THE BENEFITS OF WAR IN IRAQ – November 19, 2006

* The following essay is an English translation of an article by Dr. Tadeusz A. Kisielewski, which originally appeared in The International Political Review – a quarterly published by the Sobieski Institute, a prominent Polish think tank in Warsaw. Its re-publication is made possible through the courtesy of these copyright holders.

“The indirect regional results of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein have been positive so far”. Such a statement appeared in my book Imperium Americanum? early in 2004. One year later, and two years after the start of the intervention in Iraq, we can expand on this statement by pointing out the positive results of this war, both at the regional and global level.

IRAQ:  

It was clear that the United States did not have a plan in place for handling the situation in Iraq after the main military operations were finished. This was a strategic mistake, accompanied later by numerous tactical mistakes. These arose from a misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq and of the principles governing Islamic society. As the result of these mistakes, Iraqis feel beset by numerous daily problems: shortages of energy supplies, water, and oil; high unemployment; and a lack of security.

These problems arose from a) the negligence and dearth of investment capital under Saddam Hussein’s rule, and b) incompetence, on the part of both the Coalition forces and the Iraqis themselves. Another important issue has been terrorist attacks, which destabilize Iraqi life and which are often directed against efforts to restore the country’s industrial base and infrastructure. The main argument against intervening in Iraq was that it might cause terrorism to increase. This accusation is false. It is true that up to 2003 there were no terrorist attacks in Iraq, which was free of international Islamic terrorist groups. But this does not mean that in that same time period there were no victims of terrorism. Statistics for the years 1968-2003 show that over thirty-five years Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror caused the death of 28,600 people a year, or 80 people a day. Fortunately the terrorist attacks after the fall of Baghdad have not managed to cause as many casualties, and their activity decreased after the parliamentary elections.

Let us next consider the areas in which Islamic terrorist activity occurs. If you ask a well educated European politician how many names of cities and towns in Iraq he knows, most probably he will not be able to name more than 8 or 10. They would be the cities in which terrorist attacks have occurred which were later publicized by the media. Besides ethnically diverse Baghdad, with its population of 4.5 million people, the rest are mostly cities in the so-called Sunni Triangle. The rest of the territory of this extensive country (435, 000 square kilometers) is calm, and its people are safe. It does not mean that terrorist attacks in these 8-10 cities do not destabilize Iraq, or that people living in these cities are safe. But the exaggerated media reports coming out of Iraq lead to the spread of untruths.

For a year and a half after September 11th, al-Qaeda was unable to strike the Americans again. The United States was too well guarded. When American troops went out to fight abroad obviously the terrorists will try to attack them again. The so called post-Saddam insurgents have contributed to the situation in Iraq, but the main terrorist forces were sent by fanatic Muslim Islamists. The mountainous border with Iran and the desert-like border with Syria will never be impermeable, but the Americans can be criticized for not conducting short military strikes into these two countries on a regular basis. Such raids would considerably discourage Tehran and Damascus from sending their agents into Iraq, or helping Al-Qaeda’s members to infiltrate Iraq. These tactics would be effective and ought to be utilized.

Since the parliamentary elections, more and more terrorist attacks have been directed against the victorious Shiites. Some experts predict that civil war will take place between the Shiites and the outnumbered Sunnis. They praised the apparent calm that prevailed under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. In response to these analyses we can say that Iraq, and the Middle East in general, is comparable to the situation in Eastern Europe during the Cold War period, both in its domestic and political relationships, and its strategic and geopolitical situation. Unlike Eastern Europe, the Middle East has remained locked in these patterns for a long time. Given the nature of Muslim societies, and the sheer range and depth of needed reforms, it would be an illusion to expect that any changes will occur in the region without sacrifices. The Middle East has seen nothing comparable to the successful economic and political reforms in the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Slovenia. The longer this situation continues the greater the sacrifice which will be required to transform the situation. This does not change the fact that these sacrifices will be tragic. The process of “defrosting” the institutions of Iraq should continue. It should be started as soon as possible in other countries of the region as well. Can we have a Springtime of Nations in the Middle East?

The situation in the Middle East has been widely commented on, and opinions vary. Some commentators believe that the “revolution of freedom” is already beginning in the region. They can point to such successes as:

– The victory of the moderate Mahmud Abbas in the presidential elections in Palestine.

– The high voter turn out – despite terrorist threats – in the parliamentary elections in Iraq.

– Elections to municipal councils, the first elections ever held in Saudi Arabia. (Although these are only partially free, as women were not allowed to vote, and half of every municipal council is appointed.)

– Spontaneous demonstration by the Lebanese people against the presence of Syrian forces, and the noticeably non-spontaneous counter-demonstrations.

– The announcement that more than one candidate will be allowed in presidential elections in Egypt.

Others think that these are mere superficial changes, with no greater meaning for the future of the region. Neither of the above opinions is correct.

Clearly the monarchies and dictatorships of the region have lost their resilience. Nothing will be the same again. The only questions remaining are how fast the changes will occur, and what their ultimate outcome will be. These changes have been initiated by external factors: namely the oft-condemned intervention in Iraq. The U.S. – against the opinion of its adversaries and some of its formal allies – understands that democracy, especially in its Western form, can not be simply imported as a finished product. George W. Bush has begun to admit, unnecessarily, that the intervention in Iraq has not fully achieved its goals. The immediate, stated purposes of the intervention: to deprive Iraq of weapons of mass destruction or the capacity to build such; to eliminate a murderous political regime; and to remove Iraq from the list of countries supporting terrorism, (not just Islamic terrorism), were all true. But these purposes were declared primarily to satisfy public opinion, as they were easily accepted and understood. It would be naive to expect the public to support and accept heavy sacrifices and casualties in the name of long-term strategic aims. For this reason the opinion expressed in the book Iraq: One Year After (Stéphane Courtois, editor): that concealing this strategic aim was a mistake, is unjustified. The true ultimate purpose of the intervention was to help Arab countries reshape themselves in accordance with the Arab Human Development Report of 2002. This document, prepared by Arab experts and intellectuals, has pointed out three main reasons for the underdevelopment and backwardness of the region:

              1: Lack of political freedom.

              2: Discrimination and exclusion of women from public life.

              3: Very low levels of education.

Unfortunately the report does not describe any real domestic political movements in Arab countries capable of realizing such an agenda. Such internal movements either simply do not exist, or, where they do exist, they do not possess enough influence to change the system. If no-one, not the present authorities, the intellectual elites, or even the militant Islamists are able to begin modernizing the Arab countries, then the stimulus has to come from the outside. Many Arab thinkers, including Fouad Ajami, Kanan Makiya, Fareed Zakaria, Khalid Kishtaini and others who are not prejudiced against the West, agree with this conclusion.

George W. Bush in his speeches before the German Bundestag in May 2002, and in Krakow on May 31, 2003, called for what he later on described in more detail in his State of the Union address in January 2004: an “offensive strategy of freedom” in the Middle East. This would mean helping regional societies transform themselves into free societies with civil liberties. This was to be done by financing the creation and support of democratic institutions. In May 2004, the leaders of 22 Arab League states found themselves forced to adopt a declaration consistent with Bush’s Middle East initiative. In fact they contradicted their own dictatorial policies at home. Even these paper promises, never intended to be kept, are more evidence of positive results from outside pressures to modernize the Middle East.

In June 2004, the leaders of the G-8 decided to each give politically and economic support on a unilateral basis to bolster Bush’s initiative. It would have been more effective to allocate all funds to support Bush’s Middle East initiative to one American-European non-governmental foundation, as proposed by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Turkish foundation TESEV. As a report by these two agencies states:

“The new Middle East initiative requires close cooperation between American and Europe… and should be coordinated between Washington and Brussels”.

But this proposal will not become a reality as long as transatlantic relations are characterized by American unilateralism, competition by the EU against America, and the EU’s lack of a common foreign and defense policy.

Some are under the illusion that the nascent democracies in the Middle East will be copies of Western democracies. This will not happen. When democracy finally comes to the Middle East it will be as dissimilar to the Western democracy as Indonesian Islam is to Arab Islam. Others fear that the biggest winners in democratic elections will be Islamists. They fear that the Islamists will gain power and subsequently eliminate all liberties inconsistent with their understanding of religion. They may then use the power of the countries they control against the West itself. This might happen in the majority of the countries of the region, if democracy were to be brought in suddenly or imposed by the West. A nation needs to understand and learn how to use democracy to its benefit. This requires years of practice and the creation of democratic traditions. What should concern politicians and Western analysts is the manner in which democracy is implemented in the Middle East, and prepare for the results of the process. So far we have three examples of broad political and cultural changes in the region. Sixty years ago in Lebanon, the French introduced democratic political parties, but they lost their effectiveness over quarter a century ago, primarily due to changes in religious and ethnic makeup of society. The Syrian intervention was of secondary importance in this matter. In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) attempted to westernize the whole of Turkish society and shift its orientation to the West as early as the 1930s. This attempt may still ultimately succeed. In Iran in the 1970s, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi seemed to be following in Atatürk’s steps, but failed. The reasons for this failure can be seen in the contrast between these two reformers. Atatürk, the hero of the Turkish War of Independence, was above suspicion in Turkish society. The Shah on the other hand, was seen as a usurper and a servant of foreign interests. Some of his actions were interpreted as an insult to Islam. Both examples show that the only way to implement democracy in the Middle East is, paradoxically, to impose it upon societies from above. This is presently being done by the Emir of Bahrain. But he is doing so purely for his own ambitions and has only been partially successful.

If domestic movements which truly desire to implement democracy, do not exist and the West cannot replace them, then the role of the West is to find such potential forces, educate them, and then support them in their fight against authoritarian governments. If such a strategy is to be successful it needs to be coordinated and carried out by all the major Western countries acting in concert. Unfortunately this has not been done.

FRANCE:

When anti-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon were supported not only by the U.S. but by France, many people began to ask if this meant that France had abandoned its own imperial ambitions and recognized the validity and legitimacy of American policy in the Middle East. Soon it became clear that nothing had really changed. President Jacques Chirac, for no good reason, invited Vladimir Putin to pay a semi-private visit to France. He also invited German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The last two accepted the invitation without enthusiasm. The meeting of those four leaders has been labeled the ‘Salon of Rejected’. But the participants of the original Salon, better known as the Salon of Independents of 1884, later became leading figures in the art world, while the political ‘Salon’ was attended by two losers and two under-achievers.

For the French inviting Putin was important. It was a sign that France has not abandoned its policy of rivalry with the U.S., and intends to create a multilateral world in which she will play an important role. French policy has been based on illusions, sentiment and unrealizable ambitions.  It has not brought any positive results. It has in fact been harmful to French national interests and has engendered many regional and global problems.

It is said that France and Germany are the main forces for European integration. While Germany has wanted, at least up to recent times, closer integration with its European neighbors, France has always treated the idea of integration as a means of achieving its own national interests and imperial ambitions. Continuing on this course makes a common European foreign and defense policy impossible. Paris has gradually garnered support from Germany,(though now less willingly, as German politics has changed), Belgium, Luxembourg, a few other Western European states and the Czech Republic The Czechs have a pre-war tradition of political cooperation with France, and focus mainly on economic cooperation within the EU. They try to remain silent in global issues. This is wise considering their country’s small size. On the other hand, Great Britain and several other European countries, including Poland and other new members of the EU, believe that the EU’s policy should be ultimately defined in accordance with common European interests, that is, the interests of the Atlantic community and Western civilization as a whole. But French unilateralism keeps this from happening. Since the presidency of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, France has sought to revive its traditional friendship with Moscow, regardless of whether the Kremlin is occupied by totalitarian communists or an authoritarian quasi-dictator.

This unholy alliance is far more serious than mere domestic disputes within the EU. The price is the unity and solidarity which the West needs in order to survive. The difference between the “old” and the “new” Europe is that the “old” Europe merely cultivates a European identity, while the “new” Europe, from its own historical experience, understands its Western identity and the need for the unity of Western civilization. Europe can survive only as a part of the West, which in broader terms includes the U.S. Therefore the “new” Europe’s point of view is the correct one. France tries to win support for its own parochial interests, or rather for the ambitions of its politicians. More and more French commentators are becoming critical of these maneuvers, as France seeks for support not only in Moscow, but in Beijing. As is usual though, the Chinese act cautiously.

RUSSIA:

It is said the President Putin was the first world leader to call President Bush after the September 11th terrorist attacks. It is evident that he offered Bush a strategic anti-terrorist alliance, and the offer was accepted. The attack on Afghanistan was an obvious first move, while the plans to invade Iraq were being prepared. Bush knew that to carry out the invasion of Afghanistan he would need the benevolent neutrality of the Kremlin in post-soviet Central Asia. Putin’s offer was worth its price: to ignore the situation in Chechnya and support Russia on the international scene. Since Russia is seriously endangered by Islamic influence along its border from the Caucasus to China it has a strong incentive to cooperate with the West in combating terrorism and in rooting out the networks that support it.

Disappointment with Russia’s behavior gradually increased. The West at first did not object, even indirectly, to describing Chechen civilians as terrorists. A watershed occurred in the fall of 2004, with the Russian response to the terrorist attack on the school in Bieslan. Putin decided that the best way to deal with Chechen terrorists was to eradicate fledgling territorial self-government across the whole of Russia, from Smolensk to Kamchatka. He annulled the election of governors and began appointing them directly from the Kremlin. There are many signs that Russia is being transformed into an authoritarian country:

              - The destruction of parliamentary opposition.

              - The suppression of independent television and the majority of newspapers.

              - The arrest and conviction of Mikhail Chodorkowski. Not because he stole his first million, but because he put part of his legally earned income into support for the anti-Kremlin opposition.

These incidents are embarrassing not only for Russia but also for the countries which consider Russia as their ally.

At the same time it became clear that Russia is very unreliable ally in the war on terror. While the EU and the U.S. cooperate closely to try to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Russia sees no problem with it and announces its willingness to provide Tehran with equipment and fissile material, without any guaranties that they will be used for peaceful purposes. When a slim chance appeared to solve the Palestinian conflict, Russia began providing Syria with arms. Iran and Syria are the only countries in the region which are opposed to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are trying to escalate the conflict by financing and militarizing Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The people in the White House ultimately need to ask themselves: what kind of ally is it, who supports our enemies?
For now, no-one wants to force an answer to this question. Many hope that Russia will return to the path of democracy. Also, a break with Russia would deprive the West of a chance to at least have some influence on the situation in Russia. Unfortunately such hopes are unrealistic in the immediate future. In his State of the Union address on April 25, 2005, President Putin said: “The disintegration of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” Despite numerous official and unofficial statements made afterwards to try to alleviate the bad impression left by that statement, Putin’s opinion was historically justified. This ‘catastrophe’ could have been to the good if the Kremlin had been willing to take advantage of it to spread democracy and the rule of law in Russia. Instead, the difficulty in achieving these aims, especially in the first two years after the disintegration, resulted in a deep loss of confidence in the reforms. Putin’s use of the term ‘catastrophe’ reflects a nostalgia for Russia’s lost greatness. Many Russians have, and still do, consider power to be the highest value.

Russia is once again at a historical crossroads. Paradoxically she tries more and more openly to restore her imperial position, even though she has absolutely no chance of achieving it again. Several years ago, former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt described Russia as “Upper Volta with missiles”. This was a very imprecise comparison, and not only because Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso. Russia is a barrel of oil with missiles. Her oil and gas industry account for almost half of Russia’s economic and financial potential, making this country resemble classic oil mono-cultures. Russia either cannot or will not use the great demand for oil to carry out needed domestic structural investments. The oil boom will not last forever. In the case of Iraq and Saudi Arabia we know how money from oil sales was used: for militarization, the construction of expensive palaces and lavish consumption by the elite. In the case of Russia, no one can tell how the oil money was used, though it was probably stolen by government insiders. The worst waste of the oil revenue is the war in Chechnya. It is not a major war, but any war will soak up enormous amounts of money, as long as there are individuals benefiting from the war. The war in Chechnya will continue until the last Chechen is killed, or as long as the people with a financial stake in the war decide the course of Russian policy.

The inability to make real progress is not the only reason why Russia will never regain its status as a global superpower. Far more important are irreversible demographic changes. Russia is presently inhabited by 140 million people. But according to UNDP projections, by 2010 Russia’s population will decline to 130 million and to just 70 million by 2050. According to the Hoover Institute by the year of 2200 there will be only 23 million Russians. The last line in Putin’s State of the Union address, that Russians: “were, are and will be the biggest European nation.” contradicts the facts and even Putin’s own statements made in 2000. The majority of Russians inhabit the European part of Russia and the southern part of western Siberia. As of 1989 the vast space of land between the Lena River and the Pacific Ocean was inhabited by less than 8 million Russians. In the Far East alone, excluding western Siberia, this number has already decreased by 800,000 people. Russians are being replaced by an influx of Chinese, 2-5 million thus far. If the number of Russians inhabiting this part of Siberia continues to decrease, and the Chinese immigration continues, then – given recently revived Chinese claims to the land north from Amur River – there is no doubt that in the long run Russia will not be able to remain in control of its territories east of the Lena River. Similar opinions have been already expressed by Héléne Carrére d’Encausse, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Samuel P. Huntington. Russia’s leaders probably foresee the event. We can interpret this from an examination of Kremlin policy. Putin himself in 2000 expressed his fear of losing control over the vast lands of Siberia.

Kremlin policy is based on the assumption that she can only prevent the loss of the Siberian Far East by regaining her imperial status. The aim of the new Russian imperialism is to regain control over the Ukraine and re-establish Russian influence over the countries of the former Soviet Union. The Kremlin continues to cling to the outdated notion that national power comes from the amount of territory held, instead of modernizing their economy, which is the only real means of improving Russia’s international status. The purpose of regaining control over the Ukraine is to strengthen Russia’s position via-a-vis China and Europe. If Russia does lose parts of Siberia, the Ukraine would be a compensation. It would also improve the Kremlin’s position in its endeavors to join Western structures and organizations.

In this context the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine was a terrible blow to Russia’s imperial objectives. At the same time Georgia in the strategically important Caucasus, has emancipated itself from Russian influence. The Kremlin has not been able to accept that this revolution was not imported from the West. No amount of help from the West would have been able to initiate the revolution or secure its victory, were it not for the will of Ukrainians themselves. The Kremlin is convinced that it is a victim of Western sabotage, when in fact it is a victim of its own incompetence and political manipulations.

CHINA:

The movement for political reform in the Middle East does not directly influence Beijing’s policies. But it may spread to the Muslim Chinese Kazakhs, or Uighurs, of Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan) in western China. Even indirectly the reform movement will have an important impact on China. If in the end as Fareed Zakaria put it in Newsweek  (March 14, 2005), “Bush was right”, then the pattern of bilateral relations between the U.S. and China, France and Russia, will change. For the last half century the French sought to use Russia as a counterweight in its relations with the U.S. But for Putin and his predecessors, Gen. De Gaulle and his successors were merely ‘useful idiots’. The Kremlin willingly fueled anti-American sentiments in France, but they always made the real decisions with the Americans. If the Franco-German policy toward intervention in Iraq falls apart and Russia loses its status as strategic partner with the U.S. in its war on terrorism, then it will be China that will benefit the most from the intervention, after the U.S. and the Middle East itself. This will have an impact on Chinese position toward the losers.

Some people believe that China will become a global superpower as early as 2010 and will threaten the international status of the U.S. They are wrong. It may never happen. China seeks to strengthen and broaden its role as a regional superpower. But China will gradually experience difficulties in continuing its social development and economic growth.  It faces barriers in developing its infrastructure and in gaining access to natural resources. These factors will create pressure for territorial expansion to secure continued growth and neutralize widespread discontent within Chinese society by sparking nationalist hysteria. But the Chinese might not expand south as predicted by Huntington, since there they would face a strong U.S.-led coalition. Instead they might push north into Russia’s Siberian Far East.

Two things are clear. With Russia’s lack of sufficient workers and financial capital and laborers she is not and will be not able to develop the territories east of Lake Baikal. Japanese investment contracts alone will not suffice because Tokyo will wisely remove itself from the stage in the event of a Russo-Chinese showdown. Secondly, Russia will be unable to defend this territory against a determined military threat. All the Chinese would have to do is attack and destroy the Trans-Siberian Railroad between Lake Baikal and Chita to make the entire territory between Lake Baikal and Vladivostok indefensible. Even major help from conventional NATO forces would not be sufficient to reverse such a situation. Perhaps the Russians could force a stalemate, leaving eastern Siberia a no-man’s land. Using nuclear weapons, which the Russians would probably end up resorting to, would only start a Third World War. In such a war the outcome would be uncertain and would depend on which side had the advantage in high tech military equipment and striking power.

Let’s state it openly: if Russia is unable to either develop eastern Siberia, or defend it against hostile invasion, and if by acquiring that territory the Chinese will:

a) Secure the existence of millions of their people.

b) Diminish dangerous tensions within a country as vast as China.

Then such a change will benefit not only China itself, but the rest of the world, and even Russia itself.

Russia will be unable to limit Chinese aggression on its own, so NATO should offer to help in order to prevent the growth of Chinese power to the point where it would endanger Russia’s existence or the position of NATO. The main military task would be to limit Chinese territorial acquisition to the line of the Lena and Olyokma Rivers and the confluence of the Argun and Shilka Rivers. Russia would still keep western Siberia with its oil, the Yamal Peninsula with its natural gas, the Norilsk nickel, platinum and palladium mines, and Yakutia’s diamonds and industrial sites west of Lake Baikal. China would be absorbed in the tremendous task of reorganizing eastern Siberia and the Siberian Far East. Such a settlement could even be negotiated before an open military conflict between Russia and China, and before it would be necessary for NATO to take action. As a result, Russia would become a truly European country. By being composed of its European territory alone, by being economically, geopolitically and soon demographically European, Russia would eventually join NATO and the EU, provided she complies with the conditions of membership. Russia has two options: to become a buffer country between NATO/EU and China, perhaps reaching no further east than the Urals, or become member of the Western community and keep the greater part of Siberia. In second case, the ultimate integration of Europe, as the whole north of Eurasia, would take place. What Z. Brzezinski terms the “black Eurasian hole” would be filled in.

The success of the American “offensive strategy of freedom” in the Middle East may well accelerate the coming of these events. But it will not be the main force bringing these events about.  Rather their inevitability stems from the growing disproportion of power between China and Russia.

CONCLUSIONS:

The first, perhaps minor, conclusion we may draw from the intervention in Iraq, is that to accomplish one’s tasks one needs to use a language one’s opponents can understand. Unfortunately some people only understand the language of force. Secondly, once again we see that peace comes with a price, and sometimes it is worth paying. ‘Peace at any price’ contradicts itself. For some, freedom is priceless and they are willing to prove it by their own sacrifices. In the end the actions of the American leadership prove that America is determined to continue the course of its foreign policy.

Dr. Tadeusz A. Kisielewski

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Dr. Kisielewski is a writer, independent researcher and analyst of international relations. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and is the author of several books, including "The New Global Conflict" (1993), "Russia – China – NATO" (2002) and "Imperium Americanum?" (2004).

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International Political

Review

Sobieski Institute

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