With blood in Egypt’s streets and a return to a state of emergency, it’s time for Washington to stop pretending. Its efforts to maintain its lines of communication with the Egyptian military, quietly mediate the crisis, and help lay the groundwork for some new, democratic political process have utterly failed. Egypt’s new military regime, and a sizable and vocal portion of the Egyptian population, have made it very clear that they just want the United States to leave it alone. For once, Washington should give them their wish. As long as Egypt remains on its current path, the Obama administration should suspend all aid, keep the embassy in Cairo closed, and refrain from treating the military regime as a legitimate government.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the military’s latest assault on protest encampments and the ensuing clashes. The secular vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, has resigned and the current ruler of the country, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has ousted the rest of the civilian government and appointed military generals as governors under a “state of emergency.”
Beyond our nefarious entangling alliances, there are more cons and pros in the Obama administration’s continued devotion to the Egyptian relationship – even from the imperial point of view.
“The sensible thing for the U.S. to do at this point would be to suspend aid to the Egyptian military,” writes Daniel Larison at The American Conservative. “It is long past time to suspend that aid in response to the July coup, and it is increasingly difficult to see what the U.S. gains from not doing so.”
Iraqi Children look at aftermath of a spring bombing in Sadr City, Baghdad (AFP)
As of July 1st, there have been 1,405 people killed in Iraq, mostly civilians. That number is likely to change by the time you read this — just yesterday, 45 people died as a result of numerous terror attacks across the country. One bomb had been planted near a cafe, another by a playground. According to reports 1,057 people were killed in July (2,326 wounded) alone, which means as of today, 348 Iraqis have been slain only in the last two weeks.
These are numbers not seen since the bloody days of 2008.
If you Google “Iraq ‘band aid’ war” you get about 3.7 million results. That’s because, beginning in 2007, astute observers noted that the so-called “Surge” into Iraq was nothing more than a bandage on a gaping wound — one we opened over the course of the previous four years. We allowed (if not assisted) a sectarian bloodbath against the Sunni population, then when Al-Qaeda became a problem, paid poor, battle-wracked Sunnis to fight them off. Then we supported the Iranian-Shia-backed Nouri al-Maliki’s government against his Shia opposition (Muqtada al-Sadr), pumped up Maliki’s Army, and were on our way.
Many had predicted the tenuous “peace” would not hold. It only needed a spark. Some say it was Maliki’s crackdown on Sunnis who were protesting not only the poor government services, but a lack of jobs for their people and disproportionate imprisonment and even torture. The so-called Sunni “Sons of Iraq” whom the U.S had paid to do its bidding, are again penniless, and disenfranchised. But armed.
Today we see what it looks like when the Band-Aid is ripped off the wound. Whether it was Maliki who did it doesn’t matter. The blood is flowing.
Currently, I am reading (Ret) Col. Gian Gentile’s new book, Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency. Gentile is a friend of Antiwar.com, having sat for an interview back in 2009. His consistent criticism of counterinsurgency (COIN) amid the unprecedented drumbeat for it by the civilian and military power establishment was both vilified (by COINdinistas) and welcome to those of us opposed to U.S war policy overseas. In his book, he has the last say, gazing on the ruins of American power in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everything he predicted then is playing out each night on the (very) brief news reports about Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) attacks against Maliki’s government and the civilian populace. But we doubt Gentile, who fought in Iraq during its deadliest moments in 2005, is taking any satisfaction.
Meanwhile, the national security writers clique remains as aloof and somewhat deluded as ever. Most people aren’t talking about Iraq at all. But this piece by Jason Fritz, a regular online raconteur during the heady COIN days, takes a rare stab at making sense of what is going on in Iraq. But he gets it all wrong. First, he attempts to use mythology as metaphor, bringing in a version of the Labours of Heracles, who kills his family in a fit of madness after taking on 12 heroic “labours” to prove himself to the gods. Fritz suggests that the Iraqi people are in a fit of madness, one that threatens everything they had accomplished thus far.
Iraq has traveled a long and violent road and endured many labors in an attempt to build a modern state for its people. And yet madness and fury have returned, drawing the country back down that long and violent road.
This seems a bit strained, to say the least. It was our “labors” that set Iraq on its current course; it was our “Band Aid” that held it together until we could beat it out of there with enough face to declare “peace.” However subtle, Fritz’s chiding of the Iraqi people for letting that peace slide is patronizing and completely off the mark, overlooking the American catalyst for all of it. Just take this ex-soldier’s take on the current troubles in Iraq, shared with NBC News last month:
“What it makes me feel is deeper guilt,” said Mike Prysner, an anti-war activist who, at 19, was part of the 2003 Army invasion. He served in Iraq for 12 months and left the service as a corporal.
“One of our roles was to shred their national identity. What is happening today is a direct result of the U.S. occupation’s strategy,” added Prysner, 30. “I remember the Iraqi government being setup along ethnic lines by the U.S. occupation. I remember arming certain ethnic groups to fight others. I’ll live the rest of my life knowing I was a part of that.”
Worse, Fritz takes the opportunity to suggest more U.S intervention might be necessary. As though we hadn’t already done enough. Is this not a touch of madness in itself?:
We now have a new question: if Maliki is unable or unwilling to stem the growing violence and infringements on Iraq’s sovereignty, is it up to the United States to do something to create the necessary capability or will to affect the situation?
Certainly the United States should not reintroduce general purpose forces into Iraq. That war is, by all accounts, done and dusted even if the political objects (impossibly framed as they were) were never achieved. Still, the United States could provide more policing and counterterrorism training, procure more advanced weapons for Iraq’s air defenses, and apply the political pressure necessary to get Maliki to act in a positive way that averts a civil war while meeting both Iraqi and U.S. objectives.
No offense, but our “training” — which has already amounted to billions of dollars and that much more in weapons, equipment, armored vehicles and aircraft — has done squat for the Iraqi security forces, which can’t seem to get a handle on the insurgency terrorizing the country today. But that is of no consequence, really — Washington has long said sayonara to Iraq, and frankly, looking at the piddling news coverage of today’s violence (which should be front page news, considering our huge investment), the rest of America has too.
But soon, it will become too much to ignore or explain away with Greek myth or COIN folklore. The Band Aid is off. What happens now not even the gods will be able to contain.
In a new report, the International Crisis Group suggests the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani does present a potential diplomatic opening, and that the U.S. should organize direct bilateral engagement with Iran (as opposed to the hollow P5+1). “Now is not the time to ramp up sanctions against Iran,” ICG adds.
The report’s recommendations will never happen because Washington isn’t interested in actually reaching a substantive deal with Iran. Most of Obama’s so-called diplomacy with Iran has been “predicated on intimidation, illegal threats of military action, unilateral ‘crippling’ sanctions, sabotage, and extrajudicial killings of Iran’s brightest minds,” writes Reza Nasri at PBS Frontline’s Tehran Bureau. This, despite a consensus in the military and intelligence community that Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons and has not even made the political decision to do so.
As former CIA analyst Paul Pillar has pointed out, the sanctions are “designed to fail.” Congress’s legislation links the sanctions to a long list of Iranian policies not at all related to their nuclear program. This makes lifting them really difficult in the context of nuclear negotiations.
Beyond the obvious charade of diplomacy, the Iranians aren’t necessarily likely to be susceptible to U.S. proposals. And for very good reason: Washington is untrustworthy.
As the ICG report notes, Rouhani has experience in substantive diplomacy. He “is the architect of the sole nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and the West, a not inconsiderable achievement given the depth of mistrust.” But,
lessons he has learned from the 2003/2004 deal – and from the bitter criticism he subsequently endured at home – could well induce him to greater caution; in hindsight, the agreement was seen as deeply flawed and one in which Iran’s suspension resulted neither in recognition of its right to enrichment nor in promised nuclear, technological, economic and security inducements. A former colleague said, “he made all the concessions the Europeans asked for in 2003 and 2004. But the West left him empty-handed and under fire from Iranian hardliners”.
It’s not the first time Iranian give has been met with nothing but American take. After the failed talks in 2009 and 2010, wherein Obama ended up rejecting the very deal he demanded the Iranians accept, as Harvard professor Stephen Walt has written, the Iranian leadership “has good grounds for viewing Obama as inherently untrustworthy.” Pillar has concurred, arguing that Iran has “ample reason” to believe, “ultimately the main Western interest is in regime change.”
Despite this, be prepared to see virtually the entire political and media establishment frame any U.S.-Iranian tension going forward as wholly the fault of the intransigent ayatollahs and assume nothing but goodwill on the part of Washington.
Massive protests are planned for tomorrow, August 14, in Bahrain. The dictator and king of Bahrain, also a close friend and ally of the United States, issued this warning ahead of the planned demonstrations: “The government will forcefully confront suspect calls to violate law and order and those who stand behind them through decisive measures.”
Obama meets with Bahrain King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa
You might think, does it violate the law to protest? Yes, it does. The authoritarian government in Bahrain, which has brutally crushed genuine democratic uprisings for more than two years, banned all demonstrations. It is also illegal to “incite hatred” against the security forces (whatever that means), and people can be thrown in prison for calling the king a “dictator” on Twitter (something that has happened to at least eleven people).
The regime uses the Western buzz word “terrorism” to describe anyone they want to suppress, as a list of tyrannical decrees in July showcased:
2. Revoking the citizenship of those who carry out terrorist crimes and their instigators.
3. Inflicting tough penalties on those who incite all forms of violence and terrorism.
4. Inflicting severe punishment on all kinds and forms of violence and terror crimes.
5. Drying up all sources of terrorist financing.
6. Banning sit-ins, rallies and gatherings in the capital Manama.
“The Bahraini regime’s repression has not let up,” I wrote last month in the Huffington Post. “Human rights groups have documented killings, beatings, torture, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, harassment, the destruction of more than 40 Shia mosques… on and on.”
Since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the Bahraini regime has received almost $90 million in direct U.S. aid, but the direct military equipment and training Washington provides exceeds that amount by leaps and bounds. America supports this dictatorship with anti-riot gear, small arms, short-range ballistic missiles, rocket-launchers, Blackhawk helicopters, air-to-air missiles, Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile, on and on and on, worth billions and billions. “Approximately 250 Bahraini military students attend U.S. military schools each year,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.
In September 2011, seven months after the crackdown began, the Obama administration announced “a proposed sale of 44 ‘Humvee’ (M115A1B2) armored vehicles and several hundred TOW missiles of various models, of which 50 are to be ‘bunker busters,'” CRS reports. Months earlier, as Time magazine reported Cobra helicopters conducted “live ammunition air strikes” on protesters.
In FY2014, Bahrain is set to receive another $11 million in aid.
After succumbing to pressure to stop aiding Bahrain during its authoritarian repression, President Obama announced in May 2012, after a visit to the White House by Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman, “that, despite continuing concerns about Bahrain’s handling of the unrest, it would open up Bahrain to the purchase of additional U.S. arms for the BDF, Bahrain’s Coast Guard, and Bahrain’s National Guard.”
In December 2012, posters of President Obama with the word “Criminal” emblazoned across his face were put up throughout the Shiite neighborhood of Sitra in Bahrain. Above the photograph was the title “Terrorism is an [sic] U.S. Industry.”
So we know what U.S. policy has been towards Bahrain in the midst of this harsh crackdown. What has the Obama administration actually said about this crisis? Not a word – at least not for a long time. And nothing about the impending “forceful confrontation” tomorrow.
Obama’s Syria policy is fundamentally one of contradictions. Back in 2011, the president called for Bashar al-Assad to step down and proceeded to gradually support the armed rebellion. As Joshua Landis, professor at the University of Oklahoma and an expert on Syria, wrote back at the time, “Let’s be clear: Washington is pursuing regime change by civil war in Syria.”
At the same time, the Obama administration did not welcome the fall of the regime in Damascus. As the State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said back in January, even as the U.S. supports the Syrian opposition on the margins, it is of utmost importance to “maintain the functions of the state,” so as to avoid a power vacuum that the al-Qaeda-linked jihadists that make up the majority of the rebels could take advantage of. As Phil Giraldi, former CIA intelligence officer and Antiwar.com columnist, told me back in March, “Obama has come around to the view that regime change is more fraught with dangers than letting Assad remain.”
Instead of moving initially to directly arm the rebels, the Obama administration stalled for two years and made policy moves like designating the al-Qaeda in Iraq offshoot in Syria a terrorist organization and pressuring Saudi Arabia not to send heavier arms like anti-aircraft weapons. Back in March, the White House directed the CIA to increase its cooperation and backing of Iraqi state militias to fight al-Qaeda affiliates there and cut off the flow of fighters pouring into Syria. As The Nation‘s Robert Dreyfuss put it, “We’re backing the same guys in Syria that we’re fighting in Iraq.” Then in May it was revealed that U.S. operatives in Jordan advised small groups of moderate rebels with the explicit requirement that their trainees fight the al-Qaeda-linked rebels.
So while Obama’s policy, at least as stated, was the fall of the Assad regime, he also tried to prevent its collapse. And even as U.S. policy was to support – and, indeed, now to arm – the rebels, it was also to divide and conquer the opposition and fight al-Qaeda’s rise in Syria.
The Wall Street Journalreported this month that the CIA’s second-in-command, Michael Morrell, said in an interview that the top threat to U.S. security is “the risk is that the Syrian government, which possesses chemical and other advanced weapons, collapses and the country becomes al Qaeda’s new haven.” Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar echoed the sentiment: “In the short term probably the best outcome in that respect would be prompt re-establishment of control by the Assad regime.”
Mind you, that doesn’t mean Washington should start directly supporting Assad. I don’t think that, and neither, presumably, do these CIA guys. The Obama administration has shown, in its words and its reluctance to fully commit to a proxy war against Assad, that it understands the concern associated with Assad’s fall. But the president has still bowed to pressure from the most superficially informed that we “do something” to stop the caricatured formulation of this civil war that it is a ruthless dictator slaughtering his own people and nothing more.
But he hasn’t bowed too much. Obama has repeatedly sent out his officials, most notably Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to outline the dangers of direct military action. “We have learned from the past 10 years,” Dempsey said last month, “that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state. We must anticipate and be prepared for the unintended consequences of our action. Should the regime’s institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.”
It seems a confused, panicky approach. The administration is terrified of appearing to not interfere, but it knows too strong a policy for or against either side would make things immeasurably worse.
