{"id":1977,"date":"2009-01-08T00:45:05","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T00:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2009-01-08T00:56:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-08T00:56:00","slug":"where_do_we_go_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1977","title":{"rendered":"“Where Do We Go From Here” – Guest Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Marcus Vitruvius<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

This is a response to Armed Liberal’s and Nortius Maximus’ questions of where do we go from here, in the Iraq 2009<\/a> discussion.<\/p>\n

Where we go from here depends on a lot of factors, the most important of which is, “What are we trying to achieve?” I’d say, provisionally, that what we’re trying to achieve is the elimination of Islamic terror, without other loss of national power and influence. (Ideally, while increasing it.) That’s a tall order. Frankly, to phrase it as the elimination of a tactic from a group makes it completely impossible without eliminating the group, so let’s scale that back to a goal of greatly diminishing the prospects of Islamic terror.<\/p>\n

One of the central debates of this goal has been whether the reduction of Islamic terror is a military matter or a police matter, and the unsatisfying but correct answer is, “Neither and both.” Once terrorists are on our soil, it is (typically) a matter for our police forces. While terrorists are on friendly soil, it is (typically) a matter for the police forces of the friendly nation, even if those police forces are their military. While terrorists are on unfriendly soil, unfriendly police forces may even be complicit, and the task becomes one of delicately convincing that unfriendly nation that it is in their best interest to realign their policies with our, which may require military violence, or the threat of it. Finally, while terrorists are on uncontrolled soil, the task becomes one of building a trustworthy local police force, which may require military force to combat terrorists while more military force is helping strengthen those local police forces. Direct military conflict with terror forces would seem never<\/i> to be the desired goal, but still seems likely to be necessary in the future.<\/p>\n

This is why I have thought for years that this goal, the reduction of Islamic terror, is best prosecuted as the reformation of certain societies. I think of terror reduction as a non-local<\/i> police matter, requiring that the police forces in the area be strong and opposed to terror, and the society in which those police are based to have a reasonably peaceful outlook.<\/p>\n

So much for goals and abstracts. Looking across the board, I see two strategic targets: Iran, and Pakistan. They are certainly not the only<\/i> strategic targets, but I think they are the most important ones: Iran, because it is a thoroughly vile regime that funds operations across the Middle East; and Pakistan because in its weakness, it allows for al-Qaida and related groups to stage operations into Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India.<\/p>\n

Of those, I think Iran is probably more manageable over the short term (five to ten years.) Iran and its terror operations are a grand system, as it any national grand strategy; any strategy to oppose it should look at the elements of the system, and act in a way which maximizes disharmony between the elements of the system.<\/p>\n

One large and important piece of the Iranian system is oil money; when the price of oil was high, at unsustainable levels of $150\/barrel, the Iranians looked (and must certainly have felt) very strong indeed. With coffers overflowing, they could fund operations elsewhere with impunity, and even play games like threaten to take oil off the dollar standard. With oil prices fluctuating in the $35 to $50\/barrel range, that is no longer the case. One thing we should certainly do is act to keep the price of oil as low as possible, for as long as possible. I don’t think that will be a problem in the short term of a year or two– OPEC production threats have been met with giggles by the consumer community, because we are all<\/i> in recession, at the same time. My gut hunch is that in three to six months, prices will deflate further once the Chinese economy fully digests the impact of a United States and a Europe with less use for Chinese imports.<\/p>\n

Now, in similar situations in the past, Saudi Arabia has been convinced to stab OPEC members in the back by refusing to implement meaningful cuts. I have read convincing analyses that their motive here was not altruism to the West, but very long term profit motives, with the idea of damaging other oil exporting countries economies and picking up market share in the long term. It seems at least plausible that the Saudis could be enticed to play this game again.<\/p>\n

But, at the same time, Iraq is finally stable enough to think about serious oil exports. Six months ago, Iraq opened six oil fields and two natural gas fields for development. On December 31, they offered up nine more oil fields and two more gas fields. There are something like 45 billion barrels of reserves in those fields, with a projected rate of over three million barrels per day. Even taking those numbers with a grain of salt, half that amount of oil coming on line over the next five years should continue to depress oil prices. Therefore, what we should do specifically in Iraq, about oil, are these things:<\/p>\n

1) Continue to act as security guarantor in Iraq for as long as needed. McCain’s notion of a Korean-model was not wrong. Physical security in Iraq is essential to continuing oil development<\/p>\n

2) Grab as many of those fields as possible, and develop them as cheaply as possible.<\/p>\n

3) Try as much as possible to get other Western countries in on the other oil fields to develop them as cheaply as possible.<\/p>\n

Those second two points are essential because Western models of oil extraction are extremely efficient in comparison to others. The range of technologies is part of this, as is Western style budgeting and planning. We must<\/i> get the Iraqi government used to doing these things in a Western style fashion, because it just works better. It might bleed over to the rest of the nation as well.<\/p>\n

(Incidentally, low oil and gas prices have harmful effects on the economies of two other governments we don’t like: Russia, and Venezuela. To keep the pressure on Russia, as well, we should be accelerating the revival of Libyan oil and gas fields as well, and encouraging Libya to integrate its gas fields with Europe via undersea Mediterranean pipelines.)<\/p>\n

Another large and important piece of the Iranian system is its numerous proxies and clients, especially Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria. It is possible that they are playing games in Afghanistan, too, although I haven’t read anything that makes me think that in particular; it is just a motif, and they certainly have the geographic proximity to do so. Part of what makes the proxy problem so difficult to fight is that, when Iran has oil money, it is fairly easy for them to regenerate their proxies, and more so when they have Syrian help. However, if the oil strategy outlined above works, then the regenerative strategies of Hamas and Hezbollah are significantly reduced. Therefore, if oil prices can be kept low for a few years, I would let Israel have a re-match with Hezbollah. I would practically encourage it, and give them whatever technical assistance they need in the gambit.<\/p>\n

One certain way to make this easier would be to secure Syria’s assistance, which I think is not as far fetched as it seems. Syria and Israel had been making noises about a peace treaty for a large part of last year, and if it is possible for Egypt and Jordan to make peace with Israel, it is certainly possible for Syria to do so. The nominal peace treaty could be achieved in exchange for the Heights, while the deeper matter of flipping Syria out of Iran’s orbit and helping dismantle Hezbollah might<\/i> be achieved in exchange for significant influence over Lebanon. This sounds like a demonic deal. It is. But the Lebanese have not been masters of their fate for a very, very long time anyway. It might be worth it, although I’d prefer to see it happen without promising Syria anything.<\/p>\n

A third and final important part of the Iranian system is their demographics. Iran is young, poor, and ethnically and religiously diverse in its traditions, more so than is widely recognized. That the population is young is not really in dispute; it’s a matter of demographic record. That it is poor is not obvious, until one realizes how much the Iranian government spends on subsidies to keep its people happy. That it is diverse is not apparent until one realizes that it contains large Kurdish, Baluchi, Arab, Azeri, Turkmen populations and more, and also has a good Sunni minority. Demographically, this is not a stable country, which is partly why it is repressive in the first place, and why they spend so much money. So at roughly the same time that Israel should be encouraged to degrade Hezbollah, and the Saudis and Iraqis are being encouraged to degrade oil prices, the Iraqis and the United States should be doing everything in our power to encourage those groups to assert themselves, with the ultimate goal being a crumbling of the Iranian government and its reformation into something more human.<\/p>\n

This strategy is not without its flaws. Any number of players here might simply not play. Or, the Iranian government might not crumble, but shatter, leaving the entire stretch from Iraq to India as mountainous, ungoverned crap. And certainly Iran will be very angry and reacting to this with force of its own, through proxies. But it is a strategy,<\/i> and it’s a little more sophisticated than, “Go home, and hope for the best.” This at least has the virtue of turning the Iranian system inside out, causing them to need more money than ever at a time when less is available.<\/p>\n

The second strategic target is Pakistan, and the militants (and al-Qaida) within them. Here, the militants have become very adept at using the existing system of India, Afghanistan and Pakistan against us.<\/i> Clearly, the militants have something of a safe haven in Pakistan, both politically and geographically– it is nasty, nasty terrain. Pakistan military support is necessary just to keep the militants from striking into Afghanistan, but every time that support gets too meaningful, the militants can play the India card. Meaning, launch a devastating terror attack on India; India is forced to rattle sabers toward Pakistan; Pakistan is forced to move its military from the Afghan border to the Indian border; the militants have far less pressure on them and can continue their efforts into Afghanistan. All of this is exacerbated by the nature of Pakistan’s ISI lending tacit support to the militants, Pakistan’s overall highly fragile nature, and their status as main corridor into Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

This is a Gordian Knot of a problem. I can identify any number of elements of that system which could change and result in a huge advantage for our operations. The problem is, none of them seem particularly likely to happen. India is not going to give up Kashmir. India is not going to stop threatening Pakistan when militants attack it. Pakistan is not going to magically defang its intelligence service and play nice. I don’t know how to change our system.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s militants are very, very good at never facing pressure from all angles at once. If we cannot change our system, it is tempting simply to let the strategy be, “Force their system under pressure from all sides at once.” After some time with Petraeus shaping the political and military ground in Afghanistan, team up with the Indian intelligence forces and declare open season on recalcitrant ISI members and encourage them to launch operations across Pakistan’s border to destroy known terror camps.<\/p>\n

There are two problems: First, that’s harder than it sounds. The strikes would have to be effectively simultaneous. Second, Pakistan could fall, with the attendant problems of nukes getting loose and the loss of our transport corridor into Afghanistan, crippling our operation. They could achieve the second part even without a collapse, by simply denying us transport rights.<\/p>\n

I think that leaves us with three alternatives:<\/p>\n

1) Make a plan to route around Pakistan, squeeze the Pakistani militant system, and see what happens. Frightening.<\/p>\n

2) Work actively with the Pakistani government to help them clean out their military and intelligence services. This would be painfully slow, and who knows if the Pakistani government would even cooperate?<\/p>\n

3) Pursue options against Iran, and use Iran as the alternate transport corridor into Afghanistan… then pursue plan 1 above.<\/p>\n

Sequencing is important here: Pursuing options against Iran while<\/i> working with the Pakistani government is certainly an option. Under the best possible circumstances, we would be left with multiple corridors into Afghanistan and a potentially more useful Pakistani government to be used when the time comes.<\/p>\n

But admittedly, this second section has been a large amount of words and letters amounting to, “There are no good short term options in Pakistan.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commented Marcus Vetruvius offers a guest post on Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}