Press and Valentino (two Dartmouth professors of government) argue in the NYTimes today that our twin goals of planting democracy in Iraq and (in order to do so) defeating the Iraqi insurgency are, most likely, mutually exclusive. In a nutshell, they argue that historically, "occupying" forces have almost never beaten insurgencies without resorting to unrestrained brutality. The one recent "success" in doing so (the British defeat of the Malaya insurgency) represented a non-native (i.e., unsupported by the locals) and relatively small insurgent force.
This is why the history of counterinsurgency warfare is a tale of failure. Since World War II, powerful armies have fought seven major counterinsurgency wars: France in Indochina from 1945 to 1954, the British in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, the French in Algeria in the 1950’s, the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Israel in the occupied territories and Russia in Chechnya. Of these seven, four were outright failures, two grind on with little hope of success, and only one – the British effort in Malaya – was a clear success.
Many counterinsurgency theorists have tried to model operations on the British effort in Malaya, particularly the emphasis on winning hearts and minds of the local population through public improvements. They have not succeeded. Victory in Malaysia, it appears in retrospect, had less to do with British tactical innovations than with the weaknesses and isolation of the insurgents. The guerrillas were not ethnic Malays; they were recruited almost exclusively from an isolated group of Chinese refugees. The guerrillas never gained the support of a sizable share of the Malaysians. Nevertheless, it took the British 12 years to defeat them, and London ended up granting independence to the colony in the midst of the rebellion.
The central thesis of their essay is that the US would be wise to lower its goals in Iraq:
[P]erhaps we should set our goals more realistically, and focus on the achievable. Some have suggested that we let Iraq divide itself into independent Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish countries. …A second distasteful alternative is to support the consolidation of power in the hands of a new secular strongman.
Both of these represent a failure to live up to our promises (although I suspect I always felt the second one was inevitable). But this argument strengthened the logic for me behind the argument that you cannot force democracy on another nations.
Bu—bu—bu–but what about Japan? What about Germany? What about…
Others have argued that our success in shaping those governments into democracies had one advantage we lack in Iraq: the people of those nations were utterly and thoroughly defeated. There was no spirit for insurgency. Further, our willingness to resort to "unrestrained brutality" was implied in our actions before the occupations (especially in Japan) and the Japanese and German militaries had spent their supplies and morale fighting us. The Iraqi military has pulled back and never actually gone down in flames or actually surrendered formally. Their would-be insurgents’ energies/spirit for fighting had not been exhausted.
Now the make-up of the insurgency remains a bit mysterious, but the people of Iraq who represent the recruiting pool for the insurgents never faced the grim threat of total annihilation the populations of Germany and Japan had faced before they surrendered. For a good portion of the country, they woke up one day to see US tanks in Bahgdad and knew Hussein was no longer in power. Relatively easy. And with Bush and Blair immediately on their TV sets promising rosy days to come, why would the would-be insurgents expect any unrestrained brutality in their future?
None of which is to argue for the use/threat of unrestrained brutality mind you, but solely to question the wisdom of forcing democracy on people who haven’t led the revolution to take it for themselves yet.
Edward, back in January 2004, Iraqis were demonstrating in the streets for free elections.
The argument then was that the food ration rolls could be used in lieu of an electoral register, and it was important to have an elected government with authority running the country, not appointees planted by the US.
Elections by popular demand were rejected then – on the grounds that there was no proper electoral register – but are being imposed on Iraq in January 2004, in a far more violent insurgency, after months of government by US appointees… and using the food ration rolls that were rejected a year earlier.
Germany and Japan were both democratic countries before the US occupation: indeed, German women got the vote before all American women did. It’s true that I don’t think you can impose democracy at the point of a gun, but a good part of the reason why you can’t is because the person pointing the gun is plainly and clearly not after free elections, but after power for himself. These Reagan-era Republicans have no tradition of support for democracy: see the Iran-Contra affair that Sebastian recently reminded us of. What Bush & Co’s actions strongly suggest is that what they wanted for Iraq was not an independent, democratically-elected government, but a puppet government that would do whatever Bush & Co wanted it to do.
Edward: I agree about counterinsurgencies (although I do not claim to know about every counterinsurgency war ever fought, so it could be that there’s some example I’m not thinking of.) Our chance in Iraq, it seems to me, was to prevent an insurgency from developing. I have no idea whether, had we immediately provided enough security that ordinary Iraqis could conclude that we were doing our best, and had we moved much more quickly to get reconstruction money flowing in ways that employed Iraqis, and had we not disbanded the army, an insurgency (large enough to be a problem) would have developed, but it’s conceivable to me that it would not have. We did not do those things, and that chance has gone glimmering.
Good stuff Jes, but are you arguing that Japan and Germany were happy to accept OUR democracy because it fit nicely over the ones they had known before their madmen rose to power, or something else?
I’m not convinced that anyone could control events in Iraq to ensure all went well, but I do, in my darker moments, also realize I’m not at all convinced anyone else could have screwed it up as badly as we seem to have either. In other words, I suspect you’re right. I suspect, despite how convincingly Bush preaches the virtues of democracy, he’s not working that hard/smart/efficiently to ensure it in Iraq, and I then have to wonder why.
We did not do those things, and that chance has gone glimmering.
But what now? Implant another strongman? Let the Civil War begin?
The only rationale left in the arguments for the war tha passes the laugh test is the democracy domino theory. If that too goes belly up, then everything we were told about why we HAD to invade Iraq becomes untrue.
Good stuff Jes, but are you arguing that Japan and Germany were happy to accept OUR democracy because it fit nicely over the ones they had known before their madmen rose to power, or something else?
Something like that. Germany certainly was accustomed to democracy: the only Germans with no adult experience of free elections were those born close enough to 1934 that all they knew was rule by Nazis. In Japan, the transfer of power from Emperor to democratically-elected Parliament was managed with a good deal of diplomacy on both sides: the Imperial family was not deposed by force.
No such situation applied in Iraq: no tradition of democracy/free elections, and no such traditional loyalty for Saddam Hussein as the Japanese felt for their Emperor. But it’s entirely possible, that had Bush genuinely, enthusiastically wanted free elections in Iraq, and was prepared to support whatever government the people of Iraq chose, they could have happened nearly a year ago. The country was more peaceful then: if the elections had been carried out freely and fairly, there was a chance that the government elected might have been accepted by Iraqis.
What we’ve seen Bush do says: (1) He and the rest of his administration were lying about the WMD: (2) they were unenthusiastic about free elections for Iraq: (3) they didn’t care about humanitarian issues – take a look at what was funded and what troops were guarding (4) but they did care about the oil, and about the profits that could be made from other Iraqi industries.
I think the democracy domino theory died a while ago.
It is still possible that Iraq ends up better off for our invasion–ends up not as a shining beacon of democracy, but as a relatively stable country that is more democratic or at least more benignly dictatorial than it was under Saddam, and the improvement is worth the number of civilians killed. Still possible, but I’d say the odds are against it and the chance seems to lessen every single day.
I don’t understand how anyone is still certain this war was a good idea, let alone necessary. I see why you could still HOPE that, but I do not understand the utter certrainty.
None of this answers the question of what we do now, obviously. I don’t know what we should do. And if I figured it out, I would be ignored–not only by the Bush administration but every single one of his supporters I know. And by the time a government that might listen is elected, the situation will have changed again, most likely for the worse.
I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the countries where rebuilding has succeeded were clearly the aggressors in that war. Japan attacked us first. Germany declared war on us and had already invaded most of Europe and committed genocide. It had to be pretty obvious to any fair-minded person that the U.S. and its allies were acting in self defense. Here, not so much.
Another difference in Germany and Japan: even as we occupied them, we were protecting them from an external threat. They were going to be occupied by someone. Us or Stalin–which would you pick?
The only rationale left in the arguments for the war tha passes the laugh test is the democracy domino theory. If that too goes belly up, then everything we were told about why we HAD to invade Iraq becomes untrue.
I think that there’s a difference between a failure to find WMDs and an inability to create a democracy in Iraq. The WMD argument may have been* untrue from the start, but that’s different than making an argument for the democratic domino theory and then failing** for a number of reasons to tip the first domino.
*Please, I know all the arguments for why “may have been” should be replaced by “was”.
**And we have yet to fail.
Good stuff Jes, but are you arguing that Japan and Germany were happy to accept OUR democracy because it fit nicely over the ones they had known before their madmen rose to power, or something else?
Well, I’m not Jesurgislac, nor can I comment on the situation in Japan, but in Germany (well, the western part of it) the new democracy was a rather substantial bug-fix upgrade of the Weimar Republic version, with all factors that made Hitler’s rise legal excised, and structural provisions for middle-of-the-roadness. But the basic structure was kept mostly intact. A multiparty-system with proportional representation and a second federal chamber.
It also helped that the guys working out the Grundgesetz were mainly respected and accomplished statesmen.
The fact that there were three occupying powers involved was probably also helpful.
All this is actually completely irrelevant to Iraq.
All this is actually completely irrelevant to Iraq.
Not completely, TH. Many Americans are counting on our ability to “pull off another Germany” in Iraq. Between Jes’s and your explanations, though, it become clearer that the situations are not parallel enough to encourage that hope.
As far as Germany goes, at least, let’s not ignore one small item: the Soviet Union. Germans in the Allied-occupied west had little incentive to stage an insurgency against the occupiers, since “success” likely would have led not to independence but to Soviet occupation.
Considerations like this, a high degree of ethnic and religious uniformity, and the points raised above by Edward and Jes make Germany and Japan poor models for Iraq.
And if I figured it out, I would be ignored–not only by the Bush administration but every single one of his supporters I know.
Katherine, I know of only a couple people who I ever even heard put out an argument about what else should have been done at any time since 9/11. Trickster had what I think was an interesting plan he espoused on the old Tacitus site and I recall a guy named collounsbury discussing a few things after the Iraq war started. Other than that, crickets (although I recall Edward putting out something a while back too, although the thread didn’t seem to get too far or too specific).
I’m sorry if I’ve missed a few but I’d be real interested in a thread where folks posted their plan that began on 9/12/01. I’d honestly love to hear them. Heck, now that the election’s over, I’d appreciate Senator Kerry discussing his plan in a NYT guest Op-Ed.
a high degree of ethnic and religious uniformity, in Germany? The country that was invented in 1748?
How can you suggest that Bavarians and Prussians can live together peacefully in the same state? We’re just biding our time here.
Bavaria in the borders of 711!
Well except that we’d keep the EU. It works.
Arrgh. 1848 of course. Well the invention is 17th/18th century, but any political resonance of a common Germany is 1848…
although I recall Edward putting out something a while back too, although the thread didn’t seem to get too far or too specific).
Hey!
At least it was more specific than “Invade Afghanistan, Invade Iraq, half-heartedly rebuild both, win re-election, Hope for the best.”
Which is all I can make out of the administration’s plan.
You forgot the french and eastern european insurgents during the Nazi occupation.
because That’s a WW2 analogy I like.
Dude, that wasn’t a dis. I meant that the comment thread didn’t go too far. Jeez, never mind.
crionna. I cannot call this exactly a plan, but I have always felt that we should have finished the job in Afghanistan….right through rebuilding all of the infra-structure, and then gotten ourselves back home. Call me a pollyanna, but I feel this would have done more to diminish terrorism than anything other action we could have taken. For then, the world could have looked at us as fair (Afghanistan was a resonable response to 9/11 and had a lot of sympathy) and caring….We cared enough to undo (as best we could) the damage that had been done to those people. In any event, it could not have been worse than what has been the outcome, thus far, of the invasion of Iraq. Now we look like bullies, and much of the world is probably hoping to see us brought to our knees….and many are joining the forces trying to do just that.
Dude, that wasn’t a dis.
Didn’t take it as one, Crionna…was just having fun with the opportunity it presented to point out how unspecific the Bush plan seems to be…sorry I forgot the smiley face.
Jes: and using the food ration rolls that were rejected a year earlier.
Wha!? No way. Cites? Jiminy cricket…
Also, what Bernard said. TH’s point notwithstanding, both Germany and Japan were ethnically homogenous, essentially authoritarian cultures. And the ME is all about family ties. Your third cousin twice removed may well have a lot more influence than your mayor. So even if we’d gotten a bunch of brand-name mullahs to agree that the US occupation was desirable (hah!) we’d still really be at the mercy of whatever consensus emerged naturally from day-to-day interactions with the people. Unlike Germany, where people were thoroughly exhausted by years of war and not particularly individualistic, or Japan, where not doing what “the authorities” told you to was practically unthinkable.
Iraq really was ripe for democracy in a lot of ways. It would have been risky, and would almost certainly have led to a de facto military alliance with Iran, but it could easily have been a more-or-less democratic threat to regional stability… Like Iran. In any event, since we have been killing third cousins twice removed left and right for some time what we do now is a pretty thorny question…
Crionna: you can infer my plan from the series of long posts I wrote on the War on Terror. Basically: do Afghanistan right, for basically JWG’s reasons. Spend a lot of time and effort disrupting al Qaeda and their allies. Immediately accelerate the process of securing loose nukes, especially in Russia. Also, immediately move very fast on a much more ambitious program of homeland security. Cancel all the tax cuts, and rely on the spending for homeland security to provide fiscal stimulus. Do not invade Iraq. Do whatever it takes to curb nuclear proliferation. And immediately initiate a serious energy conservation program, so that our need to placate Saudi Arabia is minimized.
“Do whatever it takes to curb nuclear proliferation.”
Whatever it takes with respect to Iran? I’m impressed.
“I’m sorry if I’ve missed a few but I’d be real interested in a thread where folks posted their plan that began on 9/12/01.”
Midde-east Transformation
Repeal tax-cuts, go to a war economy, send 50 million men to the ME for five years, with 5 million for fifty years. I qualified it later so that many of those 50 million were professionals, craftsmen, and technocrats.
Archives on both Tacitus and Yglesias are hosed, but I seem to remember talking about this early spring 2002.
It may be archived here.
As a plan, it is ok to say it isn’t very interesting. Nobody was interested. Casualties would probably have been much higher than our current course, but likely something better would have been gained for the sacrifice.
I like Katherine’s first comment. I have never claimed certainty, but for a while I had some hope for the Arab world.
Ok, Sebastian, I backtrack: whatever it takes, so long as it’s consistent with our principles and our national interests.
Bob
I remember the Tacitus thread. I thought it was what do we do now and it was maybe a year ago Nov., not 9/12/01. No matter.
“Press and Valentino (two Dartmouth professors of government) argue in the NYTimes today that our twin goals of planting democracy in Iraq and (in order to do so) defeating the Iraqi insurgency are, most likely, mutually exclusive.”
A long insurgency won’t allow democracy in Iraq. Which is why fighting it slowly is stupid. (Which has always been my largest criticism of the Bush method in Iraq the reason I didn’t like Kerry was because his method was even further in the wrong direction).
“Ok, Sebastian, I backtrack: whatever it takes, so long as it’s consistent with our principles and our national interests.”
Ok, and what does that mean with respect to Iran?
Right now, I don’t know what we can do besides diplomacy and sanctions, since we have committed our military elsewhere. (No one ever listens to me…)
radish: Wha!? No way. Cites? Jiminy cricket…
And this means of devising an electoral roll was available in January. It was available in June 2003. And if Bush & Co had been serious about democracy in Iraq, elections would have been run as early as possible.
“Right now, I don’t know what we can do besides diplomacy and sanctions”
1) Establish air dominance over Iran
2) Bomb and cruise missle known sites
3) Send special forces types to find the hidden sites, and/or interrogate those who know the locations; kidnap key scientists and engineers
4) Watch Iraq disappear as a political entity as Sistani calls jihad
5) Use Condi’s special skills to keep China and Russia and the EU from declaring war on us
Why didn’t we finish the job in Afghanistan first? That’s the burning question.
We had worldwide support, the Afghanis did greet us as liberators, and we had gotten rid of a regime which was a clear and present danger to us and to the world. There was consensus, support, joy, and we had the resources to do it right.
No intelligence, not even bad intelligence, indicated that Iraq was an immediate threat. No credible intelligence indicated that Saddam was so deeply in cahoots with AQor OBL that he was three weeks or four months or half a year away from launching another terrorist attack on the US. Nothing indicated that we absolutely positively had to drop what we were doing in Afghanistan and hare off to Iraq right this minute.
The only answer, the only possible answer, knowing what we know about the inner workings of Bush’s advisors, is that the reasons for the war in Iraq were muddled from the very start. Rumsfeld wanted to test a strategic theory, Wolfowitz wanted to live out the NPAC dream, Bush wanted to work through some Oedipal issues, and everyone thought it would be handy to control Iraq’s oil reserves.
You cannot achieve half-baked, mutually-contradictory objectives in war. You have to be clear about what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and when you’re going to do it by. My god, a book can’t get published if the publishers can’t agree on what the book will be about, who’s going to write it, what the cover art will be, who the printer will be, and when the manuscript has to get to the printer. You’d think a war would deserve at least as much planning as a freaking book.
American strategy in Iraq is reduced to chasing rainbows: success is always over the next rise, if we pacify or exterminate one more group of enemies, if we check off one more artificial milestone. Sovereignty was the Next Big Thing. Then leveling Fallujah was supposed to do the trick. Now it’s, what, elections in January? Yeah, that pot of gold’s gotta be around here somewhere.
I agreed for a long time that, however bent our reasons for the war, we were duty-bound and honor-bound to see it through, and leave Iraq better off than it was for our having been there.
I don’t believe that anymore. I believe we’ve gone past the point of doing any good. I believe we are now a worsening part of the worsening problem, and we can no more do any good by staying than cancer can be cured by doing more of whatever it was that caused the cancer in the first place.
The Bush Admin is the cancer. That Bush won the election doesn’t change the fact that he and his advisors are in over their heads, still have no idea what they really want in Iraq, and no idea what to do other than “more of the same.”
“More of the same” is not acceptable. It’s morally abhorrent – and it’s not working.
What should we do?
Leave.
Use Condi’s special skills to keep China and Russia and the EU from declaring war on us
So Condi’s been holding the ring of power all along?
Damn italics tags. Sorry.
I’ve noted the hysteria building with regard to Iran for the last coup;e of years without comprehension of its source. Can it still be the-evil-of Khomeini-and descendents? Iran has no history of interfering with its neighbors much less anyone else unless one believes that Iran’s support for Hizbollah (ie Lebanese Shia) destabilizes the Middle East. Yet, it seems to be received wisdom that Iran is a problem on a par with Hussain-led Iraq. My own sense is that there is a large party in the U.S. that is unable to accept any country solving its own governing problems, if they deviate from what “we” deem appropriate.
I call an end to the italics.OK?
Edward says close the tag multiple times…
Thanks! Now I know what did it, CaseyL tried to put book in italics and used two opening italics tags by mistake…so of course it takes two closing italics tags to fix it. Now I can sleep.
But why did my left-open tags infect everyone else’s posting??
You’re looking at one big page. For the rest of the site I guess one’s browser gets sent into italics mode and never finds its way home…
There is supposedly auto-tag closing software out there, for Anyone listening.
There is supposedly auto-tag closing software out there, for Anyone listening
As well as wonderful web forum software such as Scoop, directed at that same Anyone.
I guess I missed the previous thread on Iran. Many are expecting an attack in the spring.
You see the problem is that in 2002 Iran saw itself threatened and China saw an opportunity. If we don’t attack Iran before it gets nukes China has a client-state and a platform for an attempt at hegemonic control of the oil producers. And markets for their economy.
And although we would be unable to attack Iran after they become a nuclear power, they would not be so constrained in sending asymmetrical warriors across the border into our basket-case Iraq. If we pull out, Iran consolidates the Shia areas and China controls a bunch of the world economy. And we just drop a notch to Argentina’s level.
It always was a World War after 9/11, and it always was about oil. Oil is important folks.
Worst President Ever still stands.
“Iran has no history of interfering with its neighbors much less anyone else unless one believes that Iran’s support for Hizbollah (ie Lebanese Shia) destabilizes the Middle East.”
Isn’t saying that someone doesn’t interfere with anyone else except for the Hizbollah a bit like saying that the HIV virus isn’t really that dangerous aside from killing the immune system?
Not to be snarky, but can someone explain why we are calling the Iraqis who are fighting the Americans on Iraqi soil “insurgents”?
Votermom: Because calling them “insurgents” raises none of the questions that calling them the “resistance” would raise.
Good summary caseyl. The one additional reason for Iraq was a desire by the military to re-base from Saudi to Iraq.
Does anyone know the status of the 14 bases that are supposedly being built. For example, where they are.
“Isn’t saying that someone doesn’t interfere with anyone else except for the Hizbollah a bit like saying that the HIV virus isn’t really that dangerous aside from killing the immune system?”
I would say that is a little bit of a hyperbolic analogy. I suppose it means that you disaprove of the Lebanese Shia and think that they have no right to protect or defend themselves when their country is occupied, as much of the Shia portion of Lebanon was during Hizbollah’s most newsworthy period. I can understand your argument- i do think it is arguable- but my point still stands. Iran has no history of attacking any of its neighbors; has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan; has enough memory to distrust the United States with very good reason- it has twice in the last century had Democratic governments overthrown by the U.S. and the British and suffered under the Pahlavi regime wh9ich the U.S. supported wholeheartedly.
It has good reason to wish to have the means to defend itself but literally no history of general beligerance that one would expect of a “rogue state.” So what is the basis of this anti-Iranian hysteria?
@ed finnerty:
A Christian Science Monitor story from September of this year answers this question to the extent it can be answered. It gives a further pointer to the globalsecurity.org website (with an incorrect url, which is why I mention it here).
Re: U.S. bases, which is what the invasion was always about
Newer story (from Fox interviewing John Pike of Global Security) on Nov 1.
Re: US bases in Iraq
Global Security details on the bases, current and “enduring”, are here.
I submit for your approval a trio of candidates for insurgencies successfully suppressed by major powers in the 20th century:
Philippine Insurgency 1899-1902(US)
Mau-Mau (UK)
Tibet (PRC)
In addition, the initial analysis misleads in dismissing of the Malayan Emergency as a pissant outlier. The Chinese were a sizable minority in the Malayan peninsula and had significant grievances against the British. Many were willing to offer succor and sustenance to the fighters. From the outside the insurgents were receiving help from the PRC. The lethality of the guerilla’s tactics and strategy were not in doubt: recall that in the third year of the Emergency they managed to assassinate the British High Commissioner for Malaya.
Thanks for the additions MTC. Are there are parallels within those successes? Things that could be pointed to to explain why the insurgencies were defeated? I imagine unrestrained brutality was used in Tibet, but hesitate to suggest it was in Mau-Mau or the Philippines (not that I’d be shocked, just without facts hesitate to suggest it).
The main point is not that it’s impossible to stomp out an insurgency, but rather that doing so is incompatible with immediately thereafter building a true democracy that will encourage surrounding countries to want to do the same.
Tibet, now there’s a model for the Bush admin. Get people to move from the red states to settle in Iraq, that’s the ticket…