I agree with Michael Knights’s assertion that the administration is making bad assumptions about Iraq. And I agree that the administration is likely to “double down” on its existing strategy with respect to Iraq. That is, after all, what this administration does. I’m not so sure I agree with him on the precise assumptions the administration is making and, especially, I disagree with him on what we should do.
Here are the assumptions he says they’re making:
- The more we do, the less they do.
- The Islamic State is a terrorist group, not an army.
- We cannot want the stability of Iraq more than Iraqis want it themselves.
I think the administration is assuming that Americans will tolerate anything as long as we don’t put “boots on the ground”. That makes them highly predisposed to overestimate what can be accomplished with air power alone.
Here’s his prescription:
If America is only in Iraq to kill Islamic State fighters, it is eventually going to face the reality of an unfixable collapsed state that will demand an open-ended counterterrorism campaign. The alternative is that the United States help Iraqis preserve the fabric of their nation to whatever extent is still possible. To do so will require a different outlook and greater decisiveness. Deliberation is understandable, but U.S. policy in Iraq has been verging on paralysis.
This is not rocket science: The U.S. options are clear. If the Obama administration wants to fully commit to the hard work of rebuilding Iraq, it should commit 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. Special Forces and support elements as combat advisers, so that Iraqi ground forces and coalition airpower can become far more effective. Secondly, it should use this intensified U.S. military commitment as leverage with Baghdad to win more sustained federal Iraqi government engagement of the Sunnis and the Kurds. Finally, it should accelerate the training of Iraqi forces to leave the next president with a better chance of responsibly downscaling the U.S. commitment in Iraq.
Without these steps, we should not expect to expel the Islamic State from Iraq. In the absence of undeniable U.S. commitment, our Iraqi allies may define victory down into something that looks more like defeat. And that is a risk that neither Iraq, nor the United States, can afford.
I’d like to see the administration clearly delineate our objectives in Iraq (isn’t it already clear it has abandoned its initial objectives to “degrade and destroy” DAESH?), quantify their value to us, and do a cost-benefit analysis.
What I think the administration is actually doing is attempting to minimize downside political risk at an ever-increasing cost.
If assumption two is incorrect, he conveniently disregards the first half. If we complete his formulation, ISIS is not a terrorist group, and therefore, the US has little to worry about from ISIS. I could be wrong, but I doubt he will be pushing this.
I would be interested in what the hell is the Obama strategy other than “no boots on the ground”. I may or may not agree with it, but I sure as hell have no idea of what it is. In any case, I suspect it changes every other day.
If this region is of vital national security, Iraq and Syria need to be taken, occupied, and rebuilt. An initial force of 2.5 to 3 million military personnel, whatever number of civilians, equipment, and supplies need to be sent into the region. They will need to be there for at least 2 years, and then, most of them can be sent home.
There will need to be a occupation force to keep the peace while the place is put back together and the people get re-adjusted to the new government and institutions. This will probably take about 500,000 military personnel for 25 years, but they should maintain the original equipment in case it is needed.
After, you would need a residual force for another decade or so.
Otherwise, you are just playing paddy-cake, and frankly, it is embarrassing
I think he’s trying to avoid being blamed for “losing Iraq”. He wants to make enough of an effort that it’s clear than an effort is being made but not so much effort that it would require the commitment of combat troops. That’s a fatuous wish. Iraq isn’t ours to lose but if it’s lost (whatever that means), he’ll get the blame. Welcome to the presidency, Barack.
Yeah, I think that’s right. Whether the Iraqis want their country more than we do is moot under those circumstances. Of course, I happen to be among that small number (I’m guessing around 20) of Americans who just don’t think the region is that important to us.
” And I agree that the administration is likely to “double down†”
??? Seems to me like they mostly just split the middle. The military and the hawks wanted to extend an indefinite, larger force in Afghanistan. Obama gave them less than what they wanted and set a time limit. The hawks wanted us to deploy 20-30,000 in Iraq. Obama has mostly bombed and put in a few thousand trained/advisors. The hawks wanted us to invade Libya. Instead we provided logistic support and some bombing. The hawks wanted us to either put troops into Syria, bomb someone there or at least arm the “good guys” (whoever that was). Instead we haven’t done much of anything but provide humanitarian aid, and probably a few weapons here and there, plus help the Kurds a bit.
Heck, you even saw this with health reform. The liberal folks wanted some sort of single payer. The GOP wanted no health reform. He split the middle and provided us Romneycare.
Anyway, if this is true….
”
We cannot want the stability of Iraq more than Iraqis want it themselves.”
it would indicate that someone in the foreign policy arena has finally learned something.
Steve
@Dave Schuler
In my mind, if you will an end, you must will the means to that end. Otherwise, it is just a lot of nonsense, and this is why I consider most hawks delusional. It is really hard for me to understand how it is possible to believe an end is vital but to not believe it is vital to actually achieve the end.
I do not much care about the region. I believe in live and let live. If they mostly leave me alone, I will mostly leave them alone. If we need to engage in the region, I would do it through client states, espionage, and some limited covert operations. The last does not mean an endless drone war killing everything in sight.
By this time, it should be crystal clear that ISIS will not be stopped by anybody that is better than ISIS. There is no cavalry in the region to come to the rescue. Actually, Assad and the Iranians may be the best hope, but I am not sure they are acceptable to anybody. The Saudis are worthless, and the Jordanians are probably not much better.
The region is on fire, and the US can either go all in or stay all out. Half-in, half-out does not make it better. It will only prolong the chaos. This is the problem with the Hitler in 1938 scenario. There is no “just curb Hitler” or “just remove Hitler” and end of story.
Isn’t what Knight’s proposing basically more of what we did during the Bush years, perhaps with a bit more direct command of the Iraqi military? But with a smaller commitment from us in a worse situation?
Who wanted to invade Libya? (McCain doesn’t count, he wants to invade everywhere.)
Michael Knight reflects the typical beltway wisdom….
There’s a difference between strategy and tactics and war and warfare. The tactical problem is that the Iraqi government forces (with a few small exceptions) don’t have much fight. One of the main reasons we don’t give stronger support to the ISF is that we realize just how shitty and unreliable most of them are. The so-called PMF’s, or “Popular Mobilization Forces” have a whole lot of fight in them, within certain geographic limits. Unfortunately most of them are effectively Shia militias supported by Iran, although there are a few Sunni groups. The Kurds are certainly a coherent political community, but we cannot expect them to drive ISIS from Iraq as they don’t hold such ambitions (and, of course, there’s the problem of Turkey…).
At the strategic level is the fundamental notion that war (as opposed to warfare) is a competition between political communities and not simply a conflict between armed forces or armies. We are good at training people how to fight and at building armies, but we are able to build the political communities required to support them. That is really the reason all the various training efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years failed. We either assumed a political community where none existed or we mistakenly believed one would coalesce around the force we built. Unfortunately, that is exactly what people like Knight, Sen. McCain and the beltway establishments think is the “obvious†solution that will succeed. The historical record of such attempts speaks for itself.
So, the problem in Iraq and Syria is that the coherent political communities are either enemies of the US or are aligned to enemies of the US. For reasons that should be obvious the US is not about to do any of that. So we are left with these fantasy solutions that involve supporting some kind of moderates who either don’t exist in great numbers and/or do not have the political cohesion to actually engage in war. So training and supporting them is, at best, a can-kicking strategy.
Knight is right that advisors embedded with local forces backed by air power can roll over ISIS. We did this before to great effect in Afghanistan in 2001-2002 as just one example. I’ve noted it before, but airpower, properly employed, can definitely be decisive given the right conditions. More importantly, as we saw in Afghanistan, an operational or tactical victory does not translate into victory at the political or strategic level.
So IMO there are no good options for US policy:
1. Take a side in a sectarian civil war with all the geopolitical consequences that would entail
2. Do nothing or, minimally, remain neutral but work behind the scenes
3. Kick the can and hope
We’ve chosen #3. Although I’m not particularly happy with our current policy it’s difficult for me to a name viable alternative.
“We are good at training people how to fight and at building armies, but we are able to build the political communities required to support them. ”
should read:
“We are good at training people how to fight and at building armies, but we are NOT able to build the political communities required to support them.
Political realities are that about half the US population will be furious if the US doesn’t win in the Middle East, where “win” translates as “kill people until they stop coming at you”, and that about half the US population will be outraged if the US sustains large casualties over there. So the happy path of moderation, which I expect both Democrats and Republicans to adhere to for the next 20 years, is Bring The Boys Home and Send Out The Drones. We’re going to be killing 2-5000 people per year, all of them labeled Terrorists, basically on one man’s say so, and we’ll keep doing it until the UN jumps up and down and tells us to stop, or until the terrorists and their friends start lobbing drones at us.
Isn’t this fun?!?