middle east solutions: issues, relationships, frameworks and approaches

8/14/2019 Middle East Solutions: Issues, Relationships, Frameworks and Approaches

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Perspectives on the ME:

Demography, Socionomics, Governance and Outlook

Introduction

The Middle East has always been important to the US and the rest of the developed world, mostly for its

oil, but has never received the attention and resources it deserved or required. With 911 (and 311, the

Madrid Bombings, et.al.), the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq thats changed but not

necessarily in ways wed like. Whatever you may think about those actions the fact of the matter is that

the world economy and the stability and prosperity of our respective societies is utterly dependent on

peace, stability and progress in the Middle East. With the current inventory of on-going crisis that makes

finding a workable path forward toward a more stable and prosperous ME becomes an urgent and

important problem for the US and for the World. This series of blog postings lays out the issues,

provides several frameworks for understanding the players and their linkages and how they impact and

are impacted by the issues, suggests key factors like cultural and social structure to consider and

provides strategic recommendations for coping with these important, dangerous and difficult challenges.

If nothing else we hope it provides both food for thought and constructive strawmen for moving

forward, however slightly.


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Table of Contents

1. Some Different Perspectives 2

2. Diversity, Complexity & Confusions 4

3. Progress, Reform, Stability, Devolution 5

4. ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict

5. SoW IV(the Ugly): Israel, the ME and Good vs. Bad Government 8

6. The Iran Dilemma: They Like Us, Not; We Like Them, Not...usw. 9

7. Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses 11

8. The Next Decade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & Fracture Lines 15

9. Witches Brew Recipes: ME Details (Iraq to Iran) 1810. ME Update: Exemplar, Laboratory and Conundrums 21

11. Middle East Challenges: Game-changes, ME, Iran, Iraq & Afghanistan 25

12. Boots On The Ground: Realities, Strategies, Policy & Politics 29

13. More of the Afghan Debates: Searching for Legitimacy 32


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Some Different PerspectivesMarch 1, 2008http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2008/03/wrfest_1mar08middle_east_some.html

Next up is some variant readings from around the world on theoutlook and status for the ME. Interestingly but hopefully notsurprisingly they care as much or more about our electionsthan we do. In fact, just as a sidebar, an online poll at theSingapore Straits Times found 55%+ of the respondents weremore concerned with the US elections than the ones across theStrait in Malaysia. Unfortunately the reverse, or obverse ain'ttrue. That is we don't pay much attention to what they thinkabout things. I started out to put some context around thereadings after the break - to wit, why we really....really shouldcare about the ME - but ended up with so much that they'llbecome separate posts.

Briefly though

1) the ME is the major source of oil for the world economy andwill be more important in the future,

2) the ME has been under growing socio-demographicpressures from rising populations and a lack of developmentwhich is escalating exponentially, and

3) US policy continues to be self-interested, quasi-benign neglect but uninformed, un-sophisticated and too short-term to serve our own interests. Put that all together and you have the ingredients for a major implosion whichcould be catastrophic if not addressed. Which makes resolving these challenges favorably is probably THE majorshort- to intermediate-term US foreign policy requirement.

It always amuses me that toward the end of their last terms US Presidents seem to want to leave a legacy of

resolving the ME into some nice, neat, stable and peaceful package. So they try and slam dunk something. That'sbeen going on since Jimmy the Peanut with Clinton and Bush II taking big passese at. This is too intractable,severe and complex a problem for amateur hour however, which is what we keep insisting on its' being. Thinkworst American Idol moments only this time it's American Idiots. The catch is that it isn't just a peace and stabilityproblem it's also a major national security problem, which is closely coupled to the need for a rational, forward-

looking and innovative strategic energy policy AND a major economic problem.That's true because we keep importing oil and exporting depreciating decliningdollars, which are not independent trends, and re-cycling those dollars intosovereign wealth fund investments is also becoming a painful challenge.

Aside from amusement our bumbling around needs to be fixed and soon. Myfavorite take which captures a lot of the confusion, self-deception, politicalnarrow-mindedness, lack of grasp of reality and inability to face the world as itis is captured in Syriana. Which IMHO was a great movie though not for theusual reasons. If you actually pay attention what you see is America pursuingan "Oil at Any Cost" policy, struggling to keep the lid on the status quo, andlacking a willingness to find alternatives, i.e. a coherent national energy policy.In other words you and me folks ! You also see where political correctness,misrepresentation of who's doing what to whom and plain old wishful thinkingget us into trouble.

For example the mythology about the Iranian moderates moving the country toa more progressive outlook. Or the willingness to sacrifice key personnel to


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political expediency while also failing to build, develop and maintain an adequate and competent intelligencecapability. If you click thru the picture you'll get Wikipedia's excellent summary. The underlying realities are evenmore tellingly depicted in Robert Baer's book on which the movie was loosely based: See No Evil

One final point while we're evaluating candidates - while these problems accumulated over decades thebook and the movie are essentially examinations of the exponential increase in those deficiencies during

the '90s. Guess who's watch that was ! So to help start a little correction the readings below tap into a lotof foreign sources and present some very different perspectives on Arab development, their views on theUS elections, the recent Turkish incursion - which was driven more by a continuation of decades long

PKK terrorism inside Turkey with continuing support from the Kurds in Iraq than our MSM is willing to

face, and some real progress in Iran in the face of all difficulties.

Diversity, Complexity & ConfusionsMarch 21, 2008http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2008/03/wrfest_16mar08middle_eastdiver.html

ME policy and events continue to be challenging forus all. Just because Iraq, and by extension, the MEhave come off the front-page doesn't mean any ofthose challenges have gone away or been lessened.They continue as bad as ever and will be the #1foreign policy challenge facing a new president. Notjust because they are important but because they arealso urgent. There are, of course, many otherimportant problems who's long-term implications areeven more profound. Primarily finding a way toinvolve the BRICs as contributing and supportingstakeholders in the new world structure that mustemerge to provide a stable int'l framework. But beforewe get to that point, on which we a) aren't doing badlybut b) which will have major up/downs and crisis, wehave to pass thru the bottleneck of the ME. Thegraphic at right is borrowed from an earlier posting onIraq's strategic consequence and context but willserve here to illustrate the complexities, puzzles andconundrums facing us.

Because the ME controls the available supply ofswing oil reserves and production capacity theeconomies of the rest of the world cannot get bywithout secure and stable access to it. Anybody who thinks we can just walk away is dreaming. Aside from theminor detail of requiring a national energy policy that would be an effort on a par with the Space program in its'heyday, or perhaps the Manhattan project (& concievabley as important) there's the other DLS (dirty little secret).

Changing from where we're at to where we should be, whatever that is, will take decades and $T's of investment.Our last real chance at this was in the '70s and early '80s but when the price of oil dropped people let it slide. Sowe're trapped in this box for the lifetime of your children.

How will we cope?

Any answer must NOT be in isolation but also recognize the importance of local initiatives. We've tried the "Endof History" thingee and imposing culturally insensitive solutions but have re-learned painfully that culture matters.As our previous Iraq assessments show. Put that another way - your future well-being and moreso that of your


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time, without the normal media pundit posturing, ideologies or distortions (explains why she doesn't work for theNYT?).

Below you'll find various readings on current status and outlook for the ME. One on the recent Iranian electionsand the continuing decline in that particular theoractic kleptocracy was discouraging. Two on reformist efforts inIslam and Islamic countries were very encouraging. The first is on Shariah and the second is on reform efforts bySaudia Arabai's king.

Now a word of warning or three - we shared the first article with several friends who essentially dismissed thecore of its' arguments out of hand because, obviously, Muslims are violent, uncivilized and their legal codes arewithout merit in this day and age. Which we'd think makes reform all the more important of course. It wasparticularly ironic that one of their main objections was the Archbishop of Canterbury's preliminary suggestion toallow Shariah courts to handle family legal matters was obviously anathema. Despite its' being couple to asimultaneous proposal to allow Orthodox Jewish courts to do likewise. They were even more surprised to find outthat many so-called civilized countries let religious courts handle family law. Italy and most of the Latin countriesfor example.

The other major objection was that Muslims are too violent. We'll pick that up some more later, but let's considerthe last 40 years of Civil Rights in this country. Remember, or know about, the riots and destruction in Watts,Detroit or Newark ? How about the assassination of Martin Luther King ? It would seem that we haven't always

been as non-violent, civilized and law-abiding in recent memory as to justify rejecting Shariah, and it's reform, outof hand without looking at it on the basis of evidence, data and merit. So when you read the article bear in mindthat a) we'd ask you to judge it on the merits, not on the emotions, b) remember that the re-stabilization of the MEis a critical factor in your own future and c) if we don't get stuff like this what're our alternatives?

None good that we're aware of. How 'bout you?

Either we manage to encourage and support governments who put the best interests of their countries ahead oftheir own personal advantages or we face a major disruption. Take your choice.

ME Faultlines: Values, Culture & Conflict

May 2, 2008

http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2008/05/me_faultlinesreadings_values_c.html

Let's weave a couple or three things together. We've argued that the ME is potentially the most serious andchallenging foreign policy issue that will face the next President, over and above Iraq. Largely for two fundamentalreasons - one without ME oil the world economy collapses. And two without a stable set of ME regimes they'relikely to collapse - if nothing else from internal socio-economic and demographic pressures. That's one braid.The other is values - last post we took a deep dive on values, or at least from the perspective of the evolution ofreligion over the last several millenia and the common challenges we've faced collectively and individuallywrestling with inescapable challenges. Where those two braids come together is in culture - which too manydismiss too lightly though we've all been getting some rough lessons in the last several years. Primarily in the ME.

"Customs tell a person who they are, where they belong, what they must do. Betterillogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From ananthropologists view, "justice" is a search for workable customs."

Dr. Margaret Mader, Citizen of the Galaxy


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If you think that's all gobble-de-gook consider lastweek's news that Syria was working with NorthKorea to build a nuclear reactor who's onlypurpose was breeding materials for nuclearbombs. Which explains the mystery of the Israeliattack last Fall that everyone was puzzling over.Prior to the announcement StratFor, the privateint'l intelligence provider put out a very scary littlereport about growing escalating war pressuresthruout the ME. Stop and think about that forminute. Who knows exactly what was going on,I'm suspect there was a lot of underwear-changing going on in certain buildings andagencies. And there should have been !Fortunately some folks are beginning to re-discover the importance of culture.

Probably one of the most critical applications isunderstanding tribal culture in the ME. Before wedive into that though let's refer you to some

interesting work on modeling culture - whichcomes from the work of Prof. Richard Lewis and put a little more formally than Dr. Mader puts it:

Cultural behavior is the end product of collected wisdom, filtered and passed down through

hundreds of generations as shared core beliefs, values, assumptions, notions, and persistent

action patterns. Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from

another

One of the best short on-line explanations of culture is on the site of the firm he started to work with businessesfor understanding culture and you'll find some more links below. But before going on we strongly urge you tospend a very few minutes looking at this short demo. We found it eye-opening - not just for pointing out that most

of people's reactions are based on subconscious responses programmed into them and representing inheritancesfrom thousands of years. But also for making very clear the vast differences in the deepest attitudes between themajor politco-economic cultures, e.g. the US, Europe, China, et.al. NOW....how much different are those attitudesthan those of tribal societies where the old biblical, "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" are not only business asusual but make sense in context.

Below you'll find readings and excerpts, in addition to the introduction to WWIV in the ME, on specific countriesincluding Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Israel. All of whom are serious candidates for cultural analysis and manyof whom need to be understood with an awareness of tribal culture, its' violence and conflict and the role it playsin these societies. But the real recommendation is to the several readings on tribalism, culture, values andconflict, particularly Jared Diamond's long Edge essay on tribal vengeance in New Guinea. Even more importantis the long review of Salzman's new book on Culture and Conflict in the ME which points out we've been thinkingthat much of the violence is religious when in fact it is tribal and an artifact of thousands of years of behavioral

patterns that we've been completely ignoring up until now. If you'd like to understand one of the major drivers inthe ME these two are particularly worth reading.

But we'll give Dr. Mader the last word here:

"Human customs that help people live together are almost never planned. But they areuseful or they don't survive".

In other words cultural values make sense in their context because they help a society survive and prosper; theyare fundamentally essential to social cohesion. Without them society devolves and dissolves. IF you want to work


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with a particular society you have to understand their value systems, the forces that brought them into existenceand how they make their decisions. You may not agree but you MUST work with them, or not deal with them atall. As we're learning around the world, every day, in every way.

Israel, the ME and Good vs Bad GovernmentMay 21, 2008http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2008/05/sow_ivthe_ugly_israel_and_the.html

And herein let the lessons continue...thistime by looking at Israel and the rest of theME. At least some key hot spots, which aretruly getting hot. Let's start by taking a lookat the chart to the right which shows theavailable data on Israel and some selectArab/ME countries since approx. 1960. Thecircle size indicates population while thehorizontal axis shows income/person vs. lifeexpectancy on the vertical.

As you can see there have been somenotable improvements in the latter thruoutthe region...a tribute to the wider availabilityof more modern healthcare. And among theArab countries there have even been somerelatively significant improvements inincome. Nonetheless Israel has enormouslyoutdistanced them all. That's not just atribute to Israel per se, as it crosses the 60th anniversary of its' founding, but a tribute to what an educated, hard-working populace can do when provided with decent, if not great government.

On the other hand you have things like the retrograde motion of Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dropped in the '90s.

Didn't know that ? Well prior to the recent burst of oil price increases the Saudi's and other oil rich nations werebeginning to face severe problems with rapidly growing populations, growing disaffection among the unemployedand unemployable young (who are an increasing portion) and rapidly growing risks of severe instability leading toimplosion. With all the attendant dangers that leads to. Yet at the same time one has to give credit where credit isdue. The Arab countries have made great strides from where they started. The question is can they find it withinthemselves to bridge the next big chasm in development ?

That gap is largely built on the same cultural barriers that led to prior surges in oil revenues not resulting in thedevelopment of native infrastructure, changes in attitudes and a severe lack of organic capabilities. Now this newsurge of oil revenues offers a bridge over which they, and we, may be able to walk. If the lid isn't blown off in themeantime. Judging from other news, e.g. continuing CNBC coverage, there are a lot of bright, competent andknowledgeable rulers in some of the key countries who get it. Again it's the runway vs. the airspeed problem - canthey get going fast enough with the plane they've got before running out of room. For all these reasons we

reiterate our earlier argument - the ME will be the riskiest and most severe foreign policy problem facing the nextadministration. For decades we've largely taken the ME for granted and done whatever was necessary to keepthe oil flowing (the Spice MUST flow!).

Well we're at a cusp point where the Spice won't flow if better government doesn't beginning to take hold on awidespread basis. And judging from some of the readings below on Lebanon, Hizbollah and Pakistan the oldtroubles are metastasizing yet again. In fact today's news about a new "truce" in Lebanon that effectively give theHizzies control without saying so could be the beginnings of really serious trouble. With which our dear friends inIran are being anything but helpful. Oddly in a way given their own escalating problems. But as a deeply dividedoligarchic kleptocracy facing wide divisions inside the country there remains an uncontrollable part of the power


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structure which sees their own salvation in continuing to export turbulence. With all this in mind you might payparticular attention to the last reading on a very non-PC assessment of tribalism and Arab cultural barriers tochange (ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict).

Welcome to the real world. By the way try looking up the Battle of Megiddo in Wikipedia. You may be surprised tolearn that another ancient name for that critical juncture on the early ME trade routes was Armageddon. Hint,hint.

The Iran Dilemma: They Like Us, Not; We Like Them, Not...usw.

June 10, 2008http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2008/06/the_iran_dilemma_they_like_us.html

Iran may be the fulcrul point of ME stability over the next decade, much as Iraq was in the last. I had a fascinatingrange of exchange last week prompted by this column by an Iranian ex-pat reporter: "On a recent afternoon, whileriding a rickety bus down Teheran's main thoroughfare, I overheard two women discussing the grim state ofIranian politics. One of them had reached a rather desperate conclusion. "Let the Americans come," she saidloudly. "Let them sort things out for us." The full article is excerpted more after the break along with a couple ofothers - including a superb David Brooks editorial that says what I've been trying to say much better, morepointedly and more clearly. Of course it's his job and gets paid a bit for it :). Anyway a friend of mine who's spenttime in Iran had this to say in response:

"I had a woman beg me to take her back with me. Those people know their

government is screwed up and feel almost like they are being held

hostage. But its not our place to liberate them even though we have a

deep history with Iran going all the way back to 54. Its their job to

save themselves this time no more Olie North or contra crap. But if you

went to Iran and saw those people the thought of killing them and ruing

their lives would totally escape your brain no matter what the hyped up

false threat is. The only way to give them a democracy is to broker a

deal between the reformers (mostly youth) and the regime to allow total

government restructuring to take place without any American agenda(which will be impossible) because those are the allies we want in that

region those are the people you lean on in that region because we cant

trust the Saudis or anyone else in that region. We are setting

ourselves up for failure if we ruin that relationship and I hope the

republicans understand that. I hope an accomplished scholar says the

same thing soon so people can start viewing Iran as the potential great

American resource it can be. We didn't have to attack Iraq to have a

powerful base in that region all we had to do was help the people of

Iran. I kid you not Tehran is like Manhattan."

Not sure I agree entirely with all his arguments but all of them make sense. And he raises an interesting andconstructive potential - what could happen in Iran, in the ME and for the world in general if we could get Iranconstructively engaged in its' own welfare. Rather than having a minority continue to export terror and developnuclear weapons to support their own grip on power. Here's what I had to say in reply:

All that you say makes enormous sense and is consistent with my own views and understandings.In fact my first basic principle of US foreign policy is to constructively engage with the world to

promote as good a government as possible locally because it is in our own long-term best

interests.


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There is a great divide, as in many times in history, between the people, what's best for the

people and good governance and the power structure. In Iran that power structure is fractious,factioned, malfeasant, kleptocratic and pursuing multiple foreign policy initiatives that make it a

threat to the peace and stability of the world. In the last week the UN agency responsible has

issued a very harsh report on Iran's pursuit of nucs, which is something we cannot allow. And the

Iranian extremists in pursuit of their domestic advantages, not I believe, as a concerted nationalpolicy, have been exporting terrorism via Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq for

years. At the end of the day there is no logical reason or advantage to doing that which meanssomething escapes me. I think their reasons are the use of the rhetoric of the Islamist revolution

to keep and maintain power. Whether consciously or not. They're certainly not serving the

interests of their country or people.

And there you have our great dilemma with regard to Iran in a nutshell. Our best strategic

alternative is to contain them while trying to slowly wean the government and the polity into a

more progressive stance. Hopefully encouraging them on the path toward a self-sustainingvirtuous cycle of improvement. But power-seeking factions inside the government are pursuing

policies that are truly disruptive and dangerous and may require more massive intervention toprevent from reaching a dangerous point - or crossing a threshold into nuclear weapons.

It will take a clever, insightful, courageous and practically skilled foreign policy to bridgethis deep dilemma. We have people who have proven capable of such, including some inthe government today (Zoellick, Hill, et.al.). Whether we can raise it to the level of policy

is another question. But as you say if some scholar will start the ball rolling then it might

slowly accumulate. And this article was a first of many small steps - being as it camefrom the editorial pages of the Christian Science Monitor that's not a bad starting pulpit.

And there you have it, IOHO, in a nutshell. If we could find a way to contain and constrain Iran whileconstructively engaging with them and supporting the emergence of more progressive elements we'd all be better

off. Especially them with their collapsing economy and increasingly frayed society. Yet in our own and othersinterests we may be reluctantly forced to measures that are acceptable only because they are less terrible thanthe consequences of a theocratic kleptocracy with nuclear weapons, a collapsing society and a posture ofexporting terror in the name of an extremist religious belief that most of them no longer truly believe in. Sound likeanybody else you know? Like Russia post Stalin?

A final and key observation - if this is really serious then it's time for the kind of narrow, self-serving posturing wediscussed in yesterday's post to be put aside in the national interest. If it's not serious by all means carry theposturing into office, whomever wins, and let the games begin. As Brooks points out once you're in the seat Mr.President the campaign rhetoric must deal with realities on the ground. And we will talk to Iran however we can.And we won't be soft or forgiving either because we've, despite the public image, done a lot of talking over theyears.

But make no mistake - this is not an easy, simple nor straight-forward problem. No matter what you're told orwould like to believe.


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Gaza and the ME: Flames for the FusesFebruary 6, 2009http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/02/gaza_and_the_me_flames_for_the.html

Well we've been focused on the elections, the transition andpolicy issues for quite a while now - and we'll come back tothem since those crisii will be with us for the foreseeablefuture. But while we've been wrapped up with our ownproblems (stocking up on food, ammo and water are we ?) therest of the world hasn't gone away. In fact having listened tomany of the Davos sessions anything but. The economies ofthe rest of the world are headed South farther and faster thanthe US's, their institutions are more fragile and the risks ofbacklash and increased dissent leading to socio-politicaldisruption are some of the more serious risks we all face. Andthe consequences in this more closely-coupled world areimmense (State of the World: Crisis Metastasis, Strains andFault Line). All we need is one more good crisis that breaksthe camel's backs. Oh, wait, we have a bunch. Not least of which is Gaze and the whole ME.

A friend of mine used to talk about foreign problems and compare them to driving a large (old-style anyway)American car when you hit a deer: it happened far away and you never noticed. This time we'll notice. Thecartoons capture the variety of responses which are beefed up in the readings. From Hamas intransigentdedication to violence at any price to the MAD aspects to the fundamental geo-political dilemma that faces Israelto the complexities. NO where of course has anybody expressed any sympathy for Israel. Just for the record 1)the IDF performed very well and took risks to minimize civilian casualties, 2) btw Hezbollah didn't act up becauseeven at a C-level the IDF put a serious hurt on them in '06, 3) of the guestimated 1300 Palestinian casualties ~600-800 were Hamas and 4) Israel was entirely compliant with the Laws of War. In fact according to the Genevaconventions they were free to level Gaza, whichthey didn't do, in pursuit of Hamas.

Complexities and Consequences

Unfortunately while their incursion was a tacticaland operational success it may not have been astrategic, policy or political one given theimpacts on world opinion (though btw the Arabstreet and governments were an enormousamount less harsh this time and put a lot of theonus on Hamas). Nonetheless Israel, whichdoes public diplomacy as badly as anyone, didcreate a problem for itself. Here's one terriblestrategic tradeoff that wasn't on the tablebecause of their own anger, righteous andjustified as it was: the attacks appeareddisproportionate.

What about accepting the truly ugly tradeoffs between domestic casualties (which are serious, especially if it'spersonal) and the very bad impact on their stature in the world? We could discuss that for a long time but evenmore unfortunately that would require a clear path toward some sort of sustainable resolution, which isn't makingan appearance. Why?


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Well consider the complexities, "simply" illustrated in the accompany graphic. We've all seen the headlines, ifwe're at all interested, but it wasn't until (at least for us) we realized what a convoluted rat maze this was, howinter-related everything is and how difficult because there is no single magic thread to unravel. Nor any Gordianknot to sever. What we've tried to do is show some of the links, each of which breaks down into several sub-components, and something of the relative influence of the various players. Each of them deserves to beaddressed separately and in a sustained, serious and committed (=resources) way. We'll come back to that.

At the same time it's not just the pieces - it's all the pieces taken all together as a moving system. Which meansthere needs to be a framework that ties each of the pieces into a coherent and cohesive whole. One small pieceof good news is that one of the fallouts from Iraq is that we're now deeply involved in the ME. If you think back toprior US efforts they've never risen to the level of sustained national policy, which they need to this time and for along time. One of the other things that jumped out at us was the influence of Iran. Back in the old days of the ColdWar we've now discovered that Russian meddling was a major source of support that kept the "old" troublesboiling over. Now Iran has taken over that role. Something we need to figure out to degrade if not stop altogether.

And We Care Because

This is all just the exact opposite of altruismthough. It is in our vital and fundamental

national interest for a lot of reasons. Many ofwhich are encapsulated in the accompanyingchart. Take a look at this chart very carefullybecause in one "simple" picture it tells usmany of the converging geo-political issues.The circles are sized by how much oileveryone's got (proven reserves) and thegraph shows consumption vs. production.Notice that the US has been conserving butreserves aren't increasing. On the other handRussia's been pumping but reserves aren'tincreasing - largely because they'veemasculated themselves with regard toinvestment in energy development and aremining their existing fields to exhaustion. Thebig kahunas are Saudia Arabia and some ofthe other Gulf States, along with Kazahkstan. BtW if you wonder why Central Asia is the center point of the worldand Russia's trying to cause troubles their you go. Let's put this real pointedly - without ME oil the world economycollapses. (Oil Industry II(Analysis): LT Supply-Demand, Outlook and Disruptions, New (Old ?) Frontiers in the Oil Markets:the Return of Geo-Politics)

The Other Shoe: the Coming DemographicImplosion

The other set of problems is that the populationsof the Arab countries and Iran [ Rhetoric and Reality:The View from Iran] are skewed badly toward theyoung, populations are increasing extremelyrapidly, the economies are in terrible shape (it'snot unlikely that Iran's is on the verge of collapse,never mind demographics) and the level of unrestis either rising or likely to. [ ME Faultlines(Readings):Values, Culture & Conflict] This is all compounded bythe fact that many of the governments are NOTeffective and ARE unjust - which indicts theirlegitimacies and threatens their stabilities. [ Peace,


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Stability and Prosperity: the Nature of Good Government] Put that another way - this problem isn't going away, it's gettingworse rapidly and in the foreseeable future (say 10-15 years ?) the risks of a major breakdown without economicprogress and better governance are very high. And as the earlier graphic shows the major world players from theUS to Europe to China, India and Russia are linked to all this. We either solve this or it will solve us...andalternative energy sources, which'll take two to three decades to develop, won't come online fast enough to offsetthese huge fault lines. Much of this is represented in the graphic which shows various key players (population isthe circle size) graphed by income/per person vs life expectancy. There's been serious progress on the latter,which worsens the demographics, and some but no where near enough on economic development.

What the Future May Hold: Negotiation vs Worst Alternatives

There were several sessions at Davos on the ME and Gazawhich were interesting, informative and perhaps productive...ifa little pollyannish. The one you heard about in the headlineswas the session where the President of Turkey stormed out.What the headlines didn't tell you is that it was at the very endof the sessions, after he'd had his say and after Peres hadhad his and he asked for extra time to make more comments.In which he was a) repeating himself, b) insulting and c) very

emotional.

As he and the other speakers were. In fact this whole thing iswell worth listening to understand how much the lizard-brainsare dominating this whole discussion, to the exclusion ofalmost everything else. The first three "statements" (=speeches) were nothing but attacks on Israel with no searching for alternatives. Benjanmin Zander ( Crisis,Leadership, Leaders and Values) in his great presentation on "The Possible" had, in passing, asked what wouldhappen if Jews and Arabs focused more on what was possible instead of hating each other. Just think about it -with Israeli technical and economic skills, that excess and growing population and oil money that whole regioncould be turned into one of the most prosperous in the world. Quickly and straight-forwardly judging by Israel'shistorical experiences.

Even Shimon Peres spent more time attacking the other speakers, though with more hard information and"righteously" than their attacks. What would have been truly statesmanlike on his part was to accept as best aspossible the assaults and insults and ask then what ? How do you proposed to move forward ? What are yougoing to do to cut off weapons supplies to Hamas and others ? Who's going to maintain security ? Who's going tohelp do the necessary nation-building ? Certainly Europe for all it's piousities has chosen to give lip instead ofservice to the goals it claims to support, despite the fact that it's even more dependent on ME oil than anybody.It's time for people to get serious.

Over the years the Harvard Negotiation Project has worked out certain "Principles of Negotiation" (PON) basedon decades of hard....hard experience and helped manage some of the most perilous and difficult negotiations inthe world, from the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan to food relief in Somalia. If you listen to the video clipand compare the actions and positions of the speakers to the PONs for establishing an effective negotiation you'lllikely agree that they were all violated, and by most of the participants.

In fact comparing the vidclip the checklist what you hear/see is what should be described as infantile and puerilebehavior driven by emotion and not INTERESTS ! Now it's entirely possible that this was posturing for the homestreet audience and behind the scenes more adult conversations were occurring, but is it likely ? What appears tobe needed is ADULT SUPERVISION and PARTICIPATION...something that's lacking, is in our vital interests andwe haven't attempted to provide on a sustained basis. A state of affairs we can no longer afford!!!

Accordingly here's my strawman proposal...a stab at the "Possible":


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COIN + Nation Building + Marshall Plan = Strawman (or Scarecrow ?)

1. Put the Lid Back On - put a real international

security force into Gaza to provide border

security, prevent weapons but allow theimportation of food and supplies. Extend it to

allow Palestinians to go back to the jobs they've

lost in the last decade in Israel.

2. Tamp Down the Violence - insist that Hamasstop all attacks and enforce that decisions, using

international resources AND accepting

responsibility instead of substituting piousmouthings. Ask Israel to accept the tradeoffs for

holding off attacks, even when their "objective"

position justifies retaliations. Make sure that the Public Diplomacy of all parties tells the truth

and publicize it.

3. Defuse the Immediate Touch Points - beyond those start restoring services and governance,encourage economic development, make sure security gets implemented (any time this sounds

like an adaptation of Kilcullen's framework from Iraq stop me [ Iraq Resartus (Readings): Stability, Progress

and Will]).

4. Hold, Stabilize and Sustain - keep on doing this for years, because it'll be necessary. Ask for

funding from more than the US...it's in the interests of Europe and the oil-rich countries to kick

in as well.

5. Maintain and Sustain - encourage foreign investment, start joint ventures, invest in roads,power lines and other infrastructure, put in at least minimal healthcare and education.

6. Keep On - doing the above and be prepared to sustain it for at least a decade.

7. Cut Off Iran - however you can.

No magic answers but a damn lot of hard work. But cheap at the prices we're otherwise facing. And now

or never is getting sooner than not. All we've done in the past is #1 - put the lid back on and #2 - tamp

down the violence. When it falls off to acceptable levels everybody walks away. Time to pony up, OR

be served at the French restaurant that offers horsemeat...if it's still open and has power.


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The Next Decade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & FractureLinesMarch 18, 2009

http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/03/the_next_decades_crisis_me_bub.html

Let's continue our foreign affairs survey with a look at the overall situationin the ME. In fact we're going to split it in two, or counting the earlier poston the Gaza situation, three. As this week's news from Pakistan, which werollup in the ME, tells us the fragility and risk factors are high even thoughIraq has made enormous progress. The general ME, and Iraq in particularare not new topics and we've poked at them enough that they have theirown separate archives in fact. We're going to make a flat prediction - justas 911 and Iraq were the foreign policy challenge of this decade MEstability and progress will be the critical challenge for the nextdecade.

We've managed to sashay on by and treat the region with minimalinvolvement, benign neglect and looking the other way for decades. Noneof which can continue, as we've discussed multiple time, for two primaryreasons. First, the escalating demographic explosion is more and morelikely to create a socionomic implosion. And second, ME oils supplies arethe sine qua non of the world economy and will be for at least the nextthree to four decades. (Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses) Period,end-of-story. We can either continue to roll the dice and hope the Laws ofAverages let us keep sliding by, or we can figure out how to get more constructively engaged. There is nomuddle thru middle road left to anybody, even though that's probably not visible to the man in the street yet.By the time it is it'll be to late. Fortunately the ME is drawing increased attention from US policy-makers and ourinvolvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan commits us there for this next decade. ( Oil and Other SystemShocks: Beyond Iraq & Georgia)

Complicated Context

On the other hand you can hardly blameanybody for not wanting to get involveddeeply and permanently in the region.Ugly and messy doesn't begin to cover it.Worse yet each country and sub-area isit's own enormously complicated problemand they all inter-act. Back when we firststarted poking at Iraq here it quicklybecame clear that the Iraq problemwasn't confined within it's borders. The

graphic is one we first came up with in2007 to try and frame the problem andget some handle on how all the pieces fittogether.

The reason for building such a picture ofthe inter-woven relationships is that it tellsyou what you have to deal with tactically,strategically and on a policy level. Byunder-taking the most startling self-


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transformation in military history while under fire the US Military not only put the lid back on a situation looking tospin out of control it's actually laid the foundations for future progress.

Which is NOT being Pollyannish IOHO....there's still a long way to go but the prerequisite was establishingsecurity and local control. That transformation led to tackling most of the internal problems, many of the externalones and really left only Iran hanging out there as a continuously disruptive factor. Strangely enough though theIraqis themselves reduced Iranian influence by mounting Operation Knight's Charge to suppress and control theIranian sponsored Shi'ite militias in Basra and Baghdad. An operation which cut down Iranian influence ( The IranDilemma: They Like Us, Not; We Like Them, Not...usw.), removed a major domestic source of instability,proved the level of progress made in re-vitalizing Iraqi security forces, established the credibility of the centralgovernment and received almost no attention the US. But we wouldn't be where we are without it !

Context Part II: the Perennial Sore

Since the technique of relationshipcharting worked well enough we re-applied it to the Gaza situation in thecontext of the broader ME. Iraq and therelated instabilities (Afghan., Pakistan)

are quasi-recent events but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a runningsore for decades, even by somecountings a century or more. Again, IFwe can find the lever, the fulcrums andthe weights we can probably deal witheach of the separate situationsillustrated here (consider this graphicthe zoom-in expansion of the I/P/Ltriangle in ME context from the previousmap) but it'll be more challenging. Andmuch more important now.

As we put this chart together it again became clear that reducing, moderating or controlling Iran's influence in theregion was vital however. In fact each of the "small" stand-alone problems is even more intricately connected tothe larger picture so that any long-term solutions must start locally and evolve regionally. For example one by onethe major Arab powers have struck their own separate deals with Israel after loosing a conflict but always withoutaddressing the Palestinian dilemmas. And often using the conflict as a "bloody shirt" to distract their localpopulations from bad governance and failing socionomic systems that aren't keeping up with growing populationsand declining well-being.

Hmmm...have we just suggested that encouraging the evolution of good governance, more inclusiveregimes and investing in socionomic development are essential to prevent a blow up. We believe so. Onefinal observation about Realpolitik vs Ground-truth. Much as we might dislike the situation and the players Hamasand Hizzbollah have established their rights to a seat at the table; unless somebody is prepared to eliminate thementirely thru force. And who can and would bell those cats?


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Readings Guide

The readings cover four topics: historyof the region (in a limited way),attempts at reform, the realities on the

ground and the policy and politicalrealities. A friend has organized acurrent affairs reading club and istrying to stretch their interest to includedeeper books instead of current lite-weight best-sellers and had achallenging time.

A major source of pushback is lack ofbackground in what drives thesymptoms being treated as conceptualcandy in those. Put another way we'vealways found that analysts don't do

history while historians don't doanalysis yet one can NOT understanda current situation without understanding the historical roots, currents and constraints. The problem is culturepersists and persists and drives history AND current events. Some roots of Arab culture go back thousands ofyears while Islamic extremism is rooted in the failed reforms of the Wahabist movements of the 17thC and theinstitutional responses of the Ottomon Empire ! (ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict)

The history section starts with two C-Span Booknotes interviews from a Jewish scholar of current affairs who'salso an experienced soldier. The insights and new information he provides are just stunning IOHO. For examplefor those of us who could never figure out why Russia supported Israel's independence....guess what ? It split thethe British Empire at it's most vulnerable point. The second interview is with the religious scholar Karen Armstrongwho, in a very broad-ranging interview, provides a superb introduction to the roots of Islam. Which was, at it'sfounding, one of the world's more progressive and liberal religions which tried to suppress much of the violenceand abuses endemic to the existing tribal cultures. What Islam is at it's core and best is something we'd all like tosee restored, or perhaps reformed. And let's judge fairly by comparing similar historical stages - the bloodiestcivilization in human history over a sustained period of time was Western Europe and a major source of thatviolence was religious wars under-taken in the name of God and Reform. Those arguments rippled right down tothree modern world wars. And as recent news shows Arabs and Muslims are well aware of their challenges.

Arabs Are People Too: Good and Bad

Let me put that another way - Arabs are people too withall our faults and defects, they have a unique culture withstrengths and weakeness but they are in fact trying. Andtruth to tell have actually made enormous progressjudged fairly. If you doubt that just look at the Gapminderchart on life expectency vs per capita income; theyhaven't done as well as Israel but they had and have abigger problem, not so many advantages and growingchallenges. And if you doubt that they are human or thatthey are trying give a listen to Queen Rania of Jorden'sYouTube broadcast. At the end of the day history matters,cultures persist and govern behavior for centuries andchanging them is the hardest thing in the world. Be gladthese folks are giving it a darn good shot.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-Ajx51J4A&playnext=1&playnext_from=QL


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Better yet let's figure out how to support them and help them - in our own enlightened self-interest if for noother reasons !!!

Witches Brew Recipes: ME Details (Iraq to Iran)March 21, 2009

http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/03/witches_brew_recipes_me_detail.html

The last foreign affairs post was a broad

overview of the ME situation, the

challenges and the context (The NextDecade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons

& Fracture Lines) and built on an earlier

one focused on the Gaza situation (Gazaand the ME: Flames for the Fuses").

Here we'd like to take a deeper dive onspecific countries, including Iraq,

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Iran.

Interestingly enough two of the four arewrestling with important national elections

(Israel, Iran) - one wrapping up but not

resolved and the other underway while

another (Iraq) finished one that testified tohow much progress has been in re-building

a badly damaged society.

In our last post, and yet again, we ended up arguing that the most important strategic factor to support in

the ME was the evolution of good governance.(SoW IV(the Ugly): Israel, the ME and Good vs Bad

Government) Let's start by reinforcing that point and then consider the consequences. The graphicshows the different histories and timepaths of four major European powers and the consequences of

their different strategies. Spain opted for rigid central authority and had taxes that favored certain

interest groups that were easy to collect from. They have yet to recover to this day. France followed a

similar but more flexible path yet in the last two centuries has had a very turbulent history asgovernments came and went.

Tiny little Holland fought the Spanish to a standstill over almost a century of continuous warfare with amarket-based economy and representative government while England learned from it's own multi-

decade war with Holland and it's own experiences and created modern capital markets and was the

progenitor of the Industrial Revolution. The case for flexible, inclusive and adaptive government with

security, the rule of law and forward-looking policy seems pretty clear and has shaped history. Thequestion then becomes what's feasible in the ME in what timeframe?


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Current Situation

The boys at Brookings just updated their regular status report on

Iraq and included Afghanistan this time. Lo and behold Iraq has

made enormous strides at improving governance, as we've beennoting for some time now. (Iraq Resartus (Readings): Stability,

Progress and Will) The keys of which were the restoration of

security after the sectarian breakdowns, the inclusion of thevarious factions, the slow re-development of the Iraqi security

forces and the gradual development of more civic-minded

government that was strong enough to supress the Iranian-

sponsored Shiite militias. The end result was a safe, secure andinclusive national election.

Yet not too long ago nobody thought any of that could happen andwanted to withdraw as precipitously as could be unreasonably

managed (the Iraq Study Group recommendations come to mind).

Now we're embarked on the same journey in Afghanistan but thistime instead of either waiting for difficulties or understanding how

these things work out over time the pundits are already calling it a

lost cause. As you go thru the readings on each of the other

countries this'll be something to keep in mind. Each is unique andlocal adaptations are required. But each would benefit from good government and subsequent economic

development. Furthermore the evidence indiates that it's more than possible.

Cultures, Policy and Programs

In the Iraq status review linked

above we dove into the structureand strategy of COIN operations

and cultural awareness as well as

discussing it in an earlier surveyof ME culture and history and

their bearing on current challenges

(ME Faultlines(Readings):

Values, Culture & Conflict. Not tomake it too much of an eye test,

nonetheless consider this graphic.

The reason we've left it as

cluttered as it is to make the point

that this isn't easy and mustinclude a bunch of factors. Which

all link and inter-act with one

another. (Putting the Pieces


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Together: Framing, Crisis & Linkages".)

The argument here is that all these complications must be accounted for. The second argument though is

that they can be and by doing so productive and workable policies can be evolved. Now the other

countries in the readings lists are sovereign nations so we don't have to "option" to take kinetically-based

policies, as the military puts it. But we can learn to focus on and understand local cultures, history,politics, values and institutions and the socionomic context of each ! And craft our policies accordingly.

COIN + Nation Building + Marshall Plan = Strawman (or Scarecrow ?)

Let's re-visit a checklist we trial ballooned for the Gaza situation that outlines a set of policy steps that span theimmediate, short-term and long-term.

1. Put the Lid Back On - put a real international security force into Gaza to provide border

security, prevent weapons but allow the importation of food and supplies. Extend it to allow

Palestinians to go back to the jobs they've lost in the last decade in Israel.

2. Tamp Down the Violence - insist that Hamas stop all attacks and enforce that decisions, usinginternational resources AND accepting responsibility instead of substituting pious mouthings.

Ask Israel to accept the tradeoffs for holding off attacks, even when their "objective" position

justifies retaliations. Make sure that the Public Diplomacy of all parties tells the truth andpublicize it.

3. Defuse the Immediate Touch Points - beyond those start restoring services and governance,

encourage economic development, make sure security gets implemented (any time this sounds

like an adaptation of Kilcullen's framework from Iraq stop me [ Iraq Resartus (Readings): Stability,Progress and Will]).

4. Hold, Stabilize and Sustain - keep on doing this for years, because it'll be necessary. Ask for

funding from more than the US...it's in the interests of Europe and the oil-rich countries to kickin as well.

5. Maintain and Sustain - encourage foreign investment, start joint ventures, invest in roads,power lines and other infrastructure, put in at least minimal healthcare and education.

6. Keep On - doing the above and be prepared to sustain it for at least a decade.

7. Cut Off Iran - however you can.

Policy-crafting Principles

Steps 1-3 are essentially what we've been doing in our not-so-benign neglect of the ME and it's country

components for decades. The next steps are what we were forced by both a mis-reading of the situation,having the wrong capabilities and a profound lack of having the right "checklist" in hand to do the hard

way in Iraq. And are now starting in Afghanistan, or re-starting more fairly.

If we would like a stable and prosperous ME we will need to develop, implement and INVEST insimilar multi-step, multi-year (even multi-decade) and multi-factor policies with and for each country.

Entirely accidentally we're timing this post with video messages from the Presidents of Israel and the USdirectly to the people of Iran (linked in the readings) in which they wish them the best for the new year


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(Nawruz) and telling them that we are willing to reach out a hand and welcome them to the international

community. Needless to say the Iranian leadership is very cautious in their responses. As Bob Gates putsit he's been on a search for the elusive Iranian moderate for twenty years. But nonetheless they have

several points. If you keep skimming the readings you'll see some excerpts on how we might talk to the

Iranians.

The tone of the one by a native reminds me of similar statements from the Russians: chock full of

wounded pride, insecurity and doubt and looking for some evidence of respect. In other words a reallycritical factor here might be the lack of self-confidence of the leadership and peoples. Perhaps, at least to

some extent. At the same time another factor will be that the leadership is running a theocratic

kleptocracy who's power and positions depends on maintaining a hostile stance. We promised this washard and complicated. As we try and craft new, sustainable and workable policies we need to understand

the other players on their own terms...NOT ON OURS!

As the accompanying graphic, built from thenegotiation principles of the Harvard Project on

Negotiation illustrate. And this isn't all aboutmis-representations either. We're the ones whooverthrew a nascent Iranian democracy in the

'50s, supported a repressive regime under the

Shah in the '70s, forced him out and setup upthe theoracy, then turned around and supported

Iraq in a war of aggression that led to a million

casualties, and finally have been in low-level

conflict with the current regime ever since (canyou spell Iran-Contra ?). If the Iranians are

distrustful they might have a few reasons.

We'll leave you with a final thought, drawn

from Benjamin Zander's Davos talkon possibility: what would the world look like if we could in fact

establish a constructive relationship with each of these players ? Much better, we think, than it will looklike if we continue to just keep putting the lid back on the pressure-cooker.

ME Update: Exemplar, Laboratory and ConundrumsApril 12, 2009http://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/04/me_update_exemplar_laboratory.html

If we learned anything from 911 a critical insight is that we can nolonger safely ignore what goes on in the rest of the world - ouroceanic barrier walls are that no longer. Which means, geo-politicaland economic issues and threats aside - it's important to us on apersonal level. A derivative lesson is that we can no longer treat therest of the world with semi-benign neglect but must be willing to beinvolved, all tradeoffs considered, appropriately in each area ofconcern. But as we've learned in Iraq appropriate is based on localconditions, details and idiosyncrasies. That, taken all together,


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makes the current multiple series of crisis of in the ME important and a laboratory for US foreign policy in general.Here we want to provide another update of the status of each country involved and suggest that we need to treatthem 1) for their own sakes, 2) as part of a great ME whole (a systematic, systemic and holistic approach is calledfor) and 3) take what we've learned and are learning there as lessons for elsewhere. Suitably adapted andcustomized of course.

The Multi-Factor ME

One of those key learnings, which we'vediscussed before (The Next Decade's Crisis:ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & Fracture Lines) sowe'll just briefly review, is that it's one dammthing after the other. Put differently each countryand sub-region must be evaluated on it's ownterms but also with regard to it's linkages toother countries and players. Here's out previousattempt at mapping out some of thesecomplexities with some, certainly not all, of thelinkages involved being shown. Now experts in

the area have usually always had this sort ofperspective, at least in their heads if notexplicitly mapped out.But the really good news is that the currentadministration seems to be shaping a holistic policy of balancing a focus on local problems with integration intothe broader context. For example we now have senior level special envoys of the highest caliber dedicated to theIsraeli/Palestinian and Afghanistan/Pakistan problem. And they clearly understand that things are linked. Theyalso clearly understand that US policy must be built on a deep local understanding of the cultural, political andinstitutional characteristics of the different players. Something that is new to the US at this level and with this sortof focus. Judging by recent Presidential speeches this inclusive and balanced approach where tactics andstrategy are balanced and attempt to integrate local with broader concerns is now central to our approach toforeign policy. That's the really good news - we're making as concerted a good effort as we've ever made. Thebad news is that the challenges may still exceed the capabilities and resources - in which case there's not muchof an available fallback except to bend over and kiss it goodbye.

The Devil's Details: a Checklist for the ME

In another previous post (Witches Brew Recipes:ME Details (Iraq to Iran) {Updates}) we suggesteda series of steps that the US should undertake indealing with the Israeli/Palestinian dilemmas andalluded to the possibility that it was a moregeneral checklist of actions and strategies forshaping a constructive foreign policy. Historicallywe and others have simply attempted to containthe dysfunctions of the various ME countrieswithin their own boundaries, interpreted localevents within our own context (seeing everythingfor forty years for example strictly within theframework of the Cold War; which led us toabandon Afghanistan, encourage Pakistan's ISIto support the Taliban and alienated most of theArab countries by ignoring their concerns andinterfered in legitimate Iranian local politics strictlyin our own interests).


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We'll see if we've moved on at all but the penalty for not trying is pretty severe. We've made no pretense ofpopulating the checklist for each of the local situations, instead leaving that to the experts for now. BUT...we willsuggest that the historical assessment would be that we've simply focused on the first few steps and now weMUST evolve policies that lead to effectiveness on all of them.

In the readings below you'll find current selected news on each of the key countries:

1. In Iraq where we've learned that force must be coupled with civil development which has resulted in enormousstrides. Iraq became an independent country 87 years after it's founding. The same timeframe in US history wasthe day after Gettysburg. Judged by appropriate standards a lot of progress has been made in a very short timewith a long road ahead. A road that there are increased indications that the Iraqis are willing and able to walk.

2. The Administration has announced a bold "new" strategy for Afghanistan that builds on these lessons and hasgarnered widespread applause from knowledgeable pundits of widespread political persuasions. This will be,again, a long, hard road in very different and more difficult circumstances that nonetheless holds great promise.

3. The key to Afghanistan lies in Pakistan, which is a sovereign country in which "kinetic intervention" is not anoption. Yet the lessons still apply suitably morphed. Our primary national interest is in preventing an unstable andfragile country that is nuclear-armed from breaking down into chaos. Whatever it takes.

4. If we segue over to the Mediterranean coast we now have very clear evidence that the Syrian site bombed lastyear was in fact a nuclear weapons development center with heavy North Korean and Iranian involvement. Canyou imagine the world with Hezbollah having access to nuclear weapons ? The lessons for being locally informed,constructively involved and controlling adversarial interference from outside powers seem pretty clear; and onesthat pass all possible cost/benefit tests.

5. The Israeli/Palestinian conundrum continues to be just that yet it's one of the great running sores in the ME thatwe cannot NOT afford to be constructively engaged in. (Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses) Unfortunatelylocal attitudes appear to have both hardened up and deteriorated. A great irony is that both Israelis andPalestinian populations would prefer peaceful solutions yet don't know that about each other. A critical key will beto move on from past hatreds, not forgetting or even forgiving but at least tolerating in mutual self-interest.

6. So far the spoiler in the ME appears to continue to be Iran which in the name of it's own Revolution continues

to support violence and develop WMD at the expense of the health of it's own society and economy. PresidentObama is beginning to reach out so we'll have to see. What people are missing in their commentaries is that thisis a brilliant strategy AND tactical maneuver - if the Iranians fail to respond constructively and sincerely they willsimply isolate themselves more and strengthen the case for more restrictive sanctions and concerted worldwideefforts to contain. And cooperation would be in their self-interest. The real dilemma is it in the interest of thepower-holders who control the fruits of the country for their own benefit? Aye, there's the rub.

7. During his visit to Turkey the President not only reached out to the Turks in ways that were extremely wellreceived but also to the rest of the Muslim world. As the example of Indonesia shows not all Muslims arededicated to religious extremes. They are choosing instead to pursue an increased religiosity balanced with moreopen and secular governments. The lesson and hope would be that similar stances could be evoked and evolvedfrom other players. Possible? Yes. Likely? Perhaps. Easy? NO. Quick ? Definitely NOT. Alternatives ? Nonegood. Either disciplined, constructive and patient engagement or worldwide economic disruption that will make the

current crisis look like a walk in the park. We have little to loose in spite of the armchair quarterbacking.


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The Confluence of Self-interest: Lessons Learned?

Looking back at the lessons of 911, the Cold War or farthersome other key lessons come to mind.

1. It is in the clear self-interest of the US to promote stable,progressive regimes thruout the ME.

2. We must be constructively engaged.

3. It is in the interests of each of the individual countries aswell.

4. The primary opponents of moving forward seem to be self-serving power holders in various countries who put theirimmediate advantage over the long-term welfare of theirpopulations.

5. Those populations have been so inculcated with emotionalshibboleths that it will take time and effort to de-tox them. Andask of them some hard, hard, hard choices to give up theirhatreds which are counter-productive but immediatelyemotionally satisfying for possible long-term benefits.Surrendering immediate emotional gratification for long-termabstract benefits is not something humans do well. Just askyourself how your last diet or anti-smoking efforts went.

6. A critical challenge to all the parties is to give up the "bloody shirt" of revenge for a civil society. Or moreimportantly we must figure out how to engage and sell the long-term benefits to the street...not just he power-holders.

911 Lessons: Pointing Fingers vs Potential Futures

And before we point to many fingers at supposed localirrationalities let's ask how well public spirited policy hasfaired in this country as opposed to partisan posturing andthe pursuit of self-interest. (Back in the US: EconomicRealities vs Partisan Posturings) Flawed, narrow anddestructive self-interest as opposed to the enlightenedvariety ? The basic tradefoffs are between creating andsupporting a virtuous vs a vicious cycle of self-destructionvs one of mutual gain, between a zero-sum and a non-zerosum set of public policies.

UPDATES:

We've added three stories related to Iran that sketch the complications and convolutions of dealing with thattheocratic kleptocracy in the context of the ME maelstrom. Egypt's arrest of Hizbollah operatives, apparentlyplotting an attack against Syrian tourists, the suppression of press freedom thru intimidation of foreign journalistsand a sudden peace overture by Pres. Ahmadinejad. Taken all together it's hard to reach a summary conclusionbut we take it as continued evidence of the multiple influences straining that country as power protection by theclerics bumps against the realities of needing to rejoin the world. Will they or won't they? On that MUCH hinges.


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October 2, 2009

Middle East Challenges: Game-changes, ME, Iran, Iraq &

Afghanistanhttp://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/10/middle_east_challenges_gamecha.html

We've been meaning to get back to foreign policyfor a while now but this last week's news gives it acertain sense of urgency, though HC Reformcontinues to be a (if not THE) major domesticagenda item. Specifically the recent news out ofAfghanistan and Iran is going to cause us to shiftgears and focus on the ME in general and the hotspots in particular. As to why we should care, sinceit seems to be off the table yet again, let's reiteratesomething we've said before: a stable and

progressive ME is the most urgent, and perhapsthe most important, foreign policy problem we havefor the next decade.

Aside from the obvious that we don't want anymore 911s the chart, without a lot of furtherexplanation, pretty well sums it up. Without astable ME that becomes a reliable energy supplierin the face of mounting demographic andsocionomic challenges the world economy wouldbe in danger. When you add in the number ofmajor flashpoints, particularly a nuclear armed Pakistan that's fragile and unstable, benign neglect is no longerfeasible.

Let's Start With Iran

We've talked about Iran before andsuggested that a policy of constructiveengagement combined with containment isour best bet. Unfortunately that's not whenthe typical voter or talking head wants. Theywant something dramatic, quick, effective,that suits our prejudices and they can thenforget about. The problems with that aremanifold - it won't work, there aren't simple,short, quick or cheap answers. On top of

which each of these countries and regionsare their own things.

All the alternatives among the chatteringclasses are, sadly, being frame that way and will cause more trouble than they'd fix. Take the case of Iran - thealternatives as presented are either get more stringent sanctions or mount a military attack. That was preceded ofcourse by what appear to be fraudulent elections and protests and continued civil opposition. Of course thetalking heads immediately wanted the President to come out decisively in support of the opposition, speakforcefully for democracy and de-legitimize the regime.


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There are several problems with that. On the one hand sanctions won't work - they are too porous, won't have thesupport of key world powers (particularly Russia and China). China is especially and legitimately sensitive, btw.They just celebrated the 60th anniversary of their Revolution (remember about eighty years after ours we werefighting the Civil War) and started with a historical play that traced their history from the Boxer Rebellion to now.The Chinese have very fresh memories of foreign powers interfering in their domestic affairs and aren't about tosupport any such thing. On top of which they need Iranian energy resources to keep the wheels on their wagon.

The other side of that coin is that a military strike is not likely to work either - their sites and resources are toodispersed, too well protected and they could cause too much trouble. Since neither extreme approach is workablewe're left with something hard, long and challenging. Figure out how to work with what we've got - which meansestablishing working relations, sustaining them over a long period of time while keeping the pressure for goodbehavior on, evolving some measure of trust by finding those things we can work on (Iranian support for the Shiain Iraq, terrorists in Afghanistan to start and maybe working up to Hizbollah and Hamas in Palestine). Step by stepis our only feasible alternative. Our biggest problem though is ourselves - we've got to stop seeing these countriesstrictly on the basis of what they can do for us by sacrificing their own interests and beginning to work with themon the basis of what mutual advantages can be established. The only discussion we've seen that attempts to takesuch a balanced view is a recent KennedySchool forum on Iran: War or Peace.

But we're actually in a good position and it's not

an accident for several reasons. First off, theIranian economy is coming apart about theseams, largely because the skills of its peopleand its vast resources are being squandered bya corrupt, ineffective theocratic kleptocracythat's turning itself into a police state. The recentprotests and continued opposition would haveled one to suspect that but the careful approachthe US has been taking, culminating the Cairospeech, goes a long way toward changing theclimate of discussion.

Top that off with a major change in our

European missile defense that makes it easierfor Russia to work with us while at the sametime mounting a better defense against Iranianweapons and voila'. The final straw is that forthe Iranians to get nuclear weapons they haveto process the uranium, design and build abomb, create a reliable weapon and then getdelivery systems. We have about ten years to arrest them on that path which is likely to be enough time to pursuea containment policy.


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Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan

We're going to look back at an old diagnosticfor Iraq to make several key points. First off

this dates from Dec07 but the first versionwas published in Apr07, long before theSurge got rolling or it was even clear what thenew doctrine and strategies would be. In theintervening time we'd have to change all therankings considerably, as we all probablyknow by now.

In fact the last row, which is the one we'dreally like to be talking about (long-termstrategic development issues) is the critical one. As of right now it's not going well there but all things are relative -in other words it's probably a straight C across the board. The real point is the implied framework. If our strategicgoal in each of these three places is to promote stability, durability and effectiveness then we have to talk about

security, governance, socionomic development and long-term direction setting in each of the component parts.The current set of alternatives being debated with regard to Afghanistan are either withdraw, go all in on a full-bore counter-insurgency or minimize commitments and use kinetic forces for a counter-terror operation. The lastis unworkable and would simply boil the cauldron. Withdrawl would be even worse and would shortly seeAfghanistan de-stabilize followed not too long afterward by Pakistan.

Which means we're really debating the only workable alternative we have left, counter-insurgency. With all duerespect to Gen. McChrystal however it's not entirely clear that his is the best alternative - though what you read inthe headlines and what he actually said and means are two different things. We highly recommend you watch hisrecent interview on Sixty Minutes to get a blunt, straight-ahead and honest assessment. In that interview he's verycandid about several key and important things that didn't get enough attention: the US military is still wedded to aforce on force approach because that's its cultural DNA. Command and control coordination among all the parties,i.e. the other NATO forces, is abysmal and discombobulated. The recent elections were not satisfactory and indictthe legitimacy of the Karzai government. That said, all things are indeed relative, and the improvements ingovernance are not too bad. However, the real key is economic and socio-political development.

Which means what we really need in Afghanistan is something like the Iraq framework broken down to theprovincial and locality levels, staffing economic development with the right kind of skills and resources - which wedefinitely haven't done by any stretch of the imagination, putting an integrate operating plan in place andexecuting it and making up our minds whether we want to consider romantically pursuing some Jeffersonian idealor do something practical. If the latter then we need to add two key strategies to our portfolio. One is to work withthe local authorities to build what governance we can that is appropriate to the locale AND to create a modernclone of the old Macedonian local efforts by dividing out the "Taliban" we can work with and reconcile from thedie-hard irreconcilables.

Again this is a situation where we need to re-think our strategies, devise new ones, adequately resource them(which we haven't done) and take our time and do it right. The thing everybody is forgetting is that we're where

we're at because the Administration intended to get here. Everybody expected the March decision to be magicanswers but what Gen. McChrystal was tasked with was taking a prototype strategy over and evaluating it againstconditions on the ground. The President is doing exactly what one would hope a good and capable leader woulddo - listening to all the parties, working thru to a committed resolution and then proceeding to establish andsustain a total operating plan. Which will then have to be sold to the American people, our allies and the regionalstakeholders.


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Pakistan, the ME and Beyond

Pakistan is incredibly central to theseefforts but has its own challenges; infact it almost came apart about theseems earlier this year. While it's a

more stable and centralized state in thiscase that's not actually saying much.We need to apply the same frameworkthat we've been discussing with regardto Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan toPakistan. And add the other majorcomponent - we have to negotiate fromunderstanding their positions andinterests. Which we haven't been doing.

Pakistan can be incredibly helpful to us,not just critically important, if we respecttheir interests and find a way to workwith them. But if they are convinced wearen't long for that part of the worldand/or will make the situation worsethey'll pursue the rational course fortheir own self-interest of lukewarm lip service while hedging their bets.

We are either committed to the ME or we are not; and if we are not then Katie bar the door because all hexx willbreak loose. In each and very instance we need to have an integrated framework that's adapted to the localcircumstances and then supported. A quik sketch of such a framework is illustrated - to be populated as a take-home test with the stakes we've already highlighted!

Are we up to it? One wonders. On the other hand we're as well positioned as we've been in decades and it's notby accident. Meanwhile if you'd like to see all our previous writings that go into more detail on the background forthe ME as a whole and use Iraq as exemplar and test case may we recommend the following (we've loaded the

complete essay/posting collections on Scribd).

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October 11, 2009

Boots On The Ground: Realities, Strategies, Policy & Politicshttp://llinlithgow.com/PtW/2009/10/boots_on_the_ground_realities.html

With the Afghan debate heating up to a talk show pitch, aswell as the seriousness of the real issues, we're going totake a more focused dive, building on the last post'sbroader overview of key ME touchpoints. There's bothgood news and bad news but on balance we'd judge itgood. The bad news is that most of the talking headdiscussions aren't looking at the real issues (surprise), aremis-representing and mis-emphasizing the key ones whilesensationalizing the debates and not helping much.

The good news is twofold. Several of the discussions aremore balanced, informed and useful than anything we'veheard in months. And the really good news is that theAdministration is going back to a zero level reset and

asking really tough questions, being inclusive of thedifferent opinions and involving them all in the process andworking, carefully, thru the right sequence of questions. PBS Special:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/

We'll refer you to a videoclip from Meet the Press where Bob Woodward is discussing how different this is (NB: inall its history we never did this for Vietnam nor did we do it in '03 on our way into Iraq). But just to flavor thingswe'll also refer you to an earlier post on adventures in Afghanistan during "Charlie Wilson's War". We wish we hadthe right clip but go watch that movie - the most heartbreaking moment is toward the end when Congress decidesto walk away, with results we know.

Some Ground Truths: What McChrystal Really Said

The press and blogosphere has postured McChrystal's initial assessment as a "must have more troops"statement and mis-represented what he actually said.

The gist of it is that:

a) we've been under-resourcing the war from the beginning and fighting a penny-wise counter-terrorism campaignon the cheap. Then

b) the operationally we've been very ineffective because we've been fighting with a force-heavy doctrine focusedon killing the enemy and not protecting the population, the recommended strategy of some of the debateparticipants (NOTE: in other words the failed strategy of the last eight years is being re-urged....gee wonder ifthat'll work?). Next we need to

c) change our doctrine, beef up the Afghan security forces, work with the Afghan government to improvegovernance and the rule-of-law and make sure we staff that adequately. Finally,

d) we need to fix the poor coordination among the forces and resources of the NATO alliance and make sure thateverybody's marching to the same drummer.

The readings after the break start with a heart-rending WaPo series on the battle of Wanat and the Waygal Valleywhere eight Americans lost their lives, for excatly these reasons. But let's let Gen. McChrystal speak for himself(downloadable PDF is here while the WaPo's text version of his report is here).


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==========================================================================

As formidable as the threat may be, we make the problem harder. ISAF is a conventional forcethat is poorly configured for COIN, inexperienced in local languages and culture, and struggling

with challenges inherent to coalition warfare. These intrinsic disadvantages are exacerbated by

our current operational culture and how we operate. Pre-occupied with protection of our own

forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- fromthe people we seek to protect. In addition, we run the risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical

wins that cause civilian casualties or unnecessary collateral damage. The insurgents cannotdefeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves. Accomplishing the mission demands a renewed

emphasis on the basics through a dramatic change in how we operate, with specific focus in two

principle areas: Change the operational culture to connect with the people. I believe we mustinteract more closely with the population and focus on operations that bring stability, while

shielding them from insurgent violence, corruption, and coercion. Improve unity of effort and

command. We must significantly modify organizational structures to achieve better unity of

effort. We will continue to realign relationships to improve coordination within ISAF and theinternational community.

This assessment prescribes two fundamental changes. First, ISAF must improve execution

and the understanding of the basics of COIN -- those essential elements common to any

counterinsurgency strategy. Second, ISAF requires a new strategy to counter a growing

threat. Both of these reforms are required to reverse the negative trends in Afghanistan andachieve success. ISAF is not adequately executing the basics of counterinsurgency warfare. In

particular, there are two fundamental elements where ISAF must improve: change the

operational culture of ISAF to focus on protecting the Afghan people, und

middle east solutions: issues, relationships, frameworks and approaches

Documents