Where Next?

WHERE NEXT?

Antonia J Jones 1 August 2007

Antonia J. Jones is Professor of Evolutionary and Neural Computation at Cardiff University, Wales UK. She has long been a student of weapons technology and military history.

This time last year, prompted by the Israeli bombing of Lebanon (now recognized as a mistake even in Israel), I wrote a furious polemic against US and UK policy in the Middle East. Happily the Lebanon summer war of 2006, although highly destructive, was relatively short lived. Later Hamas took over Gaza. Apart from that, nothing much has changed, except there is now growing US public opposition against the second war in Iraq, and Bush's polls are at an all time low.

Fantasist Blair has, thank goodness, finally retreated from Downing Street. The disgusting spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who abetted and helped promulgate Blair's delusions, recently published his expletive laden diary, continuing, where he refers to Iraq at all, his interminable attempt to defend the indefensible (we all know the intelligence reports were 'sexed up' - which is the only important fact). In the meantime it remains to be seen if the new British PM is at least sane, which would be a step in the right direction. Appointing Blair a 'Peace' Envoy to the Middle East was a bit like appointing Lucrecia Borgia Minister of Health - someone somewhere had an acute sense of irony. It would be no more than they both deserve to indict Blair and Campbell as the self-serving war criminals they (in my opinion) are - and there is now a great TV drama by Alistair Beaton along exactly those lines (see <here> for the Guardian review). Unfortunately, pit-bull Campbell was such a pathetic bit-part player in real life that no-one has thought of indicting him (yet!). Blair doesn't need to wait for history to judge him - everyone else already has! His only plea, when hopefully they do indict him, is 'manifest insanity'.

When the US Media talk about the Iraq 'death toll' they are mostly referring to US troop losses, currently running at around 3,500. Any death is to be regretted, but one should not overlook the fact that the real death toll consequent upon Iraq II (the second Iraq war), is troop losses plus probably around 655,000 Iraqis, the people we were supposed to be liberating. This figure, published by the Lancet (the British Medical Journal), needless to say, caused a lot of neo-con consternation, and so was challenged extensively. Blair reflexively denounced the figure and, rumor has it, that he asked the UK Government statisticians to poke holes in the methods, but eventually they bounced the paper back, saying the methods were sound. In any event a careful study published in the premiere scientific journal Nature later validated the figures. In actual fact, although they set the scale of events, precise numbers are not really the issue. The fact is that the situation is so bad in Iraq there has been a mass exodus on a trans-biblical scale. Four million people have been displaced from their homes, many living in camps, and two million have left the country, most arriving in Jordan and Syria. If that many people are frightened for their lives it must be pretty bad. One should not underestimate the effects of these huge numbers of refugees on the (often fragile) stability of their neighboring host countries. For those remaining in Iraq, according to a recent Oxfam report, the suffering is extreme and on a monumental scale....

"Forty-three per cent of Iraqis suffer from ‘absolute poverty’. According to some estimates, over half the population are now without work. Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 per cent before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28 per cent now.....

.... The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50 per cent to 70 per cent since 2003, while 80 per cent lack effective sanitation. The ‘brain drain’ that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country. At the end of 2006, perhaps 40 per cent had left already." [Oxfam Briefing paper: Rising to the Challenge in Iraq - 30 July 2007.]

This is what has been wrought in our name. It is also quite revealing to see where the other refugees have ended up. Germany, who opposed the war, has taken in nearly 53,000, the UK 22,000 and the US 6000. Sadly, a beacon of honesty and courage <riverbend> and her family have wisely decided to leave. I hope they make it out safely.

To my great regret, although I could see Iraq II, and the consequent civil mayhem, coming way ahead, I did not take a public position earlier. A mistake I will try to avoid in future. The disaster of Iraq II probably means that the neo-con plan to wage yet another war, this time on Iran, will - even with Fox News' help - not be acceptable to Congress or to the US public.

Just in case they still try to push it we should, at every opportunity, publicly oppose the idea as dangerous nonsense. On the contrary, as I shall argue shortly, bizarre though it sounds, a rapprochement with Iran might be in the best interests of the West.

Nevertheless, we have a whole bunch of trouble coming our way, and maybe we should start thinking about sensible policy positions.

So what does the future hold in store, where next?

Iraq II is lost. Born from stupidity and criminal lies, it was an immoral, un-winable war that should never have been fought. With or without US and UK troops what we have there is (a very predictable) civil war. Sunni and Shiite fight one another, and compete to see who can take the credit for having driven out the invaders. Internecine destruction on a massive scale. Since, quite obviously, troops-in, or troops-out, makes no difference now, fairly soon the US-UK coalition will pull the troops out.

Then we have open war between Sunni, supported by groups within Saudi Arabia, and Shiite, supported more openly by Iran

The eventual result will be partition.

An outcome the west, which 'invented' Iraq as a country, has vainly sought to avoid.

How the Kurds (who are split amongst themselves) in the north will fare is an open question, but

It seems likely that in the confusion Turkey will invade the Kurdish regions (as their Generals are longing to do), in an attempt to lessen the capability of the PKK to operate in Eastern Turkey (where essentially Turkey has its own little war going on - one which has cost approximately 37,000 lives since 1984).

Only the army, which it should be said has considerable support, keeps Sunni Turkey secular and, under the circumstances, it seems probable that Turkey will not become an EU member state in the foreseeable future. Even moderate Islam is deeply conservative, and opposed to many western values. The population of Turkey is around 71 million, of which at least 94% are Muslim with about 85% being Sunni. The idea of large numbers of Muslims, favoring a state under Shari law, becoming citizens of the EU may be seen by some Europeans to be taking 'keep your enemies closer' a bit too far.

Sunni - Shiite distribution from Wikipedia

All this is bad enough, but the really serious problem is Sunni Pakistan, where the army is gradually losing the battle against the fundamentalists. There have already been several failed assassination attempts against the President, General Pervez Musharraf. The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) and many madrassas all over Pakistan are not so much churches and schools, but rather very heavily armed military redouts and/or propaganda training camps for revolutionary forces. What an excellent military strategy - to establish bases all over enemy territory before actually declaring war!

Pakistan will shortly be embroiled in a major civil war.

This is really worrying. Think about it. Whilst it seems likely that Shiite Iran has been running a covert nuclear weapons program (see also <here>), one can make a case that: (a) they would not be crazy enough to allow such weapons to be used; and (b) probably aim to use the program as a bargaining counter - as others (N. Korea) have done before them. In other words, although it would make Israel extremely uncomfortable to have a competing nuclear power in the region, it seems highly unlikely that Iran, even if it had such weapons and the means of delivery, would (intemperate comments notwithstanding) risk becoming a radioactive wasteland.

Never mind Iran, what about Pakistan? The same cannot exactly be said of Pakistan. Pakistan has already got deployable nuclear weapons and, if the army-based regime is overthrown, it would mean that

In a single move the Islamic fundamentalists, the same guys who organized 911, would be a nuclear power.

Not an encouraging prospect for either Israel, the West, or India. It might be a good idea to adopt a much more supportive stance towards Pervez Musharraf's government. However, with elections coming up who knows what the situation will be. A state of emergency and postponed elections are on the cards if the present level of civil unrest escalates. Benazir Bhutto, who generally is against appeasing the militants, argues for a more liberal regime which would allow change: "In Pakistan in a free election the religious parties have never won, but if the moderate reformers are squeezed out the day will come when the extremist are the only available option". Whilst her argument is undoubtedly true in the long run, our immediate problem is the short run. In fact the day after I started writing this piece, a bleak warning appeared in the Guardian, following remarks in the House of Lords by Lord Inge, the former Chief of the British Defense staff, who said "The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognize. We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan...". Among those 'consequences' is the likelihood of regime change in Pakistan! Our efforts in that region have been distracted by Iraq II. The US and NATO have approximately 50,000 troops in Afghanistan, whereas the current US-UK deployment in Iraq is around 170,500.

As a viable society Afghanistan is gone. The intelligentsia and middle class professionals have been imprisoned and eliminated by successive regimes, roads are non-existent, precious irrigation infrastructure and agricultural production (apart from opium - which now, according to the World Bank, accounts for about a third of the national economic activity and 90% of global illegal opium production) have been destroyed, and deforestation is the rule. (See <here>. Professor Barnett R. Rubin also has a long and informative interview on the history of Afghanistan since 1979 <here>.) The basic means to support life have largely ceased to exist. What do we have to offer Afghanistan? As Professor Burnett observes "... as a first step, they have to know that there is another alternative available; something must be on offer for this completely devastated country, apart from more threats, apart from bombing a place which has already been bombed into oblivion, apart from economic sanctions against a country whose economy, if it hasn’t disappeared, is already entirely illegal".

So what should we realistically be planning now, to have to deal with later? Within a relatively short time, as these things go, this is the likely scenario...

Civil war in Iraq leading to partition.
A Kurdish war in southern Turkey, possibly spilling over into Iran.
Civil war in Pakistan - which we cannot afford to lose else the Sunni Taliban become a nuclear power!
Obviously, increased intensity war in Afghanistan (or pull out and then the Taliban have complete control).

I truly hope I'm wrong, but if not we then have a pan-regional Islamic Secular-Sunni-Shiite civil war, which brings with it the prospect of a Sunni Islamic nuclear coalition stretching from Pakistan in the east though parts of Afghanistan in the north, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Jordan in the west (see map above) and Saudi-Arabia in the south. At that stage, in less than ten years, Osama Ben Laden will have successfully changed forever the face of Asia, the middle East, and world politics.

On a more positive note, Shitte Iran has no love for the Sunni Taliban and, 'Great Satan' rhetoric aside, ironically might make an excellent ally for the West. It is worth noting that, for the first time in about 27 years, the US and Iran have started talking at a high level. The impetus is the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, but hopefully this is a small step down the road towards wider policy cooperation across the entire region. Iran has allowed its oil refinery capacity to decline and this needs rapid and substantial investment to keep the economy moving. Maybe Iran could be convinced that getting home produced gasoline available at the pumps makes more sense than providing weapons to rabidly anti-western groups, e.g. to their buddies in Hezbollah.

Guys, our politicians need to wake up and start listening to their defense and intelligence staff and the State department, many of whom, unlike Fox News, actually know what they are talking about. Far from starting new wars, we should be trying to figure out how we are going to deal with the ones we have already started and the ones that, very obviously, are going to start themselves...

Iraq II was not just a tactical disaster for the West and an ongoing nightmare for the Iraqi people, it was a fundamental strategic blunder of the first magnitude, for which the neo-con faction in Washington were directly responsible.

By initiating Iraq II we took our eye off the Afghanistan-Pakistan issue, and it may well lose us the entire ball game: for which the goal should be stability and peace, not control. These problems have no purely military solution. They are intrinsically political and we must seek a political solution. This is the real world and the 'Hollywood methodology' (bomb everyone else and let God sort them out) is not applicable. The British learnt in Northern Ireland that, however distasteful, it is regrettably sometimes necessary to talk to those who engage in both the discriminate and indiscriminate murder of civilians - arguably this was Blair's only useful legacy.