{"id":331,"date":"2007-09-07T10:23:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T14:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=331"},"modified":"2007-09-07T10:26:42","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T14:26:42","slug":"the-boots-camp-and-the-nixon-doctrine-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=331","title":{"rendered":"The “Boots” Camp and the Nixon Doctrine in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there any point waiting for<\/title>Is there any point waiting for “something dramatic” to happen on the political front in Iraq?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe there is no political front.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe there is simply the security front–a blunt attempt to project US imperial military power into the heart of the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n<p>The old “Project for a New American Century” crowd associated with <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=221\">William Kristol and John McCain<\/a> are the folks most clearly associated with the blunt attempt to project US military power.\u00c2\u00a0 And, to be sure, the entire “surge” is the brainchild of this crowd, especially the <a href=\"http:\/\/washav.blogspot.com\/2007\/03\/its-family-affair.html\">Kagan family<\/a>–the brothers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/scholars\/scholarID.99,filter.all\/scholar.asp\"> Frederick<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carnegieendowment.org\/experts\/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=16\"> Robert Kagan<\/a> the women to whom they are married, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB118885627242916196.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\"> Kimberly Kagan<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=220\"> Victoria Nulan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These are also the figures whose “vision”–Iraq as merely one random example in the long list of adventures sponsored by the military industrial complex–provides the central focus of one of the early Iraq documentaries, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonyclassics.com\/whywefight\/\">Why We Fight<\/a>.”<\/p>\n<p>For the “boots” crowd, victory in Iraq is all about the projection of US military power in the Middle East.\u00c2\u00a0 Germany and Japan are the models, not because the US embraced “nation building” and “democratization” but because there are still US boots on the ground in both countries.<\/p>\n<p>This “boots on the ground” crowd, it must be noted, positioned themselves as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/Utilities\/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=3977&R=114FAF26B\"> <em>dissidents<\/em> and critics<\/a> under the Rumsfeld regime.\u00c2\u00a0 They were eager for the invasion of Iraq and admired the “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.victorhanson.com\/articles\/hanson101106.html\">300 Spartans<\/a>” that Rumsfeld sent to do the job but–as in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VK17i3uNjxM\">final scene of the movie “300”<\/a>–they pressed for many thousands more.\u00c2\u00a0 “Yet they stare now across the plane at 10,000 Spartans commanding 30,000 free Greeks.”<\/p>\n<p>In January 2007, former <em>New Republic<\/em> editor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/printout\/0,8816,1574151,00.html\">Peter Beinart speculated<\/a> that war fatigue was leading the administration to abandon the ambitious “Bush Doctrine.”<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And so the Bush Administration has begun cribbing from a very different \tdoctrine: Richard Nixon’s. The Nixon Doctrine is the foreign policy \tequivalent of outsourcing… No longer would Americans man the front \tlines… In the Persian Gulf, we would build up Iran to check Soviet \texpansion. America would no longer be a global cop; it would be a global \tbenefactor, quartermaster and coach–helping allies contain communism on \ttheir own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Beinart is a card-carrying member of the “boots” crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 In 2005, he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newamericancentury.org\/defense-20050128.htm\">signed a Project for a New American Century letter<\/a> demanding an expansion of US ground troops.<\/p>\n<p>In his <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/printout\/0,8816,1574151,00.html\"> Time<\/a><\/em> essay, Beinart warns:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[I]n the longer term, America will pay dearly for its inability to lead. \tThe return of the Nixon Doctrine is one of the hidden costs of the war in \tIraq…. [In the future] U.S. policymakers will be able to scan the globe \tanew, with more time and resources at their command. Then the U.S. can \tabandon the Nixon Doctrine once and for all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If Beinart’s political loyalties are clear, his sketch of the timeline of Bush administration policy in Iraq is utterly confused.<\/p>\n<p>The Bush administration <em>went into Iraq<\/em> cribbing from the Nixon Doctrine.\u00c2\u00a0 They went in “light” with only enough forces to be the “benefactor, quartermaster and coach” of a local political allies–the Iraqi Shia–who were to act as the <em>proxy<\/em> for US power.<\/p>\n<p>Only with the January 2007 surge–as the Bush administration was retreating from the Cheney\/Rumsfeld adaptation of the Nixon Doctrine–did the “boots” crowd come in from the cold.<\/p>\n<p>If Beinart’s terms are correct, his timeline is inverted.<\/p>\n<p>According to the “Goldilocks” scenario sketched by Frederick Kagan in his recent article, “<a href=\"http:\/\/article.nationalreview.com\/print\/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=\">The Gettysburg of This War<\/a>,” the surge (and the “turn” in Anbar) doesn’t really require or imply any meaningful change in the <em>political<\/em> balance of power in Iraq.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If the Anbaris had thereupon asked for the creation of a local, \tautonomous or semi-autonomous security force that would be a de facto tribal \tmilitia, there would have been cause for concern about their intentions. But \tthey did not….<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Anbari police<\/strong> will naturally <strong>stay in their areas<\/strong>, but they \twill not have the technical or tactical ability to project force outside of \tAnbar \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they <strong>cannot become an effective Sunni \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coup force.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong> Anbaris \tjoining the Iraqi army, on the other hand, are joining a heavily Shia \tinstitution that they will not readily be able to seize control of and turn \tagainst the Shia government. In other words, the turn in Anbar is \tdramatically reducing the ability of the Anbaris to fight the Shia, and \tcommitting them ever more completely to the success of Iraq as a whole….<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anbar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders<\/strong> <strong>are<\/strong> now <strong>more reasonable<\/strong> and probably \tmore committed to the political success of Iraq than the Sunni parties in \tthe Council of Representatives. Those parties were chosen at a time when \tmost Iraqi Sunnis really did reject the notion of accepting a lesser role in \tIraq, and <strong>many Sunni parliamentarians have continued to press for a \tmaximalist version of Sunni aims<\/strong>….<\/p>\n<p>The Maliki government is unquestionably twitchy about working with many of \tthe Sunni grassroots movements, and with good reason. A lot of the new Sunni \tvolunteers for the ISF were insurgents, and Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shia, still traumatized \tby four years of Sunni attacks, are naturally nervous about taking former \tinsurgents into their security forces…<\/p>\n<p>The Sunni, of course, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust the Maliki government any more than it \ttrusts them, and herein lies a key point for American strategy. Right now, \tAmerican forces are serving as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153honest broker,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the bridge between Sunni \tand Shia. Both sides trust us more or less, and are willing to work with us; \tneither trusts the other completely….<\/p>\n<p><strong>Young Anbaris<\/strong>, who feel defeated by the Americans and the Shia in \ttheir <strong>quest to regain control of Iraq<\/strong>, need a way to regain honor in \tIraqi society… Joining the Iraqi army does accomplish that goal \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it gives \tthem an honored place not just in Anbari, but in Iraqi society….<\/p>\n<p>Fear of Shia genocide has been a powerful force behind Sunni rejectionism. \tLocal Sunni security forces help alleviate that fear. Fear of Sunni \trevanchism has been a strong motivation for Shia intransigence. \tIncorporating Sunni into the ISF mitigates that fear….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kagan appears convinced that the “Anbar awakening” represents a retreat from the “maximalist version of Sunni aims,” including the “quest to regain control of Iraq.”<\/p>\n<p>The “key point for American strategy” is that American forces <em>can stay in Iraq<\/em>–presumably at the invitation of Sunni and Shia–insofar as they serve as an “honest broker” and a bridge between Sunni and Shia.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Stripping the U.S. effort of the forces needed to continue this strategy, \tas some in Washington and elsewhere are demanding, will most likely destroy \tthe progress already made and lay the groundwork for collapse in Iraq and \tthe destabilization of the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As Kagan has written elsewhere, there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.all,pubID.26760\/pub_detail.asp\"> no middle way<\/a> between withdrawal and ongoing military occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Figures like Kagan and Beinart surely think of themselves as battling war fatigue within the general public.\u00c2\u00a0 Inside the administration, however, they may also still be battling ongoing commitments to the Nixon Doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>There are still plenty of analysts who think that the “key point” for American strategy in Iraq is to “pick a winner” in the political outsourcing game.<\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/08\/24\/opinion\/24fri1.html?ex=1189310400&en=8149cbcae68f1359&ei=5070\"> <em>New York Times<\/em> editorial<\/a> asserted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The problem is not Mr. Maliki\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is \tthe logical product of the system the United States created, one that <strong> \tdeliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately \tmarginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For all the pressure on the Maliki government, are there any signs that indicate Vice President Cheney is unhappy with the deliberate decision to empower the Shiite majority?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=323\">Hardly<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And, for that matter, there are many analysts and partisans who reject Kagan’s depiction of Sunni compliance and who reject the wisdom of Shiite continuing rule in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Juan Cole recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juancole.com\/2007\/09\/helman-bushs-stage-managed-photo-op.html\"> posted a commentary<\/a> by Gerald Helman that appears to be at odds with Kagan’s notion of a Sunni retreat from “maximalist” demands.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[T]he Sunnis can offer the US to fight the radical al Qaeda types in \ttheir midst, a truce in their armed resistance to the US army, and undying \topposition to the “Persians.” In exchange, they receive weapons, training \tand “reconstruction teams.” But it is the arms and training that count, to \tbe used now against radical Islamist elements, but later to help <strong>recover \tthe status and power they lost when Saddam was overthrown<\/strong>…<\/p>\n<p>“Bottom-up,” while suggesting something snappy and positive, instead will \tfurther confirm Shiite fear of Sunni purposes and reinforce the continuing \tsuspicion that the Shiites will again be abandoned by the US. Wittingly or \totherwise, the US reinforces that suspicion through active speculation on \tchanging the leadership or even the nature of Iraq’s government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Right Arabists like Anthony Zinni <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2007\/09\/03\/wiraq103.xml\"> continue to complain<\/a> about “democracy” in Iraq and regret the termination of the status quo in Iraq:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>“Contrary to what our president said, containment did work leading up to \tthis. We contained Saddam for over a decade, his military atrophied, he had \tno WMD, and we were doing it on the cheap,” [General Zinni] said….<\/p>\n<p>For all the enthusiasm shown by Iraqis, [General Zinni] dismissed \tpost-invasion elections as “purple finger” democracy that skipped the vital \tfirst steps of establishing a sound government structure, viable political \tparties and preparing the public for full democracy.<\/p>\n<p>“It’s ridiculous. Our objective should have been reasonable representative \tgovernment,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And there is still plenty of chatter that the “frustration” with Maliki will morph into an extra-parliamentary coup.<\/p>\n<p>Liz Sly at the <em>Chicago Tribune<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/nationworld\/chi-allawi._slysep01,1,6809274,full.story?ctrack=1&cset=true\"> reports on new life<\/a> within the old “Allawi coup” camp.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>“There’s been a definite change in tone from Washington, and the momentum \tand drive to support Allawi will increase,” said Jaafar al-Taie, a political \tanalyst involved in the new coalition’s campaign. “It’s not only that Maliki \tmust go, but that the whole system must go.”<\/p>\n<p>According to Allawi’s published program, the parliamentarians would not only \tappoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a \tstate of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority….<\/p>\n<p>Allawi signed a $300,000 contract with the Washington lobbying firm of \tBarbour, Griffiths and Rogers to represent his interests, according to a \tcopy of the contract obtained by the Web site Iraqslogger.com and confirmed \tby Allawi on CNN. The <strong>head of the firm’s international relations \tdepartment is Robert Blackwill<\/strong>, a longtime adviser to Bush who served as \this special envoy to Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>“Even when Bush tried to modify what he said, he did not go so far,” said \tIzzat Shabandar, a strategist with the Allawi bloc. “We know that Bush from \tinside would like to replace Maliki, but he did not say it clearly. He chose \tto say it in a diplomatic way”…<\/p>\n<p>[T]he parliamentary math doesn’t add up in favor of the Allawi bloc….<\/p>\n<p>“The Americans finally will support us because they don’t have another \tsolution,” [Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq] said, sipping tea and \tchain-smoking in the coffee shop at one of Amman’s top hotels as a steady \tstream of Iraqi exiles and members of parliament wandered in and out. “If \tall these things don’t work out, it is the people who will make a coup. They \twill rise up, and there will be a coup all over Iraq.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On the basis of his relations with Condoleezza Rice, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A34519-2004May17?language=printer\"> Robert Blackwill pulled off the first major Right Arabist “coup”<\/a> in the Bush administration when he took the helm of the so-called “Iraq Stabilization Group.”<\/p>\n<p>His effort to install Allawi as the “benign autocrat” of Iraq faltered at the start of the second Bush term when the administration went ahead with a year of Shiite-dominated elections, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/nation\/la-010605scowcroft_lat,0,5426058.story?coll=la-home-headlines\"> over the objections of leading Right Arabists<\/a> like Brent Scowcroft.<\/p>\n<p>Can Blackwill’s latest lobbying campaign help deliver a coup that would “<a href=\"http:\/\/robertdreyfuss.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/usbaath_talks_bring_back_the_b.html\">bring back the Baath<\/a>“?<\/p>\n<p>For the “boots” camp, the primary condition for any political reconciliation is a retreat from demands for US withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>But Right Zionists and Right Arabists faithful to the Nixon Doctrine are playing a different game: they are trying to identify a loyal ally that would allow the US to withdraw with honor–and a compliant imperial proxy.<\/p>\n<p>The Right Arabists have always sought reconciliation with the <em>old<\/em> imperial proxy: the Sunni minority.<\/p>\n<p>There was some cynical strategic logic to the imperial utilization of a minority population.<\/p>\n<p>That logic led the Belgians, for example, to rely on the minority Tutsi population to govern Rwanda.\u00c2\u00a0 Gerard Prunier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/shows\/rwanda\/etc\/interview.html\"> explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[T]he Belgians considered the [majority] Hutus to be more inferior… It \twas plainly a rationalization for being stingy, because by using the Tutsi, \tyou spent less on local administration, that was all. It was easier to use \tthem when they were locals, you didn’t pay them as much as whites and they \twould do the job. And <strong>since they were caught between you as a white \tadministrator and their local chattel, they were at your beck and call<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, it is precisely the <em>absence<\/em> of such a dynamic in the context of Shiite <em>majority<\/em> rule in Iraq that leads astute observers like Gilbert Achcar to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/achcar05052004.html\">predict<\/a> that the liberation of Shiite political power in Iraq would ultimately represent “one of the most important blunders ever committed by an administration abroad from the standpoint of U.S. imperial interests.”<\/p>\n<p>Be that as it may, one might ask whether at the<em> regional level<\/em> in the Middle East<em> <\/em>the Shia of Islam and the Persians of Iran do not represent a relatively marginalized minority within the context of Sunni Arab hegemony.<\/p>\n<p>Zionists like David Ben-Gurion used to call this the “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">Doctrine of the Periphery<\/a>.”<\/p>\n<p>I couldn’t begin to comment on the imperial, strategic viability of that Doctrine from the standpoint of U.S. imperial interests.<\/p>\n<p>I do continue to wonder, however, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.khaleejtimes.com\/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data\/focusoniraq\/2007\/September\/focusoniraq_September30.xml&section=focusoniraq\"> the role of Grand Ayatollah Sistani<\/a> and his ally, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.khaleejtimes.com\/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data\/focusoniraq\/2007\/September\/focusoniraq_September30.xml&section=focusoniraq\"> Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Are these guys Persian?<\/p>\n<p>Or Tutsi?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there any point waiting forIs there any point waiting for “something dramatic” to happen on the political front in Iraq? Maybe there is no political front.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe there is simply the security front–a blunt attempt to project US imperial military power into the heart of the Persian Gulf. The old “Project for a New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10,11,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}