by Charles
Continuing the journey from Part I, a piece by Philip Ball titled Is Terrorism the Next Format for War? points to research which claims that "terrorist patterns of attack might be the natural endpoint for all modern armed conflicts."
Ongoing wars in Iraq and Colombia, which had quite different causes and began as very different kinds of conflict, are developing a characteristic signature of long-term terrorist activity, say economist Mike Spagat of Royal Holloway, University of London, and his co-workers.
They have found that the death statistics in both of these conflicts are converging on a particular mathematical pattern. This pattern is shared by fatality counts from terrorist attacks in countries that are not major industrialized nations.
However, by excluding "major industrialized nations", they conveniently exclude Israel, which has successfully fought the Palestinian intifada. By no means have Palestinian terrorist attacks stopped, but incidents have dropped precipitously. Israel did this by using overwhelming force against terrorists and by constructing a security fence/wall. Because of this exclusion, I question the researchers’ conclusions as it pertains to Iraq.
I believe they are right in a general sense that–considering the firepower of current military technology and the nations who have that technology–battles between large-scale armies are more and more a thing of the past. Because assymetry between two sides is today’s norm, it is cheaper and more effective to mount terrorist and guerilla attacks than to assemble large battalions. Another factor which strengthens enemy forces is the successful spread of terrorist and guerilla propaganda by sympathetic media; PR or "educational" campaigns are every bit a battlefront as the literal kind. Still another factor which aids terrorists and guerillas are the weak or unpopular governments (or both) in the countries where the conflicts occur. Iraq is a weak government (for now) and Columbia is beleaguered with corruption and mismanagement. The same can be said for South Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, which never had a government that earned the trust of its people.
Eliot Cohen, professor at Johns Hopkins University, paints a picture which is closer to my own views on Iraq and the nature of this battle in the larger war. While still supportive of the effort, he pulls few punches on the selling, planning and execution of it.
The Bush administration did itself a disservice by resting much of its case for war on Iraq’s actual possession of weapons of mass destruction. The true arguments for war reached deeper than that. Long before 2003, weapons inspections in Iraq had broken down, and sanctions, thanks to countries like Russia, China and France, were failing. The regime’s character and ambitions, including its desire to resume suspended weapons programs, had not changed. In the meanwhile, the policy of isolation had brought suffering to the Iraqi people and had not stabilized the Gulf. Read Osama bin Laden’s fatwas in the late 1990s and see how the massive American presence in Saudi Arabia — a presence born of the need to keep Saddam Hussein in his cage — fed the outrage of the jihadis with whom we are in a war that will last a generation or more.
More than this: Decades of American policy had hoped to achieve stability in the Middle East by relying on accommodating thugs and kleptocrats to maintain order. That policy, too, had failed; it was the well-educated children of our client regimes who leveled the Twin Towers, after all.
The administration was and is right in thinking that the overthrow of Saddam’s regime could change the pattern of Middle Eastern politics in ways that, by favoring the cause of decent government and basic freedoms, would favor our interests as well. Iraq will not become Switzerland, a progressive and prosperous social democracy, for generations, if ever. But it can become a state that makes room for the various confessions and communities that constitute it, that has reasonably open and free politics, and that chooses a path to a future that could inspire other changes in the Arab Middle East.
While positive about the idea of it, Cohen goes on to lambaste the administration for its poor management of the operation. After reading it through twice, there is little daylight between him and myself.
The administration was and is right in thinking that the overthrow of Saddam’s regime could change the pattern of Middle Eastern politics…
Yes, by radicalizing it, and bringing Iran-type regimes to ascendency. This is the clear legacy of the war — the Arab world hating the US, the fomenting of a new wave of Islamic jihadis motivated by the US aggression and occupation, and Iraq remolding itself as Iran-lite, including its recent explicit overtures for military and economic cooperation with Iran.
It still remains complete lunancy to believe that aggressive warfare will spread democratic values and remold the region in our favor. The failure of the Iraq war to achieve useful ends for the US is not simply a result of crappy post-war mismanagement, but a basic flaw in the policy.
There is a huge difference between a past policy of sucking up to crappy regimes, a policy of pressing for reforms through all sorts of means other than war, and a policy of imposing change through aggressive warfare. This is not an either/or choce between old policies or wars.
This post continues your failure to note the difference, which is huge, between Al Queda terrorism and most of the activity in Iraq, which is terrorism arising from the “natural endpoint for all modern armed conflicts.”
In other words, much of the ongoing violence in Iraq is the natural consequence of the flawed policy of thinking you spread democracy by waging aggressive wars. What you spread is resentment and more terrorism.
ah CB, you’re always good for a chuckle first thing in the morning.
Precisely how many non-theocratic liberal opposition political parties exist anywhere in the ME, excluding Israel? Zero?
The most effective political opposition in Eygpt is the Muslim Brotherhood. In southern Iraq we’re seeing the rise of the mullahs. Iran appears to have voted in the more conservative of two candidates. The Cedar Revolution appears to have run out of steam. If the House of Saud falls upon the death of the king, it will be due to its betrayal, not its embrace, of wahhabism.
There’s a strong thread of adolescent male hormonal thinking in both you and the neo-cons — let’s just smash up the old regime. Thinking about the hard groundwork necessary to form a new regime which will both treat its own citizens better and not threaten our own security appears to be just too hard.
you missed the key sentence from the Cohen article, which is “Decades of American policy had hoped to achieve stability in the Middle East by relying on accommodating thugs and kleptocrats to maintain order.”
Now, where can effective opposition arise to the US-supported thugs and kleptocrats, other than mosques? This isn’t rhetorical; I’d love to know whether you believe that ME trade unions could, for example, be an effective source of political power. (See, eg, Lech Walesa.)
Second, how in allah’s name do you expect to bring the opposition to the thugs and kleptocrats to a pro-US or at least neutral position?
Again, not a rhetorical question. You are asking young people to risk death and torture to stand against a govt which has been accomodated by the US for generations. (Consider Syria, for example. Certain neo-cons may believe that the way out of Iraq is to invade Syria, but this is a country to which we extraordinarily render undesirables. If we’re helping fill Syrian prisons and torture chambers, I can imagine that the Syrian govt isn’t too worried about US invasion.) Why should the next generation of opposition have anything except profound hatred and contempt for the US? The Soviet satellite states were enemies of the US; making friends with the opposition was a natural fit. Not so in the ME.
As conservative american politicians have said for years, regarding US policy in South/Central America and Africa, we deal with this b*st*rd because all the other choices are worse.
Yes, by radicalizing it, and bringing Iran-type regimes to ascendency.
Which ones, dm? Lebanon? Libya? Afghanistan? The PA? Iran was already radicalized to begin with, as are many others. With all this so-called polarizing going on, why are attitudes changing for the better? Smell the coffee, friend.
Precisely how many non-theocratic liberal opposition political parties exist anywhere in the ME, excluding Israel? Zero?
So we should just give up? It’s hardly been started. We’ve had decades of supporting “stable” dictatorships and despots, and the result has been mostly failure. Time to try something different.
“Iraq will not become Switzerland, a progressive and prosperous social democracy, for generations, if ever. But it can become a state that makes room for the various confessions…blah blah blah blah”
I have lived my entire life with these vague generalities and propagandistic pablum. Afghanistan was “better off” without the Russians;El Savador was “more free” than Ortega’s Nicarauga; Pahlavi’s Iran was moving in the “right direction”;Vietnam had “free elections.” I no longer pay any attention to people who deal in such language.
I want metrics:quantifiable int’l measures of freedom and prosperity; and accountability:resignations if goals aren’t met. The administration may set its goals as embarrassingly low as it needs…but I no longer award brownie points and merit badges for flowery language.
CB:
Iran-type regimes. That is the current drift of Iraq and Afghanistan. Smell the coffee my friend. Actually, Afghanistan is on a path to something much worse — narco warlordism and, god help us if it happens, narco-terrorism in conjunction with Taliban/Al Queda remnants. That horrifying possibility would require those remanants to do a deal with the drug devils, but sometimes expediency results in such unholy alliances. What is clear is that we have decided to do next to nothing to forestall the rise of the narco elements.
Libya remains its usual despotic self.
Lebanon is currently riven between strong religious parties, including strong support for Hezbollah — surprise! — their major patron is Iran. Where Lebanon ends up is uncertain. Don’t be foolish and mistake the anti-Syrian agitation (which is an anti-occupation agitation at its core) as something else.
Let’s hope the PA manages to grow itself out of the hole Arafat put it in. This situation might improve solely because of his death — it has nothing to do with the Iraq war. If Arafat were still alilve, there would be no change. Get it?
Tell me again how the Iraq war is helping to bring about change beneficial to US interests?
CB:
“Precisely how many non-theocratic liberal opposition political parties exist anywhere in the ME, excluding Israel? Zero?”
So we should just give up?
Well, yes as to the warmongering aspect of current policy. Its not a choice simply between wars or old cuddle-up policies.
Tell me again how the Iraq war is helping to bring about change beneficial to US interests?
It’s not actually something you could objectively measure, because the facts tend towards biased*
It’s more of a feeling and the feelings CB feels.
*unoriginal, yes, but a genuine classic
Well, yes as to the warmongering aspect of current policy. Its not a choice simply between wars or old cuddle-up policies.
I remarked with some asperity in a conversation with Charles a few weeks ago that part of the problem in the Bush Administration (and in the GOP more generally) is a refusal to acknowledge as serious or legitimate proposals that don’t fall within the Officially Approved Paradigm. This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about: it’s perfectly possible to be “Serious About Terror” without also advocating rampant militarism, preventive invasions, or even — thanks to the Bush Administration’s colossal f***-ups — “winning” the war in Iraq. I think that, more than anything, is the sign of the ideological blinders Charles decries inaptly in the Juan Cole thread.
Wow, this is interesting. Since the first Nature of the Beast post was part 1, I assume that Chas has a story arch planned, so I’m wondering what happened to the pig lard. Or, with the Juan Cole post, is it just that the whole CB shtick is offal?
lj, i thought the CB shtick was fowl.
The administration was and is right in thinking that the overthrow of Saddam’s regime could change the pattern of Middle Eastern politics
I agree with this in the same way that a beekeeper believes that smoking bees could change the pattern of hive dynamics in the modern geopolitical biosphere of whateverthefuck.
In reality though it just makes it easier to get the honey away from them.
A review of US policy and interventions in Iraq and Iran has always been determined by access to oil . To think that the current US administration, which are arguably the oiliest oily oil-heads ever to take the reigns have any other motivator which would divert them in any way is delusional.
I mean for Christs sake Iraq is the response to 9/11. If the US had responded to Pearl Harbour by invading and capturing South Africa’s goldfields an analysis of that political strategy would have equal merit.
Funniest comment of the day, so far.
Slarti: funniest comment of the day, so far.
No, not really. Must have been funny back on 9/11/2001, but not since: too many people have died.
Yep, Jesurgislac, it is indeed funny. Why, it’s almost as if we did nothing at all in Afghanistan.
Well I wouldn’t say almost.
What was that statistic? More cops in NYC than troops on the ground in Afghanistan?
Score 0:1 for the 6″4′ pretty recognisable guy on dialysis.
Likewise for domestic actions. This week the main story is about nukes being smuggled into the US via lax border security. Its almost as like the airport security lines and access to library records count for nothing.
Especially given most current reports credit this nuclear threat as first being raised with the Prez in Oct-2001.
I just knew the day’s funniest comment wouldn’t last. How much better do you think the NYPD would have done in Afghanistan?
Slarti: Why, it’s almost as if we did nothing at all in Afghanistan.
Didn’t manage to capture Osama bin Laden; didn’t manage to prevent al-Qaeda from further bombings in Bali, Madrid, or London; didn’t succeed in permanently toppling the Taliban; didn’t succeed in preventing a return of the conditions which led to the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Yes, apart from the thousands of Afghans killed, it is almost as if the US did nothing at all in Afghanistan.
Once again, I stand corrected. The funniest comment of the day is a moving target.
…by which, I mean:
didn’t manage to prevent al-Qaeda from further bombings in Bali, Madrid or London – which has nothing at all to do with Afghanistan,
didn’t succeed in permanently toppling the Taliban – which, hey, they’re back in the driver’s seat, there?
didn’t succeed in preventing a return of the conditions which led to the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan – preventing a return of conditions? You mean, those conditions actually went away for a while?
The OBL part, well, granted.