A strange analysis of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan

Steven Lee Myers:

This is what victory in the war in Iraq was supposed to look like: Fifteen million Iraqis voting in free and fair (largely) elections, emerging from their polling stations with their purple-stained fingers in an atmosphere that was free (largely) of intimidation or violence.

When Iraq’s regional elections were held last weekend, that was indeed the scene. What’s more, when the results were announced, it became clear that parties promising security and national unity, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s bloc, had fared better than exclusively sectarian ones that until recently seemed bent on sundering the country.

The elections again raised hopes that a stable, democratic Iraq was emerging from the calamity of six years of war, an outcome that could hasten the departure of the remaining 140,000 American troops, as President Obama suggested in his congratulatory calls to Iraqi leaders.

But there are other measures of victory in Iraq, and so at this, yet another hinge in Iraq’s tortured history, it seems a fair time to ask: Has the war enhanced American strategic interests in the troubled Middle East, as President Bush and the other champions of the war long argued would happen?

The answer really is no, or at least not yet.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein, whatever the underlying motivation, certainly removed a potential threat to American interests, but a bird’s-eye view as the sixth anniversary of the war approaches shows that the Middle East remains as troubling and turbulent as ever. Whatever gains Iraq has brought have to be measured alongside the costs, the casualties and the consequences to America’s standing in the region.

“We are not necessarily weaker,” said Marina Ottaway, director of Middle Eastern affairs for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an author of “Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World.” “But,” she added, “after all these years and the money that we’ve spent, I’m not sure we’re coming out in a stronger strategic position.”

Indeed, Afghanistan has spiraled deeper into insurgency, perhaps irreversibly, as Pakistan stumbles toward chaos. The democratizing example Iraq was to have set has yet to show itself in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, while American influence over them has suffered in ways that will take years to repair.

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This analysis misses certain facts that should be more obvious, if ideological blinders are removed. First Iraq was a huge distraction for al Qaeda. They made it their central front in their war against the US and the West and they lost. One of the main reasons al Qaeda lost in Iraq was the Iraqis in fact became a US ally in defeating them.

The reasons things are more unsettled in Afghanistan and Pakistan is that the remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq retreated to those areas to stir up the same kind of mischief they did in Iraq. Iraq was a much better place to fight this group and it is only their weakened remnants that are causing problems now. In other words it would have been much more difficult to defeat them in Afghanistan, before they were weakened in Iraq because the terrain favors and insurgency and the supply lines are more vulnerable.

By concentrating their forces in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border with Afghanistan al Qaeda has made itself vulnerable to attack by the UAVs that help defeat them in Iraq. Their leadership is being decimated while losing their ability to move and communicate. The Pakistan intelligence service has been active in helping to spot leadership targets that have been hit by these weapons. They have been less successful in protecting the supply routes and need to involve the Predator and Reaper forces in protecting the convoys.

By increasing the force to space ratio in Afghanistan we can make it more difficult for Taliban and al Qaeda forces to move to contact without being detected. That was one of the benefits of the Iraq surge strategy that incorporated Iraqis in the defense of their own neighborhoods.

My main concern is that the wimp wing of the Democrat party will pronounce the effort a quagmire and start pushing for a retreat. It is important to remember that historically insurgencies last on average 11 years and the insurgents lose about 90 percent of the time. We are seeing the defeat of a 25 year insurgency in Sri Lanka and a 40 year insurgency in Colombia. The one if Afghanistan is not likely to last that long, but we must not lose strategic patience.

As far as Iran goes, they would have been pushing to develop their weapons and strategic goals regardless of what we did in Iraq. The country is led by religious bigots who have been pursuing a low grade war against the US and Israel for 30 years. They see their strategic situation as worse than it was before 2001. They now have US forces on two of their borders and a stronger naval presence in the Persian Gulf to deal with. They suffered a defeat of their forces in Iraq an alienated much of the population. They also suffered a strategic defeat in the Hezballah and Gaza wars where their proxies were reduced to impotency. The proxies may have been able to fire rockets at Israel but they are not in a position to nake Israel avoid a confrontation with Iraq and its nukes.