International Affairs: November 2003 Archives

SDB has a plausible take on how the War on Terror could turn nuclear if things go poorly. I've written about our use of nuclear deterrence in the past as well, and I agree that we're still playing kids' games with the Islamofacists because we're trying to keep the stakes as low as possible. If anyone sets off a nuclear weapon, the world will become a very ugly place -- but America will still come out the winner, as awful as it may be.

MOAB

The largest international "aid" scheme in history is coming to an end today, reports the BBC (HT: Bill Hobbs). I love that the BBC refers to the oil-for-food program as a "scheme".

The programme was, quite simply, the most ambitious experiment in aid ever undertaken by the United Nations.

It became a test of the organisation's capacity to shield ordinary people from the potentially catastrophic impact of sanctions aimed at a political elite.

And that's why sanctions never work: they hurt the poor, oppressed population, while the political elite ride high on the hog. The oil-for-food scheme was designed to try to prevent that, but there were dozens of reports in the 1990s (and now, lots of proof) that most of the money was diverted away from the poor, and into Saddam's vaults.

The spending will not suddenly stop though.

The American-led coalition has renegotiated almost all of the contracts and re-employed most of the local staff.

Ordinary Iraqis probably will not immediately notice the difference though.

There is just more than $4bn still left in the bank and the new trade ministry will gradually wind down the programmes over the next seven months.

The coalition official co-ordinating the handover, ambassador Stephen Mann, said whatever happens after that will be up to the new Iraqi Government to decide.

Sounds perfect, to me.

Symbolic Victory

I'm sure others have commented on President Bush's speech in Whitehall Palace in London, but I haven't been surfing much today and I want to write a bit about it myself. There's an awful lot here, and I'm going to try to isolate some of the most significant points.

First, I think the President's opening jokes were pretty pithy.

It was pointed out to me that the last noted American to visit London stayed in a glass box dangling over the Thames. (Laughter.) A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me. (Laughter.) I thank Her Majesty the Queen for interceding. (Laughter.) We're honored to be staying at her house.

President Bush then goes on to list some Britons who were very influential in American history, and talks about some of the many things our nations have in common.

The President then gets in a little dig at France.

President Wilson had come to Europe with his 14 Points for Peace. Many complimented him on his vision; yet some were dubious. Take, for example, the Prime Minister of France. He complained that God, himself, had only 10 commandments. (Laughter.) Sounds familiar. (Laughter.)

That's significant; even though it's a minor joke, you know the diplomats around the world are taking it very seriously.

And the UN and multilateralism?

America and Great Britain have done, and will do, all in their power to prevent the United Nations from solemnly choosing its own irrelevance and inviting the fate of the League of Nations. It's not enough to meet the dangers of the world with resolutions; we must meet those dangers with resolve. ...

Our first choice, and our constant practice, is to work with other responsible governments. We understand, as well, that the success of multilateralism is not measured by adherence to forms alone, the tidiness of the process, but by the results we achieve to keep our nations secure.

Translation: the world is welcome to help, but we're not going to get tangled up with procedural delays just for the sake of "cooperation".

The President lays out our long-term goals for the Middle East region.

... And by advancing freedom in the greater Middle East, we help end a cycle of dictatorship and radicalism that brings millions of people to misery and brings danger to our own people.

The stakes in that region could not be higher. If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. And as we saw in the ruins of two towers, no distance on the map will protect our lives and way of life. If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be bettered, and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source.

Those paragraphs are the strongest declaration I've yet seen on the subject; the Middle East will be democratized, so get on board or get out of the way.

Diplomatically and honestly, President Bush then accepts some blame on behalf of America for our past actions that propped up some of the dictators he now wants to eliminate.

We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.

But now...

Now we're pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun.

I think President Bush is right to admit the mistakes of our past, and to indicate that we're changing our ways. The complaint of past wrongdoing by America was always one of the left's most powerful talking-points (despite it's irrelevance to the present war), and I'm glad the President addressed it.

Things in Iraq are going well, despite hostile news reports.

Since the liberation of Iraq, we have seen changes that could hardly have been imagined a year ago. A new Iraqi police force protects the people, instead of bullying them. More than 150 Iraqi newspapers are now in circulation, printing what they choose, not what they're ordered. Schools are open with textbooks free of propaganda. Hospitals are functioning and are well-supplied. Iraq has a new currency, the first battalion of a new army, representative local governments, and a Governing Council with an aggressive timetable for national sovereignty. This is substantial progress. And much of it has proceeded faster than similar efforts in Germany and Japan after World War II.

As for Israel and Palestinian Authority:

We seek a viable, independent state for the Palestinian people, who have been betrayed by others for too long. (Applause.) We seek security and recognition for the state of Israel, which has lived in the shadow of random death for too long. (Applause.) These are worthy goals in themselves, and by reaching them we will also remove an occasion and excuse for hatred and violence in the broader Middle East.

Achieving peace in the Holy Land is not just a matter of the shape of a border. As we work on the details of peace, we must look to the heart of the matter, which is the need for a viable Palestinian democracy. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, who tolerate and profit from corruption and maintain their ties to terrorist groups. These are the methods of the old elites, who time and again had put their own self-interest above the interest of the people they claim to serve. The long-suffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders, capable of creating and governing a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian leadership -- that is, Arafat -- is preventing democracy from taking hold, and perpetuating the misery of the Palestinian people. European and Arab leaders are also responsible for supporting terror against Israel.

Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel.

Leaders in Europe should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause. And Europe's leaders -- and all leaders -- should strongly oppose anti-Semitism, which poisons public debates over the future of the Middle East. (Applause.)

Many of the President's points we're softly-spoken, but his intentions are very aggressive. It's interesting that he didn't mention Saudi Arabia, but he did put the finger on Iran and North Korea, and particularly criticised some unnamed European leaders for their obstruction and tepid cooperation.

The speech was strong and passionate, and I hope it makes waves around the world.

Are apologists for communism morally equivalent to holocaust deniers? I say yes.

A World Tribune article says the US is deploying 20,000 troops to the Syrian border. I don't know anything about the World Tribune, and the link looks perishable.

The United States has deployed 20,000 troops along the Syrian border after Syria failed to stop militants from crossing into Iraq.

As late as October, U.S. officials said hundreds of Islamic insurgents were crossing into Iraqi from Syria. They said Syrian authorities had failed to respond to U.S. appeals to stop the flow of insurgents.

U.S. military officials said the U.S. troop presence was bolstered beginning in September and has resulted in a significant drop in infiltration from Syria. The U.S. troops are based in the Iraqi province of Anbar, Middle East Newsline reported.

So, is there a "flypaper strategy" to lure would-be terrorists to Iraq, or not? Maybe the plan with this deployment isn't to discourage the influx, but rather to deal with it west of Baghdad. Maybe it's all just smoke and mirrors.

Bill Hobbs has a great example of how reporting can be unbalanced, even when it's true. He discusses the Battle of Midway and explains that if the press only reported the loss of the carrier USS Yorktown, Americans at home might have become dismayed. When you know that 4 Japanese carriers were also destroyed, however, it's clear that Midway was an amazing victory for America and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

Bill also has some incredible pictures of the Yorktown sinking, and of a newspaper front page announcing the US victory. Neither sight is likely to be seen these days.

Candace points to a NY Times article I somehow missed that claims Saddam tried to avert war at the last moment.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.

Some may find it troubling that we decided not to deal with Saddam Hussein at this late date, with our troops massed on the borders. In some ways, it may appear that we should have taken advantage of any opportunity to avoid war, and some may criticise the Bush Administration for apparently ignoring this contact. However, such critics would be mistaken.

In interviews in Beirut, Mr. Hage said the Iraqis appeared intimidated by the American military threat. "The Iraqis were finally taking it seriously," he said, "and they wanted to talk, and they offered things they never would have offered if the build-up hadn't occurred."

This is the crux of the matter. Because it is very expensive in lives, money, and time to build up a military presence as we did for the Iraq invasion, our military needs to be an effective threat, not merely an effective weapon. Our enemies need to realize that once our boots are on the ground, it's too late for anything other than complete capitulation, which the Iraqis were not willing to accept.

He said that when he told Mr. Obeidi that the United States seemed adamant that Saddam Hussein give up power, Mr. Obeidi bristled, saying that would be capitulation. But later, Mr. Hage recounted, Mr. Obeidi said Iraq could agree to hold elections within the next two years.

Once we were positioned, we were committed to achieving complete victory. The only concession we could have accepted would have been if Saddam had surrendered himself to the United States and Iraq had opened itself up to immediate US military occupation (including disbanding its own armed forces). That was our standard for victory, and that's what we obtained through combat; no lesser outcome could have been accepted.

Why not? Well, as Grand Moff Tarkin famously observed in Star Wars in reference to the Death Star, "Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battlestation." He formulated what is known as the Tarkin Doctrine: Rule through the fear of force, rather than force itself. Sure, he was working for the evil Emperor Palpatine, but his logic is sound. Using force is simply too expensive to be done lightly, and an army (or a Death Star) can only be one place at a time. But an army can threaten a great many places at once, if it has forces in reserve that are ready to be deployed.

Furthermore, we can't be predictable and allow our enemies to manipulate us. If we allowed Saddam to talk us into withdrawing short of total victory once we were in place, what would prevent him from simply changing his mind again as soon as our troops were gone? Then we'd have to build up for another 6 months, only for him to perhaps give in a bit more later. Our other enemies would see that the line of real danger was very away from our verbal threat, and thus the power of our threat would be greatly diminished. The next time we threatened to use our military, our opponent would know that he could avoid giving in to us until we were actually on his doorstep aiming our kick.

That would be a completely untenable foreign policy. Once a threat is made, and our opponent refuses to surrender, we must then follow through on the threat. That's the only way to ensure that our verbal threats are taken seriously; anything less would hamstring our diplomats and tie up our military in endless for-show deployments, costing lives and money.

It's not at all surprising to me that Saddam and his cronies saw they were doomed and wanted to talk their way out of it at the last moment. But I'm very glad we didn't let them, because if we had we would have returned to the status quo of 1999, and left ourselves in a far weaker diplomatic position.

At the end of his Daily Bleat, Lileks mentions the recent al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh and says:

And it makes me wonder: They stick the shiv in the ribs of their richest and most enthusiastic backers.

What makes them this confident?

But that question presupposes that there's a high-level organizational force directing and organizing these recent attacks. Mr. Lileks may have been speaking rhetorically, but if anyone thinks that Osama Bin Laden is lounging in a cave, watching satellite TV, and pulling terrorist strings anymore, they're mistaken.

Combined with the attacks on the Red Cross and the UN in Baghdad (and the earlier bombings in Saudi Arabia), the only real possible conclusion is that there simply isn't anyone in control anymore (if there ever was). At it's strongest, al Qaeda was a sort of terrorist venture capitalist that financed and trained killers around the world, but often the plans and projects themselves were instigated and led by locals. OBL may have given some ideological direction (such as prohibiting attacks on Arab oil infrastructure), but it's doubtful that he ever had much authority (such as the power to stop terrorist attacks, if he so chose (as Arafat has done in the past in Israel)).

No, the attacks we're seeing now aren't motivated by confidence, they're the death-throes of fragmented terror cells around the world. I doubt that many attacks are really the work of any organization that can legitimately called "al Qaeda" -- the name has grabbed international recognition, and I imagine that every otherwise-unaffiliated Muslim terrorist uses it just to assure that his attacks get attention and reinforce the myth. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride, the name is used for effect and cover, nothing more.

As many others have speculated, the targets of these recent attacks were likely chosen for 2 reasons: they're "soft" targets and thus easy to hit, and they'll scare people by their randomness. That's the difference between a "military operation" and a "terrorist operation". Militaries (even guerrilla forces) select targets and make attacks for the purposes of damaging enemy forces and acquiring material assets. Terrorists just blow up whatever's handy to show their power, and then make demands; the point isn't so much what gets blown up, as long as it's something that will get attention for the terrorist's cause.

I had more, but it was rambling.

"Teen Bomber's Dad Condemns Palestinian Militants" says the headline, and I'm glad to see that he's not blaming Israel. Unfortunately, the majority of Palestinians support the ongoing intifada that has claimed so many lives, and blame their misery on the Israelis rather than on their own leaders. Arafat and his terrorist cronies are using the Palestinian people as pawns in their own game, and until the Palestinians realize that they're going to continue suffering.

From my earlier post (based on this September, 2002, poll of Palestinians):

- 52% oppose peace negotiations with Israel.
- 73% are pessimistic of a reaching a peaceful settlement to the conflict.
- 66% are opposed to the Oslo agreement.
- 80% support the continuation of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
- 53% believe that the Intifada will achieve its object.
- 65% support suicide bombing operations against Israeli civilians [the poll question specifically mentions civilians].

Get a clue. Sometimes the best option is to surrender, particularly when your opponent is a democracy whose people would be more than happy to let you live in peace and prosperity.