The Origins of the Iraq War

Source: georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov

We recently passed the ten year mark since the start of the Iraq War. And so it seems appropriate for me to finally comment on the origins of that controversial event. The general consensus among political scientists and the rest of the foreign policy elite is that the war was a major US blunder, misguided both in origin and execution. Basically, I agree with this fundamental assessment but differ in how I understand the origins of this war from many of these thinkers, many of whom seem content merely to explain US actions as stemming from an arrogant imperialistic mindset or as due to an ideological crusade on the part of a Republican administration. In other words, much of the analysis has been, well, not really analysis but instead has struck me as a sort of "competition of condemnation."

The passionate and partisan nature of this debate about the origins of the Iraq War is a major reason why I’ve been reticent about giving my opinion on the matter. Again, I agree with most in declaring this a huge misstep in US foreign policy that has had many adverse consequences. But I’m not merely satisfied running around self-righteously berating the policy makers involved. Instead I’m much more interested in a level headed analysis of the origins of the war. It is certainly a much more fruitful exercise to determine why and how this ill-advised war began than to simply prattle on about how bad and wrong it was.

At any rate, there are, in addition to the imperialist and ideological motivations mentioned above, many theories about the origins of the Iraq War. One of the more popular is that the war was started by a group of well-placed neoconservative advisers (who are supposedly by disposition quite hawkish) who deftly and sinisterly steered the various policy makers in the administration to war. Sometimes linked with this view is that the neo-cons teamed up with AIPAC (the Israeli Lobby) and some members of the Israeli policy making body to create a war as  a means of diverting the world from the rapidly deteriorating situation then occurring in the West Bank (the second Intifada was by this point in full swing). Closer to the conspiracy theory sphere are those that assert that Bush ’43 personally engineered the war as a means of vengeance against Saddam Hussein for his actions against his father, Bush ’41 (or something inane like that) or that the war was started by a military cabal or that it was begun to secure Middle Eastern oil (Desert Shield/Storm was actually more about oil than the Iraq War) or whatever.

Besides being rubbish what all of these theories have in common is the attribution of a pernicious and malevolent element to US geopolitical actions that I don't think existed. However, I’m not going to spend this blog post addressing this matter or any of these other theories. Rather, I want to put forth my own theory. Well, not my own per se since there are a few academics who share a similar viewpoint to mine such as Melvin P. Leffler of the University of Virginia.

The first thing that I need to point out is something that often gets downplayed or outright ignored in much of the discussion surrounding the origin of the Iraq War, namely the place of Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the national security policy of the United States before 9/11. This is crucial because many act as if after the 1991 Gulf War Saddam was of little to no concern in the making of American national security policy, that after the US “whipped” Saddam he basically minded his own business thereafter until the son of his adversary decided out of nowhere to peremptorily finish the job. But the reality is that Hussein remained a major problem, still continuing to top the list of threats that are given in the President’s daily national security brief. What to do about Saddam, who repeatedly was in violation of the no-fly zones, blocked UN weapon inspectors, circumvented the Oil for Food Program, continued to viciously crackdown on the minorities of his country (the Shia and Kurds especially), and more, was of principal concern to the Clinton administration which actually fired ballistic missiles at Iraq in 1998 and continually considered regime change as a proper course of action worth pursuing. The point here is that right up until 9/11 Iraq featured prominently in the discussions and concerns of United States national security policy.

Then 9/11 happened. Now I’ve suggested before that at least in the long term calculus I don’t think 9/11 was all that transformative. But for a brief moment it certainly had a profound effect on American foreign policy in that the paranoia created by the 9/11 attacks caused the US to magnify and exaggerate all other threats, especially those that had been brewing for quite some time. Moreover, 9/11 sent policy makers into such a panic that these major threats which were previously considered contained to one degree or another were instantly transformed into threats that urgently needed to be extinguished. And topping this list was Iraq.

So my thesis is as follows:

1.)   Iraq continued to be a major national security concern of the United States after the Gulf War and up to the 9/11 attacks.

2.)   The sudden 9/11 attacks created a state of paranoia that caused the US to egregiously augment prior threats from containment to necessary extinction.

3.)  Saddam Hussein was considered chief among these threats

4.)   Therefore, the United States invaded Iraq to eliminate what it perceived as an immediate threat to its national security.

My position then is that the origins of the Iraq War can be found in legitimate national security concerns that were unfortunately blown out of proportion because of the 9/11 attacks. The sense of urgency that this paranoia created caused policy makers to see connections that did not exist such as the dubious linking of Hussein with Al Qaeda. (The same could be said of the case made for Saddam having WMDs though what often gets overlooked here is the fact that just about EVERYONE, including most of the UN member nations, even France, as well as UN weapon inspectors, believed Saddam did possess WMDs before the war so I find much of the discussion surrounding the WMDs to be quite disingenuous.)

Now I don’t normally dabble in counterfactual history, but a further view of mine is that had Gore been elected I believe it is highly likely that the Iraq War would still have occurred. There are two key assumptions that I’m making here: 

1.)    Though the rhetoric may be different between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy issues, when it comes to actually making foreign policy both parties act similarly. Therefore, I think a Gore administration would have fell victim to the same paranoia that the 9/11 attacks caused.

2.)   The personality of decision makers may matter a lot less than I used to previously believe. The more and more I have studied the history of foreign policy the closer I’ve come to a sort of fatalistic viewpoint. And so in this sense the Iraq War, because of 9/11, might have ultimately been inevitable. 

Topics worth pursuing more fully at a later time perhaps.

Ramblings on Henry Kissinger's "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy"

Every so often I get the urge to read one of Henry Kissinger's books. Recently, I finished his first published one entitled Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, a study that was commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations to assess just how significantly power relations, particularly between the US and the Soviet Union, had been altered by the introduction of nuclear weapons to the post-war world. Though published in 1957 I think it's a work that's still applicable for American foreign policy today even if the world no longer lives under the threat of a nuclear holocaust. I started out trying to do a proper review of the book for the site but struggled because there are so many different (though interrelated) themes that Kissinger tackles in this remarkable work. Instead I'm just going to list some of the more important insights that I gleaned from the book.

1.) The concept of a limited war is a foreign one to American policymakers chiefly because of US preoccupation with total warfare doctrines extrapolated from the overwhelming experiences of two world wars, both of which were "total" wars.

2.) Additionally, US failure to comprehend limited warfare principles has led to an unnatural divorce between diplomacy and war thus violating Clausewitz's famous dictum that "war is politics by other means."

3.) Example: The Korean War; mishandled because the US found itself forced into a limited war that it could never determine how to conduct, evidenced by confused political and military objectives both at the outset of the war and at its end. "Korea caught us completely unprepared, not only militarily but above all in doctrine." (p. 30)

4.) Chief inquiries of the book: has the proliferation of nuclear weapons fundamentally altered the nature of diplomacy? (Kissinger thinks not) Is it possible to engage in limited nuclear warfare? (Kissinger suggests it is). Kissinger notes that most don't believe the latter to be possible; prevailing wisdom is that once nuclear weapons become entered into the equation all out nuclear war becomes inevitable. "The arguments against limited nuclear war are persuasive...in the absence of a natural cutoff point, it is argued, the employment of any nuclear weapon may start a cycle of gradually expanding commitments ending in all-out war." (145)

5.) Kissinger thinks this conclusion is misguided resting as it does on the ever so tenuous slippery slope argument (aka gateway argument). He argues that limited nuclear warfare would be possible if the following conditions were to apply: conducted with highly mobile units only, restrictions agreed by both sides on what could be considered legitimate targets (e.g., bans on certain kinds of infrastructure and large population centers), and a limit to the amount of megatonnage that can be used by the participants.

6.) Kissinger also suggests that the US should re-evaluate the Atlantic Alliance (NATO) because he thinks that, one, the allies aren't bearing enough of the deterrent burden and, two, that they most likely wouldn't have the will to face down Soviet aggression in their spheres of influence. "What if the Red Army attacks in Europe explicitly to disarm West Germany, offering the United States and the United Kingdom immunity from strategic bombing and promising to withdraw to the Oder after achieving its limited objective? Is it clear France would fight under such circumstances? Or that the United Kingdom would initiate all out war which, however it ended, might mean the end of British civilization?" (205)

7.) Domestically, Kissinger suggests an overhaul of the relations between the various military departments in the US, specifically arguing for more centralization in military policy.

8.) Kissinger provides an adroit analysis of Soviet (and Chinese) foreign policy. He describes it as one of "strategic ambiguity". "The nature of the Soviet challenge is, therefore, inherently ambiguous. It uses the 'legitimate' language of its opponents in a fashion that distorts its meaning and increases the hesitations on the other side." (58); Furthermore, mirroring some of the arguments put forth by George Kennan (the so-called father of containment theory) Kissinger states that Soviet policy is essentially expansionist, i.e., it seeks to expand its security sphere via limited aggression taking advantage of US reluctance to engage in limited warfare for fear of escalation into total war and, hence, nuclear annihilation. Strategic advantage: Soviet Union.

As I said this was written in 1957 but it remains a solid work . I don't agree with everything Kissinger argues in the book, particularly his position on limited nuclear warfare. While I accept that the slippery slope argument is dubious where I think his argument is problematic is with the conditions he says must apply if limited nuclear warfare is to be feasible. The difficulty with this position is that it depends on the Soviet Union agreeing and then abiding by said conditions when it's likely that they wouldn't except as another means of taking advantage of the US through its "strategy of ambiguity" by for example accepting the conditions but then failing to adhere to them.

The real value of the book for present American foreign policy needs is to be found in Kissinger's discussion about US failure to comprehend the nature of limited warfare. When it comes to warfare the US's myopic perspective forces it to think that there is only ever one option, namely, total war. This failure to develop a robust doctrine of limited warfare partially accounts for the many international blunders the US has been in since WWII (the Gulf War maybe being the sole exception though I have my problems with the way that war was conducted). In many ways this is a reflection of the still very immature foreign policy of the US. It's easy to forget that this is still a relatively young nation that has yet to form and solidify its own tradition of foreign policy. In many respects this country still operates from a belief that diplomacy and warfare are essentially separate modes of engaging with other states. For the most part this is faulty reasoning and these two ways of dealing with other countries should never be entirely unlinked from one another. And until this is grasped America will continue to misuse its own might. To sum up the development of a healthy doctrine of limited warfare is essential in the avoidance of more foreign policy blunders by the United States something that becomes increasingly more crucial as the United States begins its decline as the sole superpower.

Some Reflections on Counterinsurgency

The kind of strategy the United States Armed Forces is said to be using in Afghanistan is typically referred to as counterinsurgency or COIN for short. And a major emphasis in COIN doctrine is a focus on "winning hearts and minds" . But when you mention this to the average combat soldier here their response will usually involve the rolling of the eyes or something akin to that. Why? This is because most soldiers believe that this particular emphasis of COIN puts their lives unduly at risk. And in some ways this is true. For example, the command in charge of the area that I'm currently in has a ridiculous policy that does not permit an overwatch to engage with someone that they clearly see burying something into or onto the side of a road. Instead, they simply are to note the location on a grid for a Route Clearance unit (what I am a part of) to come and investigate at a later point. Similarly, the current ROE (rules of engagement) are very strict requiring extensive authorization to fire back when fired upon.

But I'm personally still receptive to the whole "hearts and minds" emphasis. Perhaps this is because I've not been here long enough or been shot at enough or nearly blown up enough. Regardless, I believe the doctrine has merit. Its internal logic makes sense: an insurgency will always have a resource from which to draw if a population is in general disaffected with their current government and/or occupiers hence the need to win the "hearts and minds" of the people so as to reduce (and hopefully eliminate) the influence of an insurgency upon the them. But there are problems: the theory doesn't always work out in practice and most often collides with other, usually security, interests.

For instance, most of the time I'm a rear gunner which entails, in addition to pulling rear security, being the "traffic control" for the convoy. My job is to keep rear vehicles from coming too close (usually within 50 meters) and to never permit one to pass us and break up the convoy. The same goes for when I'm pulling rear cordon security in the event that we are investigating and/or BIPing (blowing in place) an IED. No one is allowed past us which is for their safety and ours. The trouble here is that it would be nice if a simple hand gesture would do the trick of communicating to the Afghans what I need them to do, or rather, not do. But most often this doesn't work and it means resorting to more aggressive measures in order to ensure complicity. When I have to do this it is frustrating because I can see the fear and sometimes anger in their eyes. But of course, with the language barrier and the exigency of the situations we are in, there's no way to let the locals know that it is in their best interest to stay back. Unfortunately we represent a major disruption to their lives which can cause them to be receptive to influence from insurgents.

The challenge is to find a way to effectively balance genuine security interests with the goal of "winning hearts and minds". Often though the balance has to tip in favor of security interests. Such is the nature and complexity of COIN warfare. It makes one somewhat nostalgic for the days of conventional warfare when objectives were much clearer and more easily obtainable.