Stratfor Weekly: Beyond the Iraq Campaign

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: "Howard Butcher, IV" <hbiv () netreach net>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:23:29 -0500
To: "David Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Fw: Stratfor Weekly: Beyond the Iraq Campaign

Dear Dave,  This might be of interest to you and the IP'rs.  Howard
 
 
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Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:05 PM
Subject: Stratfor Weekly: Beyond the Iraq Campaign


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THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
19 March 2003 
  
by Dr. George Friedman
  
Beyond the Iraq Campaign

Summary 

If the Iraq campaign ends as most expect, in a U.S. victory, the
most critical questions will be: What will be the next American
campaign in the war, and when will it happen? There are deep
pressures on the United States to call an extended halt to
operations while it regroups. However, events may not permit
this, and the place to be most concerned about is Iran.

Analysis 

There are wars. There are campaigns. There are battles. Winning
battles is the key to winning campaigns. Winning campaigns is the
key to winning wars. Knowing which you are fighting is the key to
making sense of the situation and planning strategy. If you
confuse winning a battle with winning a war, that could lead to
disaster. So too, confusing a victory in a campaign with a
victory in a war could lead to defeat in the war. Clarity is
indispensable. 

The United States is in a war with al Qaeda. The war began on
Sept. 11, 2001. It will conclude when the ability of al Qaeda or
related or follow-on forces, to attack the United States has been
sufficiently diminished that the United States has returned to a
state of relative security -- relative, since absolute security
does not exist in this world. The Iraq campaign is not that war.
It is a campaign within that war. It follows a previous campaign
-- Afghanistan -- and it will be followed by other campaigns.

In other words, Iraq is a means toward an end. It is not an end
in itself. It achieves nothing definitive by itself. Its purpose
is to enable the United States to achieve other ends later, ends
that will bring the nation closer to winning the war -- or so
Washington hopes. It is useful to think of Iraq in terms of the
New Guinea campaign of World War II: U.S. and Australian troops
fought there not because of any intrinsic value in New Guinea,
but because of its geographic and strategic value. The New Guinea
campaign helped block a Japanese invasion of Australia and served
as a springboard for later offensives. New Guinea's value was in
what it made possible later on, not in its intrinsic value. It
was not a war, just a campaign within a war.

Iraq, too, is a campaign within a war. It will not, by itself,
settle anything. Readers of Stratfor know it is our view that the
primary purpose of the Iraq war is to set the stage for
undermining the foundations of al Qaeda in particular and of
radical Islam as an effective paramilitary force in general. The
United States has found it enormously difficult to attack al
Qaeda directly. Mapping out the al Qaeda network -- a sparse
global system of operatives -- is intrinsically difficult. Taking
effective action against it on a global, retail level has proven
even harder. 

The United States has tried to find the center of gravity of al
Qaeda -- the one spot which, if struck, would cause the system
itself to collapse. Al Qaeda is structured to deny an attacker
the luxury of a center of gravity. The closest the United States
could get to one would be the support systems upon which al Qaeda
depends -- financial support and distribution, recruitment,
command and control centers, training centers. Al Qaeda doesn't
float on air. It is connected to the earth through its support
systems. Those support systems, in turn, have locations. If the
United States can cause the host countries to attack these
operations, then al Qaeda's ability to operate will be severely
curtailed. Victory in the war will become possible.

Al Qaeda shrewdly has distributed these operations in several
countries. Instead of depending on state support, they have
simply relied upon non-governmental entities to cooperate with
them in providing facilities. These non-governmental entities are
not necessarily supported by local governments, but they normally
consist of individuals with sufficient standing and influence
that acting against them would cause political instability.
Therefore, the host countries have chosen not to act, fearing
instability resulting from suppression more than they have feared
the United States. 

These countries -- Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and so
forth -- cannot simply be said to be working with al Qaeda. Quite
the contrary, some, like Pakistan, have taken at least some steps
against al Qaeda. But they share this in common: Whether
unwilling or unable, they have not taken definitive steps to
render al Qaeda's support systems inoperative within their
territory. Moreover, in the case of Iran, for example, the danger
that Iranian weapons of mass destruction will be transferred by
some means to al Qaeda remains substantial.

The occupation of Iraq will provide the United States with a base
of operations from which to influence -- and coerce -- regional
powers into attacking internal sources of support for al Qaeda.
It also will help to deter state support. Therefore, the real
question now is what will happen at the close of the Iraq
campaign and where United States' war on al Qaeda will lead it
next. 

The politico-military logic of the situation argues for a very
rapid exploitation of the Iraq campaign, and a rapid evolution to
new confrontation in the region. There are a number of reasons we
think this won't happen.

1. The United States is exhausted by the Iraq campaign at all
levels. The American public has been dealing with this issue for
months. The Bush administration has gone through intense internal
and external struggles that will require a period of reevaluation
and possibly reorganization and personnel changes. U.S. troops
are exhausted. The military reserve system has been stretched to
the limits. It needs radical surgery if it is to sustain the
United States through the rest of the war.

2. It is important for the lessons of the Iraq campaign to sink
into countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. If the campaign
goes well, two points will sink in: First, that the international
system, alliances and institutions cannot contain American power;
there is no protection there. And second, that the American
ability to exercise warfare at extreme distances is overwhelming.
Therefore, resistance to the United States is less rational than
accommodating the United States. Since Washington seeks a change
of behavior -- and war is merely a means toward that end -- time
must be taken to allow the lessons of Iraq to be absorbed.

3. The United States has issues outside of the Iraq region. The
North Korean affair is orders of magnitude less serious than the
war against al Qaeda, but it must be attended to. Of far greater
importance is Pakistan, which remains the critical center of al
Qaeda operations. Each time the Musharraf government appears to
collaborate with the United States, it becomes a bit less stable.
There are forces in Pakistan that would like, for a range of
reasons, to overthrow Musharraf. Some are simply ambitious,
others want to reshape Pakistan in a secular mode. The most
important of these forces are radical Islamists who want to halt
Pakistani cooperation with the United States. Washington has a
vested interest in the Musharraf government. It has no desire to
see another ambitious general in charge, and it has no belief
that a secular government would produce anything beyond a civil
war that would make attacks on al Qaeda even more difficult. It
does not want to see an Islamist government. Washington has
interests to manage in Pakistan. It has issues in the Philippines
and Indonesia. Time is needed to tend to these.

4. There are tremendous opportunities for the United States in
Europe. The Franco-German bloc has maneuvered itself right up
against a brick wall. Washington has opportunities to consolidate
its relationships in Europe in the wake of successful war --
particularly one in which proof of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction would be available. Pushing Europe into another
campaign prematurely would undermine that process. Waiting could
well create broad European support for the war. The dynamics are
there in Europe, but it will take time to bring them to fruition.

The problem that the United States faces right now is that, while
a pause in operations makes both operational and political sense,
enemy actions dictate whether this option will be available.
Syria and Saudi Arabia are not really concerns. The Syrians, who
shortly will be surrounded on all sides, are nothing if not
practical. They understand reality. Saudi leaders already have
capitulated to the war, allowing U.S. forces to be based within
the kingdom. The Saudis will go through a very painful time, but
in the end the royal family consists of realists -- and whatever
dreams some of the younger members might have had, U.S. divisions
on Saudi Arabia's northern border will breed moderation. The
regime will cooperate more avidly than before.

But Iran is the basic issue. U.S. officials said last week that
they are concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons program. That was
not a casual statement. The Iranians said they knew that they
were next on Washington's target list. That wasn't a casual
statement either. One might think the logical move would be for
Tehran to reassure Washington about both its nuclear program's
security and its ability to control al Qaeda -- but that isn't
all that easy to do either.

The United States is not concerned with the current intentions of
the Iranian state. Washington is concerned about what those
intentions will be in the future. It is concerned about who will
constitute the Iranian state in the future. It is concerned about
the internal political processes in Tehran and whether the state
apparatus can control quasi-state and non-state processes. In
other words, the United States must, by the logic of the campaign
in Iraq, be deeply concerned not only about the intentions of the
Iranian government, but also the intentions of a host of non-
governmental actors. Iran is inherently unpredictable. It is also
a complex, sophisticated and -- on many levels -- competent
country. 

Competence and unpredictability are the things that most endanger
the United States in the Islamic world. Therefore, if the United
States has its way, months, perhaps a year, will elapse before it
chooses to confront Iran. However, Washington may not have this
luxury, depending on the pace of Iranian weapons programs and the
degree of control that President Mohammed Khatami's government
has over them. The ideal evolution for the United States would be
to reach a stable understanding with the Khatami regime over
Iran's weapons programs and its relations with al Qaeda. However,
as in other cases, it is not clear that the president of Iran has
the ability to deal authoritatively with the United States.

Therefore, depending on how rapidly events evolve in Iran, the
United States might find itself embroiled in a crisis there. The
U.S. military is certainly not ready for another campaign against
a country the size of Iran at this time. It is capable of
attacking known weapons of mass destruction facilities in Iran --
so long as they are known. Which brings us back to where we came
in -- next door, in Iraq.

It would appear to us that the United States will try to spend
the next year reconstructing Iraq, building military facilities
there and probing the responses of neighboring countries. It will
use the time to exploit the French miscalculation in Europe and
to deal with peripheral issues in places like North Korea or the
Philippines. Pakistan must now be a focus. The United States
certainly will want time to regroup and reorganize its forces. At
the same time, the probes can result in rebuffs. Campaigns are
not always planned.

It appears to us that, sooner or later, the settlement of the
Iraq issue must lead to Iran, whatever the detours might be.
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