Richard Holbrooke informs us of what America, and the Bus administration, is doing wrong in the Middle East. Writing in the Washington Post, Holbrooke exclaims:
Two full-blown crises, in Lebanon and Iraq, are merging into a single emergency. A chain reaction could spread quickly almost anywhere between Cairo and Bombay. Turkey is talking openly of invading northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish terrorists based there. Syria could easily get pulled into the war in southern Lebanon. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are under pressure from jihadists to support Hezbollah, even though the governments in Cairo and Riyadh hate that organization. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of giving shelter to al-Qaeda and the Taliban; there is constant fighting on both sides of that border. NATO's own war in Afghanistan is not going well. India talks of taking punitive action against Pakistan for allegedly being behind the Bombay bombings. Uzbekistan is a repressive dictatorship with a growing Islamic resistance.
The only beneficiaries of this chaos are Iran, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and the Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who last week held the largest anti-American, anti-Israel demonstration in the world in the very heart of Baghdad, even as 6,000 additional U.S. troops were rushing into the city to "prevent" a civil war that has already begun.
There is of course one problem with Holbrooke's view. He is treating all of these events as independent, isolated events that just happen to be happening at the same time.
This guy was a highly placed American diplomat? And he has no clue about all these events? There is a common thread that Holbrooke kind of understood. Who are the beneficiaries?
Who is driving all of the events that Holbrooke sees as separate? Here's a clue, Mr. Holbrooke: these are not isolated incidents. Iran is driving all of these things. Every one of them. Iran and it's partners North Korea and now Hugo Chavez are pushing the world to the brink. But you see it as discreet elements rather than as a gestalt, Mr. Holbrooke.
Sadly, so do all too many people.
On the diplomatic front, the United States cannot abandon the field to other nations (not even France!) or the United Nations. Every secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright negotiated with Syria, including those Republican icons George Shultz and James Baker. Why won't this administration follow suit, in full consultation with Israel at every step? This would clearly be in Israel's interest. Instead, administration officials refuse direct talks and say publicly, "Syria knows what it must do" — a statement that denies the very point of diplomacy.
The same is true of talks with Iran, although these would be more difficult. Why has the world's leading nation stood aside for over five years and allowed the international dialogue with Tehran to be conducted by Europeans, the Chinese and the United Nations? And why has that dialogue been restricted to the nuclear issue — vitally important, to be sure, but not as urgent at this moment as Iran's sponsorship and arming of Hezbollah and its support of actions against U.S. forces in Iraq?
Containing the violence must be Washington's first priority. Finding a stable and secure solution that protects Israel must follow. Then must come the unwinding of America's disastrous entanglement in Iraq in a manner that is not a complete humiliation and does not lead to even greater turmoil. All of this will take sustained high-level diplomacy — precisely what the American administration has avoided in the Middle East. Washington has, or at least used to have, leverage over the more moderate Arab states; it should use it again, in the closest consultation with and on behalf of Israel.
Holbrooke argues as if the US can unilaterally impose peace, while decrying the US failure to use dipolomacy more effectively. Kind of an awkward stance. Wasn't Holbrooke one of the people who decried American unilateralism? Just asking.
Frankly, Holbrooke has this all wrong.
Are you being serious? Be sure not to say a word about our invasion and occupation of Iraq upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East. It’s all Iran’s fault! Oh, and Chavez too!!! They forced us to invade and create a defacto Kurdistan, which is now threatening Turkey. Pay no attention to the crumbing nation behind the curtain folks!
Put down the Republican talking points fax and think about how silly this sounds. Rove must be furrowing his brow to spin this as the Axis of Egos(tm)’s fault. I applaud Holbrooke for not pointing fingers, but instead trying to figure out a way to resolve the crisis. Meanwhile Republicans (and Rightroots Independents(tm)) are ducking and pointing figures.
Go back to sleep Franklin and dream it’s 1999 again.
Pay no attention to the fact that the attacks into Turkey are coming from a spot 10 miles from the IRANIAN border. Pay no attention to Michael Tottoen’s reports on Northern Iraq that show a serious and responsible group of people in control that want a peaceful life.
Just pretend it’s all the fault of the Americans. As is everything, everywhere, everytime.
By the way, you projecteth a bit too much. I know Kos and company coordinate all their messages with mailing lists. Karl never returns my calls.
If Israel is the US puppet, using our weapons to bomb innocent and guilty alike, why can’t Iran give lebanon weapons for the same purpose, it seems fair to me…its not like they give them an airforce for free like we do with israel?
Thanks for playing spot the leftist.
Iran and it’s partners North Korea and now Hugo Chavez are pushing the world to the brink.
I suppose Chavez would therefore be the evil face of Mambofascism.
So what do you propose then, as an alternative. You whine about Holbrooke’s analysis of this mess, and point to Iran, but what, exactly do you propose we DO about it?
Do you have anything constructive to add?
So, here we are again with the folks who fell they must come over from the Daou report.
Please read the comment policy, you’ll find it on the about page.
We could return to Holbrooke’s approach and ignore it until it kills us then get Hollywood to make all sorts of films about how evil we are deserving world condemnation because we didn’t sign on to the Kyoto agreement.
Or, IMO (hey I’m a woman who has much to lose if we lose this fight) instead of the continuous castration of our means of defense including all those who volunteer to defend while emotionally blackmailing the civilian masses into believing a Bush Deranged Myth about Oil/Empire/Hilter, why not join the battle in words and deeds which reflect something other than Death to America.
Does this help Barnaby or do you need more?
Are you advocation attacking Iran? With the very poor public support for the current debacle of a war, how exactly do you propose to do that?
More war and death are not possible. People in this country are at the breaking point, and I personally believe we have squandered much by getting caught in the quagmire that is Iraq. Now the right has cried ‘Wolf’ so often that if an actual wolf showed up, you wouldn’t be able to deal with it.
If you read here regularly, you would know what I advocate. The problem with dropping by to insult someone based on a single post linked by Daou is that you won’t actually understand any of that context.
BAD MONKEY! How dare you state your own opinion on your own blog!! You must accept what your betters have decided! We’ll decide who your betters are!!!
Regarding Holbrook’s editorial:
How does the statement that “6,000 additional U.S. troops were rushing into the city to “prevent” a civil war that has already begun” coexist with the statement that “Sunnis and Shiites have put aside their hatred of each other just long enough to join in shaking their fists — or doing worse — at the United States”? Answer: they don’t. These are mutually exclusive assessments of the violence in Iraq.
How about this gem: “Every secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright negotiated with Syria, including those Republican icons George Shultz and James Baker. Why won’t this administration follow suit, in full consultation with Israel at every step?” Answer: because all of those administrations failed to achieve any long term peace, only short term cease-fires.
I really like the bit about Kennedy’s “brilliant diplomacy”. This is the same Kennedy administration that took us deeper into Vietnam. Did Kennedy walk right into a trap (using the ‘Guns of August’ theme), or did he avoid one? Or did LBJ muck it all up?
“For starters, he should redeploy some U.S. troops into the safer northern areas of Iraq to serve as a buffer between the increasingly agitated Turks and the restive, independence-minded Kurds. Given the new situation, such a redeployment to Kurdish areas and a phased drawdown elsewhere — with no final decision yet as to a full withdrawal from Iraq — is fully justified. At the same time, we should send more troops to Afghanistan, where the situation has deteriorated even as the Pentagon is reducing U.S. troop levels — which is read in the region as a sign of declining U.S. interest in Afghanistan.” How would redeploying our troops to the ‘safer’ northern areas help Iraq? Couldn’t that lead to just the opposite effect? How is it ‘justified’? And that’s just for starters…Holbrook doesn’t offer an endstate (or middle state, or anything other than a short term alternative). Also, haven’t we been in Afghanistan longer than Iraq? Why isn’t Afghanistan a “disastrous entanglement”? By what criteria does he make THAT assessment?
I love the insinuation about Iran: “Why has the world’s leading nation stood aside for over five years and allowed the international dialogue with Tehran to be conducted by Europeans, the Chinese and the United Nations?” Notice the ‘five years’ part. I’ve got news for you: except for a very brief blip in 2000, and ‘Ollie’s follies’ in the early 80s, every administration since 1979 has given Iran the cold shoulder. To insinuate that this is somehow new to the last five years is insulting.
In the end, Holbrooke’s editorial is nothing more than a rant. He doesn’t offer anything more substantive than short term, and somewhat contradictory, advice for US troop utilization in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lots of ‘why don’t we negotiate’ crap that has not worked in the past.
I’ll finish by throwing Tuchman right back at Holbrooke: “The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit.” Except that this trap wasn’t made in the first thirty days, like Tuchman wrote about regarding World War I. This trap was made over the course of centuries, and has been primed by Islamofacism in the last 20 years.
How do we get out of this trap, Mr. Holbrooke? More of the same (negotiation)? Did negotiation prevent the trap from springing, or just postpone the inevitable? Maybe, just maybe, the Bush administration’s approach is breaking this trap apart. He warned us it wouldn’t be quick or easy. Maybe there is no negotiating with Islamofacists.
Forgot to add another alternative to the situation:
Negotiate (failed for over 20 years)
Nuke ‘em to the stone age (might be a little early for that)
Containment (which may not include direct negotiation…we didn’t really start talking directly to the Soviets until the Cuban Missile Crisis)
Purely speculation, but I think we are seeing the last option (containment) being put into motion. Unlike failed attempts to negotiate, we simply won’t talk to either Syria or Iran until they demonstrate some genuine willingness to abide by agreements. They have utterly failed to do so up until now. The next step is theirs…step wisely. Remember how the Cuban Missile Crisis almost ended up.
Oh, by the way, it was bold, decisive, and UNILATERAL action by the US that forced the Soviets to ‘blink’ back in 62. How does that compare to today?
Insult? You have to be kidding me.
You, in the post at the top, make it very clear that you consider Iran to be a major source of current problems. If that is the case, do we attack them? And, if that is the solution, how do you accomplish that considering the current political environment.
It seems that using our power and leverage to force all parties to the bargining table is the only viable alternative.
We have no power or influence with the Islamists. Negotiating has not accomplished anything substantive in all these years. Merely a short Hudna until the next wave.
Obviously, the pompous Holbrooke is blind to the fact that Iran is driving all “these” incidents – including Lebanon. If he were smart enough to look at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website (www.mfa.gov.il) under Terror from Lebanon he would discover much to his dismay a chronological list detailing Hizbullah/Hezballah’s attacks on Israel since IDF’s withdrawal in 2000. 20 attacks! including mortar, shooting and kidnapping at an average of 3 attacks per year! It should be clear to anyone – even Holbrooke – that what is happening in Lebanon is Iran’s fault.
“Iran and it’s partners North Korea and now Hugo Chavez are pushing the world to the brink.”
Partners? I didn’t know Bush added Venezuela to his “Axis of Evil”.
I may not be up on my current events, but how is Iran behind the Bombay bombings or Uzbekistans political strife?
Of course Iran is behind all the troubles. Who emboldened them? We did, by creating a power vacuum and tying one (both?) hand behind our back via the spectacularly idiotic Iraq invasion. Probably the single worst foreign policy decision in any of our lifetimes.
Chickens are coming home to roost. didn’t anyone think of this in 2003?
Jan, word is Nasarallah and Bin Laden and Zarwawi have always said it was Allah who emboldened them.
And the ostriches still have their heads buried in the sand.
Tom, if Castro knows Chavez is a Collectivists why don’t you?
We have no power or influence with the Islamists.
And yet Iran managed to make Bush invade Iraq and Israel invade the Lebenon.
My GOD, these Islamofascists are powerful!
Oh, look, they’ve found a new enemy… How *cute*…
Past: “It’s all Saddam’s fault! Once he is gone, paradise will return to the Middle East!”
Past: “It’s all the Foreign Fighter’s fault! Once we’ve killed them all, paradise will return to the Middle East!” “Oh, and the journalists! Put them all in prison!”
Present: “It’s Iran! It’s Iran! We have to attack them for Mom, Apple Pie, Israel and the New American Fascism!” “… What do you mean we have no army?!”
Future: “Bush? There was not *ever* a president named Bush. And if there was, he was a DEMOCRAT!”
Hello again,
No, I don’t stop by often, so I didn’t have your “context” down. The discussion is good, so I may come back, if that’s ok. How is getting linked by the Daou a bad thing?
I fail to see how blowing up more countires or further surrender of civil liberties will do anything but pour gasoline on the fire. Our stupid, incoherent and brutal response to the twin-towers attack has fueled much in the way of Islamic hatred towards us–deservedly so. Afganistan? Failure. Iraq? Failure. Mid-eat/Israel? Failure. Dependence on foreign oil? Failure.
To consider current foreign or domestic policy anything better than grossly incompetent is to perpetuate a lie. The failure in Washington is of governance, and to raise red-herring, like Iran, or whatever the latest scare of the day is, further enables that failure.
I mean come on, what hasn’t Bush done to make Osama look good? Name one thing, please. Remember the warning of Isoroku Yamamoto: I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. I think it is high time to wake up, don’t you?
Barnaby
In case people forget, the USA use to support Saddam to help keep Iran contained. A secular Suni dictator who wanted to crush religously fanatica Shite Iran.
Even after he developed regional aspirations for a new Babylon and we were forced to keep him under control via no-fly-zones and so on, he was still seen by Iran as a threat to them.
We removed Iran’s biggedt worry so they are now free to condcut their mischief unimpeded.
Meanwhile, the groups Saddam kept contained within Iraq are starting a civil war. And all the terrorists that Saddam would ahve executed ont he spot have a paradise to work in. And Iran has a valuable partner in the fanatical Iraqi Shia.
All these results were pretty obvious to anybody who had the least grasp of the geopolitical situation in that area. But we have an administration that is not reality based and thought they could create a new Middle East using lies and deceptions to justify the necessary first steps.
The US has tried a lot of strategies through the years during different times and with different world conditions. So, by your reasoning all our future actions are futile because of one policy at one time in the past with a different set of constraints.
Good reasoning.
Certainly, these are not isolated, unconnected events. That much is true, but…
Um…no. You’re wrong. Iran is not driving this – Bush is. Or rather, previous failures in US foreign policy re the Middle East are driving these things. You just can’t remember enough history ro recognize it.
Today’s crises are the direct result and consequence of: 1) the CIA’s overthrow of democracy in Iran in 1953; 2) the failure to require concessions from Israel after their stunning victory in 1967, when Israel could have afforded to be magnanimous but chose vengeance instead; and 3) the foreign polity of oil and petrodollars that has been used to prop up an exploitative system of neo-colonialism since the end of WWI.
That’s it It’s all America’s fault, right? Nobody else in the whole wide world has any free will except what America forces them to do.
Brilliant.
It’s not America’s fault, no. America is a continent.
The arbitrary detention and torture of people without due process at GitMo is the fault of the President.
The failure to secure Afganistan, to even capture Osama, this is the fault of the President.
The invasion of a soverign nation (Iraq) without mandate (from other nations) or provocation is a violation of international law. Lot’s of people gave us a pass though–a chance to clean the mess up. Again, complete and utter failure from day one. Think incompetence on the scale of Hitler invading Russia–that is how badly we botched Iraq, and every minute it goes on proves this. This is the fault of the President.
How did we respond when attacked at Pearl Harbor? Why should we not expect the Iraqis to more-or-less go there? Read the 9/11 report. Iraq and Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with each other before we invaded. After we invaded Iraq became a wonderful training camp for anyone in the world who wanted to hone their skills at killing us. This is the fault of the President.
So, throw them out. That would be a beginning.
Iran is the most western-leaning country in the region. Kudos to fiskhus. If you were in Iran when the USA invaded and totally messed up Iraq, what would you do? After looking at the contrast between the US stance to Pakistan vs. the US stance to Iraq, I know what I would do–I would obtain nuclear weapons.
Does this suprise anyone? What did you expect they would do–surrender?
So, Osama flies some airplanes into a couple of buildings and manages to kill 3000+ souls. Horrible. He should have been dead within 60 days (see above). But how is that an excuse for the USA to blow up 1000 times as many buildings killing 1000s of times more people? And we are suprised when they want to kill us again? Oh, and he manages to rip up the Geneva Convention and US Constitution while he’s at it. Yea.
The primary obligation we face as the strongest nation on the planet is restraint. This is the only path to peace, which is prosperity. From restraint comes strength in the moment, the ability to act decisively. Right now we are circling the drain of Mid-East oil. Hear that sucking sound?
Barnaby
P.S. Just so nobody gets the wrong idea–these failures have nothing, IMO, to do with the US Military. They just did what they were told, which was the equivalent of “go invade, but don’t leave, just sit there and let people, who are now unemployed, heavily armed, densely populated, defeated and without police, government or much of anything besides religion, take shots at you. Don’t ask for reinforcements to actually police or control anything….just make sure the oil flows.”
Go read the Anchoress.
http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2006/08/11/tired-of-hearing-the-same-noise/
Come on Gaius. What does that have to do with what I said?
Besides, her argument is hollow. She claims the invasion of Iraq halted terrorist attacks on the US. Right. Like all those bombs blowing up HumVees aren’t terrorist atacks? Do you mean to imply that members of our armed forces aren’t US citizens?
If you’re going to throw links at me (not that I want you to), they should at least be relevant.
How about this one: http://www.9-11commission.gov/
Here’s the thing, Barnaby, you start right out with a false assertion. What is to debate?
There were UN resolutions. The repeated violations of the ceasefire resolution alone – without the additional resolutions passed afterward under article 7 – have always been legal justification – under so-called international law – for resumption of hostilities. Always has been. Always will be.
Gaius – of course the USA should try new approaches and policies. But in doing so, we should be aware of major pitfalls and prepare for them. All the negative outcomes of the Iraqi war were extirely obvious from the beginning in thereality-based community, yet were ignored by this administration.
Their incompetent execution of the war has been incredible. Because of this, few options are left and I’m afraid that the only approach is partition into separate nation states with long-term containment of the Shite nation. But the current Administration won’t consider this and would be, based on their past performance, incapable of executing it. At this point, I think it’s time for some other group to take over and clean up the mess they made.
Also – the Administration used deception and distortion to get a buy-in by the American people for the war, trying to conflate Iraq with Al Quada and WMDs. Using deception is very dangerous. It works if the war is quick and successful. It bites you back otherwise. And it makes it difficult to maintain support in the long run.
As to violations of the UN resolutions – sure. But the UN finally had inspectors in who were given full access. The inspectors felt they would have completed a full inspection within a few weeks when Bush said, “Time’s Up” and launched the war. How does that make sense?
From the beginning, there has been something very wrong in the Administration’s approach to get us in the war and their execution of the war. Trying something new is one thing, charging around blindly hoping something good will happen is another.
This is proabaly the most annoying reinterpretation of history out there. Bush used intelligence that everyone believed was correct. Bill Clinton, John Kerry, thousands of politicians and intelligence services from all over the world believed Saddam had WMDs. To call that deception is deception.
Kerry et al. mostly had the intel that had been pushed by Cheny through his setup of an “alternative” intel flow. The adminstration exaggerated the possiblity that Saddam had chemical weapons into a threat of nuclear attack on the USA. Any information to the contrary was rejected based on the “1 %” rule.
Clinton, Kerry et al. should have examined it more carefully, but Bush had linked Iraq in American’s minds with 9/11. So many politicians went with the flow to protect their political careers. The deception and distortion I referred to was this false linking and exaggeration.
1000s of intel services did NOT indicate that Iraq was an imminent threat tot he USA or had links to Al Qaida and 9/11. This was politcal propanganda the Bush administration successfully pushed. This propaganda forced other politicians, who should have been stronger, into going along with his plans.
Why did Bush not let the inspectors finish their job when they were finally getting full access? Why did he argue against the results of their findings?
And the Administration continues, through friends like Santorum, to claim Iraq had an active WMD program that was a threat to the US. Santorum just recently claimed that the unusable pre-1991 shells that have been found in ones and twos scattered around Iraq are evidence of an active WMD program. Condi Rice, when asked directly, won’t actively say Iraq had no WMD program but hedges and haws. And so on. Now, according to the latest polls, 50% of Americans believe that Iraq had WMDs ( up from previous polls) and a large percent believe Saddam was strongly linked to Al Quada.
I don’t have time to debate this stuff anymore. I presented as clear a case as I could of how we got into the war. But the blog world picks little snippets of reality to support the Administration, ignoring the preponderance of evidence.
However we got into this war, the outcomes were easy to predict in a reality-centered universe, especially when executed by a group too lazy to understand the geopolitcal situations, plan to deal with them, and adjust to changing conditions.
This is an odd blog, kinda out of touch with “my world”. The line from the latin poem at the header illustrates this. The full poem starts out, in English, ( from my old Latin intro poetry collection and my bad translation and some help from the poem’s trot): “The things that make life happy, my dear Martial, are these things: To have property not earned through toil, but inherited …
Unfortunately, I’m of a class that toils and doesn’t inherit a life of leisure as a gentleman farmer (sigh). And the class that fights the wars of those who inherit their wealth and plan them but never suffer the consequences.
-Nihil Sine Labore
Imagine how tired we get of hearing the same stuff getting twisted around.
And since that line is not the one quoted, why bother to bring in one that isn’t?
(I have also seen the line translated as “things” rather than “property”. )
peteathome is right about the UN resolutions–they were for inspections as a path to disarm WMD, not invade. Even if they HAD authorized invasion, it still doesn’t change the fact the Bush/Cheney/Rummy screwed it up completely. So you base your “argument” on what? Really, what is there to argue? Should we “stay the course?” What the heck is that?
This administration completely lacks any authority what-so-ever. Deal with it. Moral certainty/clarity combined with utter incompetence is what we are faced with–I like the term messianic rectitude. Ship of fools also works well.
Acountability. We start by holding them accountable for their lies (to congress, to the public), war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of the oath of office, etc. That is where we must start.
Perhaps it would be better if you read said resolution before repeating someone else’s analysis of it.
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/scres/2002/res1441e.pdf
Thanks Gaius, I just did. Fairly susinct really, and, like I said, it relates specifically to inspections and disarming relative to WMD. It concludes with: that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that
it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its
obligations.
Which is as harsh as it gets. Nothing about invasion.
TataForNow
Afghanistan and Iraq are not failiures. We are not finished yet.