. The United States, however, attained the strategic goal of any three-player game: It became the swing player between Sunnis and Shia.
I observed during my time at Chicago two distinct strands of Straussians. I'll call one strand "the gentlemen" and the other strand "the Nietzscheans."seems like what there're missing is a faith in discovery...
Granting your point about Strauss's skepticism, there are two paths you can go down from there; but first, there is an intermediate step: once you grant that the most appropriate response to the most difficult questions about life is skepticism, what does one do with "the many," as the Straussians call them? Can ALL human beings (ALL prisoners in Plato's cave) really accept that there are no certain answers to life's most pressing questions? Can everyone be a philosopher?
Strauss's answer seems to have been: No, they cannot. Most human beings need answers, and they become very dangerous when denied them. Bear in mind what they did to Socrates, after all. So, the next question is, what answers to give them? To give a definite answer when you don't really have one (remember: skepticism is a given here) is to lie. To lie in order to prevent harm is to lie nobly. For Strauss, the many need noble lies...
The gentlemen (for example, Cropsey), as best I could tell, believe that skeptical moderation is good for its own sake, and that moderate noble lies are also best for a stable polity. That means one's political myths must encourage the decent virtues as much as possible. It means that the noble lies ("All men are created equal," for example) are not entirely false or implausible. The gentlemen are thus very close to the Strauss described by Smith in his book.
The Nietzscheans (for example, Bloom) take another path from the skeptical starting point. For them, there is one truth that IS certain: the distinction between those human beings who CAN endure the fact that there are no certain answers and those who CANNOT endure it. The Nietzschean Straussians that I knew as graduate students were utterly dismissive of the many ordinary human beings; they believed the scales had fallen from their own eyes and that they had been liberated from ordinary morality. Moderation is good only as a means or a mask, not good in itself. Yet at the same time, they understood Strauss's cautions about the limits of general Enlightenment and public reason. And so for them, the best regime was the American one, a regime that permits freedom of thought for the philosophers and, for the many, freedom for politics, for hard work, and (alas) for self-indulgence -- despite the risk of a plunge into consumerism and philistinism. Hence "The End of History and the Last Man" -- by a student of Bloom's. (Everyone forgets the last man part: it's not necessarily a happy ending.)
These Nietzscheanized Straussians that I observed truly believed in their superiority and in their right to influence politics and public affairs. Yes, as a student in his 20's mellows into his 40's and 50's, he will lose some of the Nietzschean hubris -- but perhaps not the conviction that the many need noble lies that he knows to be false. Not the conviction that he knows best, and can apply this knowledge universally. Hence Wolfowitz, the WMD feint in order to bring on war in Iraq, the plan to seed democracy throughout the Middle East and end all tyranny, the Rumsfeldian arrogance, etc. Disaster.
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posted by russilwvong at 10:15 AM on June 21, 2006