Arms and influence

The laptop of death

IN THE NEWS
To paraphrase our Dear Leader, I don't know if it would be worse if the "laptop of death" turns out to be bogus, or if it turns out to be real.

OK, it's not too hard to figure out. If it's bogus, the US government looks like a band of consummate idiots.

The real problem

IN THE NEWS
What's the real problem in Iraq? The mounting sectarian violence? The failure to pursue a classic enclave strategy? The weaknesses of the Iraqi military and police?

If you ask Vice President Cheney, the real problem in Iraq is Iran. That's the conclusion of Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker, at least.

As misguided as this thesis may be, the rebuttals may be equally off-base. Iranian support for SCIRI, the Sadrists, and other Shi'ite factions is a serious problem. Iranian financing helps these organizations deliver money and protection that the Iraqi government cannot provide. (Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon represents a similar threat.) While no Shi'ite militia, or even a coalition of Shi'ites, is poised to seize control of all of Iraq, Iran is helping sustain the insurgency. For a relatively small investment, the Iranian government can create a great deal of trouble for the Iraqi and American governments.

At this point, the discussion might easily devolve into a relatively pointless discussion of how hard it would be to invade Iraq. Not only is that sort of invasion politically and militarily implausible, it would neither end the Iraqi insurgency. At best, attacking Iran would have a neglible effect on the conflict among Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds; at worst, it would inspire even greater outrage and desperation among many Iraqi Shi'ites.

Americans committed the same strategic error in South Vietnam, but with greater justification. Many observers and participants, from General William Westmoreland to Colonel Harry Summers, argued that the "real problem" in South Vietnam was North Vietnam. NVA formations attacking across the DMZ, or infiltrating South Vietnam from Cambodia or Laos, disrupted efforts to defeat the Viet Cong. American and South Vietnamese efforts to win hearts and minds became moot when NVA units moved into a village. The solution, therefore, was to eliminate the North Vietnamese military threat. For many, such as Summers, the NVA was always going to be a problem, as long as US ground forces were kept out of North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Of course, US leaders were worried that an invasion of North Vietnam would turn a regional war into a superpower conflict, if the Chinese or Soviets rushed to North Vietnam's defense. However, even if the United States had succeeded in knocking North Vietnam out of the war, National Liberation Front guerrillas might still have continued their war against the South Vietnamese government. The NLF would have faced a drastic reduction in material and manpower support, and they would not have benefited from the political mayhem that NVA operations in the South sustained. That's not the same as saying that the NLF would have been defeated. In fact, the NLF's dependence on North Vietnam led to the Tet Offensive, a crushing defeat from which the insurgency never truly recovered.

Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents has neither the scale nor the significance of the Democratic Republic of vietnam's support for the NLF. Nevertheless, it's still worth trying to remove Iran as a factor in Iraq's internal war. Other options than invasion--for example, a mixture of interdiction and inducements--definitely exist. Let's just be clear how much, or little, of a difference these steps might make--particularly as the sectarian violence within Iraq worsens.

Déjà vu all over again

IN THE NEWS
The US government is arguing that the nuclear threat from a Middle Eastern country is greater than the the International Atomic Energy Agency would say. OK, the part of the US government in question is the House Intelligence Committee, not the White House, and the country is Iran, not Iraq.

The nuclear threat this time around is a lot more serious than it was with Iraq. However, the important question is, why is any part of the US government getting into another noisy, public argument with the IAEA? As Steven Taylor at Poliblogger said today:

While I am hardly going to say that UN is perfect, I will say this: despite all the criticism that was levelled at al Baradei and the UN WMD inspectors in the build-up to the Iraq invasion, we have to face facts, the UN guys were right about the Iraq’s WMD capabilities and the administration and their allies were wrong. Indeed, fantastically wrong.

Strenghtening the mullahs

IN THE NEWS
We can argue whether the 2003 Iranian offer to put everything on the negotiation table with the United States was just a ploy to entangle American officials in pointless dialogue, or a genuine offer. We can speculate whether the Iranian government would have abandoned its nuclear program, or refrained from making mischief in post-invasion Iraq, if these hypothetical negotiations had occurred. However, what's not controversial is the following conclusion, buried at the bottom of the Washington Post article:

The incident "strengthened the hands of those in Iran who believe the only way to compel the United States to talk or deal with Iran is not by sending peace offers but by being a nuisance," Parsi said.

Postscript: Here's what Stygius says about the same topic.

The Iranian freeze

IN THE NEWS
One of the many sad things about the Iranian nuclear program is what it means for the Iranians themselves. Going nuclear helps a government stay in power, no matter how odious it may be. Political upheaval directed against a regime with its finger on the nuclear button is, needless to say, a scary situation that most interested parties would like to avoid. In other words, the internal opposition to the Iranian theocracy now faces a harder time getting support from abroad, on top of some hesitation among some of potential allies within Iran.

The man without shame

IN THE NEWS
This just in: the sun is bright, Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs, and Iran is a sponsor of terrorism. Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld, for that last clarification!

On a more serious note, this latest news item demonstrates, yet again, how Rumsfeld's heart must be a shame-free zone. The United States invaded Iraq because, among other reasons, of the threadbare claim that the Ba'athist regime in Baghdad was a major sponsor of terrorist groups. Meanwhile, anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of modern terrorism scratched their heads, wondering why the United States wasn't focusing on Iran, not Iraq, if it wanted to go after a real sponsor of groups like Hizbollah. But here we are, and Iran's capability to support terrorist groups willing to strike at US targets has improved, in no small part because of the number of Americans bivouaced in Iraq.

The United States and its allies need to deal with Iran. However, Rumsfeld only stands in the way of that effort. As long as he continues to head the Department of Defense, morale in the military will be low, the State and Defense Departments will be at each other's throats, and many potential US allies will be unwilling to embrace any US-led campaign against Iran. The problem is worse than having a Secretary of Defense with no shame--it's having the disgust with him actively impair US foreign policy.

The diplomatic dunk tank

IN THE NEWS
If you set up a dunk tank at a school fair, whom do you want sitting in the dunking chair? To attract people willing to put down a dollar for a few tosses at the target, you want someone whom everyone else wants to see dumped into the water. Every school has its candidates: the vice principal who takes the job of maintaining order a bit too seriously; the coach who tears into his players for every minor mistake; the science teacher who grades harder than anyone else in the school. It's a socially safe moment, when the target agrees to be ridiculed, and the people trying to dunk them pretend that it's all in good fun, no real animus there.

The United States has maneuvered itself into a diplomatic dunk tank. The bellicose posturing, the pokes at the UN and reluctant allies, the celebration of unilateralism, the blatant hypocrisy of many of its policies (for example, the attempts to stay out of the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, while proclaiming the importance of universal morality in foreign policy), its borderline-millenarian rhetoric, and most of all, the invasion of Iraq, have all put the United States in the same mental frame that the unloved vice-principal occupies. Sure, he says he's slamming kids against lockers for their own good, and the good of the school. But how could anyone tell the difference between a genuine desire to maintain order and the simple enjoyment of intimidation?

But then the school fair arrives, and the vice-principal is forced, for the good of the school, to mount the steps of the dunk tank. So, too, has the United States willingly mounted the steps of its own humiliation, at the hands of a real enemy, Iran.

The Iranians have clearly been enjoying themselves, much like the school bully relishes the chance to see the vice-principal plummet face-first into a tub of water. The Iranian leadership, most notably President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have cleverly maintained a daily presence in the headlines. The Iranian government's goals are clear: keep the United States off-balance; maintain the diplomatic initiative; keep everyone worried about what the mullahcracy might do next. Unlike Islamist terrorists, who (all post-9/11, free-floating anxiety to the contrary) have little incentive to acquire nuclear weapons, the Iranian government has every reason to build a nuclear arsenal. Humiliating the United States is not only a bonus, it's a measure of success. The threat of a nuclear arsenal, even before the Iran actually acquires one, gives the Iranian leadership enormous leverage. The scales of raw power still tip far in the direction of the United States.

However, the risks and uncertainties of any American-Iranian war give everyone pause—including the usually belligerent Bush Administration, which has agreed to direct talks with Iran. Since the Administration clearly did not want to be cornered into these talks, the Iranian government took the opportunity, yet again, to humiliate the United States. Rather than agreeing to the talks, which Ahmadinejad had urged early in the war of words, he is now being coy. Maybe the Iranian government will agree to talks, but only if the US government proves its seriousness…

The current stand-off with Iraq is not the first time that the Bush Administration has maneuvered itself into humiliating circumstances. The confrontation with North Korea, the third member of the infamous "axis of evil," has not squelched any chance for a nuclear weapons program. (Click here for an analysis of how the United States may have overplayed its hand, making it easier for the North Koreans to wiggle out of a real disarmament proposal.) However, the North Korean regime got the Bush Administration to agree to negotiations, broke down some of the barriers to trade with the outside world, and convinced many South Koreans that their heavily-armed neighbor to the north was less of a threat to regional stability than the United States. China also took advantage of the diplomatic stalemate to position itself as the broker between North Korea and its adversaries.

Similarly, the Syrian government heard threatening noises from the United States, including the accusation that it was hiding the WMDs that UN inspectors and the US Army could not find in Iraq. However, the United States really has not visited pain and suffering on Syria, even though the bulk of US combat forces are deployed in Iraq or nearby. In fact, the parties responsible for Syria's most recent calamity were not members of the Bush Administration, but crowds of angry Lebanese.

The Bush Administration's pattern of bellicose rhetoric, followed by inaction and capitulation, has many sources, not least of which is the ineptitude of the Administration's efforts at coercive diplomacy. The biggest factor, however, is the Iraqi occupation, which ties down US military assets, bleeds the United States economically, and gives adversaries like Iran and North Korea the limits of American power.

The day after the school fair, life returns to normal. The vice-principal is back on the beat, charging into smoke-filled bathrooms, raiding student lockers, and looming behind stragglers on their way to class. The momentary humiliation of the drunk tank is past, even though many students, and perhaps a few faculty members, still have a few delicious memories. Unfortunately, the humiliation of the United States will continue tomorrow, and the day after that, and the days after that. And the Iranians are far more dangerous than a few high school hooligans.

Denial

IN THE NEWS
Robert at Lawyers, Guns, and Money posted this excellent analysis of the likely Iranian strategy, were there a war between the United States and Iran. Certainly, the Iranian government is likely to fall back on the strategy that was effective in the 1980s: sea denial.

The Iranians seem to be gaming a guerilla at sea approach, focusing on small boat attacks against US warships and neutral shipping. It's pretty unlikely that these could do much damage to a US Navy warship, but they could make life uncomfortable for some of the big tankers. It's unlikely that Iranian attacks could sink one of the supertankers, but they might threaten enough damage to close off, at least temporarily, oil transit by sea in the Gulf.

This is exactly what the Iranians did during the Reagan Administration: keep a credible threat to the supertankers moving through the Persian Gulf. The US Navy might wipe the Iranian navy from the map, and as long as a few light craft survive, the fragile flow of oil through the Gulf would still be at risk.

There's more to high oil prices than this threat, but it weighs heavily on the commodities market. Oil prices stay high, as long as uncertainty is the defining feature of Middle Eastern politics. The Iranian government's demonstrated ability to seize the political and military initiative from the West is generating a great deal of discomfort and uncertainty about Persian Gulf oil supplies. (Of course, the Iraqi insurgency plays its part, too.) Last time, the Iranians were foolish enough to force a confrontation with the US Navy. This time, they might have learned their lesson, keeping a "fleet in being" as yet another trump card to play in their confrontational diplomacy with the West.

Lost initiative

IN THE NEWS
Nadezha provides this excellent summary of the swirl of tense diplomacy around Iran's nuclear program. The punchline seems to be, The Iranians continue to hold the diplomatic initiative. Plus, the Iranian government seem to be able to effectively exploit the not-too-subtly-disguised rift between Russia, the self-styled leader of the League of Disgruntled Nations, and the West.

What we leave behind, part II

IN THE NEWS
A major reason why I wrote the previous post is the United States' obvious mental disengagement from Iraq. Everyone is sick of Iraq, including (if you believe this account) the private interests that have most profited from it. Even if the United States ultimately admits that it failed in Iraq, it matters enormously how it disengages from that country.

KBR may not have to worry about its long-term relationship with the US government being jeopardized; the US government does have to worry about its relationship with other allies that it is supporting through the sort of "reconstruction" (civil affairs, call it what you will) projects that KBR implemented. KBR is not as concerned about future contracts for big oil infrastructure projects as the US government should be concerned about how a dismal outcome in Iraq might affect world oil prices.

Iraq has already had an indirect effect on the cost of oil: since the United States clearly cannot do much about Iran's nuclear program, the uncertainty about the future of the Middle East this creates has helped push oil prices back to record highs. Iran's daily announcements of new reasons to be worried about the future of the Middle East deepens the perception that the United States is mired in Iraq to the point of helplessness.

To deal with Iran, the United States must pull free of Iraq. Abandoning Iraq in a hurry risks a worse outcome for Iraq specifically and the region generally. It's time to choose--and this time, the discussion with American voters and allies needs to be more open and constructive than it was going into Iraq.