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Stratfor On The War In Iraq After Five Years

FORECASTS & TRENDS E-LETTER
by Gary D. Halbert
April 1, 2008

IN THIS ISSUE:

1.  The Iraq War From Stratfor’s Perspective

2.  Stratfor’s War:  Five Years Later

3.  Iraq In The Wake Of The 2008 Election

4.  The Mainstream Media’s War

Introduction

In this week’s E-Letter, I’m going to reprint a recent article written by Dr. George Friedman, founder and CEO of Stratfor.  As I have noted many times before, Dr. Friedman’s organization is one of the premier intelligence gathering operations in the world.  Everyone from governments to major corporations seek out Stratfor’s guidance, so whenever George speaks, people listen.

Since Stratfor is located right here in Austin, we are also treated to weekly briefings from Dr. Friedman and his staff on one of our local talk radio stations.  I’m not sure how widely this broadcast is heard, but it’s very nice to have the benefit of these weekly pearls of wisdom on key world issues.

Since I have not written about the War on Terror or the war in Iraq for quite a while, I thought it would be beneficial to feature Stratfor’s analysis on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war’s initiation.  Just be prepared – Dr. Friedman calls it as he sees it.  He doesn’t sugar coat his views, nor does he try to slant it toward or away from any particular political ideology.  As usual, George’s article below on the war in Iraq is most insightful and includes some analysis and facts that most Americans are not aware of. 

You will also be treated to a number of links to other articles that he and his staff have authored on related subjects.  Those of you who would like to learn more about how to access Stratfor’s intelligence services can go to Stratfor’s website at www.stratfor.com.  I highly recommend it.

Stratfor’s War:  Five Years Later
By George Friedman

QUOTE:

Five years have now passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Iraq with Sen. John McCain — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — summarized the five years by saying, “If you reflect back on those five years, it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor. We’ve come a long way in five years, and it’s been well worth the effort.” Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Clinton called the war a failure.

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It is the role of political leaders to make such declarations, not ours. Nevertheless, after five years, it is a moment to reflect less on where we are and more on where we are going. As we have argued in the past, the actual distinctions between McCain’s position at one end (reduce forces in Iraq only as conditions permit) and Barack Obama’s position (reduce them over 16 months unless al Qaeda is shown to be in Iraq) are in practice much less distinct than either believes.

Rhetoric aside — and this is a political season — there is in fact a general, but hardly universal, belief that goes as follows: The invasion of Iraq probably was a mistake, and certainly its execution was disastrous. But a unilateral and precipitous withdrawal by the United States at this point would not be in anyone’s interest. The debate is over whether the invasion was a mistake in the first place, while the divisions over ongoing policy are much less real than apparent.

Stratfor tries not to get involved in this sort of debate. Our role is to try to predict what nations and leaders will do, and to explain their reasoning and the forces that impel them to behave as they do. Many times, this analysis gets confused with advocacy. But our goal actually is to try to understand what is happening, why it is happening and what will happen next. We note the consensus. We neither approve nor disapprove of it as a company. As individuals, we all have opinions. Opinions are cheap and everyone gets to have one for free. But we ask that our staff check them — along with their personal ideologies — at the door. Our opinions focus not on what ought to happen, but rather on what we think will happen — and here we are passionate.

Public Justifications and Private Motivations  

We have lived with the Iraq war for more than five years. It was our view in early 2002 that a U.S. invasion of Iraq was inevitable. We did not believe the invasion had anything to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — which with others we believed were under development in Iraq. The motivation for the war, as we wrote, had to do with forcing Saudi Arabia to become more cooperative in the fight against al Qaeda by demonstrating that the United States actually was prepared to go to extreme measures. The United States invaded to change the psychology of the region, which had a low regard for American power. It also invaded to occupy the most strategic country in the Middle East, one that bordered seven other key countries.

Our view was that the Bush administration would go to war in Iraq not because it saw it as a great idea, but because its options were to go on the defensive against al Qaeda and wait for the next attack or take the best of a bad lot of offensive actions. The second option consisted of trying to create what we called the “coalition of the coerced,” Islamic countries prepared to cooperate in the covert war against al Qaeda. Fighting in Afghanistan was merely a holding action that alone would solve nothing. So lacking good options, the administration chose the best of a bad lot.

The administration certainly lied about its reasons for going into Iraq. [Editor’s note: the Bush administration has never admitted publicly that its original goal was to establish a major base of operation in Iraq, through which it would then project democracy across the Middle East, as Stratfor maintained was the motivation for the war from the very beginning. GDH]

But then FDR certainly lied about planning for involvement in World War II, John Kennedy lied about whether he had traded missiles in Turkey for missiles in Cuba and so on. Leaders cannot conduct foreign policy without deception, and frequently the people they deceive are their own publics. This is simply the way things are.

We believed at the time of the invasion that it might prove to be much more difficult and dangerous than proponents expected. Our concern was not about a guerrilla war. Instead, it was about how Saddam Hussein would make a stand in Baghdad, a city of 5 million, forcing the United States into a Stalingrad-style urban meat grinder. That didn’t happen. We underestimated Iraqi thinking. Knowing they could not fight a conventional war against the Americans, they opted instead to decline conventional combat and move to guerrilla warfare instead. We did not expect that.

A Bigger Challenge Than Expected  

That this was planned is obvious to us. On April 13, 2003, we noted what appeared to be an organized resistance group carrying out bombings. Organizing such attacks so quickly indicated to us that the operations were planned. Explosives and weapons had been hidden, command and control established, attacks and publicity coordinated. These things don’t just happen. Soon after the war [began], we recognized that the Sunnis in fact had planned a protracted war — just not a conventional one.

Our focus then turned to Washington. Washington had come into the war with a clear expectation that the destruction of the Iraqi army would give the United States a clean slate on which to redraw Iraqi society. Before the war was fought, comparisons were being drawn with the occupation of Japan. The beginnings of the guerrilla operation did not fit into these expectations, so U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the guerrillas as merely the remnants of the Iraqi army — criminals and “dead-enders” — in their last throes. We noted the gap between Washington’s perception of Iraq and what we thought was actually going on.

A perfect storm arose in this gulf. First, no WMD were found. We were as surprised by this as anybody. But for us, this was an intellectual exercise; for the administration, it meant the justification for the war — albeit not the real motive — was very publicly negated. Then, resistance in Iraq to the United States increased after the U.S. president declared final victory.

And finally, attempts at redrawing Iraqi society as a symbol of American power in the Islamic world came apart, a combination of the guerrilla war and lack of preparation plus purging the Baathists. In sum, reshaping a society proved more daunting than expected just as the administration’s credibility cracked over the WMD issue.

A More Complex Game  

By 2004, the United States had entered a new phase. Rather than simply allowing the Shia to create a national government, the United States began playing a complex and not always clear game of trying to bring the Sunnis into the political process while simultaneously waging war against them. The Iranians used their influence among the Shia to further destabilize the U.S. position. Having encouraged the United States to depose its enemy, Saddam Hussein, Tehran now wanted Washington to leave and allow Iran to dominate Iraq.

The United States couldn’t leave Iraq but had no strategy for staying. Stratfor’s view from 2004 was that the military option in Iraq had failed. The United States did not have the force to impose its will on the various parties in Iraq. The only solution was a political accommodation with Iran. We noted a range of conversations with Iran, but also noted that the Iranians were not convinced that they had to deal with the Americans. Given the military circumstance, the Americans would leave anyway and Iran would inherit Iraq.

Stratfor became more and more pessimistic about the American position in 2006, believing that no military solution was possible, and that a political solution — particularly following the Democratic victory in 2006 congressional elections — would further convince the Iranians to be intransigent. The deal that we had seen emerging over the summer of 2006 after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, was collapsing.

The Surge  

We were taken by surprise by U.S. President George W. Bush’s response to the elections. Rather than beginning a withdrawal, he initiated the surge. While the number of troops committed to Iraq was relatively small, and its military impact minimal, the psychological shock was enormous. The Iranian assumption about the withdrawal of U.S. forces collapsed, forcing Tehran to reconsider its position. An essential part of the surge — not fully visible at the beginning — was that it was more a political plan than a military one. While increased operations took place, the Americans reached out to the Sunni leadership, splitting them off from foreign jihadists and strengthening them against the Shia.

Coupled with increasingly bellicose threats against Iran, this created a sense of increasing concern in Tehran. The Iranians responded by taking Muqtada al-Sadr to Iran and fragmenting his army. This led to a dramatic decline in the civil war between Shia and Sunni and in turn led to the current decline in violence.

The war — or at least Stratfor’s view of it — thus went through four phases:

  • Winter 2002-March 2003: The period that began with the run-up to invasion, in which the administration chose the best of a bad set of choices and then became overly optimistic about the war’s outcome.

  • April 2003-Summer 2003: The period in which the insurgency developed and the administration failed to respond.

  • Fall 2003-late 2006: The period in which the United States fought a multisided war with insufficient forces and a parallel political process that didn’t match the reality on the ground.

  • Late 2006 to the present: The period known as the surge, in which military operations and political processes were aligned, leading to a working alliance with the Sunnis and the fragmentation of the Shia. This period included the Iranians restraining their Shiite supporters and the United States removing the threat of war against Iran through the National Intelligence Estimate.

The key moment in the war occurred between May 2003 and July 2003. This consisted of the U.S. failure to recognize that an insurgency in the Sunni community had begun and its delay in developing a rapid and effective response, creating the third phase — namely, the long, grueling period in which combat operations were launched, casualties were incurred and imposed, but the ability to move toward a resolution was completely absent. It is unclear whether a more prompt response by the Bush administration during the second period could have avoided the third period, but the second period certainly was the only point during which the war could have been brought under control.

The operation carried out under Gen. David Petraeus, combining military and political processes, has been a surprise, at least to us. Meanwhile, the U.S. rapprochement with the Sunnis that began quietly in Anbar province spiraled into something far more effective than we had imagined. It has been much more successful than we had imagined in part because we did not believe Washington was prepared for such a systematic and complex operation that was primarily political in nature. It is also unclear if the operation will succeed. Its future still depends on the actions of the Iraqi Shia, and these actions in turn depend on Iran.

The Endgame  

We have been focused on the U.S.-Iranian talks for quite awhile. We continue to believe this is a critical piece in any endgame. The United States is now providing an alternative scenario designed to be utterly frightening to the Iranians. They are arming and training the Iranians’ mortal enemies: the Sunnis who led the war against Iran from 1980 to 1988.

That rearming is getting very serious indeed. Sunni units outside the aegis of the Iraqi military are now some of the most heavily armed Iraqis in Anbar, thanks to the Sunni relationship with U.S. forces there.  It should be remembered that the Sunnis ruled Iraq because the Iraqi Shia were fragmented, fighting among themselves and therefore weak. That underlying reality remains true. A cohesive Sunni community armed and backed by the Americans will be a formidable force. That threat is the best way to bring the Iranians to the table.

The irony is that the war is now focused on empowering the very people the war was fought against: the Iraqi Sunnis. In a sense, it is at least a partial return to the status quo ante bellum. In that sense, one could argue the war was a massive mistake. At the same time, we constantly return to this question: We know what everyone would not have done in 2003; we are curious about what everyone would have done then.

Afghanistan was an illusory option. The real choices were to try to block al Qaeda defensively or to coerce Islamic intelligence services to provide the United States with needed intelligence. By appearing to be a dangerous and uncontrolled power rampaging in the most strategic country in the region, the United States reshaped the political decisions countries like Saudi Arabia were making.

This all came at a price that few of us would have imagined five years ago. Cheney is saying it was worth it. Clinton is saying it was not. Stratfor’s view is that what happened had to happen given the lack of choices. But Rumsfeld’s unwillingness to recognize that a guerrilla war had broken out and provide more and appropriate forces to wage that war did not have to happen. There alone we think history might have changed. Perhaps.  END QUOTE

Iraq In The Wake Of The 2008 Election

We will choose a new US Commander In Chief in November, and he or she will assume the presidency next January.  As Dr. Friedman points out, the recent troop surge in Iraq is enjoying the most success since the war began five years ago.  Still there is no question that the war in Iraq will continue after President Bush leaves office early next year.

Two of the three presidential contenders vow to pull our troops out of Iraq if they are elected.  Hillary Clinton promises that she will begin withdrawing US forces from Iraq as soon as she is sworn in should she becme the next president.  Barack Obama has promised much the same, although of late he says he will withdraw our troops if there are no al Qaeda in Iraq.  How would he know?  My bet is that Obama would pull our troops out just as quickly as Hillary.

Whether we believe the war in Iraq was a mistake or not, one thing is clear: If the US abandons Iraq in the next year or so, Iran will be the big winner.  If the next president withdraws our forces next year and leaves the fledgling Iraqi government to fend for itself, it will not be long before Iran gains control of this oil-rich country.  If that happens, Iran will dominate the Middle East, and world oil supplies will be threatened.

If Iran takes control of Iraq’s vast oil resources and becomes the most powerful player in the region, there is little doubt that it will threaten its neighbors and accelerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons.  For these reasons alone, it is baffling why the two Democrat contenders promise to pull our troops out if they are elected.  Obviously, most voters don’t understand what is at stake if we abandon Iraq.

The Mainstream Media’s War

In keeping with Stratfor’s title, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss how the mainstream media and major news organizations are reacting to the “good news” about the Surge in Iraq.  What, you haven’t heard any good news from the mainstream media?  It’s not surprising considering the anti-war stance of many liberal journalists.

The MediaResearchCenter, a media bias watchdog group, has developed the following statistics on liberal coverage of the war in Iraq.  I think you’ll find this very interesting:

QUOTE

Analysts at the MediaResearchCenter have studied TV news coverage of the Iraq war from the beginning, even before the first bombs fell on Baghdad in March 2003. The record shows the networks have trumpeted bad news — setbacks for the U.S. coalition and allegations of misdeeds by American troops — while minimizing good news such as the success of the 2007 troop surge and acts of heroism by U.S. soldiers.

Pre-War Opponents. Contrary to prevailing liberal mythology, all three networks (especially ABC) tilted their pre-war news in favor of Bush administration opponents. Covering the congressional debate over using force, for example, the networks gave a majority of soundbites (59%) to the losing anti-war side. Reporters also sanitized the "peace" movement, masking the radical affiliations of left-wing organizers while showcasing more sympathetic "middle class" demonstrators.

Combat Coverage. Soon after coalition troops liberated Iraq, MRC reviewers awarded decent grades to most of the TV networks, praising the fine, factual reports presented by the embedded journalists who rode along with U.S. troops. But poor marks went to TV reporters stationed in Baghdad, who often passed along the enemy's unverified propaganda. Worst of all was MSNBC's Peter Arnett, who reported lies about U.S. use of "cluster bombs" against Iraqi civilians. Arnett was later fired for denouncing the U.S. in a Saddam propaganda video.

Hyping Misdeeds, Hiding Heroes. In less than two weeks during the spring of 2004, NBC alone pumped out 58 stories on the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story, but in the preceding year devoted only five stories to the discovery of mass graves of Saddam's victims. In 2006, the networks jumped on unproved charges of a Marine "massacre" at Haditha, with more than 200 minutes of coverage in three weeks. During the preceding five years, those networks gave just 52 minutes to the stories of America's highest-decorated soldiers in the war on terror.

Mostly Bad News. In 2005, Iraq was a mixed bag — historic democratic elections, but continued violence. But an MRC study showed the network coverage emphasized the bad news. Out of 1,712 evening news stories, the lion's share (848, or 61%) focused on U.S. casualties, bombings, kidnappings or political setbacks, compared to just 245 (14%) that reported positive developments. (The remainder were mixed or neutral.) An MRC study of cable news coverage in 2006 found that all three networks emphasized bad news, although the Fox News Channel aired nearly as many stories about coalition success in Iraq (81) as compared to CNN (41) and MSNBC (47) combined.

Little Time for Good News. The last six months have seen a massive reduction in insurgent attacks and U.S. casualties. But the three broadcast evening newscasts have shown little interest in the good news, with coverage dropping every month since September. (See chart.)

As Troop Surge Succeeds TV Retreats from Iraq War

A 2005 survey of top journalists conducted by the PewResearchCenter found the media were far more anti-war than the general public. The networks' performance over last five years makes that painfully obvious.  - Rich Noyes  END QUOTE

Conclusion

Stratfor’s latest analysis shows us that, as with most issues related to the war in Iraq and the overall War on Terrorism, there appear to be no clear-cut answers.  Our Western mindsets often cannot understand actions borne out of literally centuries of tribal conflict.  However, having inserted our influence into the fray, it appears certain that we cannot simply back out without major global consequences.

Among the many thoughts and ideas conveyed in Stratfor’s analysis is the indication that negotiations between Iran and the US are continuing in the background.  However, with a change in leadership coming up in January of 2009, I doubt that any deal with be struck in that regard.  Why make a deal with the current administration now, when there will be all new players next year?

Thus, all eyes are now on the US election coming up in November.  Whoever wins, be it McCain, Clinton or Obama, the strategy in Iraq is likely to change.  All we can do is hope that any change will build upon the success of the Surge, and result in an acceptable end game with Iran.

Very Best Regards,

Gary D. Halbert

SPECIAL ARTICLES:

Anatomy of the Surge (very informative on the war - read this)
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/SPECIAL-PREVIEW-br--Anatomy-of-the-Surge-11265

Maintaining the US – Pakistani Alliance
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080401/EDITORIAL/883173812/1013

Getting Hillary Clinton (by the always insightful Peggy Noonan)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120663639483768965.html?mod=todays_columnists

Hillary's List of Lies - Dick Morris reminds us.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/hillarys_list_of_lies.html


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