Today's New York Times front page shows a picture of the recently killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi as the necessary proof that he is dead, and not in some other way silenced by US interventions. In war, people need proof of progress-- or at least that all is not lost. During the siege of Stalingrad, the city's inhabitants burned furniture and ate sawdust to stay alive over long, unsupplied Russian winter. Surrounded by brigades of Nazi forces, the city's loudspeakers continued to broadcast music, news, propaganda, and eventually just the lonely sound of a metronome. This alone remained proof that the city had not been overrun, that there was still someone in charge of something somewhere. The death of al Zarqawi is better than the Soviet metronome, but it says little for the people in Iraq and elsewhere who are still in the grips of their own long winter.
Iraq's war of attrition is the fruit of forced regime change. As far as I can tell, if regime change is what you want, there are two basic ways of getting it. First, there is the brute force "send-in-the-Marines" approach that we have come to know and love since the invasion of Afghanistan almost five years ago and the somewhat more recent and involved invasion and occupation of Iraq. Second, there is the sneaky "spooks-fund-the-less-bad-guys" approach that, according to the other international article on today's NYT front page, has led to a disaster in Somalia.
Neither of these approaches do anything to eliminate the prospects of guys like al Zarqawi, nor, beyond a short-lived moral victory, have they ever led to long-term stability of nations, let alone the long-term liberty of their people. At best, unilateral wars for regime change have a track record of producing Macchiavellian principalities where fear keeps the local journalism dull and the trains running on time until the prince dies and his idiot son takes over. Meanwhile, covert CIA-type interventions have given us such successes as the Latin American Dirty Wars, the Iran-Contra Affairs, Iran's current leadership in the first place, continued paramilitary chaos across much of sub-saharan Africa, and countless other simmering quagmires, havens for terrorists, "People's Democratic Republics of Carjackistan" and others. Yesterday's freedom fighters are tomorrow's Taliban.
By funding anti-islamist warlords in Somalia, we have added to this list of successes. We have created a brand-new and relatively unexploited petrie dish for new al Zarqawis to grow and multiply unchecked by any legitmate force.
It is more than likely that the world-renowned security apparatus that our intelligence agencies helped Iran set up in the 60s and 70s is now has its own sneaky spooks on the ground in all of these hotspots, and elsewhere. Without any facts, could you imagine any country with geopolitical aspirations (and real influence) not pursuing their interests in their occupied or weakened neighbor? As a hunch, there will be a great many books written about this in a generation's time.
Seeing what's going on today, and if I were born yesterday, I'd be a big fan of the CIA intervention. Sending 10 experts into a country to foment a revolution in our favor sounds a lot better than 100,000 20 year old kids trying to keep the peace where they don't speak the language, and where the heat, dust, scorpions and snipers will sap the strength of anyone. The problem is that the CIA intervention never seems to work. Compound the spooks' track record with the expertise of the competition, and it looks like a really, really bad idea.
My sense is that intelligence organizations should stick to the fact-gathering, analysis, and consulting roles, while avoiding the active, decisive strategic planning and execution phase of war. They are intellectuals, and like most intellectuals are tough to manageand even harder to be used effectively. CIA intelligence should be more integrated with the decision-making bodies of the armed forces over at the Pentagon. They are essentially the anthropologists of the defense world-- full of cultural knowledge, but struggling to put it to use. War is, among other nightmares, a logistical one.
Our government can't wage wars while every bureaucratic feifdom involved is trying to score originality points. A little harmony between these two warring Bureaus of Combat would do us (and the world) some good. Our military interventions are in need of a major makeover by some flamboyantly gay, optimistic management consultants. Carson, anyone? Olive drab is so out this year. Try this linen suit with these aviator sunglasses.
I know that al Zarqawi was caught by way of a mishmash of US, Iraqi, Jordanian intelligence coupled with military know-how, but this seems like the exception, rather than the rule. We can't put a $25 million bounty on every Tom, Dick, and Hussein with a jones for jihad-- then again, maybe that would be cheaper thatn the roughly $1Billion/day going rate of occupation that we're currently paying.
Peace has a price to be sure... but we're being ripped off.
Even better than this morbid choice between Marines or Paramilitary deathsquads overthrowing governments would be avoiding these situations in the first place. Past successful purchases of peace took place when a large bloc of nations have come under one ideology to conquer whatever it is they don't like. Think of getting kids in high school to behave a certain way. Where bullying fails, relentless, constant peer pressure works.
Instead of continuing to pursue the brute force solution to regime change, there needs to be some agreement from middle-eastern countries on what Iraq should look like, some agreement from religious leaders on what the role of Islam should be vis-a-vis the state. Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Morocco, and others seem to make it work. All of these parties could help to reintegrate Iraq into the region, and into the exisiting networks of cultural and economic exchange that keep people happy and productive.
Instead of continuing to send spooks to do a local's job, we need to study and promote institutions that create positive leaders, while discouraging those that produce sociopaths. Job training, university grants, outlets for speech, and even the right kind of religion are good places to look. For every al Zarqawi there needs to be an alternative, freedom-loving cult of personality in place; not some shill for US oil interests, some starry-eyed revolutionary, or someone too into the lessons they learned on tough love at the School of the Americas.
The metronome continues to click, but little more. We need a few Muslim Mandelas, Giza Ghandis, Euphrates Yushenkos and Tigris Tutus. They are the only true counterinsurgency.
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