CONTAINING IRAQ

Most of the good thinking on the war in Iraq is moving towards "containment of a chaotic civil war" (actually its worse than a civil war, see my December 2006 brief) instead of counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency to prop up a democratic government can't work in an environment where there isn't a center (the middle class has already departed the country in a massive 2 million refugee rush for the border) and everyone remaining is a member of a radicalized faction. Anyone still thinking about counter-insurgency today is a year or more behind the power curve of the war.

How we got to this point

This transformation of the war wasn't an accident. It was accomplished by a global guerrilla attack on a social systempunkt that made possible a cascade of failure in Iraqi social systems (see my brief on al Qaeda's Black Swans written in February of last year):

The first attack, a successful one, on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, caused so much friction in Iraq's social systems, the country will likely end up in civil war. This would put the entire US venture in the country at immediate risk as the situation deteriorates.

That psychological tipping point shattered the Shiite bloc, which was already full of fault lines due to the reliance on loyalist paramilitary forces to build the Iraqi military. Since then, it has been a race to primary loyalties well below the level of state, religion, or ethnicity. It has even manufactured militant messianic cults, as the recent fighting around Najaf proved.

How to contain it

How do we contain this chaos (?) has become the question upon which the entire global economy rides. The spread of this war would eliminate Iraqi oil production entirely and put at risk the production available from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. It would also set-up the US, which should be the main force for global cooperation, for an extremely hard landing both domestically and internationally, which may take a decade or more to recover from.

The first and foremost approach to doing this is to lessen the potential of state vs. state warfare. A war between the US/Israel and Iran would quickly destabilize every state in the Middle East and allow them to fall prey to open source war like Iraq. The best method for lessening the chance of this war is to open connections with both Iran and Syria (with Syria as the prime target) to reduce their connectivity to non-state groups. This not only reduces internal dynamics (that breathing your own exhaust creates) it can also help to make it more difficult for global guerrillas to generate an attack (another black swan -- I'm thinking of attacks that could do this, are you?) that serves as a pretext for regional war. Other ideas can be found in a report by Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack at the Saban Center (Brookings) called "Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from and Iraqi Civil War.". This report is just the start, much more thinking needs to be done.

Comments

[PTCruiser]

John -

Given the fact that our government, although not our country, seems to be itching for a dustup with the Iranians how likely is it, in your opinion, that diplomatic steps might be taken to resolve national differences as a means to avoid an armed conflict? In addition, isn't our government standing on pretty shaky ground in terms of demanding that the Iranians not take an active interest in the affairs of Iraq. These two nations share a common border and some history whereas we cannot make a serious claim to physical proximity or past history.

I am interested in your thinking about these matters not in order to argue but because I value your opinion.

[matt]

this whole oil gimmick is way played out. there's got to be something better to do with our planet's collective intelligence besides blowing each other off the map. wouldn't it be great if someone(s) in the government had the courage to come forward and introduce to the american people, and the world in general, of the reality of zero-point and unity + energy systems, that they have been known about and have existed for quite some time, and that we will begin converting as soon as possible. oil has a plethora of uses besides gasoline.

[Azr@el]

Iran is currently striking back on all fronts of this new style of conflict. Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Iraq are all feeling the Iranian 'surge'. U.S. allies such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan & Saudi are screaming bloody murder as Iran continues to marginalize their influence in the region and within their own geographic borders. They're all petitioning Washington to check and reverse Iranian expansion and consolidation of it's hegemony in the greater middle east. They would all view public negotiations with Tehran as a sign of capitulation and that might lead to a series of unfortunate events based upon miscalculations by our allies that would ultimately harm U.S. interest.

I think it would be better to maintain a cold peace; the Iranians have or will achieve nuclear weapons status, only the blind and mentally deficient believe that they can stopped. Contrary to all the hysteria emanating from Tel Aviv, the Iranian leadership is not irrational, in fact by their actions and successes over the the last 6 years they strike me as being the antithesis of irrational. Thus we are faced with an Iran that will be a nuclear state and a deterrable one at that. Thus we should be able to keep the anti-Iranian rhetoric up to please our allies and keep them in check while at the same time seeking tacit accommodation spelled out in actions and thru backdoor communiques with Tehran.

What in public would be misunderstood as a surrender, in private could prove a viable framework for positive disengagement with assurances that Iran would not act against our vital regional interests as it asserts it's hegemony. Sometimes when you look at your cards, and you don't even have a pair of 2's and the other guys grinning from ear to ear, it's time to stop raising the ante and time to start inquiring if we can split the pot and call it a night. We've got bigger problems coming down the pipe, the PRC inc. and the spawn of al-qaeda, to invest ourselves in a conflict with Iran over whether the global gas station is self serve ( U.S. hegemony in the middle east ) or full serve ( Iranian hegemony ).

[ptcruiser100]

I wonder if this administration has taken into account that further destabilizing actions in the Middle East such as Israel bombing Iran's nuclear facilities could lead to a coup or worse in Pakistan that would result in nuclear weapons winding up in the control of apocalyptic extremists in that country. (It won't matter at that point what their religious beliefs might be.) This situation would not sit well with India and that country might take steps to protect itself from what it would view as an inevitable conflict thus leading to more hot spots in the region.

[adam]

John,

A couple of minor points that aren't noted.

The Iraqi border is thousands of kilometers long with modern and effective links into Jordon, Saudi and Kuwait. There is no way that the violence can be contained in either direction. In 4 years of mucking around the US military have never even got close to being able to control the Iraqi border (despite occasional complaints that Syria and Iran should do so. Their response "whats in it for us?" was never answered). There is no reason to presuppose that other govenments will be any more effective, particularly as Iraq heads towards a vortex. I'm willing to bet that, other than customs charges, an Iraqi civil war government will have far bigger fish to fry than worrying about dead Saudis.

Its worth noting that the US military didn't even try to control the Iraqi border, and the first checkpoints weren't put up until some months after the end of the war when an Iraqi minister realised the embezzlemnt potential of customs posts.

Secondly not everyone remaining in Iraq is in a radical faction. Its a bad sign when the US is thinking this because most Iraqis want peace, quiet and a full larder. Electricity would be nice, along with an end to the US occupation. However the Iraqi radicals define people as with us or against us, often based on odd criteria which leaves no room for manouever. Americans might note that this is very similar to the simplistic 'black and white' craziness of the Bush administration and US military.

Which brings us to Iran, a key point in the current US desire to "contain" things. I'm from a generation where we called it "bombing people", but hey.

The current US position is that Iranians are bad and training Iraqi forces to shoot at their enemies. Uncomfortably for the Americans it appears that rather a lot of Iraqis consider them enemies. And of course we can completely trust US government statements on Iran. The obvious fact is that most anti-US violence is from the Sunnis, which Iran never has trained. Beyond the desire to shout that new US-ally SCIRI was based in Iran for 20 years and Hakim has a villa in Iran where he goes on holiday it seems that the US government assumes that its population and soldiers are actually dumber than worms. On the other hand the US bitching and moaning about this now is fairly pointless - SCIRI were prepared by the moderates in Iran and sent to Iraq in 2003, who were defeated in elections by the current hard-line government.

So why do it? A best guess is that its for US politics - allowing morons to babble for the next few generations "we could have won Iraq if only we'd have invaded Iran / Syria / Cambodia / Mexico / Petes Bar and Grill, Oregon". In rality its more or less accepted that the US has lost in Iraq, and now its time to sort out who is responsible. Personally I blame either the Democrats or the muppets. Neither controlled any part of the US government or the military so its clearly their fault.

It would of course be remarkably stupid for the US to launch any attacks on Iran. But then all the evidence is that the US government is remarkably stupid. Current US strategy (assuming "yee-hah" is a strategy) has failed. Any (neo-con) fantasies of Iraq being a secular liberal Westernised democracy are smoking ruins.

The US has also stopped trying to encourage democracy in the Middle East. There are practical reasons for this in terms of containing Iraq. There is no way that a secular Western supporting leader can win a fair election in any Middle Eastern country now. So elections in the Middle East are right out for the next generation or so.

Those of us who remember Bin Ladens position on the hypocrisy of the West might want to wonder how much he is laughing now. A return to the 1991-2003 policy of containment for Iraq, after hundreds of thousands dead, is a massive win for Bin Ladens political theories.

[Barry]

John Robb: "This transformation of the war wasn't an accident. It was accomplished by a global guerrilla attack on a social systempunkt that made possible a cascade of failure in Iraqi social systems (see my brief on al Qaeda's Black Swans written in February of last year): "

Not quite that short or simple, IMHO.
All in all, a lot of hard work over 3-4 years went into breaking things down to this level.

First, the Bush administration. They trashed the government, and expected everybody to fall into line like obedient robots or something. That left the way largely open for chaos, which left the way open for guerrillas and militia. The admininstration responded to things not going according to plan by sticking its fingers in its ears and going 'can't HEAR you!'.

Second, the US Army, or more accurately the higher-ranking officers, spent at least one year demonstrating that competancy in conventional warfare doesn't translate over well to competancy at unconventional warfare. Possibly two, maybe three. From everything I've read, the first year was a strong net negative for securing the country; Army actions tended to help the guerrillas.

Third, various factional leaders, who realized that there was a power vaccum.

Fourth, Al Qaida, which had to spend almost three years of hard work to really kick off the Sunni-Shiite war; it wasn't just one attack.

[salsabob]

"much more thinking needs to be done."

Two suggetions -

First, read Reidar Visser http://historiae.org/
- one of the very few open-source true experts on Iraq - more so than Juan Cole on the issue of Iraq federalism. A good start is here -

http://tinyurl.com/yp3u7e

Second, after digesting as much Visser as possible, go back and re-read your excellent piece, "Security: Power To The People" http://tinyurl.com/lob66

and think about application to Iraq.

After 1 and 2, see if you might become a proponent of redoing the Iraq constitution in a manner that better systemizes the federalization process using much smaller units of local ("self-securing") organization that currently arranged.

Do that and you'll be in a zone much farther in front of the wave than those 'discovering' the need to contain the Shi'a - Sunni 'civil war.'

[adam]

John,

Containment at what price?

The new 2008 budget has some fascinating numbers. At $739bn dollars the US is now spending more money on the military than everyone else on the planet put together. As Iraq shows the money is largely wasted.

There's $481 billion as the basics to run the military. Plus $142 billion to fight the "global war on terrorism". That's $623bn, which is real money.

The Pentagon is also asking for an additional $93 billion as a supplemental for war costs in the remainder of 2007. Apparently the $50 billion supplemental that Rumsfeld requested in 2006 turned out to be only a third of the total. Plus an additional $50bn will be needed in 2009.

Anyway in addition the Department of Energy wants $17 billion for nuclear weapons. There's another few billion ($5bn) here and there.

For those that like to throw figures away the total cost for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan comes to $661.9 billion so far.

So lets go to the numbers that matter - the ones for Iraq. For 2008 Iraq is going to cost the US 143bn + 93 bn + 50bn (the remainder for 2007) = $286bn; enough to pay every Iraqi man woman or child a stipend of about $10k - not bad for a country with an average GDP of $1900. We could halve that value and still improve every Iraqis lifestyle and that'd leave money for Afghanistan.

It would appear that containment would be cheaper if the US just gave all the Iraqis a cheque and a US passport. Oddly enough this was a semi-joking suggestion made before the invasion in 2003, but its quite serious now.

OK I'll admit that the Chinese who now largely control US debts would laugh their behinds off on this (borrowing money to give to people that you've occupied? Look at Tibet to see how an occupation should be run they'd chortle!). In reality the US can afford none of this spending unless the Chinese continue underwriting the debt.

[AK]

John,

I think it is important to have a closer look at the “Black Swan” concept, interesting as it is.

It is a more concrete and more exact version of a term that we have used in national security for a while, namely, “wild cards” – key elements of any serious scenario-based study. While “Wild cards” have more recently been applied to climate change scenarios and other, long-term threats and challenges, there have been concrete attempts to apply them to terrorism, both from a governmental as well as with corporate finance point of view. A (overly) critical however interesting view of “wild cards” was published a while back in the New Statesman (http://www.newstatesman.com/200309220014).

The criticism voiced in this article is not unfounded, if the process behind such projects (which I myself have also managed) is misunderstood. These are classic High Impact Low Probability Events, which by definition are very unlikely but have serious repercussions. “Wild Cards” are essentially stochastic assessment tools, preferably used with a basic cost-benefit calculation, to explore various categories of “defensive” measures, be they proactive, reactive, or similar.

The concept of “Black Swans” is an effect no different to this old and valued “scenario tool”. It is also incorrect to state that the US or other western governments do not engage “creative” thinkers – there are many numerous examples of this that you yourself will be aware of, and more documented “extreme” versions are well known and part of public lore as in the humorous account in “The Men Who Stare at Goats” (http://www.amazon.com/Men-Who-Stare-Goats/dp/0743270606/sr=8-1/qid=1170949539/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3688841-0207664?ie=UTF8&s=books) .

“Black Swans” should only give us pause for thought when (mis)interpreted as being intentionally-introduced triggers of “event cascades”. This is very close to “historical determinism” and the intellectual bedrock belief underlying virtually every terrorist event since the originally Anarchist “Movement” at the turn-of-the-20th-century: do a. which triggers b. which triggers c. As I am sure Nassim Taleb is aware of, such a presupposition of dependent variables is, in the very least, questionable – historically of course these events have largely been inconsequential, with notable exceptions. Did the WWI really depend upon the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria? Few would think so.

Can we plan to react and prepare for such events? Absolutely, and have been doing so since decades. Can we plan and instigate such events? No – not because the desired “event cascade” cannot be “triggered”, but because the exact extent of such an cascade will always remain an unknown – you are just as likely to shoot beyond your goal as well as coming up short.

Congratulations on a great blog,

AK

[Cavolonero]

I hope The Kurds get a hold of an atomic ~

Well now everybody's heard
About the Kurd
Kurd Kurd Kurd yeah Kurd is the Word
Don't you know about the Kurd ?
Now everybody knows that the Kurd is the Word !