Iraq: Is Peace an Option?
Summary
For nearly a year, Iraq has been the centerpiece of U.S. President George W.
Bush's foreign policy. There were multiple reasons for this obsession, but
in the end, Bush created a situation in which Iraq became the measure of his
administration. However, over the extraordinarily long run-up to a decisive
confrontation with Baghdad, massive, global opposition to U.S. policy on
Iraq has emerged on both the public and state levels.
Creating the sort of coalition that the United States enjoyed in 1991 has
become impossible. This war, if it comes, will be fought in the face of
broad opposition. The question now has arisen as to whether the United
States would back away from war in the face of this opposition. Our analysis
is that, at this point in history, the United States has few choices left:
The constraints that now surround U.S. policy indicate that Washington will
have to choose war.
Analysis
Over the past few weeks, the pressure against a U.S. attack on Iraq has
mounted intensely. Massive demonstrations were launched, and nations that
oppose war have not shifted their positions. But the opposition is not
decisive, in the sense that the United States does not need the material
assistance of anti-war nations to invade Iraq, nor does the public barrage
of opposition create a material challenge to war. What these factors do is
create is a psychological barrier in which the sense of isolation has the
potential to undermine U.S. determination.
U.S. polls give some indication that this psychological dimension is having
some effect on Washington. The majority of Americans continue to support a
war, but the number is declining somewhat. Moreover, the number of Americans
who want to go to war only if there military action is sanctioned by a U.N.
resolution is quite large. The essential position of the American public
seems to be that citizens favor war but would much prefer that military
action be internationally sanctioned. Now, polls are volatile: At the
beginning of a war, the numbers have historically shifted toward
overwhelming support for the president. For long years during the Vietnam
War, public opinion continued to support the military action. Therefore, the
Bush administration knows that the poll numbers being seen now are
sufficient to support a war.
However, two problems emerge. First, the political configuration in Britain
has deteriorated substantially over the last two months, and Prime Minister
Tony Blair is clearly signaling intense political problems. Unlike other
countries, Britain provides substantial material support to the war effort,
and loss of that support would directly affect U.S. war-fighting
capabilities. The second problem is military: A quick U.S. victory in Iraq
would change the political equation domestically and have a substantial
effect globally, particularly if casualties were minimal and occupation
forces were to discover stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. However,
there is no way to guarantee any of these things. This war - like all wars -
potentially could be more difficult and costly than either side expects or
hopes.
Therefore, the United States must make a calculated risk. It is possible
that massive U.S. pressure might produce a shift within the U.N. Security
Council, but the basic configuration of global opinion will remain intensely
opposed to war. There is a high probability of victory, but no commander can
afford to begin a war that he not only must win, but win quickly, cheaply
and with no nasty surprises. Therefore, the United States could find itself
in a more extended war than it seeks, with the psychological pressure of
global opposition reverberating through the media. That is the last thing
Washington wants.
It would seem to follow that the logical course for the United States would
be to find a basis for not going to war with Iraq. Enough solutions are
floating around in the world that Washington could craft a suitably
plausible justification for the decision not to go to war, and perhaps even
claim a victory of sorts. Since the Bush administration appears to have lost
the diplomatic and psychological initiative gained after the Sept. 11
attacks, this would seem the rational outcome.
In our view, this is not what the Bush administration is going to do --
because it cannot afford to do so from either a strategic or a political
standpoint. There is no doubt within the Bush administration that the
protracted run-up to war has allowed opposition to solidify, and that the
international political process leading up to war has become unmanageable.
The decision to use the threat of weapons of mass destruction, rather than
the deeper strategic issues we have been discussing to justify a war has
created unexpected problems. It was assumed that the presence of WMD in Iraq
would be generally recognized and regarded as a problem that must be
solved -- even if there was war. Instead, it has turned the discussion of
war into a detectives' game in which some of the judges will not admit that
a violation exists, even when photos of a missile are distributed. At root,
France, Russia and the rest are not particularly concerned about Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction. They are deeply concerned, however,
Put another way, the opponents of war recognized the U.S. gambit and, for
reasons of grand strategy -- as well as some idiosyncratic realities --
refuse to play.
Nevertheless, retreating from the commitment to war would represent a
serious challenge to the Bush administration in three areas: strategy,
psychological warfare and domestic politics. As in a game of chess, many
options appear to be available -- but when the board is studied in detail,
the constraints are much more substantial and the options much more limited.
The strategic challenge is tremendous. After Sept. 11, the United States did
not have a war-fighting strategy. The strategy that was first adopted -- a
combination of defending the homeland and attacking al Qaeda directly -- has
proven difficult, if not ineffective. Al Qaeda is a sparse, global network
operating in a target-rich environment. A defense of the homeland is simply
impractical; there are just too many potential targets and too many ways to
attack them. Attacking al Qaeda on an operative-by-operative basis is
possible but extremely inefficient. The inability to capture -- or actually
to locate -- Osama bin Laden is emblematic of the challenges posed to the
United States in any dynamic, global conflict with a small, mobile group.
Washington's decision to redefine the conflict was driven by the
ineffectiveness of this response. The goal has been to compel nations to
crack down on citizens are enabling al Qaeda -- financially, through
supplying infrastructure, intelligence and so on. Many governments, like
that of Saudi Arabia, had no inclination to do so because the internal
political consequences were too dangerous and the threat from the United
States too distant and abstract. The U.S. strategy, therefore, was to
position itself in such a way that Washington could readjust these
calculations -- increasing cooperation and decreasing al Qaeda's ability to
operate.
Invading Iraq was a piece of this strategy. Iraq, the most strategic country
in the region, would provide a base of operations from which to pressure
countries like Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq was a piece of the
solution, but far from the solution as a whole. Nevertheless, the conquest
and occupation of Iraq would be at once a critical stepping-stone, a
campaign in a much longer war and a proof of concept for dealing with al
Qaeda.
If the United States does not invade Iraq, it will have to generate a new
war-fighting strategy against al Qaeda. The problem for Washington is that
it doesn't have another strategy, except the homeland defense/global covert
war strategy, which has not proved clearly effective by itself since Sept.
11. If the United States abandons the operation in Iraq, follow-on
operations against enabler of al Qaeda will be enormously more difficult.
First, the key base of operations would not exist.
It should be noted here that the United States has deployed the bulk of its
mobile strike forces to the region. They cannot be kept there indefinitely,
due to threats elsewhere in the world. Therefore, as they withdrew, profound
political concerns would emerge in countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain
and Oman, which have taken political and strategic risks to align
themselves with the United States. As Washington withdraws its forces and
Saddam Hussein continues to dominate Iraq, the willingness of other nations
to stand with the United States will decline. The effect on U.S. allies in
the region who have agreed to participate in the war against Iraq will be
substantial and will reverberate for an extended period of time.
This is the second point: Coalition warfare relies heavily on perceptions of
reliability. During the Cold War, this was called "credibility." Credibility
is a two-edged sword: It can create coalitions, and it also can cause
nations to do things they don't want to do in order to retain their
credibility. Credibility must be managed, but it is indispensable. A
precipitous capitulation would damage credibility seriously.
This leads to the second dimension: psychology. The credibility of the
threat posed by the United States will decline substantially if there is no
war. The calculation within the Islamic world of whether al Qaeda or the
United States is more to be feared will solidify rapidly: Al Qaeda is a real
threat to regimes in the region; the United States is not. If Washington
abandons its war plans and Hussein is left in place, the perception of the
Islamic world will be that the United States had neither the will nor the
power to destroy its enemy. One of the arguments that al Qaeda has made
consistently is that the United States is weak and that its troops will not
endure hardship and danger. It is this argument that has made bin Laden's
recruitment effective.
If the United States abandons war under the current conditions, Hussein not
only would be perceived as victorious, but also seen as victorious because
of a bodyguard of great powers that protect him. It would be argued that
these great powers oppose the United States just as much as the Islamic
world did. The United States would be seen as having been strategically
paralyzed by a global alliance.
Thus, at a time when the United States is trying to reverse the perception
within the Islamic world that it is a militarily ineffective power,
mobilizing forces, deploying them to the region, threatening war and then
refraining from action would have the opposite effect. Moreover, at a time
when the United States is less dependent on allies for war-fighting than at
other points in its history, the perception that would result would be
exactly the opposite.
The net result would be increased credibility both for Hussein and Islamic
radicals, who might have very different ideologies but share common
interests. There have been those who have argued that recruitment for
radical Islamic groups would grow in the event of war against Iraq. That
might be true. However, one of the major bars to recruitment has been a
sense that the radical cause is hopeless. A U.S. abandonment of war at this
point would increase hope and therefore increase both ferment and
recruitment. Things that have appeared impossible now would appear
manageable, and risks that wouldn't be taken before could be taken now. An
abandonment of war, in our view, actually would increase the probability of
strikes by Islamic militants against U.S. interests over the long run.
Finally, there is a domestic political consideration. All U.S. presidents
take these considerations into account when mulling whether to fight -- or
not to fight -- wars. All presidents keep their eyes on the polls when
making their decisions on war and peace, and George W. Bush is no different.
Bush is almost exactly one year away from the Republican primaries. He is
facing a Democratic Party that thus far is still sorting itself out from
its mid-term election losses and a quiescent Republic Party.
If the president abandons his plans on Iraq and the Hussein regime survives
intact, Bush would lose a good portion of his party, of which about 83
percent support the war option. There is not much anti-war sentiment among
Republicans, and the anti-war movement is not going to endorse Bush -- but
rather would make the argument that it blocked Bush from making war. The net
result would be a challenge to Bush within the Republican Party, probably
from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who simply would argue that Bush is too
indecisive to be president. Even if he turned back the challenge from
McCain -- or someone else -- Bush would be badly weakened in 2004. He cannot
afford to be weak after after his marginal and disputed victory in 2000.
Therefore, for Bush, the domestic consequences of not going to war would be
devastating: His opponents would get the credit for stopping the war and his
supporters would feel betrayed.
Bush's problem is that, for nearly a year, he has been talking about the
importance of the Iraq issue. He has made it the centerpiece of his public
diplomacy and of his domestic political base. Iraq also represents the only
coherent strategy that has emerged from a politico-military standpoint since
Sept. 11. It is not a great strategy against al Qaeda, but it is the only
coherent strategic option on the table -- aside from waiting and hoping that
the next attack is foiled. It does not have an immediate application, but it
has a long-term application. It is the best hand Bush has in a series of
pretty bad hands.
Therefore, it is extremely difficult to imagine Bush simply abandoning his
policy on Iraq, or adopting a transparent pretense of having achieved his
goals. There was certainly a time when he could have chosen to abandon the
Iraq issue; there also was a time when he could have attacked with much less
public outcry. Those times are past. He cannot walk away now, and he cannot
attack without an international uproar. The logic of his situation is that
he will attack, endure the uproar and let what he badly hopes is a quick
victory carry him over the hurdle.
Bush may wish at this point that he had not embarked on his campaign against
Iraq. Alternatively, he might wish that he had acted sooner. However, given
his strategic premises, diplomatic realities and political interests, we
continue to believe that Bush will order an invasion of Iraq -- regardless
of the evolution of diplomatic events -- and that this attack will come
sooner rather than later. |
