$8.95 • by Michael Hart by Seth G. Seth Jones by 2012 Apr

/ The Varied LifeThe Varied of Ike Mar Beinart’s Woeful Warning Struggle in Nigeria Who Lost Vietnam? •

Wilson’s GhostWilson’s A Stubborn Land Land A Stubborn

John Campbell Symposium Shribman David M. Gentile P. Gian 118 Number Jacob Heilbrunn

Britain’s Afghan AgonyBritain’s

The West’s LimitedTheLegacy West’s Afghanistan Past and Future: www.nationalinterest.org

THE NATIONAL INTEREST ◊ NUMBER 118 ◊ MAR / APR 2012 a) more oil b) more natural gas c) more wind d) more solar e) more biofuels f) energy efficiency g) all of the above

To enhance America’s energy and economic security, we must secure more of the energy we consume. That means expanding the use of wind, solar and biofuels, as well as opening new offshore areas to oil and gas production. Through efficiency and increased domestic production, we can reduce the flow of dollars overseas and invest those funds at home to create new jobs and billions in new government revenue. BP is the nation’s largest energy investor, and we’d like to do more. Learn more at bp.com/us.

beyoned p troleum®

© 2009 BP Products North America Inc.

Untitled-1 1 8/7/09 2:34:08 PM

Client: BP Safety: 6” x 9” Mechanical Scale: 100% Campaign: BP Energy Security Trim: 7” x 10” Format: Full Page 4/C Ad #: BP-09-1N R2 Bleed: 7.5” x 10.5” Printer: Ad Title: Tickmark - More of the above (with copy) Media Vendor / Publication: Version/Revision #: V2 The National Interest / Foreign Affairs Date Modified: March 31, 2009 Operator: rt/AC/rt Schawk Docket #:886691-05

Number 118 . March/April 2012

The Realist

5 The False Neocon View of Reagan by Robert W. Merry There’s a dangerous illusion in the neocon legend of Ronald Reagan—that he abruptly changed course in Cold War policy and set the country upon the expansive overseas adventurism of the past decade. This is false. Reagan waged the Cold War as his predecessors had, and he never embraced the views of latter-day neocons. We must beware of faulty lessons about his stewardship.

Articles

8 West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality by Michael Hart The military outcome in Afghanistan won’t resemble the vision of America and its allies, who wanted a strong, Western-aligned central government keeping the Taliban at bay. But the Taliban still may be confined to the country’s southern and eastern enclaves, and al-Qaeda could be thwarted from establishing staging bases there. Reality suggests the goals should now be less ambitious.

20 Iraq’s Federalism Quandary by Sean Kane, Joost R. Hiltermann and Raad Alkadiri Beyond the growing sectarian violence besetting Iraq, the country also faces major questions regarding its federal structure—essentially, the power-sharing arrangements between Baghdad and Iraq’s various regions. A solution to this nettlesome question probably requires granting a greater level of autonomy to the country’s Kurds than to other regions.

31 Nigeria’s Battle for Stability by John Campbell Despite a veneer of democracy, this oil-rich West African nation has suffered from dysfunctional governance for decades. The recent election of Goodluck Jonathan hasn’t improved things, and tensions between the Christian South and the Muslim North are rising. With Nigerians wondering if their country can hold together, the need for creative American diplomacy increases.

Symposium

40 Does Libya Represent a New Wilsonism? Last issue’s cover story by Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Ray Takeyh—“Triumph of the New Wilsonism”— suggested America’s Libyan incursion could represent the ascendancy of a new doctrine placing far greater emphasis on humanitarian considerations than national interest in driving presidential war decisions. Now we hear from three leading thinkers on the subject—Leslie H. Gelb, Patrick J. Buchanan and Marc Lynch. Gvosdev and Takeyh then reply. Reviews & Essays

52 Imperial Britain’s Afghan Agony by Seth G. Jones America’s decade-long effort to shape events in Afghanistan has many historical antecedents. None ended in greater tragedy than Britain’s involvement in those fierce mountain lands from 1838–1842. The result was the slaughter of some eight thousand troops and support personnel. Diana Preston offers an account of this sad tale that is both well researched and well written.

59 Even Academics Like Ike Now by David M. Shribman Dwight D. Eisenhower was a paradoxical man—warm in large groups but frosty in person; not an intellectual but steeped in history; in many ways a simple man who dominated the giants of his time, in the nation and the world, for fifteen years. Now comes Jean Edward Smith’s hefty biography offering fresh insight into how a man so self-effacing could be so effective.

69 Beinart’s Quest to Save Zionism by Jacob Heilbrunn How can Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu mobilize American politicians so forcefully against a U.S. president manifestly committed to Israeli interests? Peter Beinart’s powerful new book offers a provocative answer: prominent U.S. Jewish leaders have commandeered once-proud Jewish organizations and turned them into a potent agency for Likud Party interests.

79 Great Catherine’s Many Dimensions by Richard S. Wortman She was brilliant, willful, clever, charismatic and utterly dedicated to her adopted Russia. And Catherine the Great’s stirring story is captured by biographer Robert K. Massie with his usual literary lilt and narrative drive. But, by focusing on her personal life, Massie slights her role as absolute monarch obsessed with the enlightenment and power of the country she ruled.

89 The Better War That Never Was by Gian P. Gentile The “better-war” thesis argues that the general in charge of this or that failed war could have succeeded brilliantly if he had just pursued different tactics. But often this misses entirely the crucial role of faulty strategies. William Westmoreland’s Vietnam ordeal offers a case in point. Though not a brilliant general, he deserves better than this latest assault by Lewis Sorley.

Images Corbis: pages 11, 14, 16, 42, 60, 63, 66, 83, 85, 88, 91, 94; Getty: pages 24, 26, 29, 47, 49, 54, 57; iStockPhoto: pages 35, 37, 71, 74, 78 Published by The Center for the National Interest

Maurice R. Greenberg Chairman Henry A. Kissinger Honorary Chairman James Schlesinger Chairman, Advisory Council

Robert W. Merry Editor Dimitri K. Simes Publisher & CEO Lewis E. McCrary Managing Editor Paul J. Saunders Associate Publisher Abby E. Arganese Assistant Managing Editor Alexa McMahon Assistant Managing Editor Advisory Council Robert Golan-Vilella Assistant Editor Morton Abramowitz Graham Allison Senior Editors Patrick J. Buchanan Daniel W. Drezner Ahmed Charai Nikolas K. Gvosdev Leslie H. Gelb Jacob Heilbrunn Evan G. Greenberg Anatol Lieven Zalmay Khalilzad Contributing Editors John J. Mearsheimer Aram Bakshian Jr. Richard Plepler Ian Bremmer Alexey Pushkov Ted Galen Carpenter Brent Scowcroft Ariel Cohen Ruth Wedgwood Bruce Hoffman J. Robinson West Paul R. Pillar Dov Zakheim Kenneth M. Pollack

Owen Harries Editor Emeritus Cover Design: Emma Hansen Robert W. Tucker Editor Emeritus Cover Images: ©Reza Deghati/Corbis

Editorial Office The National Interest, 1615 L Street, nw, Suite 1230, Washington, dc 20036. Telephone: (202) 467-4884, Fax: (202) 467-0006, Email: [email protected], Website: http://nationalinterest.org Subscription Office Postmaster and subscribers please send address changes and subscription orders to: The National Interest, P.O. Box 9001, Maple Shade, nj 08052-9662. Telephone: (856) 380-4130; (800) 344-7952 Rate: $39.95/yr. Please add $20/year outside the United States and Canada. The National Interest (ISSN 0884-9382) is published bimonthly by the Center for the National Interest. Articles are abstracted and indexed in P.A.I.S., Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, U.S. Political Science Documents, Political Science Abstracts and America: History and Life; articles are available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, and archived on Lexis-Nexis. Periodicals postage is paid at Washington, dc, and at additional mailing offices. ©2012 by The National Interest, Inc. The National Interest is printed by Fry Communications, Inc. It is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Ingram Periodicals (18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne, tn 37086; 615-793-5522) and Source Interlink Companies (27500 Riverview Center Blvd., Bonita Springs, fl 34134; 239-949-4450). The Realist

gan’s forceful—and successful—confronta- The False Neocon tion with Soviet Communism in the 1980s. Back in 2002, when neoconservative war View of Reagan advocates were beating the drums for the Iraq invasion, William Kristol, editor of By Robert W. Merry the neoconservative Weekly Standard, told the Financial Times: “Americans see clear- ly which are democratic states and which f all the U.S. presidents since are tyrannies in the world today, as they Franklin Roosevelt, none stands did when the Soviet Union was the main O taller in history or exercises a enemy.” Writing in Kristol’s magazine, greater lingering influence on American Reuel Marc Gerecht declared that George politics than Ronald Reagan. Republican W. Bush’s “liberation theology” constituted politicians invoke his name as example and a “Reaganesque approach.” Bush himself, lodestar, and Democrats have granted him in declaring that the “advance of freedom is increasing respect as the passions of his the calling of our time,” invoked Reagan as presidential years have ebbed with time. a progenitor of his missionary drive. Some Surveys of academics on presidential perfor- months later, Kristol noted admiringly that mance, initially dismissive, now rank him Bush’s foreign-policy advisers, nudging the among the best of the White House breed. country to war, were “all Reaganites.” Even President Obama has extolled his ap- More recently, these efforts to wrap Bush’s proach to presidential leadership. aggressive foreign policy in a Reagan blan- This veneration poses a dark danger— ket have been duplicated in the rhetoric that Reagan will become associated with of the now-dwindling field of candidates philosophies he never held and policies he for this year’s gop presidential nomination. never pursued. This is happening today Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt with increasing force as neoconservative Gingrich all identified Reagan as a model intellectuals and politicians seek to con- for the foreign-policy bellicosity they es- flate Reagan’s Cold War strategy with their poused with such zeal during the campaign. push for American global dominance in This is all specious. The West’s Cold War the name of American values. Their aim is victory was a triumph of foreign-policy real- to equate today’s Islamic fundamentalism ism, not neocon pugnacity. It came about with Russian Bolshevism and thus boost the through measured, deliberate decision mak- argument that U.S. military actions in the ing over decades. If the victory teaches us Middle East are a natural extension of Rea- anything about American foreign policy in our time, it is that the country should not Robert W. Merry is editor of The National Interest have abandoned its successful Cold War and the author of books on American history and steadiness for the provocative sledgehammer foreign policy. approach adopted after 9/11.

The Realist March/April 2012 5 The West’s Cold War victory was a triumph of foreign-policy realism, not neocon pugnacity. It came about through measured, deliberate decision making over decades.

Kristol captured the neocon Cold War serious dialogue far more promising than narrative when he wrote in 2005 that Tru- anything Nixon encountered, and Reagan man’s defensive “containment” policy was quickly moved to exploit that opportunity. appropriate to the early Cold War chal- Like Reagan, the neoconservatives of that lenge, but “Reagan was able, two decades day rejected the pessimism that had encum- later, to go further and to talk of transcend- bered the Nixon and Ford administrations. ing or overwhelming communism.” This But they also embraced the idea of morality suggests Reagan’s approach departed funda- in foreign policy far more than Reagan did. mentally from what had come before. Along the way, they perpetrated the myth Not so. Reagan’s policies were built upon of the Reagan presidency: the notion that the foundation established by his two gop the fortieth president was a champion of predecessors, Presidents Richard Nixon and foreign-policy initiatives based on an emo- Gerald Ford, and their predecessors going tional devotion to moral precepts. back to Truman. Like them, Reagan sought If that were the case, why did candidate to contain the Soviets and deflate their in- Reagan in 1979 pluck from relative ob- fluence while engaging them on matters scurity a Georgetown University political ripe for discussion. But there were four dif- scientist named Jeane Kirkpatrick based on ferences between Reagan and, for example, her attack on the Carter administration for Nixon. First, Reagan, unlike Nixon, had attempting to force democratic reforms on sufficient political support at home to ex- autocratic leaders aligned with the United pand the American military and force the States? And why, as president, did he mani- Soviets into an arms race they could not fest such reluctance to withdraw U.S. sup- win. Second, Reagan exploited that oppor- port from Ferdinand Marcos of the Philip- tunity by wrapping his real-world maneu- pines when a popular uprising emerged verings in the rhetoric of American idealism against his autocratic rule? and democratic virtue. Nixon thought he No, Reagan’s focus was on winning the could stir the nation with his ultimate suc- Cold War, and his genius was in seeing cess. Reagan, a far better politician, under- that it was actually possible to do so when stood that stirring the nation was a precon- almost nobody else in America could visu- dition of success. Third, Reagan expunged alize it. True, he employed stronger anti- from government the lingering vestiges of Soviet rhetoric than his predecessors con- historical pessimism that had seeped into sidered politic or prudent. And he unfurled the Nixon-Ford presidencies—a feeling that stirring language of democratic idealism, the Soviets were on the right side of history which he genuinely felt. But he deployed no and the United States needed to negotiate large armies to foreign lands in the name of accordingly. Finally, Reagan encountered an Western democracy. He never sought to roll entirely different Kremlin sensibility when back communism in places where Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev emerged as Soviet lead- interests were most pronounced and would er. Gorbachev presented an opening for be most vociferously protected. His policies

6 The National Interest The Realist were the same policies of containment that the fundamental contrast between America’s had guided America’s Cold War strategy Cold War adversary and today’s far different since the time of Truman. Islamic fundamentalism. The Cold War was It is true that a fundamental debate a war of ideology, waged against a secular emerged within the Republican Party dur- dogma divorced from the cultural heritage ing the Nixon and Ford presidencies. And of any civilization or nation. With brutal Reagan stood foursquare against the “dé- efficiency, it superimposed itself upon the tente” policies adopted by those two presi- culture of civilizations and nations, smoth- dents, guided as they were by that historical ering those cultural traditions in the name pessimism that shrouded from their vision of an artificial world outlook. If this isn’t the underlying strength of America vis-à-vis civic evil, then the word has no meaning. the Soviets. Had Reagan adopted that ap- Islamic fundamentalism emanates from proach, America’s Cold War victory would the culture of Islam. It can be seen as a have been thwarted or much delayed. perversion of that culture but also as an But that was a debate over how to wage inevitable outgrowth of that culture—what the Cold War, not whether the Cold War German historian Oswald Spengler called should become a hot war. It was a debate the Magian civilization—at this particular within the realm of realism, not between point in its historical development. Either realism and neoconservatism. Indeed, the way, it has perpetrated plenty of evil acts. neoconservatives of Reagan’s day splat- But it can’t be divorced from the definition- tered him constantly with criticism for not al struggles within Islam and hence can’t be waging the Cold War more aggressively. divorced from Islam. Nor can it be divorced Only after his policies contributed to Wash- from the historical lesson that Samuel P. ington’s eventual triumph did they jump Huntington so brilliantly demonstrated— aboard and craft the narrative now put forth namely, that civilizational clashes are most by Kristol and others—that Reagan, with likely to be brutal, bloody and persistent themselves at his side, departed from tradi- because they concern the fundamental iden- tional Cold War doctrine and set the nation tities of peoples. Hence they are not easily on a new course that led directly to their adjudicated or negotiated away. Wilsonian ethos, to the Iraq invasion and to And so it should be clear that, if Amer- today’s foreign-policy adventurism. ica’s patient and measured realism was the Probably the most intriguing conflation right formula for the ideological struggle of of the Cold War with the West’s current the Cold War, which ultimately was about challenge from Islamic fundamentalism was power and the will to use it, then it is even George W. Bush’s pronouncement that Iraq, more apt for today’s civilizational confron- Iran and North Korea constituted an “axis tation, which is about emotional issues of of evil”—an obvious throwback to Reagan’s cultural identity. And no effort to recast controversial characterization of the Soviet Ronald Reagan or redefine Reaganism will Union as an “evil empire.” Herein we see change that reality. n

The Realist March/April 2012 7 West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality

By Michael Hart

he West’s military engagement in survive this and future efforts to dominate Afghanistan is entering its eleventh the country. Tyear and has another two years to Thus, it is possible to discern a picture of go before the end of combat operations in an Afghan future and to predict it will fall 2013 or 2014. Whatever the result of the far short of the high hopes that attended international conferences that began last Western engagement there following the al- year in Istanbul and Bonn to elicit sup- Qaeda attacks in America on September 11, port for a successor state, one thing is clear: 2001. These were hopes of an Afghanistan after Western forces draw down, Afghani- ruled effectively by a central government in stan won’t bear much resemblance to the Kabul aligned with the West and capable of Western vision that fueled the intervention keeping the Taliban at bay. Instead, West- in the first place. However effective West- ern influence will be severely reduced. The ern military organizations are in transi- central government in Kabul will prob- tioning to Afghan control, the country’s ably be weak, as it has been for most of future will not be decided primarily by the Afghanistan’s history. The centrifugal ef- residual structures and legacies of Western fect of Afghanistan’s ethnic geography will involvement, the current Taliban insurgen- be exacerbated by intensified involvement, cy or even any formal process of reconcilia- directly and by proxy, of competing exter- tion. Rather, it will be decided more by the nal powers. Pakistani, Indian and Iranian country’s ethnic character, the particular influence will increase, as will that of the nature of local and national governance, Afghan Taliban in Pashtun-majority areas and the influence of neighboring powers and probably within the Kabul political es- with enduring geopolitical and strategic tablishment. In the absence of a significant imperatives in the region far stronger than improvement in the relationship between those of the West. India and Pakistan, their geopolitical com- In other words, the future of Afghanistan petition, played out by proxy, could become will be determined by forces that antedate the dominant ideological conflict inside the latest Western effort to direct a turbu- Afghanistan. Given the weakness of the lent area—and which probably will long Afghan national polity, endemic corruption and economic dependence on international Michael Hart is a Royal Air Force (raf) officer aid, the long-term survival of any successor who served in Afghanistan from 2008–09 and regime is doubtful, even without the chal- was director of defense studies for the raf from lenge of a Taliban insurgency more coherent 2010–11. The views expressed in the article are his than the mujahideen insurgency of the late alone and do not represent those of Her Majesty’s 1980s and early 1990s. Government or the uk Ministry of Defence. Two fundamental strategic questions

8 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality Given the weakness of the Afghan national polity, endemic corruption and economic dependence on international aid, the long-term survival of any successor regime is doubtful.

emerge from this picture of the Afghan fu- Afghanistan and Pakistan that bisects the ture. First, in the event of a failure to man- region’s ethnic Pashtuns. That is because the age the insurgency in the South and East, demands of providing support to a major where the Taliban is strong and likely to counterinsurgency operation in Afghani- remain strong, can a non-Taliban redoubt stan would be significantly reduced after be sustained in northern Afghanistan? And, the military drawdown by America and its second, how effectively could influence be allies and because the example of the suc- projected into the Pashtun South in order cessful campaign that ejected the Taliban to prevent, if necessary, al-Qaeda from rees- from power in 2001 is well understood by tablishing an operational base in that area? all Afghan political players. On the first question, historical precedent Perhaps the key strategic lesson of more suggests a non-Taliban North can be sus- than ten years of Western involvement in tained. Before 2001, ethnic connections Afghanistan is that, despite the West’s eco- among Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara, com- nomic, technical and intellectual strength bined with external powers, provided suf- as well as its sophisticated expertise in coun- ficient support to the Northern Alliance to terinsurgency, it can’t effectively compete prevent a complete Taliban takeover of the against neighboring powers such as Paki- North. But it should be noted that Taliban stan, India and Iran, whose strategic inter- successes in first Herat and later Kunduz ests in the region make their involvement provided an opening for the organization’s both nondiscretionary and enduring. If the later campaign against the Northern Alli- West wishes to maintain the ability to proj- ance. This indicates that future durability ect power in Afghanistan following 2014, it is likely to depend on preventing any Tal- will have to leverage the antipathy toward iban footholds outside the Pashtun-majority the Taliban of non-Pashtun peoples in the areas in the South and East. But given the northern and western areas. This in turn strength of Iranian connections in western will require a willingness and ability to work Afghanistan, this probably would mean ac- effectively with neighboring players in the cepting significant Iranian influence over region that have significant influence with the outcome. certain of those non-Pashtuns of the North On the second question, it would ap- and West. It will also require a measure of pear that sufficient influence could be pro- diplomatic humility. jected into the Pashtun South and East to prevent the area from reverting to an ny effort to assess prospects for Af- operational base for al-Qaeda, should that A ghanistan after 2014 must begin with prospect emerge as a danger to the West. an examination of the current military state In other words, al-Qaeda’s freedom of op- of play. Since 2010, it has become pos- eration can be disrupted after 2015 on both sible to assess the military surge in southern sides of the Durand Line, the porous and Afghanistan, particularly in the provinces vaguely marked 1,600-mile border between of Helmand and Kandahar, and the pic-

West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality March/April 2012 9 ture is somewhat positive at the local level. This does not mean that Western actions It should be noted, however, that the in- between now and 2014 are irrelevant. Ef- creased military presence—and the inten- fective transition to an Afghan security ap- sified pressure on the Taliban—was never paratus is essential. For one thing, the in- intended to be permanent. The aim was stitutional reputation of Western armies to provide the Afghan government and the is at stake. But beyond that, it is clear that international community with sufficient without an effective transition, no Afghan breathing space to allow them to establish successor state can survive long. This makes governance with sufficiently strong roots the style, timing and nature of the West’s and legitimacy to endure and an Afghan withdrawal from combat operations highly security apparatus with the strength to pro- significant. Precipitate or sudden withdraw- tect it. al is likely to damage the fledgling Afghan Thus far, where Western forces, particu- National Army and will deny time for local larly Americans, are present in strength, the police forces to become effective. combination of numbers and the profes- But the transition, however it unfolds, sional expertise developed over a decade of is unlikely to define the long-term Afghan counterinsurgency has disrupted—and in future. That future will emerge from deep some areas reversed—the Taliban’s tactical historical, political, cultural, economic and momentum. The success can be measured geopolitical forces and trends, both in Af- in the reduced number of violent incidents ghanistan and across the region. These forces where troop densities are highest—down by and trends almost inevitably will sap West- more than 40 percent since 2009—and in ern influence in the region as the influence the change in tactics forced upon the Tal- of Afghans and their neighbors will increase. iban. Before 2008, for example, the Taliban This can be best understood through an ex- pursued direct engagements, but Western amination of the country’s ethnic makeup; tactics later forced it to make adjustments. its weak central government; the tribal and In 2009, the balance shifted toward ieds, other cultural elements of the South and and in 2010, with the Taliban increasingly East dominated by Pashtuns, and of the pressured in Helmand and Kandahar, the North and the Hazarajat, largely anti-Pash- insurgents turned to assassinations of Af- tun territory; and the geopolitical impera- ghan government officials and high-profile tives of Afghanistan’s neighbors. gun and suicide-bomb attacks in Kabul. But the Taliban’s tactical adjustments rep- thnicity is a key determinant of iden- resent a double-edged sword. One edge E tity in Afghanistan. It also affects how reflects the effective counterinsurgency neighboring countries interact with Af- campaign pursued by America and its al- ghans. The country’s population includes lies. The other reflects the adaptability and Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara, Baluch, resilience of the Taliban. Indeed, notwith- Kuchi and Uighurs. The largest ethnic standing tactical and local gains by America group is the Pashtun, with about 44 percent and the West, it is clear that the insurgency, of the population, most of it concentrated rooted in Afghan Pashtun society and pro- across the southern areas of the country tected by cross-border sanctuaries, will en- (and in northern Pakistan). There are also a dure well past 2015. As the cessation of number of Pashtun enclaves in northern Af- combat operations approaches, the ability ghanistan, established by the British in the of Western military forces to control events nineteenth century. The Uzbek and Tajik will wane significantly. populations are centered north of Kabul,

10 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality the Hazara in the mountainous areas to the nation together through his national rec- west of Kabul. onciliation and pacification program of the This ethnic geography carries immense late 1980s. But Najibullah was a far more weight in determining the Afghan future. effective national leader who understood After Western withdrawal, the Taliban will the wider societal and political issues of the probably not be able to exert effective con- day better than Karzai and engaged with trol over the whole of Afghanistan. Essen- them more effectively. His People’s Demo- tially a Pashtun phenomenon, it will be dif- cratic Party of Afghanistan was a political ficult for the Taliban to command sufficient party with national reach; the Karzai years support in non-Pashtun areas to hold sway have not spawned any such party organiza- there. But the Taliban is strong enough tion with comparable influence. The 2011 amongst the Pashtuns to rapidly exert con- formation of the Truth and Justice Party, trol over large areas in the South and East if which seeks to represent a broad range of residual structures fail. ethnic groups and ideological positions, is a Afghanistan’s central government also belated attempt to put this right. However poses a big question mark for the coun- rapidly the party develops, it isn’t likely to try. The government almost surely will be challenge successfully the well-established weak—a consequence in large measure of local and regional power brokers or take on President Karzai’s two terms in office. His the Taliban in the South and East. government has been undermined by cor- Still, the events that preceded Najibullah’s ruption, famil- ial and Pashtun nepotism, and a failure to en- gage consistently with the wider Kabul polity. At the provincial level and below, Karzai’s politi- cal situation is not much better. Lack of effec- tive government and the Taliban challenge have undermined his standing, and his support among Pashtuns in the South has declined precipitately. fall in 1992 have a depressing contemporary There are surface parallels between Kar- resonance. His government fell after the zai’s attempt to function as a national leader collapse of the Soviet Union led to the end and the leadership of Mohammed Najibul- of Soviet support for the Kabul regime. But lah, head of the Soviet successor state in even before that, the country’s extended Kabul. Najibullah also sought to bring the crisis contained elements of corruption,

West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality March/April 2012 11 Despite the West’s economic, technical and intellectual strength as well as its expertise in counterinsurgency, it can’t effectively compete against neighboring powers such as Pakistan, India and Iran.

financial collapse, scarcity of resources and Afghan political influence in the South and chronic overdependence on foreign sup- East. port. In 1988, 75 percent of Afghan state Then there are the twin issues of per- revenue derived from projects dependent sonality and deeply ingrained behavioral on Soviet support. And in 1991, internally patterns at the national level. One might generated revenue provided just 30 percent think that the civil war of the 1990s and of a declining gdp. The inability of today’s the subsequent Taliban government, fol- Afghanistan to generate the revenue to meet lowed by the Taliban overthrow, would the financial burden of maintaining an ex- have brought new governmental and po- panded national army and police force is litical players to the fore. But the Afghan eerily reminiscent of the immediate post- national polity seems to be dominated by Soviet era, after the abrupt collapse of So- the same people as before, and it is strik- viet support left the country economically ing how difficult it is for outsiders to break on its own. into it, even in the face of these traumas. A joint Afghan and World Bank report Many of the key figures have been major issued in November 2011 stated that, as- players in Afghan national politics far lon- suming effective development of Afghan ger than Karzai, which may account for minerals and national economic growth of some of his difficulties. With the exception 5–6 percent a year for a decade, expendi- of Ahmed Shah Massoud and Burhanud- tures would still exceed revenues by some din Rabbani, both killed by the Taliban, 25 percent, or $7.2 billion a year. Even almost all the key players of the 1990s re- when the cost of maintaining the secu- main active today. rity forces is removed, spending exceeds But another important reality is that reciepts by 11 percent. And this is based on none of these men has obvious credentials the assumption that security will improve as a potential national leader. They are dis- sufficiently to allow for the exploitation tinctly ethnic or regional players. The result of mineral resources. That may not be a is that there has been a dearth of alternative realistic assumption. The Senate Foreign potential national leaders. This reflects, in Relations Committee issued a similarly part, the ethnic and local nature of Afghan pessimistic report. The international com- society and politics. But deliberate policy munity may make available greater support comes into play as well. Karzai raised con- than the ussr was able to give Najibullah, cerns among American policy makers in but it still may not be enough to offset 2010 when he sacked two top governmental the weakness of any national government officials—Interior Minister Mohammad following Western disengagement, not to Hanif Atmar and intelligence chief Amrul- mention the existence and durability of lah Saleh—after they failed to prevent an the Taliban. A more ideologically coherent attack on a Kabul peace council. Such ac- opponent than the mujahideen insurgency, tions belie any idea of an orderly political today’s Taliban is the dominant indigenous succession. Thus, the collective behavior of

12 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality the Kabul polity is likely to revert to that of control and governance was followed by the early 1990s—jockeying for individual Taliban success in retaking that territory. and ethnic advantage as well as the forma- Away from the areas of direct Western mili- tion of unstable, shifting alliances suscep- tary control, Taliban “shadow governance” tible to external exploitation and military is far stronger than the writ of Kabul. It is pressure. true that the surge of American forces in It should be noted that, in Najibullah’s southern Afghanistan has produced signifi- day, the expectation that Soviet withdrawal cant tactical gains, and Afghan forces, men- would precipitate a large-scale and success- tored by Western soldiers, have begun to ful mujahideen offensive effectively under- perform more effectively. But once Western cut Najibullah’s policy of national recon- military forces are removed, Taliban influ- ciliation. When the mujahideen failed to ence and control will likely expand once capture Kabul following a military defeat again. The models of provincial governance at Jalalabad, the idea of reconciliation tem- imposed or attempted by the West are not porarily gained renewed momentum. A sufficiently deep or rooted to endure in similar pattern could emerge today as im- Pashtun-majority areas. minent Western withdrawal is sensed. But In Helmand, the residual British model, a major Taliban defeat in southern or east- based as it is on an external technocrat, ef- ern Afghanistan isn’t likely. Without active fectively relied upon one man, Governor Western military partners, it is doubtful Gulbuddin Mangal, for several years. Even the Afghan National Army will prosecute without a Taliban challenge, in the absence a successful counterinsurgency campaign of Western military forces, local rivals with against the resilient and resourceful Taliban. genuine roots in Helmandi society such Once the extent of Taliban political control as Sher Muhammad Akhundzada would over the hinterland becomes plain, the na- have rapidly engineered Mangal’s removal. tional army’s Pashtun soldiers could leave en These men draw their power and author- masse. That would mean the struggle taking ity as much from business interests, includ- on an ethnic cast, as the residue of trained ing narcotics, as from any traditional tribal Tajiks (overrepresented within the officer structures or patronage networks, which corps), Panjshiris and Uzbeks assumes the were substantially destroyed in the Soviet bulk of resisting any Taliban spillover from occupation. However, despite their ability the Pashtun areas. Thus there is a strong to raise and arm militias, they are unlikely possibility that the country will return to to be any more effective in resisting the the politics and conflict of the 1990s, char- Taliban’s political and religious appeal and acterized by ethnic and geographic divisions military power in 2015 than they were in and passions. 1994–96. By 2011, the structures of gov- It is premature and perhaps unduly pes- ernance underpinning Mangal were more simistic to talk of a Taliban protostate in resilient, but their viability in the absence southern and eastern Afghanistan. But after of the security provided by Western soldiers 2015, the Pashtun South and East will al- remains questionable. most inevitably come under increased Tal- There are few reasons to anticipate du- iban influence. Taliban strength and resil- rability in the U.S. model in the Pashtun ience are based as much on a natural affin- areas of eastern Afghanistan. The practice ity with the population as on intimidation was to install a strongman from outside the or the Kabul government’s weakness. Before province as governor. In Nangarhar, Gover- 2010, each successive attempt to extend nor Gul Agha Sherzai established a credible

West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality March/April 2012 13 level of security. But then bombings in a infiltrated suicide attackers through Wardak Jalalabad bazaar in 2010 demonstrated just and Logar to targets in Kabul. The influ- how tenuous that security really was. The ence of the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar resurgence of Taliban influence was stark- and his militia, loosely affiliated with the ly illustrated by an attack on Kabul Bank Taliban, is also strong in the area. in Jalalabad in early 2011. Residual tribal structures are stronger in the East than in ven at the apogee of its power, the Tal- the South, but there is little evidence that E iban never fully subdued the North, tribally based militias could resist a rever- and there is little appetite for a return to sion to Taliban control. Western withdrawal Taliban rule in northern and western Af- would thus almost certainly be followed ghanistan or the central Hazarajat. Given quickly in both the South and East by re- their experience with Taliban government, stored Taliban influence. Uzbeks and Tajiks aren’t likely to accept The Taliban will probably also increase future Taliban domination. A similar reluc- its influence in areas of mixed ethnicity, tance to accept Taliban control amongst the such as Wardak and Logar, near Kabul. In Shia Hazara can only have been increased the 1990s, these areas formed the initial by the brutal attacks on Shia pilgrims cele- boundary between Taliban and governmen- brating Ashura in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif tal forces. Since 2008, the Taliban, using in December 2011. This antipathy could the capabilities of the Haqqani network, has provide the basis for efforts to limit Taliban influence in northern and western Afghani- stan. Away from the Pash- tun South and East, in- dividuals such as Atta Muhammad Noor, gov- ernor of Balkh, have es- tablished security, pro- vided the basis for local stability and economic growth, and denied the Taliban a foothold. This model of gover- nance, rooted in local conditions and society, is inherently more sus- tainable than models imposed by the West. Governors such as Noor command respect and raise effective militias, and warlords such as Is- mail Khan in Herat have sufficient authority and capacity to provide the

14 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality basis for coherent resistance to Taliban en- valid alternative: support effective leaders in croachment. Crucially, they also have over- northern Afghanistan in order to provide a riding personal and ethnic incentives to do non-Taliban redoubt based in the Panjshir so. Valley, Mazar-i-Sharif (which dominates As Western military disengagement ap- trade routes to central Asia), the Hazarajat proaches, preventing the Taliban from per- and Herat. This approach is likely to be suading individual northern power brokers more fruitful than attempting to sustain a to change sides will be critical. This gives successor regime of limited strength and added significance to the northern Pashtun uncertain durability in Kabul. pockets and eliminating Taliban shadow governance within them. In its mid-1990s ike nature, geopolitics abhors a vac- advance, the Taliban established almost un- L uum. The looming cessation of full stoppable momentum by developing local Western military engagement will precipi- shadow governance before launching mili- tate intensified encroachment of Afghani- tary operations. This expedited its mili- stan’s neighbors on the Afghan polity, econ- tary success. In this way it captured Herat omy, society and, in some cases, the insur- (which cut direct links from Iran to the gency. Iran, Pakistan, India, China and Rus- Hazarajat and Mazar-i-Sharif) in September sia have the ability to project influence and 1995, and it then reinforced the Pashtun power into Afghanistan. Their geographi- pocket of Kunduz (by air from Kabul) in cal proximity and political, economic and 1997. This laid the foundations of its cam- cultural linkages with Afghanistan ensure paign against Mazar-i-Sharif. depth and durability in their engagement. The revival of the National Front after Their motivations range from ethnic and the assassination of Rabbani indicates an cultural affinity to complex interrelation- appetite to prevent Taliban dominance of ships with external strategic issues such as the North and the Hazarajat. The prospect Kashmir, which acts to drive both Pakistani of containment after 2015 depends on pre- and Indian policy in Afghanistan. venting the development of such Taliban Western withdrawal will force Iran to momentum, which may persuade individ- consider its policy choices. Before 2001, it ual northern leaders that their best interest regarded Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as is achieved by cutting deals with the Tal- a major threat. Thus it deployed troops to iban. Taliban shadow governance across the the Afghan border and provided military North, the West and the Hazarajat must be support to the Northern Alliance. Once undermined and preferably removed before confronted with the reality of Taliban influ- any pullout of international forces. An- ence in southern and eastern Afghanistan, other imperative is the defeat of the mini- Iran will sharpen its ethnic, cultural and insurgency in Kunduz, which contains the religious links with the Shia Hazara and its seed for wider Taliban success in the North memory of Taliban repression of the Hazara and provides a linkage with Uzbek militant in 1998–2000. Its ethnic interest will be to groups. The security of Herat also is crucial, ensure that the Taliban remains confined but this is most likely to be achieved by Ira- to the Pashtun South and East. This could nian soft power preventing Taliban control manifest itself in an agreement to allow a of the area. level of Taliban influence in western Af- History suggests that while the West’s ghanistan in return for nonrepression of preferred policy may be to support a na- the Hazara and the Hazarajat. But indirect tional successor regime in Kabul, there is a intervention to ensure the security of Herat

West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality March/April 2012 15 cannot be ruled out. Iran attempted that partnership agreements between Western through Ismail Khan in the 1990s. powers and Afghanistan leave Western bases The strength of Iranian soft power in within the country. It is likely to depend Herat and the Hazarajat gives Iran a level in large part on external factors such as the of durable influence in Afghanistan that the state of tensions over the Iranian nuclear West cannot hope to match. Iran addition- program, nervousness about the implica- ally remains well connected to the Kabul tions of the Arab Spring for Iran, wider body politic and is adept at using political relations with the United States, and Iran’s and economic levers (such as the periodic perception of the level of U.S. threat after threat to expel Afghan refugees) to achieve the departure of American combat forces political ends. This combination gives it from both Iraq and Afghanistan. significant influence over the sustainability Engagement with Pakistan is equally es- of post-2015 governance in Afghanistan. In sential. Pakistani involvement in Afghani- the context of Afghanistan’s future, Western stan is well chronicled and includes the engagement with Iran—including Ameri- willingness of elements of the Pakistani can engagement—could become a necessity. state, in particular its Inter-Services Intel- But it’s possible that Iran’s ethnic inter- ligence (isi), to support or at least provide est in Afghanistan could coincide with the sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban. There is

geopolitical interest of the West. Whether little evidence that the Pakistani military Iran’s supreme leader and the Islamic Revo- establishment has fundamentally changed lutionary Guard Corps will allow ethnic its perception that the Afghan Pashtuns, interests in Afghanistan to override ideology particularly the Afghan Taliban, are the and drive geopolitical behavior is a separate most effective Pashtun political force north question, particularly if formal strategic- of the Durand Line, providing essential

16 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality History suggests that Afghanistan ultimately always follows its own path, guided in arcane and often obscure ways by powerful competing forces.

strategic depth against India, as does the creation of a cross-border Pashtunistan and Kashmiri group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Personal cross-fertilization between the Afghan Tal- relationships between isi officers and senior iban and Pakistani militant groups such as Afghan Taliban leaders are deep and endur- Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Tehreek-e- ing. Western pressure is unlikely to change Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi. This will this. Western withdrawal from Afghanistan probably not be sufficient to deter the isi will lead Pakistan to seek to ensure Taliban (whose attitude toward both the Afghan control of the South and East and to gain Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba suggests it is as much influence in Kabul as possible, institutionally inclined to ride the tiger), not least to ensure Indian influence is lim- but the potential threat it poses to the Pak- ited and the specter of Indian encirclement, istani state may offer pause for thought whether real or imagined, is mitigated. among Pakistan’s military commanders and Following the fillip to Taliban morale political classes. that the cessation of full Western military Like Pakistan and Iran, India will be engagement will undoubtedly provide, and forced to recalibrate its Afghan policy as notwithstanding the hope that the estab- Western military operations cease. It is un- lishment of an Afghan Taliban office in likely to reduce its involvement. Increased Qatar will reduce Pakistani influence, Paki- Taliban power will deprive New Delhi of its stan is likely to be the only external power influence in southern and eastern Afghani- with significant influence over the Afghan stan and its intelligence on Kashmiri mili- Taliban leadership. Whether or how the tants such as Lashkar-e-Taiba fighting and Pakistani government wishes to exercise training in Afghanistan. Thus, India will such influence is a moot point. In the im- probably seek to bolster Tajik, Uzbek and mediate aftermath of a Western withdrawal, Hazara opposition to Taliban expansion. It viewed as a victory by elements of Pakistan’s may also increase support to Baluch separat- political and military elite and a significant ists operating from Afghanistan against Pak- majority of the Pakistani population, vague istan and consider action against Kashmiri warnings of future destabilization will have militants operating in Afghanistan. Con- limited effect. Like Iran, Pakistan is likely to tinued and intensified Indian involvement regard any strategic partnership between the in Afghanistan can only reinforce Pakistan’s West and Afghanistan with deep suspicion, determination to ensure Pashtun influence as it does the agreement signed between in Kabul and on the Afghan side of the Afghanistan and India in November 2011. Durand Line. It is also likely to reinforce One line of argument that may have po- Pakistan’s perception that this will best be tential in Islamabad is that Afghan Taliban achieved by an Afghan Taliban proxy. In control of southern and eastern Afghani- the absence of a radical improvement in the stan, combined with a continuing Paki- relationship between India and Pakistan, stani Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas, which is itself probably dependent on a would threaten to bring about the de facto political shift in the Kashmir dynamic, the

West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality March/April 2012 17 prospects for Afghanistan’s future after 2015 northern Afghanistan is likely to translate are likely to be undermined by the strate- into tangible support for Afghan Tajiks. gic competition between the two powers, which will be carried out inside Afghanistan istory suggests that Afghanistan ulti- by well-resourced proxies. H mately always follows its own path, Other neighboring powers also have en- guided in arcane and often obscure ways during interests. Russia has strong ethnic by powerful competing forces of ethnic- and political links with Uzbeks and Tajiks ity, tribalism, religion, geography, regional in Afghanistan. After 2014, any atavistic feuds, a fervor of national protectiveness attraction of watching the West “bleed” in and unbending obstinacy. For centuries, Afghanistan may be usurped by the im- these forces have militated against a strong pending geopolitical reality of the potential central government in Kabul and all man- for southern Afghanistan to develop into a ner of foreign incursion. neo-Taliban state with the power to export So will it be with the latest Western effort jihadism into central Asia. Russia is there- to fashion and direct the Afghan future. A fore likely to provide material and political measure of stability is possible following support to Uzbeks and Tajiks. Turkey has the decade-long Western involvement, if both ambitions as a regional Eurasian power the Taliban can be confined to majority- and strong links with Afghan Uzbeks and Pashtun areas, if the non-Taliban North can will provide support to them. resist Taliban incursion, if the influence of China will secure its economic interests, neighboring countries can help maintain particularly minerals, such as the Aynak an equilibrium of competing forces, and if copper mine, and probably protect ethnic Western nations—particularly America— Uighurs in Badakhshan. Uzbekistan has an exercise deft regional diplomacy combined incipient insurgency of its own and there- with a measure of restraint commensu- fore has little interest in seeing a Taliban- rate with their ability to influence regional controlled Afghanistan on its southern bor- events. der. Similarly, Tajikistan’s ethnic interest in After ten years of efforts to shape Af- ghan society in ways favorable to Western This article was derived entirely from open- interests, the long-term societal and geopo- source, unclassified material. The author is happy litical consequences of Western engagement to provide his extensive original footnotes and are very different from those envisaged in bibliography upon request. 2002. n

18 The National Interest West’s Afghan Hopes Collide with Reality

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary

By Sean Kane, Joost R. Hiltermann and Raad Alkadiri

ith U.S. combat troops out of is grudgingly accepted that the Kurds in Iraq and that country facing an northern Iraq should be able to retain the Wuncertain future, many challeng- level of autonomy acquired after the Gulf es hover over the lands of old Mesopotamia. War in 1991. But the details of this ar- The most ominous is the unsettled struggle rangement remain in dispute, and they raise over power, territory and resources among some difficult questions: Would Iraq remain the country’s political elites. While often de- viable as a country if other provinces were scribed in straightforward ethnic and sectar- to pursue similar autonomy? Even in the ian terms, this strife has gone through many context of the Kurdistan region, can reve- phases. Various alliances have come together nue-sharing arrangements that respect both and broken apart as the power struggle has Kurdish autonomy and Baghdad’s basic shifted from a sectarian street war to height- sovereign prerogatives be crafted? Would ened tensions between Baghdad and the those same arrangements work for oil-rich Kurdistan Regional Government (krg) in Basra in Iraq’s South or gas-rich Anbar in its Erbil. Most recently, the main axis of con- West? frontation has been between Prime Minister These are not dry, structural matters. Nuri al-Maliki’s Shia-led government and They drive deeply into emotionally held its putative governing partner, the mostly convictions on all sides. Iraq’s new constitu- Sunni Iraqiya list. tion describes the country as a federal state, One constant that complicates this mael- with significant grants of autonomy to Iraqi strom is the unresolved question of what Kurdistan as well as potentially to future re- kind of federal structure the new nation gions throughout the country. But the word should have—essentially, the power-sharing federalism remains one of the most charged arrangement between those who rule Bagh- in the Iraqi political lexicon. dad, the autonomous government in Erbil For Kurds, federalism has almost acquired and the country’s provincial leaders. the status of a religious belief system be- Within this puzzle reside a number of cause it is tied to their century-old quest for interlocking quandaries. For example, it their own state. But for many Iraqi Arabs, federalism is seen as synonymous with par- Sean Kane is a Truman Security Fellow and a tition. Especially among Iraqi nationalists, former United Nations official in Iraq. Joost R. there is fear that if the Kurdish federalist Hiltermann is deputy program director for the vision is implemented, it will bring about Middle East and North Africa at the International what Peter Galbraith, a controversial and Crisis Group. Raad Alkadiri is partner and head influential advisor to the krg, called “the of markets and country strategies at pfc Energy in end of Iraq.” Washington, dc. So far, this fundamental question of gov-

20 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary ernance has generated little more than stale- attachment to the notion of a centralized mate. Agreement between the federal gov- Iraq, leading national Sunni politicians and ernment and the krg on the final contours local leaders have now challenged Baghdad of their relationship has proved elusive. This by issuing symbolic declarations of provin- stalemate is most consequential in the realm cial autonomy. of oil and gas development, which will gen- All this friction raises questions about erate an estimated $1 trillion in revenue whether the constitution contains intrinsic over the coming decade. The krg has pro- flaws that prevent accommodation. It is posed a revenue-sharing regimen that not based on the idea that federalism should be only would protect Kurdistan’s share of the symmetrical, meaning that levels of auton- pie but also would reduce the federal govern- omy should be equivalent for all regional ment to little more than a cash clearinghouse governments. And therein lies the conun- that disburses oil and gas revenue around drum. When the constitution was written, the country. Not surprisingly, this proposal it was unrealistic to expect the Kurds to re- is totally unacceptable to Maliki’s regime. treat from the self-governance they achieved In the meantime, the krg moved defiantly through their long struggle and blood in- to sign contracts with more than twenty- vestment during the Saddam years. Their five international oil companies, including, post-1991 Gulf War autonomy became the most recently, the world’s largest, ExxonMo- effective floor for regional authority in the bil. Baghdad has rejected the contracts on constitution. But if the rest of Iraq were to grounds that they require its approval. For get this one-size-fits-all style of autonomy, good measure, it also blacklisted the compa- the survival not only of the central govern- nies that signed them (but has yet to decide ment but of the country itself could be what approach to take toward Exxon, which threatened. Hence Baghdad’s hard line with already has contracts in the South). Erbil and fierce response to any new re- Meanwhile, the deadlock between Bagh- gional initiatives. dad and Erbil has complicated efforts to es- We believe that rather than pursuing the tablish a workable relationship between the principle of symmetrical federalism, Iraq state and Iraq’s other provinces. Given the should instead pursue a deliberately asym- strong association between federalism and metrical federal model under which the the Kurds’ ultimate desire for statehood, level of autonomy granted to the krg would almost any exploration of greater local au- be exclusive. Such a model would recognize tonomy by the provinces raises suspicions of the unique oil-contracting abilities of the a partitionist agenda. krg while also safeguarding Baghdad’s fiscal In the current debate, the federalism and monetary powers as well as authority dispute has come full circle. During the over oil contracting elsewhere. writing of the 2005 constitution—a period According to this concept, Baghdad could of intense civil strife—a powerful group negotiate with the provincial governments of Shia Islamists openly championed the over precisely what level of autonomy they Kurdish-inspired model of ethnosectarian should enjoy. No longer would the Kurdis- federalism as a hedge against the return of a tan example serve to complicate these sepa- Sunni strongman such as Saddam Hussein. rate discussions, and Baghdad would be Now, however, with U.S. troops gone, Iraq’s freed from its current fears that this federal- Sunni-majority provinces worry about an ism conundrum threatens to turn Iraq into unchecked and autocratic Shia-led govern- a mere agglomeration of competing regional ment in Baghdad. Despite their emotional entities.

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary March/April 2012 21 Some might argue that the prospects are their source. But it seems clear that the cur- dim for implementing such a system at any rent federal concept retards efforts to resolve point soon. To be sure, Iraq faces a number the high-stakes competition for power and of daunting immediate challenges that in resources. Removing that barrier could en- turn have spawned two disparate responses. hance prospects for resolving these conflicts One is that the only way to keep Iraq to- in a reasonably amicable way. gether is to fully implement the federal model in the constitution and give Sunnis, symmetrical federalism is not a novel Shia and Kurds each the authority to run A concept. It has been employed in sev- their own regional affairs—a notion known eral countries around the world to recognize as soft partition by its American propo- diversity and manage internal conflict. The nents. The other view is that federalism is theoretical case for asymmetrical federalism the worst possible solution for Iraq’s current in Iraq should begin with an examination woes, as it would lead to division and sec- of two main stylized models of federalism: tarian war. “coming together” and “holding together.” We believe neither represents a solution. A coming-together model arises when Those who favor the first option should a group of formerly independent or self- consider the sobering mix of violent pro- governing units join to form a new country. tests, arrests and mobilization of state se- Classic examples include the United States, curity forces that occurred after the diverse Australia and the uae, which formerly con- Sunni-Shia-Kurdish province of Diyala sisted of seven independent sheikhdoms. sought to declare itself an autonomous re- Not surprisingly, those accustomed to rul- gion in December 2011. What then might ing themselves are reluctant to abandon happen if identity-based federalism were power to new national governments. Thus, attempted on a nationwide scale? Likewise, these coming-together federations are rela- those who advocate delaying a discussion tively decentralized, with checks on the au- of federalism until more propitious times thority of the central government and the need to explain how growing discontent provinces running their own affairs. They with Baghdad’s governance in non-Kurdish also tend to be relatively symmetrical, with Iraq is to be kept from boiling over in the all provinces enjoying more or less the same interim. privileges vis-à-vis the center. In the current strained environment, a In contrast, the holding-together model system of asymmetrical federalism may be is usually an attempt to maintain the ter- the most practical solution for the problems ritorial integrity of an existing state. It that Iraq faces because it most accurately often occurs in the case of formerly unitary reflects the country’s enduring ethnic and countries that face ethnically or territorially political realities. No other model is likely based secessionist threats. In many cases, to enable the country to reach an acceptable attempts are made to reconcile these groups solution for Kurdistan while at the same through a grant of special autonomy. The time ensuring that the central government result can be an asymmetrical structure, in Baghdad is viable enough to function. where the potential breakaway province en- This is not to say that it will guarantee that joys heightened self-government compared Iraq comes together into a smoothly func- to other territories in the union. While few tioning democracy. The country’s constitu- countries are purely symmetrical, asym- tional flaws are symptoms of the tensions metrical federations are distinguished by the and animosities embedded in the polity, not deliberate nature of these special arrange-

22 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary A possible solution must recast the debate to affirm Kurdistan’s autonomy without applying the same concept to other provinces and eviscerating Baghdad’s sovereignty.

ments, which are protected in laws or the position had not given the idea of federalism constitution. Recently, in the case of Banda much thought, but many agreed. Aceh and Indonesia, asymmetrical arrange- A central ally to the Kurds in this quest ments helped end a long-running internal was a party then known as the Supreme conflict. In other countries, such as Spain, Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq these arrangements have been used to fore- (sciri). sciri was a Shia Islamist party es- stall wider conflict by granting cultural and tablished by the Iranians in 1982 during the administrative autonomy to Basque and Iran-Iraq War that was dedicated to over- Catalan communities. throwing Saddam’s regime. It saw decentral- The puzzle of Iraq’s 2005 constitution is ization as both the best guarantee against that it introduced a coming-together, sym- a return to dictatorship and a good way to metrical model of federalism rather than protect Shia interests in the new state. In building on the clear asymmetrical founda- 2007, sciri renamed itself the Islamic Su- tion of the Kurdish safe haven established preme Council of Iraq (isci), deemphasiz- after the 1991 Gulf War. An examination of ing its historical ties to Iran’s revolutionary the recent history of devolution in Iraq sug- regime. gests that a holding-together, asymmetrical isci and the Kurds’ calculations on fed- model may better promote stability by serv- eralism were not solely about identity. The ing the interests of all parties. Kurds saw in federalism the freedom to develop their local oil assets, which would he genesis of Iraq’s new federal sys- allow them the ability to run their own af- T tem lies in the aftermath of the 1991 fairs without being financially dependent Gulf War, when exile groups stepped out on Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Shia region in from the regime’s shadow of fear to plot its southern Iraq that isci was to propose was demise. They were a motley collection of not coincidentally home to the majority of secularists and Islamists, Arabs and Kurds, Iraq’s vast oil reserves. all with their own visions of a post-Saddam The United States, following its over- Iraq. throw of Saddam’s regime in 2003, made no The Kurds had long aimed to build on secret of its own preference for a decentral- an autonomy agreement negotiated with ized Iraq, sharing with the opposition the the Baathists in the 1970s that was never view that this would prevent the return of implemented. Motivated by their desire for dictatorship. From the start, the term used a Kurdish state and the fresh horrors of a was federalism. With their close ties to the genocidal Iraqi Army campaign against them Bush administration, the Kurds and certain in the late 1980s, Kurds in the post-Saddam isci leaders returning from exile had a head era pushed for something more extensive: an start that allowed them to leave an outsized ethnically based confederation that would imprint on the new state structure. The afford the Kurds maximum autonomy over areas outside the Kurdistan region, which their own affairs. The Kurds’ partners in op- had yet to produce homegrown parties,

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary March/April 2012 23 were not positioned to give strong expres- the new constitution. They also promoted sion to their populations’ wills. the sectarian regionalization of Arab Iraq to Yet resistance to federalism began almost ensure that Baghdad would never regain the right away. Iraqi nationalists, many with power to threaten Kurds. links to the former regime, championed As the drafting process unfolded, those the state’s paramount unity but struggled to opposed to federalism were so weak and articulate a practical alternative to the previ- divided that the Kurds and isci pushed ous, now-discredited centralization. They through language establishing the forma- were joined by what remained of Iraq’s secu- tion of federal regions with equivalent pow- lar elite and important parts of the Shia ers to the Kurdistan region. With Iraq’s clerical leadership. Moreover, some Shia sectarian civil conflict brewing, isci tabled Islamist political leaders outside isci, now the proposal for the creation of an oil-rich, well on their way to gaining significant nine-governorate “super-region” in the Shia power in Baghdad, sought to protect their South that it aimed to govern and protect new domain and began to suggest that Iraq- against insurgents operating in the Sunni is were not yet ready for federalism. heartland west and north of Baghdad. Notwithstanding these objections, the The result was the 2005 constitution, Kurds proved the best organized of the par- which prescribes a federal system with two ties that came to the table to draft the new exceptional characteristics: It hollows out permanent constitution; they also benefited the national government through radi- from their strong ties to the U.S. officials cal devolution to federal regions that can who midwifed the new text. The Kurds’ mostly ignore Baghdad on many key mat- goal was to maximize their autonomy, even ters, including most importantly oil and emphasizing that Iraq’s union was voluntary gas management and revenue sharing. It and could be reconsidered if Baghdad did also provides minimal barriers to prevent not fully respect guarantees to the Kurds in the provinces outside of Iraqi Kurdistan from forming new autonomous regions, either standing alone or in conjunction with other provinces, with no limit on their size or number. From the start, these fea- tures raised sharp fears regard- ing the viability and unity of the new state, prompting a near-unanimous rejection of the new charter by the Sunni Arab community in the Oc- tober 2005 constitutional ref- erendum. In recent years, the Sunnis have been increasingly joined in their objections by most of the newly empowered Shia Islamist parties, which have grown accustomed to rul- ing Baghdad. Even isci, the

24 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary principal Arab proponent of Kurdish-style any reconsideration of Iraq’s state struc- federalism in the rest of Iraq, appears to ture—and the controversy over the Kurdish have shelved its project for a Shia super- model of federalism tars any calls for devo- region in the face of popular opposition. A lution of authority and greater local control Kurdish constitutional veto, however, has so outside Kurdistan as promoting partition. far prevented any meaningful reconsidera- Maliki has pointedly reacted to interest in tion of Iraq’s new federal architecture. decentralization, saying that the country At the cusp of the U.S. troop withdrawal is not ready for federalism in its western, in late 2011, Iraq found itself in a peculiar central or southern regions and that differ- situation. The majority of its political class ences should be addressed through common outside the Kurdistan region, including action on administrative deficits rather than the most powerful actors in Baghdad, has by “division or secession.” publicly objected to the constitution’s basic Yet in the past year, calls for new regions structure. Yet an early review of the con- have grown louder as political disputes in stitution in 2007, intended to broaden its the center contribute to more troubled gov- appeal, quickly foundered. Partially this is ernance. Meanwhile, a growing sense of because the review committee took a sym- political marginalization from Baghdad and metrical approach. It proposed to adjust the victimization by government-controlled se- balance of power not just between Baghdad curity forces continues to amplify interest in and any future regions but also to bring the decentralization in the country’s predomi- Kurdistan region into line with a more cen- nantly Sunni West and Northwest. tralized state structure. The latter crossed a Unsurprisingly, Kurdish leaders have clear Kurdish red line, prompting the veto sought to embrace renewed interest in de- threat that killed the amendment process. centralization as supporting their view of No clear avenue now exists on how to ad- the Iraqi state, but there are key distinc- dress this short circuit. tions. The most obvious is the absence of an ethnic agenda. Calls for decentralization fter six years of experience with the im- in predominantly Arab provinces are driven A plementation of the constitution, two primarily by functional rather than eth- things have become clear. First, the type of nic motives: better government and more countrywide sectarian regionalization advo- effective distribution of resources are the cated by the Kurds and isci remains unpop- principal goals, rather than the creation of ular outside Kurdistan. Second, there is ris- multiprovince autonomous cantons as a ing discontent in the provinces with Bagh- precursor to possible independence. Indeed, dad’s poor and nonresponsive governance. most Arab proponents of decentralization Especially over the last year, there appears to frequently distinguish their federalism proj- be a growing sentiment similar to that ex- ects from those of Kurdistan. pressed by the governor of Nineveh, Atheel Decentralization appears to enjoy strong al-Nujaifi: the people of his province sup- support in the southern oil-producing prov- port giving the provinces greater power in- inces of Basra, Maysan and Dhi Qar. The stead of creating independent regions, but difference between the contribution to if Baghdad does not respond, they might go state revenues by Iraq’s richest oil province, down the latter path. Basra, and the development funds it re- The stalemate between Baghdad and ceives through the federal budget has driven Erbil has hampered any response to these local leaders there to campaign repeatedly to grievances. The Kurdistan region can veto establish the province as a separate federal

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary March/April 2012 25 region. Rumblings in support of decentral- tainty over the country’s economic future, ization have also been heard from Basra’s but sectarian-tinged moves by Sunni-ma- neighbors, with occasional talk of creating a jority provinces to seek regional status and three-province, oil-rich region. Meanwhile, Baghdad’s strong response have left Iraq on in south-central Iraq, the Wasit Provin- a political knife-edge. cial Council has reportedly made a for- These tensions came to a dramatic head mal request to hold a regional referendum, in October 2011 when, following a wave of and the Shia holy provinces of Najaf and arrests of alleged conspirators in a Baathist Karbala have considered forming regions coup plot, the provincial government of out of a desire for greater local control of Salahuddin, a governorate north of Bagh- the lucrative religious-pilgrimage trade. dad, symbolically voted to become an au- But grassroots support for regionalization tonomous region. Other Sunni-majority has not yet been sufficient to spur adminis- provinces, including Nineveh and Anbar, trative change. Basra leaders failed in their quickly said they were prepared to follow 2008 attempt to secure popular support suit if Baghdad did not do a better job of for a referendum on establishing the prov- responding to their demands. ince as a region. Their most recent effort, The provincial government in Diyala, in July 2011, a mixed Sunni- was tellingly Shia-Kurd prov- headlined in the ince in north- Iraqi press as eastern Iraq, Basra “demands went a step secession.” At further. In De- the same time, cember 2011, the party that it adopted its holds the reins own symbolic of power in declaration of Baghdad, Prime autonomy. The Minister Ma- blowback was liki’s State of troubling. Bagh- Law coalition, dad-controlled has neutralized security forces southern pro- were quickly ponents of local mobilized to decentralization the province, and tabled indi- thousands of vidual requests Shia demonstra- by Basra and Wasit to organize local refer- tors stormed the provincial government endums on becoming regions. headquarters, unidentified armed groups The most recent manifestations of sup- blocked major highways and members of port for autonomous regions in Iraq’s pre- the mainly Sunni political bloc that spon- dominantly Sunni provinces are some- sored the measure fled the province ahead what different, born of a pervasive sense of of arrest warrants. Almost simultaneously, alienation and sectarian discrimination by serious disputes erupted between Maliki Baghdad. Pro-federalism sentiment in the and two of the most prominent national oil-rich Shia South may create huge uncer- Sunni politicians who had supported Sala-

26 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary Iraq is not a set of former colonies coming together to form a new country. It is a ninety-year-old, historically centralized state that has grappled for decades with the Kurdish desire for independence.

huddin’s and Diyala’s calls for federalism. cal model could address this impasse, con- One of them, Vice President Tariq al- sider how centralized administration of the Hashimi, fled to the Kurdistan region to governorates by Baghdad works at present. escape his own arrest warrant for alleged in- Governors and provincial councils have lim- volvement in assassination plots. The other, ited direct budgets, no control over local a deputy prime minister, has had his cabinet public-sector hiring and no formal say over participation frozen. projects undertaken by federal ministries Some national-level proponents of decen- within their provinces. In many cases, the tralization for these provinces may indeed bulk of the security forces operating in the have the more pernicious agenda that Bagh- governorates report directly to the prime dad attributes to them: using federalism as minister’s office, and access to the minor- a way to destroy Iraq’s new political order, ity share of capital-investment funds given with the hope that a new, Sunni-nationalist- to provincial councils requires a laborious dominated state can emerge from the em- series of approvals from multiple ministries bers. But in the midst of this controversy, in Baghdad. it is important to recall that the driving In our view, the complaints of the Arab local motive in Salahuddin and Diyala was provinces of Iraq could be addressed not separation. Salahuddin’s council in fact through more empowered local adminis- emphasized that it wanted to remain part tration, greater local say over security and of a “united Iraq.” There also have been greater distribution of oil revenues. And no explicit calls for the creation of a mul- this in fact is close to what the heads of tiprovince Sunni region. Instead, provincial Iraq’s fifteen provincial councils outside the leaders in Salahuddin, Diyala, Anbar and Kurdistan region laid out in a joint let- Nineveh are looking at a single-province-as- ter to Prime Minster Maliki last October. region model precisely to avoid accusations The letter asked for more functional rev- that they seek to destroy Iraqi unity. enue sharing and a greater local say on both Moreover, there is no consistent popular public-sector hiring and environmental and support for federalism in these provinces. customs policy. In fact, powerful local tribes in Anbar have Finally, it is important to recognize that organized public protests against the idea this is a markedly different prescription of transforming their province into a re- from the relationship between the federal gion. Local opinion polls show frustration government and the Kurdistan region. The with the central government but no desire gulf between the centralization endured for Kurdish-style autonomy. Respondents by the provinces and the virtual autono- consistently favor Baghdad’s control over oil my enjoyed by the Kurdistan region leaves revenues to protect national unity, but they ample room for an asymmetrical model to also want greater local administration of raise the status of the provinces without ap- basic services and reconstruction. proaching the kind of regionalization seen To fully appreciate how an asymmetri- as a threat to national unity.

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary March/April 2012 27 raq’s Kurds still dream of their own state, ereignty. An elevated administrative sta- I but for now their fortunes remain tied tus for the provinces could be negotiated to Baghdad. Mostly because of their own among Arab parties and local leaders. Given restive Kurdish minorities, neighboring the difficulties in wholesale revision of the countries will simply not countenance an constitution, this change would come via independent Kurdistan. In the meantime, legislative and political means rather than a nationalist Iraqis resent what they see as constitutional amendment. the Kurds’ influence over the constitution This represents a second-best outcome aimed at furthering their independence by but is realistically as far as the envelope can hollowing out the Iraqi state. Absent a reset, be pushed under present circumstances. this set of affairs is a recipe for what could Initial understandings could then be codi- be a perpetual cycle of recrimination and fied in the constitution once circumstances internal strife. permit. Indeed, any progress must present Some Iraqi nationalists may be starting to benefits compelling enough to challenge conclude privately that Erbil is more trou- the status quo. In other words, each of the ble than it is worth in terms of the country’s three levels of government described in the territorial integrity. But all must accept that constitution—provincial, regional and na- whatever Kurdish nationalists may dream, tional—would need to see clear benefits both sides are stuck with each other for the from an asymmetrical system for the idea to time being. After decades of bloody armed gain traction. struggle, it took the cataclysmic 2003 U.S. The path to pursuing this complex tri- invasion for the Kurdistan region’s auton- fecta is perhaps through a bilateral deal omy to be enshrined in the Iraqi constitu- between Baghdad and Erbil on oil and rev- tion. A crisis of similar magnitude would be enue sharing, followed by constitutional required for the Middle East’s century-old, amendments that remove the threat of post-Ottoman order to be shattered and Kurdish-style regionalization elsewhere in international borders redrawn. Iraq, especially by Iraq’s main wealth pro- Short of apocalyptic regional war, reex- ducer, oil-rich Basra. In order to accept amining the federalism question appears to these arrangements and put aside their cur- be necessary for Iraq to move toward some rent constitutional right to form auton- degree of stability. The straightforward way omous regions, the governorates should would be a redrafting of the constitution quickly receive tangible administrative em- with authority of the Kurdistan region and powerment from Baghdad. The concrete other provinces delineated in separate chap- proposals included in last October’s joint ters. But Iraqi politics are much messier letter by the heads of Iraq’s fifteen provin- than that ideal. In 2010, the country spent cial councils could form the basis of these more than nine months forming a still- latter talks. incomplete coalition government—it is un- likely the same parties could successfully il has been at the heart of the federal- undertake a comprehensive constitutional O ism dispute from the beginning. At overhaul. present, with a standoff over legislation gov- A possible asymmetrical solution must erning oversight of the hydrocarbon sector, identify key areas of dispute and recast the a deal between Baghdad and Erbil on oil debate to affirm the krg’s autonomy with- matters feels a long way off. But there are out applying the same concept to other potential trade-offs that could improve con- provinces and eviscerating Baghdad’s sov- fidence between the two sides and lay the

28 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary groundwork for a more stable, asymmetrical pipelines in return for the krg conducting federal system. all crude sales through the federal govern- In its essence, such a deal would entail ment, with revenue collection through the the federal government guaranteeing the federal treasury. This meets Kurdish export krg an automatic share of oil revenues, needs and recognizes Baghdad’s role in sell- authority to sign oil contracts, and access ing and collecting oil revenues. to the oil- and gas- export infrastructure necessary to develop a long-term platform for self-governance. (The krg is currently un- able to export the oil it produces, and its day-to-day operational funding is subject to the vagaries of Bagh- dad’s annual budgetary process.) In return, the krg would recognize the center’s paramount authority on oil-reve- nue handling and set- ting national oil- and gas-contracting stan- dards. Kurdish leaders also would need to agree that these arrange- Second, the present nationwide revenue- ments apply only to the Kurdistan region sharing scheme is a source of leverage for and undertake not to oppose laws or con- Baghdad. The next decade’s projected oil stitutional amendments that consolidate exports from central and southern Iraq will Baghdad’s oil and fiscal powers elsewhere. dwarf the best-case scenario for Kurdish Several factors could potentially make production. In draft legislation, the krg has such a deal attractive to both sides. In the sought to protect its share of this growing absence of an independent pipeline network national revenue and control over how to to neighboring states, Kurdish hydrocar- spend it. But it has irritated Baghdad by in- bon exports are dependent on infrastruc- sisting that spending authority be symmet- ture controlled by Baghdad. The krg could rically decentralized across the rest of Iraq, build its own pipelines, but the Kurdish which would leave the federal government region is landlocked and can only export close to penniless and hence powerless. through Iran and Turkey. Both countries Baghdad should offer a clear choice: Kurd- are wary of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan istan can receive a guaranteed automatic as a model that could inspire their own res- share of national oil revenue, but only if it tive Kurdish minorities. A more promising accepts legal arrangements that protect the option is a negotiated deal, where Kurdish central government’s fiscal power outside exports could be guaranteed unfettered flow of Kurdistan. Alternatively, the Kurdistan through the national Baghdad-controlled region could become financially self-reliant,

Iraq’s Federalism Quandary March/April 2012 29 controlling all revenue and taxes collected of oil resources—a feature of symmetri- within its boundaries, including from oil cal, coming-together federations—could be and gas—but give up any grants from the dangerously destabilizing in Iraq, leading to federal budget. large regional wealth disparities. And radi- Finally, on the issue of oil-contracting au- cal decentralization is not popular among thority, the krg and the federal government Iraq’s Arab majority—even as Sunni areas should consider a compromise where Erbil chafe under the perceived excesses of the gradually standardizes its oil-contract terms new order. with Baghdad’s. In return, Baghdad would The incentives generated by the 2005 con- need to acknowledge the krg’s autonomous stitution force Baghdad and Erbil to make licensing authority and stop blocking in- a strategic choice. Under the charter’s most ternational investment in Kurdistan’s oil radical option, Kurdistan would establish fields. Erbil would also recognize Baghdad’s some form of self-sufficient autarky. This right to oversee oil contracting outside the would be a poor outcome for all involved. Kurdistan region, allowing Arab Iraqis to The krg would need to raise capital for ex- determine amongst themselves the federal port pipelines, persuade hostile neighbors to government’s role in supervising southern accept Kurdish hydrocarbon exports and rely oil and gas contracts. on its own comparatively meager revenues to fund its regional administration. In Bagh- oth Kurds and Shia Islamists intended dad, preoccupation with Arab-Kurdish ten- B for the new constitution to promote sions would stunt development of the state. decentralization. Indeed, given the start- In addition, with Erbil continuing to block ing point, a highly centralized Saddam-era constitutional changes, Baghdad could one state, the krg achieved remarkable success day be gutted by new autonomy movements in introducing a federal structure that con- in oil-rich Basra or gas-rich Anbar. In con- tains the basic features of a coming-together trast, by isolating and containing the dispute model: highly decentralized with existing between Baghdad and Erbil, an asymmetrical and future federal regions granted the same model would reinforce Iraqi unity and free powers. A chain reaction toward this out- the rest of the country to choose alternative come might even be initiated were a sin- governance arrangements on their own mer- gle additional province—perhaps oil-rich its. This could at least provide a framework Basra—to successfully grasp the chalice of to consider the grievances of provincial lead- regional status. ers and perhaps defuse the potentially grave Yet Iraq is not a set of former colonies or crisis sparked by angered Sunnis’ symbolic emirates coming together to form a new declarations of autonomy. country. It is a ninety-year-old, historically In short, Iraq is a textbook candidate for centralized state that has grappled for de- a holding-together, asymmetrical model of cades with the latent Kurdish desire for federalism. Merely elucidating the concept independence. Moreover, Iraq’s oil and gas will not lead to its implementation. But is geographically distributed in a way that doing so may be a basis for reframing the highlights the country’s ethnic and sectarian debate to facilitate a workable and lasting fault lines. In this context, full local control solution to Iraq’s foundational issues. n

30 The National Interest Iraq’s Federalism Quandary Nigeria’s Battle for Stability

By John Campbell

ecent events in Nigeria, including dom embraced by many in President Barack its presidential elections last April, Obama’s administration and in Congress, R have produced two narratives on the business community and the media. the current state of that oil-rich West Afri- The other narrative is quite different. can nation with a history of civic turmoil. It posits that, despite a veneer of demo- The first is that events there have unfolded cratic institutions, Nigeria has suffered from rather favorably since its elected president, dysfunctional governance for decades. The Umaru Yar’Adua, fell ill in late 2009 and 2011 elections, according to this view, gen- the country was left leaderless. That raised erated serious violence and polarized the fears of a military coup, but then Goodluck country. Militants in the Niger Delta are re- Jonathan emerged to fill the power vacuum, grouping. Boko Haram, hardly an Islamist first as an extraconstitutional “acting presi- threat to the world, is an indigenous upris- dent,” then as a constitutional successor ing spawned by persistent alienation in the after Yar’Adua’s death and finally as the largely Muslim North, which is stricken elected executive following the 2011 elec- with poverty and official corruption. The tions. This optimistic narrative notes that country’s Middle Belt is beset by ongoing those elections were praised by international ethnic and religious conflict between Chris- observers as better than in the past—and tians and Muslims, with attendant ethnic hence they reflected the will of the national cleansing. Crime is ubiquitous in the cities majority. An amnesty for militants in the and on the highways. The police, a national oil-rich Niger Delta, combined with disar- entity, are underpaid and notoriously cor- mament, training and reintegration, ended rupt. They prey on ordinary Nigerians at a long insurrection there. One serious spec- numerous checkpoints set up to address the ter, however, still haunts the country—the breakdown in security. And for many, the expansion of the Islamic “terrorist group” police are merely the face of a “secular” or Boko Haram, with its global connections. “Christian” Abuja regime. Thus they have Hence, Nigeria’s security challenge has be- become targets themselves for groups disaf- come internationalized, and Westerners fected with the federal government. grappling with Islamist movements need to That is the narrative to which the Obama keep a sharp eye on that situation. administration and others concerned about This is the narrative of conventional wis- Africa should probably pay some heed. Thus far, the Jonathan administration John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow has been remarkably inept in addressing for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign the challenges it faces. Its military is ex- Relations. He served as U.S. ambassador to Nigeria ercising more authority in areas formerly from 2004 to 2007. under civilian purview. The president’s

Nigeria’s Battle for Stability March/April 2012 31 Governance in the region has been particularly corrupt, fueled by oil revenue to state and local governments with little or no accountability. The line between politics and thuggery is thin.

heavy-handed, even brutalizing, security Liberia and Sierra Leone. And its decision forces are exacerbating Muslim alienation to supply peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur in the North and have failed to control the made Nigeria an invaluable partner in an Middle Belt’s ethnic and religious strife. area where America had only limited lever- Concerns of impoverished Niger Delta age. Beyond that, Nigeria consistently has residents have not been addressed, and been the fourth- or fifth-largest foreign sup- there is anecdotal evidence that officials plier of oil to the United States, and ship- in the upper reaches of the federal and ping routes from Port Harcourt and Lagos state governments participate actively in oil to refineries in Baltimore or Philadelphia theft. More and more Nigerians are alien- have no Persian Gulf–like choke points. ated from a state they regard as inept and Importantly, Nigeria has often ignored pro- corrupt. duction limits set by opec during politically Indeed, Nigeria’s fundamental problem is motivated oil shocks tied to developments a system of institutionalized corruption that in the volatile Middle East. And the coun- channels public money into the pockets of a try’s “Bonny Light crude” is high quality few Nigerian “big men.” The result is some and requires minimal refining. of the greatest income inequality and worst Beyond economics, cultural and family social statistics in Africa. And the political links between Nigeria and the United States class doesn’t manifest any will to reform the underpin the official relationship. The Ni- system. Politics are intense and often violent gerian diaspora community in America is because they are suffused with a winner- economically successful and often vocal in takes-all mentality. Patron-client networks its criticism of the corruption and poor control politicians and the political system, governance in its home country. Two mil- and those within the networks get access lion Nigerians live in the United States, to the few available jobs and social services. and an additional million have spent time Hence, the political economy favors per- here in recent years. Thus, it isn’t surpris- sonal relationships over institutions. Not ing that Nigerian influences can be seen in surprisingly, national sentiment is declining American culture. Fela Kuti’s “Afrobeat” in favor of religious and ethnic identity— and other musical styles of Nigerian origin and animosity. have seeped into American popular music, Despite this bleak picture, there are rea- and popular culture from New York and sons to consider Nigeria a potentially im- Los Angeles is ubiquitous in Lagos. Nigeria’s portant U.S. partner in Africa. With more dynamic and confident Christian church- than 160 million people, it is the conti- es have influenced American Christianity, nent’s most populous nation. It has dem- sometimes controversially. A retired An- onstrated impressive leadership in the Eco- glican primate of Nigeria, a bitter critic of nomic Community of West African States the Episcopal Church in the United States and the African Union. Working through over gay issues, encouraged a schism within those organizations, it helped end wars in that church that sharpened differences be-

32 The National Interest Nigeria’s Battle for Stability tween American liberal and conservative subsequent standoff between Jonathan and approaches to Christianity. Yar’Adua’s wife, Turai, who continued to Given the prevailing narrative and ongo- prevent access to the president until he died ing ties between the United States and Ni- of complications from a rare autoimmune geria, it isn’t surprising that the Obama ad- syndrome. After Yar’Adua’s death, Jona- ministration embraced Goodluck Jonathan than became the constitutional president, when he assumed office as the country’s best and the standoff between the Jonathan and hope for stability and reform. But managing Turai camps ended. the U.S. relationship with Nigeria should Nigeria was ruled by military dictators be based on current Nigerian realities. Oth- for nearly thirty years before civilian gover- erwise, the Obama administration risks un- nance was established in 1999. Since then, dermining its credibility among Nigerians under an informal understanding within working for meaningful democratic change. the ruling People’s Democratic Party (pdp), It also risks alienating Africa’s largest Mus- the country’s presidency has alternated lim population. every eight years between Christians, who Since the beginning of the year, the dominate the southern part of the country, country has been roiled by demonstrations and Muslims, who dominate the North. against the Jonathan government’s ending Under this approach, if the president were a of the traditional fuel subsidy for Nigerian northern Muslim, the vice president would consumers. The protests appeared to crys- be a southern Christian and vice versa. tallize widespread Nigerian anger at the Often referred to as “zoning,” the arrange- country’s current political leadership. It re- ment was intended to keep sectarian iden- mains to be seen whether these demonstra- tity out of presidential politics and promote tions will morph into a “Nigerian Spring” an elite consensus in favor of a single candi- or what their impact will be on northern date. Hence, the southern Christian Oluse- alienation that provides Boko Haram with gun Obasanjo held the presidency from its oxygen. Events are moving rapidly and 1999 to 2007. He was succeeded by Umaru pose particularly difficult challenges for ad- Yar’Adua, a northern Muslim, who was ministration policy makers. expected to hold the presidency until 2015. Yar’Adua’s death upset this rotation by he way forward for the United States restoring a southern Christian to the presi- T in its relations with Nigeria can be- dency before the North had completed its come discernible through a review of that turn. According to the Nigerian press, it country’s recent history. President Yar’Adua was widely understood that Jonathan would was evacuated to Saudi Arabia in Novem- hold the presidency only until the 2011 ber 2009 for treatment of kidney disease elections if Yar’Adua were to die. Then he and organ dysfunction. His departure left would step aside for a northern Muslim the country leaderless and precipitated candidate to preserve zoning. Jonathan a constitutional crisis when he withheld would then run for the presidency in 2015, the necessary authorization to install his when it would again be a southern Chris- vice president, Goodluck Jonathan. Amid tian’s turn. rumors of a brewing coup, political elites Perhaps under pressure from members of working through the National Assembly his Ijaw ethnic group and other southern installed Jonathan extraconstitutionally as groups hitherto excluded from the upper “acting president.” This action prompted reaches of government, Jonathan reversed Yar’Adua’s midnight return to Nigeria and a himself and ran for the presidency in 2011.

Nigeria’s Battle for Stability March/April 2012 33 Employing the power of incumbency, he Jonathan’s vote totals were in the range of defeated the northern Muslim Atiku Abu- 97–99 percent. This guaranteed that he bakar for the pdp presidential nomination met the first requirement. Twenty-six of the at the January 2011 party convention, thirty-six governors were from the ruling which participants described as an “auc- pdp, and governors were deeply involved in tion” for delegate support. As a result of the conduct of the elections. Two or three Jonathan’s decision to end zoning, the presi- governors in the North likely ensured that dential election became a polarizing contest Jonathan received more than 25 percent between the incumbent and northern Mus- of the vote in their states, thereby meeting lim Muhammadu Buhari. the second requirement. The Independent To secure victory, Jonathan’s political al- National Electoral Commission (inec), the lies spent large sums of money to win the ostensibly independent body that conducts support of incumbent governors who con- elections, reported Jonathan’s share of the trol the election process in many states. vote in Sokoto—Buhari’s home state—as In the North, they also co-opted certain 35 percent; in Gombe, 38.5 percent; and in traditional Muslim rulers, and the sultan of Jigawa, 38.7 percent. These numbers seem Sokoto openly supported him. high for the sharia heartland. It is difficult to know how much public While the president appoints the chair money was spent for political purposes dur- of the inec, his authority over the state ing this period. The lack of transparency in electoral commissioners is limited; they are official expenditures, such as from Nigeria’s often beholden to the governors. Jonathan Excess Crude Account, creates the appear- appointed Attahiru Jega, an American-ed- ance that state resources could easily be ucated academic known for his integrity, used on behalf of incumbents. For example, as inec chair. Under Jega’s leadership, the the Excess Crude Account dropped from registration and voting processes improved, about $20 billion (in U.S. dollars) when though they remained far from perfect. In Yar’Adua assumed the presidency in 2007 more places than in the past, polling sta- to $3 billion when Jonathan became “acting tions opened, ballots were available and se- president,” then rose to approximately $5 curity-service intimidation declined. How- billion. There has been little credible expla- ever, in other areas it is widely believed that nation for the fluctuations. According to registration numbers were inflated, ballot the central bank, foreign reserves fell from boxes were stuffed and vote tabulation was $34.6 billion in 2010 to $30.86 billion in manipulated sufficiently to ensure Jona- 2011. They have since recovered to $32.8 than’s victory without a runoff. If the me- billion. (Throughout this period, oil prices chanics at the polling places in 2011 were have been high.) an improvement, the outcome of the elec- The April 2011 elections, despite being tions remained elite business as usual, albeit hailed by international elections observ- with more sophisticated methods than in ers as better than the 2007 “election-like the past. event,” appear to have been rigged strate- Not surprisingly, in the southern half of gically in certain places to ensure Good- the country people generally believed the luck Jonathan’s victory. To avoid a runoff, election was credible and accepted Jona- he needed a countrywide plurality of total than’s victory. But in the predominantly ballots cast and at least 25 percent of the Muslim North, Jonathan’s national victory vote in two-thirds of the country’s thir- was widely viewed as fraudulent. The an- ty-six states. In the Christian Southeast, nouncement of his victory sparked three

34 The National Interest Nigeria’s Battle for Stability days of riots in northern cities in which widespread frustration with Nigeria’s pov- at least one thousand people were killed, erty, corruption, insecurity and inequality, as making the 2011 elections the bloodiest in well as with the inability of successive gov- Nigeria’s history. The private houses of the ernments to address these issues. sultan of Sokoto and the emirs of Kano and Zaria were destroyed because they had sup- igeria’s vast oil reserves underpin its ported Jonathan. What started as protests N economy and its dysfunctional po- against the largely Muslim political estab- litical culture. Its oil comes from the Niger lishment, which was believed to have sold Delta and from offshore platforms in the out to Jonathan, degenerated into ethnic Atlantic’s Gulf of Guinea. Though these oil and religious violence. Today, many in the reserves constitute the source of much of North continue to see the elections as lack- Nigeria’s wealth, the region is remarkably ing legitimacy. underdeveloped. Fifty years of oil exploita- The Abuja government appointed a panel tion have led to numerous environmental to investigate the causes of the violence, accidents, hindering the traditional aqua-

informally called the Lemu Panel after its culture of the indigenous people. For exam- chairman, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, a promi- ple, some environmental ngos estimate that nent retired Islamic judge. The text of the the region suffers from oil spills equivalent report has not been made public, but Chair- in magnitude to the 1989 Exxon Valdez man Lemu’s public comments on the report spill each year. While there is a multitude of amount to an indirect indictment of Nige- ethnic groups, the most prominent are the ria’s current political economy. He concludes Itsekiri and the Ijaw, who in certain areas that the postelection violence resulted from compete for turf and power. Governance

Nigeria’s Battle for Stability March/April 2012 35 in the region has been particularly corrupt, Yusuf, a charismatic Islamic preacher who fueled by oil revenue to state and local gov- was murdered by police during a 2009 up- ernments with little or no accountability. rising. (The group generally referred to it- The line between politics and thuggery is self as The Movement for Sunna and Jihad.) thin. Now, the term “Boko Haram” is used most- The result of this witches’ brew has been ly by the media and security services to label a low-level insurrection that has waxed and loosely organized groups in northern Nige- waned for years. At times, insurgents have ria waging war against the federal govern- been able to shut down significant amounts ment. What appears to hold these groups of petroleum production, which has had together is support for sharia and, for some, a serious impact on international markets. a millenarian version of Islam. However, the At other times, federal and state govern- label implies more coherence in this grass- ments have bought off militants—but never roots movement than probably exists. for long because the fundamental griev- Daily attacks on politicians, soldiers, po- ances that fuel the insurrection are never lice, bars and churches, particularly since addressed. Jonathan’s inauguration in May 2011, have As an Ijaw from Bayelsa state in the Niger led British prime minister David Cam- Delta, Jonathan was widely expected to eron and africom commanding general address Delta grievances, building on Presi- Carter Hamm to suggest counterterrorism dent Yar’Adua’s 2008 amnesty for militants. assistance. They are concerned that Boko But the disarmament, education and reinte- Haram may establish links with al-Qaeda gration included in the amnesty have been in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Shabab in incomplete. Instead, the most salient char- Somalia. Suicide is cultural anathema in acteristic of the amnesty has been payoffs West Africa. Hence, to many, a suicide to militant leaders. While the insurrection bombing indicated influences from outside in the Delta has been relatively quiet, it will the region. There is also concern about likely escalate as new militant leaders rise Boko Haram’s apparently new access to to replace co-opted ones. Kidnappings and sophisticated weapons and bomb-making piracy are increasing; oil-production facili- technology. ties have been attacked; and new militant Waves of radical, eschatological and mil- leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with lenarian Islamic revival occur intermittently the government’s focus on insecurity in in northern Nigeria, especially during pe- the North. In 2012, shadowy Delta groups riods of alienation and hardship such as are threatening the region’s small Islamic now. Until recently, this anger normally has community, ostensibly in revenge for Boko been directed against the indigenous, cor- Haram attacks on Christians in the North. rupt political and religious establishment that exploits the poor and is perceived as he suicide bombing of the un head- un-Islamic. Some militants seek to establish T quarters in Abuja galvanized inter- the kingdom of God on Earth and justice national attention on Boko Haram, the as defined by sharia law. In their efforts to violent radical Muslim sect centered in the achieve such an outcome, uprisings can Northeast that claimed responsibility. Boko be quite bloody. The Maitatsine uprising Haram is often translated from Hausa, centered in Kano during the early 1980s, a major West African language, to mean which claimed five thousand lives, superfi- “Western education is evil.” Originally, the cially resembles aspects of Boko Haram. name referred to followers of Mohammed This tradition animates Boko Haram, its

36 The National Interest Nigeria’s Battle for Stability founder Mohammed Yusuf and his follow- bars and brothels, and rob banks to dis- ers. Yusuf, the young, charismatic Islamic tribute the proceeds to the poor (doubtless preacher, was based at the Railroad Mosque keeping some for themselves). in Maiduguri and initially led a somewhat Yusuf’s disciples have repudiated the sul- pacifist community of thousands of uni- tan of Sokoto and the emirs of Kano and versity graduates, high-school dropouts and Zaria because of their support for Jona- political figures, as well as the impoverished than in the 2011 elections. They have also and uneducated. Like many, he and his fol- claimed responsibility for the murder of the lowers welcomed the imposition of sharia brother of the shehu of Borno, the second- law in 1999 in twelve Nigerian states. But ranking Islamic traditional ruler. In addi- they were disappointed and disillusioned by tion to the un bombing, people claiming its lackadaisical enforcement by secular au- to be Boko Haram spokesmen also took thorities. In 2009, Yusuf launched an insur- credit for a June 2011 bomb attack on the rection against the secular state, ostensibly Abuja headquarters of the national police. prompted by the killing of some of his fol- They have never attacked schools, despite lowers in a dispute with police. Hundreds, their hostility toward Western education. if not thousands, were killed on both sides In the past, they have attacked churches before the army suppressed the insurrec- and murdered clergy, but most of their vio- tion, captured Yusuf and turned him over to lence has been perpetrated against other the police. The police then murdered him Muslims. However, attacks on Christian and his father- churches appear in-law while they to be escalating; were in custody. a few months Yusuf’s surviving ago a church in followers went an Abuja suburb underground and was bombed on turned to field Christmas Day, preaching. and similar at- Probably small tacks occurred in number, these elsewhere during groups appear to the Christmas– have won much New Year holi- wider public day. support. When Since Mo- they can, they hammed Yusuf’s murder govern- death, his fol- ment officials lowers have had and members of no charismatic those parts of the leader. They ap- Islamic establish- pear to be part of ment that they a wider, highly see as allied with diffuse structure Abuja. They at- composed of re- tack venues of ligious fanatics, un-Islamic be- criminals and havior, especially political thugs

Nigeria’s Battle for Stability March/April 2012 37 For the first time since the 1967–70 civil war, Nigerians in all parts of the country are questioning whether their country can hold together. It is very much in the U.S. interest that it does.

with no politburo or other governing body. faces significant domestic opposition. The Their stated goals include punishment of result is that it has only a very limited abil- Yusuf’s murderers, recompense for prop- ity to serve as a diplomatic partner. erty destroyed by the security services and That is why the United States must main- establishment of Islamic law throughout tain good diplomatic relations with a pre- Nigeria. In the aftermath of the April 2011 dominately southern, Christian administra- elections, some may have links with parts tion without appearing to favor one reli- of the traditional establishment and pos- gious, regional or sectarian group over an- sibly some mid-level political figures that other. In Nigeria, there is the presumption fear marginalization. The security services’ that Jonathan was Washington’s candidate, heavy-handed response to unrest in Mai- which he fostered with his electoral base. duguri and elsewhere, resulting as it did in He displayed a campaign billboard showing many deaths, doubtless swelled the ranks of him standing next to President Obama with Boko Haram groups. the slogan, “Yes We Can, Sir!” The United Indeed, violence and unrest have become States should work to dispel this presump- widespread enough in the North to look tion and cease seeming to court Jonathan, like something of a popular insurrection, who has been received twice by President but it does not seem to be centrally orga- Obama since becoming acting president. nized or tied to international terrorism. Yu- The White House should also drop its rhet- suf’s disciples and other radical millenarian oric about the virtues of the 2011 elections, Islamic groups in northern Nigeria are in- which are often overstated. They grate on ward looking. Their concerns are local, and Nigerians, who know better, and alienate their hostility is toward state governments, many in the North. Jonathan’s secular federal government and In addition, the Obama administration brutish police behavior. They feed off bad should engage in targeted outreach to Ni- government and the collapsing economy. gerian Muslims. To begin, it should treat Muhammadu Buhari, the most credible ith its oil, ongoing peacekeeping ef- opposition leader in Nigeria, as it does the W forts and robust population growth, leaders of the opposition in other friendly Nigeria continues to be an important inter- states. He should be publicly received in national player despite dangerous North- Washington at an appropriately high level. South polarization, sectarian conflict and Despite the costs and risks, the United simmering insurrections. States should proceed to establish a consul- Given this reality, the Obama administra- ate in Kano, the metropolis and cultural tion should continue, and perhaps even en- center of the Islamic North, where it can hance, its normal diplomatic dialogue with build a stronger relationship with a region Abuja. But the administration must recog- that has received too little Western atten- nize the reality that Nigeria is a weak state tion in the past. with a largely unresponsive government that Affiliation with Nigerian security agen-

38 The National Interest Nigeria’s Battle for Stability cies should be treated extremely carefully. feed their families rather than shopping on Just as al-Qaeda has fed off the resentment Rodeo Drive. of many Saudis over the U.S. military pres- For the first time since the 1967–70 civil ence in their country, Nigerian radicals in war, Nigerians in all parts of the country— the North likely would do the same. The not only in the North—are questioning administration also should be outspoken whether their country can hold together. about security-service abuses against ci- It is very much in the U.S. interest that it vilians and publicly raise questions about does. A fragmentation of Nigeria would official investigations of postelectoral vi- likely lead to ethnic and religious clashes olence—especially if there are signs of a and shifts in population that would con- cover-up. Nevertheless, support for training stitute a humanitarian disaster, perhaps of the army and the police, especially im- recalling the 1947 partition of India and proving their ability to conduct investiga- Pakistan or the more recent breakup of Yu- tions and interact with the communities in goslavia. It would be inherently destabiliz- which they work, could, over the long term, ing for Nigeria’s small and weak neighbors. reduce animosity between security services It would certainly provide a new scope for and Nigerian civilians. the operations of international terrorism. In Nigerians often identify corruption as the words of the supporters of the federal their nation’s greatest challenge. Many of government during the Nigerian civil war: the most notoriously corrupt have residenc- “It is a task that needs to be done, to keep es and other assets in the United States, Nigeria one.” True, given commitments and they value their ability to visit, often elsewhere, a weak economy and a divided for long periods. The Obama administra- government, the United States faces limits tion should make greater use of the visa- in its ability to influence events in Nigeria. sanction tool against those who use their But U.S. policy makers should look at the official position for personal gain. Such an long term and cultivate close relations with approach would be highly popular with those working to keep Nigeria together and Nigerians, most of whom are struggling to on a path to democracy. n

Nigeria’s Battle for Stability March/April 2012 39 Symposium

Does Libya Represent a New Wilsonism?

In the last issue of The National Interest, we ran a cover story by Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Ray Takeyh positing that America’s military role in helping bring down Libyan president Muammar el-Qaddafi represented a significant new era in the country’s foreign policy—the ascendancy of a doctrine that placed far greater emphasis on humanitarian considerations as a rationale for military interventions overseas. This was a provocative thesis, and the authors’ probing analysis and tight argumentation rendered it one that we were proud to display prominently in our journal. But it occurred to us that it certainly didn’t represent the last word on the subject of the future of American foreign policy. And so we invited three prominent international-relations thinkers—Leslie H. Gelb, Patrick J. Buchanan and Marc Lynch—to weigh in with their own thoughts on the subject. Their musings follow, along with a final response from Gvosdev and Takeyh, who get the last word as a reward for intro- ducing the subject in the first place.

Leslie H. Gelb all those counts, but I have some questions about exactly where their analysis leads. First, I wonder about their worries that ’m with Gvosdev and Takeyh if they are Libya will set a potent and bad policy prec- warning Washington against military edent. The Obama administration, liberals I intervention for humanitarian reasons and even Republicans are all crowing about or to promote democracy—without due having overthrown Muammar el-Qaddafi, regard for the costs and effects or chances a vicious dictator, without the loss of one of success. Too often American leaders get American life and all with the participa- carried away by emotions or politics with- tion of our nato allies and some key Arab out a decent sense of what they’re getting friends. Gvosdev and Takeyh are rightly the nation into. Such warnings are always dubious about that joy. After all, Qaddafi in order, especially when encased in good was a rather important intelligence source scholarship. Gvosdev and Takeyh score on for the United States in the war against al- Qaeda and terrorism. Al-Qaeda is far from Leslie H. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council finished, and the loss of Qaddafi’s informa- on Foreign Relations, a former senior official in the tion will hurt. Further, Qaddafi’s succes- State and Defense Departments, and a former New sors might be much worse than he was in York Times columnist. He is also a member of The terms of mistreating Libyans and threaten- National Interest’s Advisory Council. ing American interests. So, for these and

40 The National Interest Symposium We are not entering a period where the floodgates to intervention are opening but a period where floodgates are probably closing.

other reasons, warning flags about Libya on Qaddafi. There is no talk of democra- becoming a precedent for American policy tizing Saudi Arabia or any of its autocratic are quite in order. neighbors friendly to the United States. In- But, frankly, while I approve of the warn- deed, the administration is on an arms-sell- ings, I’m not too worried about the prec- ing spree in the region. Obama is well aware edent. “Success” in Libya has not prompted that these states are almost all oil producers the Obama administration to intervene and not anti-American. And he is doing militarily in Egypt or Syria, for example. nothing to pressure them to make demo- Indeed, Obama tried to save President cratic reforms or do anything to endanger Mubarak, if only for a transition period, their internal control. Gvosdev and Takeyh because he was an important American acknowledge this but say that the Middle ally in the Middle East. In the end, he let East is the “exception.” In fact, it is the rule. Mubarak go because he couldn’t do any- Military intervention has not, all of a thing about it. Besides, Obama and many sudden, become easy. A number of factors foreign-policy experts were carried away cast doubt on the authors’ contention that by the Arab Spring, which they saw as the Obama is basically living in a restraint-free tide of history moving toward the “street world that makes U.S. military intervention democrats.” Obama felt he had to get on easier or even more likely. First, I think the top of that tide. So, in the end he “inter- Obama team is wising up about who re- vened” politically in Egypt to support “the ally benefits from U.S. intervention. China, democratic revolution.” But Obama had for example, is the nation profiting from no thought of U.S. military intervention in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We do Egypt or anywhere else in the region. It has the fighting there, and Beijing buys the to be noted as well that Obama has stayed oil and other resources. Second, Gvosdev his hand, despite considerable pressure, in and Takeyh argue that drones have now Syria, where many are calling for him to made the costs of intervention much lower help overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. and thus more acceptable. But that really Nor did he do much about the civil war depends on where the battles are fought. that raged in Sudan or troubles in Bahrain. Populous areas or trees and mountains with To be sure, U.S. teams of one hundred men moving targets may be much harder ter- or so are now operating in two or three rain for drones. In theory, drones could spy African countries to deal with humanitar- out targets and strike them anywhere. But ian crises, but that is no big deal. So, thus drones have been more effective in north- far, Libya is not proving to be a model for west Pakistan than southern Afghanistan. future U.S. policy. The authors also seem to suggest that in- To push the point further, one could tervention is easier because Washington has argue that Obama’s policies elsewhere in the forgotten that it might pave the way for bad Middle East have been “business as usual,” guys to be succeeded by even worse guys. caution squared, even as he was trampling That is a real concern. But I think Libya

Symposium March/April 2012 41 was a special case. There, our key allies, who period where floodgates are probably clos- have been helping us in Afghanistan, plus ing. I see increasing caution and opposition the Arab interventionists made it quite dif- to intervention worldwide, and especially ficult for the Obama team to be sensible. in the United States. Strictly humanitarian Good sense got shoved aside by unusual interventions such as Haiti will remain the allied pressure. Surely, these allies will be exceptions. It might even be hard to dupli- cate good humanitarian interventions such as Bosnia. Costs also will militate against intervention. In today’s world, a billion here and a billion there is too expensive. The authors are right to call our attention to all of the problems and issues regarding mili- tary intervention, but methinks they might worry a little too much. Realists like Gvosdev and Takeyh are for- ever and rightly worried about America doing dumb things that are not ground- ed in clear national interests. And heaven knows, history is too often on their side. I would share their worries today if it looked as though neoconservatives were regaining power. When they control the politics and the machinery of national security, military intervention is only a breath away. Remember how easy it was to get into Iraq and Afghanistan—and how hard to get out. Never count the neocons out. But, for the time being at least, the Republi- can front-runner Mitt Romney seems to rely more on realists than neocons. Nor should it be forgotten that certain liber- als hearken to humanitarian intervention and democracy promotion. And when they less eager to repeat Libya if and when that band together with neocons, it’s a strong country falls into hands more unfriendly alliance. For all these reasons, realists like and murderous than Qaddafi’s. Gvosdev and Takeyh are right not to wait In sum, I think a good case can be made for groundswells for intervention to begin; that we are not entering a period where the they have to move swiftly to counter ill- floodgates to intervention are opening but a considered agitations for humanitarian and

42 The National Interest Symposium democratic intervention. But for the time point which must be given equal consider- being, circumstances at home and abroad ation” with other interests. And surely the favor those with hard-headed caution. Libya operation, which supported a rebel- lion against a repellent tyrant at zero cost in U.S. lives, can be seen by the White House Patrick J. Buchanan as a “model” for future interventions. But that post–Cold War model was in- vented by Bill Clinton when seventy-eight n the cover story of the previous issue days of bombing forced Slobodan Milosevic of The National Interest, “Triumph of to yield Serbia’s cradle province of Kosovo I the New Wilsonism,” Nikolas K. Gvos- to its Muslim Albanian majority. dev and Ray Takeyh explore the question: However, to contend that Libya repre- sents a “template for future limited inter- Are we witnessing a subtle paradigm shift, ventions,” a “paradigm shift” or a “doctrine” where governments’ treatment of their citi- that may reduce realists to political irrel- zens, as opposed to their geopolitical conduct, evance goes more than a bridge too far. is more important as a factor for U.S. policy? For Libya seems less a rule than an aber- Does the Libya operation provide a model for ration. low-cost, no-consequence interventions that Muammar el-Qaddafi, the author of Obama and other presidents may seek to em- Lockerbie, was a repulsive dictator and vir- ploy elsewhere in the region and around the tually friendless. His country of six million world? was defenseless against air and missile strikes. And the United States had no stake in his They go on to propose: survival and took little risk with his removal. In addition, if Libya is to be the model America could stand at the threshold of a new for “low-cost, no-consequence interven- foreign-policy era dominated by a twenty-first- tion,” why has there been such reticence in century iteration of Wilsonism—the wide- applying this model to Syria? spread application of American power on be- After all, Bashar al-Assad has been ruth- half of humanitarian ideals even when it risks lessly crushing an Arab Spring revolt for compromising key interests. nearly a year. Syria’s death toll is estimated at over five thousand, far higher than Qad- Now, undeniably, how governments “treat dafi’s before the nato attack. Yet, a no-fly their populations is gaining traction as a zone has not been mandated, and there have been no air strikes. Patrick J. Buchanan is an author and political Why not? commentator. He was formerly an adviser Unlike Libya, Syria is not friendless and to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and a can fight back. It is four times as populous presidential candidate. as Libya, and its missiles can reach every

Symposium March/April 2012 43 Unlike Libya, Syria is not friendless and can fight back. It is four times as populous as Libya, and its missiles can reach every neighboring nation.

neighboring nation. Moscow has sent war- 2013? Would President Romney back the ships to Syrian waters and antiship missiles ouster of a pro-American autocrat facing to its army. Damascus has allies in Hezbol- mass demonstrations if the successor regime lah and Iran whose actions in the event of a might be Islamist? Has any Republican can- U.S. attack are not predictable. didate offered Libya as a model? Equally unpredictable is: Who rises if Since the Cold War, America’s color-cod- Assad and the Alawites fall? ed street revolutions have failed in Belarus Does the United States wish to risk an and backfired in Kiev and Beirut. Nation ethnosectarian civil war or a Sunni Islamist building left us with ashes in our mouths republic in Syria? Do we want to see the in Afghanistan and Iraq. Democratic revo- cleansing of its two million Christians, as in lutions gave us elections, but the victors Iraq? Would a post-Assad Syria honor the were the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and truce on the Golan, as Assad and his father Hezbollah. have done since 1973? Consider the harvest of twelve years of In Syria, U.S. interests appear to be interventionism to advance the “world trumping American values and, except for democratic revolution”: the unleashing of secret operations, staying America’s hand. Islamism; the isolation of Israel; the rise Moreover, as the authors note, we have of Hezbollah and Hamas; recurring sec- not intervened on the side of the dissidents tarian war in Iraq; the possible return of in Bahrain or Yemen. Would we side with the Taliban to Kabul; and rampant anti- the Facebook-Twitter crowd if it rose up Americanism in lands lately looked upon as against the emirate in Kuwait, where thou- allies—Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan. sands of U.S. troops are stationed, or Saudi Is Libya really a conclusive argument Arabia, whose fall could trigger Islamic rev- for using U.S. power to knock over even olutions across the Persian Gulf? friendly Middle Eastern autocrats? Are If the Palestinians rose up against the those who urge America not to intervene king of Jordan or began a third intifada to going to be ignored in the future? demand a nation of their own, would the Obama may embrace Libya “as a useful Americans side with the Palestinian march- example in these times of budget auster- ers or the Jordanian and Israeli soldiers? ity for facilitating U.S. values and interests What is the relevance of the “Libyan around the world,” but only, it appears, if model” to relations with such antagonistic the regime we attack is friendless and can- or adversarial states as China, Russia, Be- not fight back, like Haiti, Serbia or Libya. larus, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, No. When the great issues are decided, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Cuba and like war with Iran, perceived or real strategic Venezuela? interests will be paramount, not whether The answer would seem to be none. Iranian women must wear burkas or can Obama is indispensable to the new drive cars. Neither realists nor anti-inter- doctrine. But will he even be around in ventionists are out of this game yet.

44 The National Interest Symposium Marc Lynch The Obama administration’s regional pol- icy has indeed departed from conventional realist recommendations, but it has avoid- n their provocative essay, Nikolas ed the worst impulses of those aggressors Gvosdev and Ray Takeyh suggest that of both liberal and neoconservative breeds I the United States seems to be turning who yearn for Bush-style direct American away from decades of a realist foreign policy intervention and rhetorical claims to leader- in the Middle East. Washington’s rhetori- ship. It has expressed support for the demo- cal alignment with the forces of democracy cratic aspirations of Arab publics—and, in the Arab Spring and its acceptance of unlike Bush, did not abandon this spoken the fall of longtime allies such as Hosni commitment at the first sign of the inevi- Mubarak, they argue, mark the end of a table Islamist electoral success. Contrary to long-standing American policy of work- the complaints that it “led from behind,” ing through friendly dictators. The greatest it in fact moved quickly to embrace change change is the nato intervention in Libya, a in Egypt—calling on its closest Arab ally to battle in which no vital American interests step down only six days after protests began. were at stake. Are they right? And are they The administration has articulated a set right to be concerned? of clear standards to guide its actions—in- In terms of what has actually happened cluding the defense of what it calls universal to date, their argument seems exaggerated. rights, a clear line against the use of violence True, the Obama administration has proven and a preference for multilateral action. surprisingly open to the prospect of change It acted in Libya to prevent an impend- in the Middle East and has maintained its ing massacre that it believed—in my view poise even as Islamists swept elections, Israel correctly—would have taken place within fretted and the regional mood turned ugly. days, and it accomplished its goals at very And true, the United States acted remark- low cost without the Iraq-style ground oc- ably quickly in Egypt, calling for Mubarak cupation for which some hawks called. But to step down and urging the military to it has declined to take similar actions in refrain from using violence. We took part other places where the blood flowed all too in the nato intervention in Libya. But these freely—most notably Bahrain (left to the actions seem less a sign of a postrealist for- Saudis), Yemen (largely ignored) and Syria eign policy than of a pragmatic, case-by- (which presented few good options). This case and prudential approach to an array of may be neo-Wilsonian, but it is a careful unanticipated challenges. and pragmatic example of the breed. Nor, for better or for worse, has the ad- Marc Lynch is an associate professor of political ministration altered the basic structure of science and international affairs at The George the U.S. strategic posture in the region. It Washington University, where he directs the has kept quiet about antidemocratic trends Institute for Middle East Studies. in areas of perceived vital national interest,

Symposium March/April 2012 45 most obviously in Bahrain but also in Jor- to have been largely forgotten, Obama him- dan and Kuwait. It has continued the same self was quite clear on this point: approach toward Iran as previous adminis- trations. And while it has indeed—thank- It’s true that America cannot use our military fully—met its promise to withdraw from wherever repression occurs. And given the costs Iraq, it has not significantly altered U.S. and risks of intervention, we must always mea- military deployments or basing structures in sure our interests against the need for action. the Gulf. But that cannot be an argument for never act- The critique’s primary focus, therefore, is ing on behalf of what’s right. In this particular Libya, which the authors view as “a funda- country—Libya—at this particular moment, mental break with past American emphasis we were faced with the prospect of violence on on serious threats to U.S. national security a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop as the prime motivation for action.” It is that violence: an international mandate for ac- clear why defensive realists, always attuned tion, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the to the unnecessary expenditure of blood support of Arab countries, and a plea for help and treasure on ideological or moral cru- from the Libyan people themselves. We also sades, opposed the Libyan intervention. had the ability to stop Qaddafi’s forces in their But, as Gvosdev and Takeyh acknowledge, tracks without putting American troops on the in fact virtually none of the dire predic- ground. To brush aside America’s responsibil- tions about that campaign came to pass. ity as a leader and—more profoundly—our re- Washington maintained its international sponsibilities to our fellow human beings under coalition, successfully protected the Libyan such circumstances would have been a betrayal rebels, did not get bogged down in a quag- of who we are. mire, and did not see Libya partitioned or collapsed. It contributed to the even- This seems to answer their question of tual overthrow of the brutal Qaddafi re- whether Libya represents a new model by gime without the loss of a single American which America “believes that it is possible life and for about $1 billion—a rounding to promote U.S. values at minimal cost to error in the Pentagon’s budget. Its insis- U.S. interests.” Not when the other neces- tence on an indirect, supporting role may sary conditions for action do not exist: in- not have been full-throated enough for the ternational or regional consensus, an oppor- hawks, but it forced the Libyan opposition tunity to stop a singular act of violence, and to evolve into a credible alternative govern- a cheap and indirect intervention option. ment and avoided what would have been a In other words, the “postrealist” policies catastrophic occupation. of the Obama administration ultimately Libya must be judged a success, at least look rather realist indeed. I would argue, for now. Does it set a precedent for future along with at least some in the administra- such interventions, as Gvosdev and Takeyh tion, that the construction of a new global fear? In a frank televised address that seems and regional norm against regime violence

46 The National Interest Symposium is an important strategic objective in its own right. But the response to Bah- rain, Yemen and Syria sug- gests that the United States will act when it can, in the ways that it can, although Obama at least shows little interest in leading a new Wilsonian crusade. The real questions are whether a more demo- cratic Middle East better serves American interests and what Washington can do about it. The Obama administration did not create the changes in tionists of both liberal and neoconserva- the Middle East, and it could have done lit- tive brands want to offer them. The Bush tle to stop the popular uprisings in Egypt or administration’s “gift” to the Middle East Yemen even if it had wanted to do so. The was half a decade of horrors, from the abat- administration’s recognition of the limits of toir of Iraq to a war on terror that made a American power and its belief in the inevi- mockery of international law and always tability of change shaped its responses more risked sliding seamlessly into a wider an- than did any naive belief in transforming tipathy to Islam itself. Bush ignored the Pal- the region in America’s democratic image. estinian problem for so long that what was The White House does believe that democ- once called the peace process was long dead racy and open societies will eventually be by the time Obama attempted to revive it. better for America’s interests, but it has been It should come as no shock, therefore, that carefully reformist rather than revolutionary newly empowered publics show little inter- in its advocacy. Even in Egypt, it has opted est in American leadership or love for its to work through the military leadership in regional role. But their newfound power a frustratingly slow transition to democracy means that engaging with hostile publics that has infuriated impatient revolutionaries. is a vital strategic necessity, not a liberal Of course, a more empowered Arab pub- luxury. lic will make life harder for the United For all the provocation in its framing, States. After all, decades of hostility toward Gvosdev and Takeyh’s essay in fact describes American foreign policy have not evaporat- not a radical retreat from realism but a care- ed overnight, and few Arabs seem anxious ful, prudent response to regional changes for the “leadership” that hawkish interven- that America could not stop but that it

Symposium March/April 2012 47 might be able to shape in its interests. The gendered by the long-reviled and sanctioned inevitable double standards and hypocrisies military junta in Myanmar, in part due that such a pragmatic response necessarily to a geopolitical strategy of competing for entails have outraged virtually all sides—re- influence with a rising China throughout alists and neoconservative interventionists Southeast Asia. Seen through an East Asian who demand less or more American action, prism rather than a North African one, U.S. and Arab regimes and protestors who feel policy indeed seems to be guided more by equally abandoned. The sustainability of realist considerations—validating Buchan- such a pragmatic progressivism, it seems to an’s contention that “neither realists nor me, is the more urgent question with which anti-interventionists are out of this game.” to grapple. But it is also clear that there has been a shift since 2009, when U.S. foreign policy was characterized by the Carnegie Endow- Nikolas K. Gvosdev ment’s Thomas Carothers as a “stepping back” from promoting U.S. values, defined and Ray Takeyh more by “a broader effort to improve U.S. diplomatic engagement with a variety of e would like to thank Patrick nondemocratic governments.” Buchanan Buchanan, Leslie Gelb and and Gelb both suggest that a form of “buy- WMarc Lynch for their thoughtful er’s remorse” over the direction that revolu- responses to our piece. tions have taken in Libya and Egypt will All of them tackle the crux of the argu- reinforce those earlier pragmatic tendencies. ment in their answers: Does the interven- Conversely, the United States may have to tion in Libya represent a paradigm shift learn, as Lynch suggests, to adjust to a series in U.S. foreign policy, or was it a one-off of new regimes in the Middle East that have aberration? All of them lean toward the become far less accommodating to U.S. latter rather than the former. It is a fair interests. The U.S. experience over the last assessment. Indeed, as the Libyan opera- decade with both Turkey and Pakistan sug- tion was winding down, the United States gests that Washington may still be unpre- was simultaneously pushing forward with pared for “engaging with hostile publics,” in a strategy of engaging the government en- Lynch’s words, where and when they have become empowered. Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a senior editor at The Will there be more interventions after National Interest and a professor of national- Libya? We agree with Lynch that the United security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. States will decline to intervene in many in- Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern stances; as we noted in the original piece, studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The the shift we have charted “is not categorical views expressed here are entirely those of the or complete.” We concur with Gelb that authors. large land-based operations à la Iraq or Af-

48 The National Interest Symposium ghanistan are off the table, in the spirit of veraging America’s expeditionary firepower the advice colorfully proffered by Robert capabilities of the U.S. Air Force and Navy Gates at West Point in February 2011: “Any and placing a greater emphasis on special future defense secretary who advises the and irregular forces to provide a light land president to again send a big American land footprint. To use University of Kentucky army into Asia or into the Middle East or professor Robert Farley’s turn of phrase, this Africa should ‘have his head examined.’” enables proponents of intervention to make But we believe that the acceptable threshold “a case for cheap, easy, painless war against for any sort of action has been lowered by distant foes.” the perceived success of the Libya operation. Gelb notes some of the technical and How should we read the Defense Strategic geographical limitations for these types of Guidance (dsg) released by the Obama ad- “low-cost” interventions, particularly for ministration in January? Christopher Layne, drones. But we cannot neglect their political writing in the online edition of this maga- attractiveness. Recall General James Jones’s zine, argues that the document “is the first move in what figures to be a dra- matic strategic re- trenchment by the United States over the next two de- cades.” He suggests that America, in the future, will “refrain from fighting wars for the purpose of attaining regime change.” But Layne acknowledges that the dsg still as- serts “that America’s global interests and military role must remain undiminished” and labels this as a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Don- point of “intellectual dissonance.” ald Rumsfeld of August 2001, when Jones But if the dsg is read from a postrealist was commandant of the Marine Corps, perspective, it becomes a blueprint for what outlining why continuing with the no-fly we might label “smart interventionism”: le- zones over Iraq was becoming increasingly

Symposium March/April 2012 49 untenable. Citing the growing probability opposition. In reluctantly supporting them, that American personnel would be killed or the State Department’s former head of pol- captured over Iraq, Jones noted, “We need icy planning Anne-Marie Slaughter also to ensure the risk we are directing our air- invokes the “credibility” argument that was crews to take is consistent with the end state marshaled in 1999 in the Kosovo campaign; we desire to achieve.” By their very nature, a failure to act means that drones take out of the equation the need to put American lives in jeopardy—which may not only will dictators around the world draw encourage rather than diminish opportuni- their own conclusions, but belief in the U.S. ties to utilize them. commitment to other international norms and In the same way, a decade of beefing up obligations also weakens. . . . The credibility of irregular-warfare capabilities to combat ter- the U.S. commitment to its own proclaimed rorism has handed President Obama op- values will also take yet another critical hit. tions that he may be more inclined to use in a series of small-scale interventions. The dis- Slaughter acknowledges that “raising the patch of special forces to Uganda last fall to possibility of armed intervention does not assist East African states in combating the mean that intervention is bound to occur.” insurgency of the Lord’s Resistance Army— And it may not. Some of the objections which is certainly very destructive for the raised by Buchanan to intervening in Syria states of the region but does not pose any may indeed guide U.S. policy. Deadlock in serious threat to vital U.S. interests—and the un Security Council may also provide the use of a seal team in a hostage-rescue the excuse that, while the West was pre- operation directed against Somali pirates- pared to go, action was blocked by Russia turned-kidnappers (overcoming the long- and China. But the trump card of the anti- standing reluctance of the United States to interventionists—invoking the specter of engage onshore in Somalia) raise the ques- another Iraq—has been diminished. Now, tion as to whether these will also be excep- the response to opponents of a proposed tions or are setting precedents. intervention will be, “Tell us why it won’t Syria, therefore, becomes the next test be like Libya”—especially since the realists’ case. All the commentators noted that the worst-case scenarios about Libya have not, administration, so far, has eschewed fol- as yet, come to pass, as Lynch noted. lowing the Libya intervention to its logical This is why we concur with the assess- conclusion over the skies of Damascus. Yet ment of the Naval War College’s Tom Nich- it is also important to note how the needle ols in the aftermath of Libya: “Humanitar- has moved toward intervention over the last ian interventions are here to stay, and are several months. We have proposals now on going to be driven more by moral calcula- the table for nato to create and police safe tion and military opportunity than by ‘na- havens and “cities of refuge” for the Syrian tional interest.’” n

50 The National Interest Symposium

Reviews & Essays

The British-led force, which numbered Imperial Britain’s about 4,500 soldiers and included a large contingent of Indian sepoys, was eviscerated Afghan Agony as it battled through biting cold, knee-deep snow and apoplectic tribesmen. Dr. Wil- By Seth G. Jones liam Brydon, the lone European survivor to reach the British fort at Jalalabad, later recalled: “This was a terrible march, the Diana Preston, The Dark Defile: Britain’s fire of the enemy incessant, and numbers of Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838– officers and men, not knowing where they 1842 (New York: Walker & Company, were going from snow-blindness, were cut 2012), 320 pp., $28.00. up.” The Dark Defile, whose title comes from or many foreigners, the history of the lines of a Rudyard Kipling poem, is Afghanistan reads like a morose, an impressive book, and Preston relies on F Shakespearean tragedy. A litany of primary sources to tell an intriguing story armies ventured into the fabled “graveyard from the British perspective. It is not as of empires,” sometimes well-intentioned, comprehensive as the classics by such histo- only to face insurmountable challenges and rians as John William Kaye, whose History withdraw in humiliating defeat. Without a of the War in Afghanistan remains a paradig- doubt, the quintessential Afghan tragedy is matic account of the British experience, but the First Anglo-Afghan War, the subject of it is well sourced and well written. Diana Preston’s book, The Dark Defile: Brit- Given the current war in Afghanistan, it ain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, is natural to inquire about the applicabil- 1838–1842. ity to today of Britain’s nineteenth-century As Kabul and growing parts of the coun- experience. But its relevance is limited. Not try rose up in rebellion, the British em- every empire that ventured into those lands barked on an inglorious retreat in January experienced the same dire fate as the British 1842 led by Sir William Hay Macnaghten, did in the nineteenth century. Still, two les- Britain’s chief representative to Kabul, and sons bear close attention. The first is a vir- Major General William Elphinstone, com- tual tenet among most Afghan anthropolo- mander of the British Army in Afghanistan. gists: a strategy that focuses only on creating a strong central government is unlikely to Seth G. Jones, author of In the Graveyard succeed in a country where power remains of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan ( W.W. local. The second is perhaps more sobering: Norton, 2009), is a senior political scientist at contrary to modern counterinsurgency the- rand. From 2009–2011, he served in various ories, victory—and defeat—may ultimately positions at U.S. Special Operations Command, be more a function of winning the hearts including in Afghanistan. and minds of domestic constituents than of

52 The National Interest Reviews & Essays local Afghans. Both lessons become vividly ment officials debated several options. Lord apparent in The Dark Defile. Auckland, the governor-general of India, wrote to Sir John Hobhouse, president of reston tells the British tragedy in color- the Board of Control in London, that one P ful prose. In the early nineteenth cen- option was to “leave Afghanistan to its fate” tury, Britain was a global superpower that and focus on shoring up British India. A boasted impressive political, military and second was to “attempt to save Afghanistan” economic might. It was, to be sure, the by supporting the current ruler in Kabul, era of Pax Britannica. The country’s gross Dost Mohammed Khan, and other local national product was $8.2 billion, and it power brokers. The third option—and the boasted a 53 percent relative share of Eu- one Britain eventually adopted—was to ropean wealth, had the largest iron and invade the country and impose the elderly steel production in the world, and enjoyed Shah Shuja as king, who the British assessed a 10 percent share of world manufactur- was more malleable than Dost Mohammed ing output. The only countries that came Khan. For British officials, Shah Shuja’s close were Russia and France, which had weakness was an asset. large populations and similar levels of gross It turned out to be an extraordinary gam- national product, world manufacturing out- ble. One Afghan leader pointedly told the put and industrial potential. British that they “could never win over the In South Asia, the British Empire was Afghan nation” with Shah Shuja, who did firmly entrenched in India, where the East not enjoy the legitimacy and popularity of India Company had flexed its economic Dost Mohammed Khan. This reality was and military muscles to annex or subdue reinforced on August 7, 1839, when Kabul much of the subcontinent. Britain’s chief gave a lukewarm reception to Shah Shuja rival in the region was Russia, and the two during his initial entrance into the city. An engaged in a growing balance-of-power Indian army infantryman named Sita Ram struggle. The “Great Game” was alive and poignantly captured the irony: “The truth well. As Preston writes, “the British per- began to dawn on us that despite all the as- ceived the Russians as the greatest threat to surances Shah Shuja had given us in Hindu- India,” either directly or by inciting others stan that the Afghans were longing for his to act against British interests. Reacting to return, in reality they did not want him as reports from British spies and diplomats their ruler.” across the region, including the indefati- The British had broken a major tenet gable Alexander Burnes, the British had of modern-day counterinsurgency theory: become increasingly edgy about Russian they failed to win the support of the local expansionism. Burnes’s reports emphasized population. This miscalculation led to the that Afghanistan could be a profitable trade installation of a weak and unpopular leader. route and help balance Russian power. Even worse, the British had made a danger- In May 1838, senior British govern- ously naive assumption. They believed Shah

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 53 force from behind rocks, on horses, and through dar- ing ambushes and raids. Those who were too weak to continue were cut to pieces by wait- ing tribesmen. Vincent Eyre, who was captured during the retreat Shuja would shortly firm up control of the and later went on to serve as an English country, allowing the British to withdraw general in the Indian army, described the most of their forces. scenes in lurid detail: It was only a matter of time before Af- ghanistan exploded. In 1840, Pashtun tribes The snow was absolutely dyed with streaks and began to rebel in the southern, eastern and patches of blood for whole miles, and at every central parts of the country. By 1841, the step we encountered the mangled bodies of unrest reached Kabul as the inhabitants rose British and Hindustani soldiers and helpless up against their European occupiers. As camp-followers, lying side by side . . . the red Macnaghten wrote, “The whole country . . . stream of life still trickling from many a gaping had risen in rebellion; our communications wound inflicted by the merciless Afghan knife. on all sides were cut off.” British forces and civilians were pinned down in several can- Upon reaching the British fort at Jalalabad, tonments. Perceiving the gravity of the situ- Brydon was in a wretched condition. Ex- ation, Macnaghten and Elphinstone cut a hausted from the fighting and the extreme deal with the insurgent leader, Mohammad cold, his body was a mass of cuts and abra- Akbar Khan, and agreed to leave. sions, and his feet were so swollen with Their timing couldn’t have been worse. frostbite that he could barely stand. It was January, and Kabul was suffering The British responded with a mixture from subzero temperatures. On January 6, of shock and rage. Macnaghten and El- 1842, the British retreated with a contin- phinstone, both of whom died during the gent of 4,500 soldiers (of whom 690 were retreat, were vilified for their strategic and European) and twelve thousand camp fol- tactical blunders. Still, the British had to lowers that included women and children. exact justice. Later that year, they sent a Some died from the extreme cold. But most raiding party to Afghanistan that reached died an ignominious death at the hands of Kabul in late September 1842 and caused Afghan tribesmen, who picked apart the widespread destruction. But it was a pyrrhic

54 The National Interest Reviews & Essays victory. Dost Mohammed Khan returned following year and confessed to planning to his throne in 1843 and remained the Af- to detonate a bomb in the New York City ghan leader until his death in 1863. subway. In December 2009, five Americans from Alexandria, Virginia—who were in ne might be tempted to overstate les- contact with an al-Qaeda facilitator near the O sons from the First Anglo-Afghan Afghanistan-Pakistan border—were arrested War. Preston sometimes does. She suggests, in Pakistan and later convicted on terror- for example, that the British exaggerated the ism charges. They had been radicalized in threat Afghanistan posed to their national the United States and went to Pakistan for security—much like today. While this as- training and operational guidance. Finally, sessment may be accurate in the British case, in May 2010, Faisal Shahzad attempted to it is not for the current war. In the 1830s, detonate an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan did not pose a direct threat to Times Square in New York City after being the British homeland, but British policy trained along the border by bomb makers makers were nonetheless concerned about a from the Pakistani Taliban. domino effect if Afghanistan fell into Rus- This pattern demonstrates that the situ- sian hands—not unlike American fears ation now is vastly different from that of about Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. the early nineteenth century. Actors in Af- Today, events taking place in Afghani- ghanistan and Pakistan can directly threaten stan and Pakistan, especially near the two American and European homelands, an un- countries’ border, do pose a serious threat thinkable prospect in the 1800s. As a result, to the territories of the United States and the risks of a complete withdrawal like the its Western allies. Consider the following one the British orchestrated in 1842 would list of major terrorist attacks that have been be far greater. planned or carried out since September 11: A second erroneous parallel is to compare In July 2005, al-Qaeda struck ferociously in the despised Afghan leader Shah Shuja with London, detonating a series of bombs that today’s president, Hamid Karzai. Preston killed fifty-six people and injured more than writes that early British successes “led them seven hundred. In August 2006, another into an open-ended commitment to a ruler group of radicalized British Pakistanis plot- whom they had not chosen well and, when ted to blow up transatlantic flights from they realized this, hesitated to replace or London to the United States and Canada ‘guide’ sufficiently.” While this was cer- with the assistance of al-Qaeda leaders in tainly true of Shah Shuja, the situation with Pakistan near the Afghan border. Karzai is different. Karzai’s tenure has, of In 2008, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan course, been laced with problems. His gov- American, traveled to Pakistan, where he re- ernment is corrupt (as is the Taliban). He ceived training in bomb making and agreed has been plagued by indecisiveness and wild to undertake a “martyrdom operation” in- mood swings. And he exerts little control side the United States. Zazi was arrested the outside the capital.

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 55 There remain some valid lessons from the First Anglo-Afghan War. One of the most important is the fiction of a strong, central Afghan state.

Yet there are two major differences be- and Durrani Pashtuns. Today, the Taliban, tween Shuja and Karzai. First, Karzai was whose command-and-control node is in elected to office; Shuja was unabashedly Pakistan, is not a widely popular move- installed by the British. Karzai won the ment. When asked who they would rather 2004 presidential elections with 55 per- have ruling Afghanistan today, 86 percent cent of the vote; the runner-up, Tajik leader of Afghans said the Karzai government and Yunus Qanuni, won only 16 percent. The only 9 percent chose the Taliban, according 2009 presidential elections were marred by to a December 2010 poll by the Washington concerns about ballot stuffing, intimidation Post and other news organizations. When and other electoral fraud. I was living in asked who posed the biggest danger to the Kabul at the time and found the evidence country, 64 percent of respondents said the of corruption incontrovertible, though it Taliban, up from 41 percent in 2005. occurred with other candidates as well. Still, It’s not difficult to see why the Taliban preelection polls found Hamid Karzai lead- is unpopular. Its ideology, which is based ing his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, by on an extreme interpretation of Deoban- a wide margin. di Islam, is opposed by most Afghans. In Second, opinion polls today give us a the 1990s, the Taliban closed cinemas and good way to gauge popular support. As- banned music, along with almost every suming a healthy margin of error with other conceivable kind of entertainment. polling in a war-torn country, polls still Most Afghans don’t subscribe to its reli- show widespread support for Karzai. A gious zealotry, which is so extreme that the 2010 Washington Post poll found that his founders of Deobandism wouldn’t recog- government enjoyed a 62 percent approval nize it. rating, while Karzai was viewed positively by 82 percent of the population—nearly espite these differences, there remain double that of the U.S. president. In 2011, D some valid lessons from the First Ang- 46 percent of Afghans believed their coun- lo-Afghan War. One of the most important try was going in the right direction, up is the fiction of a strong, central Afghan slightly from 44 percent in 2006, accord- state. “Instead of being a united kingdom ing to the Asia Foundation. When asked under a strong ruler,” Preston presciently to assess the way the national government writes in The Dark Defile, “Afghanistan was carrying out its responsibilities, nearly was—even when at its most unified—a three-quarters of respondents in 2011 gave loose grouping of semiautonomous tribes, a positive assessment. some speaking different languages and look- A final error would be to compare the ing physically different from their neigh- Taliban with the widespread insurgency that bors.” This remains true today. Social struc- rose up against the British. By early 1842, tures have evolved over the past few decades the British faced a massive populist revolt because of war, droughts, migration pat- inside Afghanistan spearheaded by Ghilzai terns, sedentarization and other factors. But

56 The National Interest Reviews & Essays power remains local in rural areas, where understanding Afghanistan’s social struc- the insurgency is largely being fought. ture, especially its local nuances. Today’s Pashtuns have long based identity on a insurgency is composed of a loose amalgam nested set of clans and lineages that stem of the Taliban and other opposition groups, from a common ancestor. In the absence allied tribes, drug-trafficking and other il- of strong government institutions, descent licit groups, local power brokers and state groups help Pashtuns organize economic sponsors. How these groups come together production, preserve political order and de- varies considerably across villages, districts fend the group from outside threats. These and provinces. bonds tend to be weaker in urban areas, The British understanding of Afghani- where the central government’s control is stan’s tribes, Preston argues, was negligible. stronger. The identity of many Pashtuns It culminated in Macnaghten’s ill-informed may shift depending on the context and decision to dock British payments to the include their tribe, subtribe, clan, family Ghilzai tribes that controlled eastern Af- or village. Pashtunwali, the Pashtun code ghanistan, including the passes they would of behavior, shapes daily life through such use on their shameful retreat. “Perhaps the concepts as badal (revenge), melmastia (hos- biggest British miscalculation,” she writes, pitality), ghayrat (honor) and nanawati was “unilaterally to reduce some of the sub- (sanctuary). Local councils, or jirgas, remain sidies paid to Afghan tribal chiefs. Their instrumental in decision making at the local economy measure was immediately fol- level, rather than formal courts. lowed by an Afghan rising.” Preston makes clear that rural governance With a few exceptions, the United States was similar during the nineteenth centu- and other nato countries have largely failed ry, where “in each tribe the gathering of to understand the local nature of power in elders—the jirgha—played almost as im- Afghanistan. Many Western countries are portant a role as the titular ruler.” In this characterized by strong state institutions in environment, it is impossible to develop an which power emanates from a central au- effective counterinsurgency strategy without thority. But in a range of countries—such

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 57 as Afghanistan—the central government policy makers to rethink the financial costs has historically been limited. Top-down of the war. state-building strategies may have been appropriate for countries such as Japan he First Anglo-Afghan War left behind and Germany after World War II, both of T a cauldron of searing images that en- which had strong centralized state institu- shrined Afghanistan as a graveyard of em- tions. But they aren’t likely to work as well pires. Lady Butler’s famous painting of Dr. in countries such as Afghanistan where William Brydon is symptomatic. It shows power is diffuse. the paltry survivor alone, disheveled and Since the Bonn agreement in December clinging to life on a decrepit horse. On 2001, international efforts in Afghanistan the horizon, the sun sets as Brydon leaves have largely focused on top-down efforts behind a parched Afghan landscape. The to establish security by trying to strengthen symbolism is unmistakable. central-government institutions. On the Fortunately, this perception is large- security front, this translated into build- ly mythical. As anthropologist Thomas ing Afghan National Police and Afghan Barfield soberly reminds us, “while the pop- National Army forces as the only bulwark ular press often repeats the claim that no against Taliban and other insurgent groups. conqueror, including such figures as Alex- On the economic and development fronts, ander the Great or Chinggis Khan, ever suc- it translated into improving the central gov- ceeded in subduing the country, this is un- ernment’s ability to deliver services to the true.” Many of these conquerors did in fact population. An effective strategy must in- subjugate the country and occupy the terri- clude co-opting Afghanistan’s tribes and tory. What is less clear, however, is whether other communities. today’s foreign powers will learn the wrong A final lesson is the political reality of lessons from Afghanistan’s history. war. The British decision to withdraw from A precipitous withdrawal from Afghani- Afghanistan was made, in part, because of stan, as some in the West hope for, may growing economic problems back home. As have grossly unintended consequences, Preston notes in The Dark Defile, a series of especially if it leads to a Pakistan-backed poor harvests, a downturn in home demand Taliban takeover of the country. Today’s for manufactures and rising government Afghan insurgents, including the Haqqani costs contributed to growing skepticism network and the Taliban, continue to co- about the importance of Afghanistan. As operate with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Lord Auckland wrote to Macnaghten in Taliban, both of which have targeted the 1841, British support for Afghanistan was United States. A Taliban government in Af- more at risk “from financial than from mili- ghanistan would almost certainly remain an tary difficulties.” The parallels with today ally of al-Qaeda and would likely provide a are unmistakable, where economic travails boost to Islamic extremism in the region. in Europe and the United States have forced Haven’t we learned that lesson before? n

58 The National Interest Reviews & Essays sionary thinker. He wasn’t a masterly prac- Even Academics titioner of big-power politics. He didn’t set the English language aflame with passion, Like Ike Now poetry or powerful imagery. He was just Ike, who invaded captive Europe at D-day, By David M. Shribman vanquished Adlai Stevenson twice and set the nation on a course toward racial equal- ity. He balanced the budget, sent to the Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Supreme Court prominent justices who Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), would reshape the nation, planted Repub- 976 pp., $40.00. lican roots in the Democratic South, set the gop on a new internationalist path and e exuded warmth to large groups built the St. Lawrence Seaway. He did it all but was frosty in person. He with a decent golf swing, an intoxicating H was not an intellectual but had smile, a sixth sense for politics and a drink a remarkable mastery of history. He was at the end of the day. known as a duffer but had a deep under- Few men ever assembled an obituary as standing of the mainstreams of his time. lengthy as his, a legacy as rich, and a life He was a pale eminence in a panorama of as varied or as full of accomplishments. striking twentieth-century presidents. He And none with an obituary, legacy, life and was a southerner who didn’t resist deseg- accomplishments remotely comparable to regation, a military man who spoke of the his was as ridiculed, underestimated and evils of the military-industrial complex, and misunderstood as he was at his death. In a Westerner whose rejection of the entreat- conquering Nazi Germany, mastering Allied ies of Britain and France during the Suez politics and triumphing in two American crisis gave hope and inspiration to Third national elections, Eisenhower—not Theo- World nations around the world. He un- dore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson or Frank- derstood the necessity of military sacrifice, lin Roosevelt, nor even John F. Kennedy but he made no presidential decisions that or Ronald Reagan—was the quintessential led to an American combat death. American of modern times. He was at ease Dwight David Eisenhower wasn’t a brag- in many spheres and in a historical role as gart. He wasn’t showy, and he wasn’t a vi- close to indispensable as any in the Ameri- can ascendancy. David M. Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning All this is clear now, and the wonder is journalist, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post- that it was so elusive for so long. This view Gazette and a nationally syndicated columnist. of Eisenhower—as a sober magus of mili- He formerly served as a political writer for the tary power and master of domestic politics, New York Times and Wall Street Journal and as preeminent in both spheres—was all but Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe. unknown at the conclusion of his own life,

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 59 which began in the era when American White House: “He will be remembered, I presidents had beards and ended in the pe- fear, as the unadventurous president who riod when presidents seemed to have only held on one term too long in the new age of warts. His childhood was in a horse-and- adventure.” buggy America. His early military career Eisenhower was known as the interreg- was in an era when the potency of airpower num man. He was the figure between the was only beginning to be understood. His New Deal/Fair Deal Democrats of the fdr- presidency was in a period marked by Sput- Truman era, when the survival of America nik, and he died in the very year in which and its capitalist system seemed in the bal- his former vice president would sit in the ance, and the New Frontier/Great Society White House and speak by radio telephone period, when American idealism gave way to American astronauts who had landed on to elements of a generation that rejected the the moon, guiding themselves on that voy- Vietnam War and much of the cultural ar- age with computers far less powerful than chitecture of the nation at midcentury. the ones in our pockets today. But that view began to change with the At the time of his death, Eisenhower was work of Fred I. Greenstein, who in his mourned as a beloved military leader and book The Hidden-Hand Presidency depicted a benign presidential caretaker, but he was Eisenhower as a “hidden-hand” president widely, if not universally, seen as a sym- who shrewdly masked his intelligence and bol of the era’s sprawling suburban growth, his wily maneuvers. Stephen Ambrose, in mindless materialism, bland culture, ram- his 1990 work Eisenhower: Soldier and Presi- pant conformity, and deep-seated racial and dent, celebrated the man as a figure for all gender bias. It was a period of mediocrity seasons. Since then, others have picked up and mendacity run wild, all set to a Sinatra this theme. But no one has written so he- ballad. As the prominent political scientist roic a biography as this year’s Eisenhower in of the 1950s and ’60s Clinton Rossiter put War and Peace, by the distinguished Colum- it patronizingly while Ike still sat in the bia historian Jean Edward Smith, author of

60 The National Interest Reviews & Essays respected works on John Marshall, fdr and could be delegated to subordinates. His experi- Lucius D. Clay. ence as supreme commander taught him to use Smith has produced a life-and-times bi- experts without being intimidated by them. He ography of the classic sort, but it is also a structured matters so that he always had the celebration of virtues of another era, espe- last word, and in a curious way that encouraged cially modesty, humility and verbal brev- his subordinates to do their best. The lines of ity, qualities all but unknown in our own authority were clear, the national interest was high-octane and high-stakes time. He por- broadly defined, and there was no buck pass- trays a man at the center of the important ing. questions themselves at the center of the twentieth century, always with the capac- And so if Kennedy (Irish aristocrat, Har- ity to address them (the civil-rights debate vard intellectual and brat-pack flaneur) and might be the signal exception, and it is not Reagan (the clear-eyed innocence of Dixon, an insignificant one) if not always quick to Illinois, the savoir faire of Hollywood and do so. The result was eight years of peace a napkin scrawled with the Laffer curve and prosperity, a balance of each that has no in a smoky nightclub) were types readily peer in the last century. Smith suggests that identifiable and explained, Eisenhower was the self-confidence of Ike extended to the a type, too. It included a bit of that special nation itself. No one today would say that swashbuckling that comes from that swath any of the last three presidents felt he had of Texas up against the Oklahoma border nothing to prove, and no one today would that we also associate with Sam Rayburn, suggest that the national self-confidence a bit of the corps confidence of West Point under the last three presidents, ranging we associate with Douglas MacArthur, from 1993 to this day, remotely matched and a dose of the World War II experience the American self-confidence of the Eisen- shaped by his intimacy with George Mar- hower period, fraught as it was with chal- shall, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery lenges, tensions and, as we have come to and Charles de Gaulle. Yet unlike every see, portentous transitions. Indeed, Smith’s other president of his century and ours, portrayal of the thirty-fourth president, lau- with the possible and surprising exception datory if not hagiographic, as evident in of Herbert Hoover, Eisenhower was a fully the following paragraph, very likely could formed, hugely accomplished figure long not be written about any president who fol- before he entered the White House, and he lowed Eisenhower: still would have been had he never entered presidential politics. As Smith says, “Ike had Like a true professional, Eisenhower made no need to prove himself.” things look easy. He was a master of the es- And yet in the two proving grounds of sentials. He appeared to be performing less politics—temporal approval and historical work than he did because he knew instinctively approval—Ike acquitted himself grandly. which matters required his attention and which We have seen historians’ assessments grow

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 61 “Never bring me a sealed envelope,” the new president barked. “That’s what I have a staff for.” No man, including Reagan, ever delegated with such deftness.

rosier with the years. But it is also true (and teach. It was dangerous enough that, eighty much forgotten) that Eisenhower’s popular- years after the Civil War, the man called ity ratings when he left office were as high upon to liberate Europe had been shaped as they were in the beginning. It is im- by the classroom lessons of Gettysburg and portant, too, to remember that Eisenhow- Vicksburg. But—fortunately for Eisenhow- er could have been the nominee of either er, fortunately for us all—he would not be party in 1948 or 1952 and that Stevenson, stricken with the military night blindness whose cult still endures, though graying, brought on by Verdun, Passchendaele and was doomed as a presidential contender the Meuse-Argonne offensive. As Smith from the moment Eisenhower agreed to run writes, “Unlike many British senior com- as a Republican in 1952. manders, Eisenhower had not been shocked into excessive caution by the futile slaughter isenhower was reared in Abilene, Kan- of World War I. He was ready for a war of E sas. Is there any other town of that size maneuver.” that could claim, in 1950, three graduates In truth, learning lessons was one of of the local high school who were college Eisenhower’s greatest strengths. His postwar presidents—Ike at Columbia, his brother experience writing a guide to the Ameri- Milton at Penn State and Deane Malott at can battlefields of Europe gave him a deep Cornell ­? At that time, the town had relin- knowledge of the landscape where Ameri- quished the rowdy days of the cow drives can troops would fight a quarter century but, with wooden planks serving as side- later. His early views (“I believe that virtual walks, was a long way from being a late dictatorship must be exercised by our Presi- nineteenth-century fleshpot and entrepôt. dent”) showed what might charitably be It was at Ike’s birth, as Smith puts it, “a called an insufficient appreciation for the sleepy Kansas backwater,” and its future will of the people and an insufficient under- favorite son had accumulated the sort of standing of the underpinnings of the Con- all-American series of jobs (ice puller at stitution. But by the time he became presi- a creamery, fireman keeping the furnaces dent, he was, if not a man of the people, roaring) that make for myths. Off to West then most assuredly a man who respected Point Ike went, where he was marinated the will of the people. He learned a great in more juices of the nineteenth century, lesson from Marshall, who once told him, learning the lessons of the Civil War. Then “Eisenhower, this Department is filled with to the great frustration of his life: he was on able men who analyze their problems well the sidelines rather than in the trenches and but feel compelled to always bring them in command of men in the Great War. to me for final solution. I must have as- He was mortified, even mordant, at that sistants who will solve their own problems fate. But in a way, he was liberated, not and tell me later what they have done.” from the utter terror that battle brings but Eisenhower would adopt that lesson in Eu- from the wrongheaded lessons that battles rope, at Columbia and in the White House.

62 The National Interest Reviews & Essays He recoiled when, returning to the White a dazzling bureaucrat and, in time, a radi- House after his inauguration in 1953, he ant commander of men, first with the 101st was handed a sealed envelope. “Never bring Heavy Tank Battalion at Fort Meade, then me a sealed envelope,” the new president with the Fifteenth Infantry Division at Fort barked. “That’s what I have a staff for.” No Lewis and finally in the European theater in man, including Reagan, ever delegated with World War II. such deftness. Today, we routinely think of Eisenhower Eisenhower served under and with the as a politician even in his military uniform, greatest military minds, strategists and offi- for his political skills contributed might- cers of his time or any other. They included ily to his D-day triumphs. But there were John J. Pershing, MacArthur, Patton, Mark times when he let military impulses trump Clark, Marshall and Walter Bedell Smith, political imperatives, occasionally to great a constellation of stars who, with the ex- disadvantage and even tragedy. One of his

ception of Pershing, would shine in World stumbles was his failure to see the peril in War II and in some brilliant cases beyond. the Clark-Darlan agreement of 1942, which He was at base a gifted staff officer, but he tied the United States to a known collabo- would grow into a gifted military strategist, rator with odious Vichy ties and a promi-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 63 nent collaborationist portfolio. Eisenhower ized Montgomery’s plans and actions after “had not been catapulted over the heads of D-day that the redoubtable British general 345 generals more senior—to say nothing of was moved to say, “I have never been able to their British counterparts—because he was a understand why Ike and Bedell made those proven combat leader,” Smith writes, adding: statements.” And in Crusade in Europe, his “He was chosen to be supreme commander 1948 war memoir, Eisenhower, perhaps precisely because of his political sensitivity.” motivated by Cold War tensions but also He showed his mastery of spin early in possibly by self-absorption, ignored the So- World War II. In North Africa, where the viet contribution to ending and winning American army was forced back eighty-five the war. miles in less than a week’s time, Eisenhower That Eisenhower mastery of spin was ac- came into his own as a senior commander. companied by mastery in personal politics. He portrayed the Battle of Kasserine Pass Examples include his relationship with Pat- in Tunisia as the turning point of the war. ton, which could not have been an easy one That is an overly grand assessment and not and, perhaps more critically, with de Gaulle. remotely how the 1943 battle is taught in Indeed, as Smith relates, “Dealing with de military circles today. However, the tactical Gaulle brought out the best in Eisenhower.” failures of that confrontation led to impor- It later brought out the best in de Gaulle, tant changes in operational procedures that but first Eisenhower would allow de Gaulle would reap dividends on D-day. to occupy the Palais de l’Elysee, outmaneu- vering President Roosevelt and the State ong before Reagan was recognized for Department “so skillfully that he left no fin- L his innate genius at projecting opti- gerprints.” Another example of his sterling mism, Eisenhower was its presiding oracle. personal politics occurred in 1952, when “Ike’s optimism was contagious,” Smith Eisenhower traveled across the street at the writes. “He recognized that a few com- gop convention to visit the vanquished sen- pelling ideas, preached relentlessly, would ator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, his Republican propel his forces forward.” Most of the time presidential rival. Such a gesture of pure it worked, and it was particularly advanta- personal chivalry had never occurred before, geous as the German threat at the Battle of and has not been replicated since. the Bulge became clear. “The present situ- It was D-day that made Eisenhower’s ca- ation is to be regarded as an opportunity,” reer and sent him on a White House trajec- Eisenhower said, again employing the spin tory. It was a stunning strategic achievement that he now recognized as one of his great- of planning, politics, maneuver and man- est skills, “not a disaster.” Eisenhower’s opti- power. But the liberation of France was also mism was redeemed, in part because of the the liberation of Eisenhower. No longer was daring and success of Patton. he an indoor general or a peripheral figure But Eisenhower also spun history. He with hard eyes and an easy smile. His emer- and Walter Bedell Smith so mischaracter- gence as perhaps the central military figure

64 The National Interest Reviews & Essays Eisenhower was prepared for almost everything that came his way. In war, he triumphed with intelligence and power. In peace, he triumphed with serenity and mastery.

of the war, at least on the Allied side, was war. . . . Personally, I think he is incapable of pure Ike. Here is Smith’s assessment: running the war even if he tries.

Like de Gaulle, Eisenhower arrived on the The Allies prevailed, of course, and so did world scene unheralded. But whereas de Gaulle Eisenhower, who at war’s end was tired and made his way by forcing his iron will on oth- knew his marriage was in tatters because ers, Ike moved by subtlety and indirection. His of a lengthy and deep relationship with amiable personality and avuncular enthusiasm his driver, Kay Summersby. But his public concealed a calculating political instinct that reputation was shiny, and his appeal as a had been honed to perfection. potential political figure for the nation’s highest office was undiminished. Nonethe- But the post-1944 period nearly undid less he shied away, not entirely disingenu- Eisenhower. It was one of the rare times he ously. “I’m a soldier, and I am positive that wasn’t able to transform his disadvantages no one thinks of me as a politician,” he into formidable advantages. Arrayed against said, fully convincing no one, perhaps not Eisenhower, as the Allies moved east into even himself. “In the strongest language Europe, were Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke you can command you can state that I have and Montgomery. Montgomery promptly no political ambitions at all. Make it even went on a political offensive that matched stronger than that if you can. I’d like to go the military offensive opening on the conti- even further than Sherman did in express- nent. “I think now that if we want the war ing myself on this subject.” to end within any reasonable period you That said much less than met the eye. will have to get Eisenhower’s hand taken off Smith points out that saying he would “like the land battle,” Montgomery told Brooke. to go even further than Sherman” is ma- “He has never commanded anything in his terially different from actually doing so. whole career; now, for the first time, he In January 1948, when for timing and age has elected to take direct command of very reasons political experts argued that Eisen- large-scale operations and he does not know hower’s presidential chances were greatest, how to do it.” Shortly thereafter, Brooke he demurred formally, saying: fought to have Eisenhower removed from his commanding heights. Here are his re- It is my conviction that the necessary and wise marks before the British chiefs of staff: subordination of the military to civil power will best be sustained . . . when lifelong professional I put before the Committee my views on the solders, in the absence of some obvious and very unsatisfactory state of affairs in France, overriding reasons, abstain from seeking high with no one running the land battle. Eisen- political office. hower, though supposed to be doing so, is on the golf links at Reims—entirely detached and He would not always feel that way, of taking practically no part in the running of the course. But first he would serve as president

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 65 of Columbia (defending scholars against the portant issues of the time, including the “Red Scare” that was only then gathering role of tolerance and freedom in a demo- force but never really embracing the cam- cratic society facing a mortal threat from pus life or the Columbia zeitgeist) and as a competing ideology; the place of atomic supreme commander of nato. For most fig- weaponry in the postwar world; and, not ures in history, these would be assignments unrelated, the struggle between commu- and legacies enough. But for Eisenhower, nism and the West. they were the bridge between two star turns on the world stage. They provided him n the surface, Eisenhower’s over- with perspective, executive leadership, and O whelming popularity gave the 1952 positions where his assumptions about the election little suspense. But there were sig- structure and nature of power were chal- nificant consequences, as the nation was to lenged. (For there is nothing, not even de see decades later if not clearly at the time. Gaulle, to match the ferocity and intran- In this election were the first substantial cracks in the solid South; Eisenhower began the general- election campaign in Georgia, one of fdr’s home states, and in the audience were William Harts- field, the Demo- cratic mayor, and Eugene Talmadge, the Democratic gov- ernor. By the time the ballots were cast, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Florida had slipped into the gop column. Cath- olics had begun moving away from their New Deal moorings, and the sigence of an Ivy League faculty.) During suburbs were leaning Republican. All this those years, he was given the indispensable adumbrated a mass movement that would opportunity to think deeply about the im- transform American politics and render the

66 The National Interest Reviews & Essays nation politically unrecognizable by cen- anger Eisenhower, not to make him pris- tury’s end. oner of expectations. He assembled a cabinet that was remark- This was especially so on military mat- able for its lack of experience in Washing- ters. In his first State of the Union message, ton—not one member possessed it—and the president said that “to amass military set a path for his presidency that had little power without regard to our economic ca- resemblance to the 1952 platform. “There pacity would be to defend ourselves against would be no victory in Korea, no reduction one kind of disaster by inviting another.” in foreign aid, no shift in emphasis from He pressed ahead with his New Look con- Europe to Asia, no immediate tax cut, and cept for the military, giving increased fund- no end of the New Deal,” Smith writes. ing to the air force while reducing army and “The changes would be incremental. Eisen- navy appropriations, despite the opposition hower was a realist, not an ideologue, and of some of his own appointees, including his policies would hew to the middle of the the generals Matthew Ridgway and Max- road.” well Taylor, both of whom he replaced as a The irony of the age is that the man who result. “Eisenhower’s emphasis on the New would lead the West against the red-tinged Look and nuclear weapons preserved the prophets of central planning believed deeply peace during the Cold War,” Smith writes. in planning, and when it wasn’t done he “But,” he goes on: was seriously aggrieved: “Ever since 1946 the experts have been yapping about what It spawned a variety of side effects, some be- would happen when Stalin dies and what nign and beneficial, others downright perni- we should do about it,” he said at a cabinet cious. Among the pernicious was the arms race meeting, the frustration oozing from the that led to the development of thermonuclear man. “Well, he’s dead. And you can turn weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, the files of our government inside out look- and the spiral in defense spending that Ike had ing for any plans laid. We have no plans.” hoped to avoid. In episodes where no plans were pos- sible—the fight over the Bricker amend- On the positive side: increased pure re- ment, for example, which would have given search that paid off for decades. new powers to lawmakers in international Through it all, Eisenhower displayed an treaties—he found common cause with his amiable artistry in ambiguity. In 1955, Jo- presumed rivals, such as Lyndon B. John- seph C. Harsch of the Christian Science son, whose wily machinations helped defeat Monitor asked the president whether he the amendment. But he was not the captive would use tactical nuclear weapons if there of his presumed allies. The French at Dien were a conflict with China over Quemoy Bien Phu begged for American help but and Matsu. Eisenhower’s response is an ob- didn’t get it. And Britain’s joint action with ject lesson in obfuscation: “The only thing France during the Suez crisis only served to I know about war are two things: the most

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 67 changeable factor in war is human nature in persons engaged in . . . obstruction of jus- its day-by-day manifestation; but the only tice to cease and desist therefrom, and to unchanging factor in war is human nature.” disperse forthwith,” and called in the 101st That explains nothing, of course, because Airborne Division. in one inscrutable sentence Eisenhower de- His final years were full of travail in- scribed human nature as both changing and cluding Sputnik, the Middle East, the U-2 unchanging. But it got him off the hook incident, and even the prospect of being and allowed him to move on, and he em- succeeded by a vice president from Califor- ployed the tactic repeatedly. It was brilliance nia he didn’t fully trust or a junior senator in the guise of buffoonery. from Massachusetts he didn’t fully respect. Eisenhower’s views on race have been the Eisenhower approached each of these chal- subject of enormous controversy, not with- lenges with confidence, competence and out justification. He was, above all, a prod- experience, though in the case of Nixon uct of his region and race, both of which his gracelessness in promoting his lieuten- gave him a constricted view of what might ant commander may have been deliberate be possible. Eisenhower was not a bigot, but and not reflexive. It is that combination by temperament, inclination and rearing of confidence, competence and experience he was not a civil-rights activist either. He that sets him apart from every president wanted progress but without rancor—that who followed, with the possible exception was the Eisenhower way, after all—but in of George H. W. Bush, whose tenure in the the case of race, that was all but impos- White House was only half that of Eisen- sible, and he should have known it. Even hower, Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. so, he ordered the end of segregation in the Bush. All the other modern presidents, es- nation’s capital and took Harry Truman’s pecially the last three, faced crises for which offensive against segregation in the armed they were unprepared or at least lacked per- forces to a new, more effective level, with sonal experience. That is the Eisenhow- the result that by 1954 no racially segregat- er difference. He was prepared for almost ed units remained in the armed forces. Both everything that came his way. In war, he achievements are substantial and worthy of triumphed with intelligence and power. praise, but they were mere slices of the loaf, In peace, he triumphed with serenity and not even half the loaf. Even so, he worked mastery. There was ample reason to like Ike quietly and by and large effectively with in his time, and there is even greater reason religious leaders, including the Reverend to like him now. Indeed, history has shown Billy Graham, to sow the notion that seg- that we have not seen his like again. A few regation was odious and unacceptable. And decades ago, the absence of a latter-day Ike in the famed Little Rock Nine crisis he gave figure might have been the occasion for verbal support to the nine black children relief. In the second decade of the twenty- who tried to enter Central High School, first century, it occasions an expression of decisively issued an order commanding “all despair. n

68 The National Interest Reviews & Essays this represented no departure from past Beinart’s Quest U.S. thinking, a livid Netanyahu set out to humiliate the American president and to Save Zionism teach him a lesson. He lectured Obama in a televised Oval Office conversation By Jacob Heilbrunn about the precariousness of Israel’s secu- rity. Then he continued the tutorial by addressing a joint session of Congress and Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism (New again rebuffing Obama—“Israel will not York: Times Books, 2012), 304 pp., $26.00. return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.” He received twenty-nine standing hroughout his presidency, Barack ovations. Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasser- Obama has sought to portray him- man Schultz of Florida even signaled with Tself as a staunch friend and defender a raised arm to her colleagues to stand en of Israel. But nothing he does seems to be masse whenever rapturous Republicans, enough to cement the relationship he has led by House Speaker John Boehner, who tried to establish with the Jewish state. He had extended the original invitation to the condemned the Palestinian drive for state- Israeli prime minister as a way of repudiat- hood at the United Nations. Not enough. ing Obama, rose to applaud a controversial He awarded Israel $3 billion in military Netanyahu statement. It had the feel of a assistance, an all-time high. Not enough. meeting of the politburo. He repeatedly avowed his commitment to It was, by any historical standard, a re- Israel’s security and well-being. Still not markable turn of events—a prime minister enough. The sticking point has been his of Israel demonstrating a willingness to hu- effort, in which he invested a great deal of miliate a U.S. president—and demonstrat- personal prestige, to force Israeli prime min- ing also his ability to do so with the full- ister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settle- throated complicity of the U.S. Congress. ment construction in the West Bank as a It also raises several pressing questions: How precondition for engaging in a fresh round is Netanyahu able to mobilize American of peace talks with the Palestinians. Noth- politicians so effectively against the Obama ing doing. administration? What explains the militant Then came Obama’s May 2011 sugges- chorus of denunciations that greets any pres- tion that any peace deal should be based idential nomination viewed as insufficiently on the borders that existed before the 1967 pro-Israel? What does it even mean to be Six-Day War and include land swaps be- pro-Israel these days? And why is the charge tween Israelis and Palestinians. Although of anti-Semitism deployed with increasing abandon in this ongoing diplomatic drama, Jacob Heilbrunn is a senior editor at The National even against liberal Jews who criticize Israel Interest. and urge it to live up to its own ideals?

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 69 hese questions and many more in the that a small coterie of wealthy and con- T same vein are at the heart of a new servative elderly Jews has commandeered book by Peter Beinart, Daily Beast colum- once-proud Jewish organizations in order nist, professor of journalism and political to abet Netanyahu’s intransigence toward science at the City University of New York, the Palestinians. This complicity is imperil- and former editor of the New Republic. The ing the liberal Zionist dream of a flourish- Crisis of Zionism is an anguished and mor- ing Jewish state based upon reconciliation alistic meditation on the state of Israel. Its with the Palestinians. Unless Israel detaches significance stems in part from the powerful itself from the West Bank, it will no longer arguments marshaled by Beinart and in part remain a democracy but become an au- from his background and political odyssey. thoritarian apartheid state ruling over alien Beinart, who describes himself as a Zionist, subjects. Beinart quotes Theodor Herzl, has long defended Israel, but he began to the founder of modern Zionism: “We don’t experience growing doubts about its con- want a Boer state, but a Venice.” Beinart, duct in the past few years. He got his start like a growing number of Jewish liberal in- in journalism at the New Republic, where tellectuals, fears that the former is in sight. he soon became editor at the behest of its Not everything in Beinart’s book is new. owner Martin Peretz (now part owner), He does not sufficiently take into account known as a defender of Israel and a critic of Israel’s own strategic dilemmas, including the Arab world. So in disputing the hard- the threat of terrorism from the Gaza Strip, line pro-Israel view, Beinart is now breaking the West Bank and Lebanon. He neglects ranks. He has opened himself up to the the pivotal part played by neoconserva- charge of being what is known in German tives in championing Israeli intransigence. as a Nestbeschmutzer—a fouler of his own Netanyahu can count on a phalanx of neo- nest. cons to justify his disdain for negotiations This probing, courageous and timely with the Palestinians, and it was Douglas book builds upon Beinart’s controversial J. Feith who helped author the 1996 report June 2010 essay in the New York Review of “A Clean Break,” which laid out a blueprint Books, which contended that leading Amer- for abandoning the Oslo accords. Nor does ican Jewish organizations, including the Beinart expound about Iran. venerable Anti-Defamation League (adl), Rather, he offers a forceful exposition had become dinosaurs—reflexive defend- of American apprehensions about Israel’s ers of Israel whose willful blindness to the path. His argument is simple but not sim- country’s palpable moral shortcomings was plistic. Beinart does not want to debunk prompting younger and more liberal Jews Zionism. He wants to rescue it. Written in to become disaffected or indifferent to it. sorrow rather than anger, his study lucidly Now, far from retreating, Beinart amplifies explores and dismantles many of the argu- the argument. ments that Israel’s defenders on the Right In The Crisis of Zionism, Beinart contends have mounted to explain away its deficien-

70 The National Interest Reviews & Essays cies, including the myth that American Jews Bush—who along with his secretary of state have no right to utter any criticisms about James Baker tried to push Israel to freeze the Jewish state but should blindly support settlements—have sought to be more even- it. His book thus marks a significant evolu- handed in dealing with Israeli and Palestin- tion in the debate over Israel. Beinart does ian leaders. But as evangelical Republicans not dwell upon it, but his own thinking on have become an important constituency in Israel—and foreign policy more generally— the gop, Israel has begun to win more favor appears to have undergone a marked shift in the Republican Party. This change was since his time as editor of the New Republic. reflected in the George W. Bush administra- In those days, Peretz would not tolerate tion, which viewed Israel as a vital outpost even a hint of criticism of Israel; more re- of democracy in the Middle East and an ally cently, he mused in print about the merits of denying American Muslims their First Amendment rights. This outlook has, more or less, been ascendant in America for some time, particularly among neoconservatives and the Right, where inflammatory statements about an internal threat from sharia law (made by Newt Gin- grich, among others) and the war on terror are in vogue. That goes some way toward explain- ing why Netanyahu was able to defy Obama by marshaling the sentiments of a powerful base of supporters in Congress, many of whom are Republicans, includ- ing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. that was basically engaged in the very same This is a more recent development. While struggle against terrorism that the United Democrats traditionally have backed Israel, States confronted. Republicans traditionally have been more Perhaps it should not be surprising that circumspect. It was Harry S Truman who Obama’s course has triggered protests recognized the Jewish state in 1948. Repub- among leading Republicans, including most lican presidents such as Dwight D. Eisen- of the party’s presidential candidates. The hower, Richard Nixon and George H. W. central reasons are fundraising imperatives

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 71 Beinart does not want to debunk Zionism. He wants to rescue it.

and the votes of Christian evangelicals, who teract the hawkish American Israel Public overwhelmingly support Israel. Newt Gin- Affairs Committee (aipac). The Emergency grich’s campaign was almost single-hand- Committee has run advertisements against edly resuscitated before the South Carolina several congressional candidates it deems primary by a $5 million check to Winning “openly hostile” to the Jewish state. Our Future, a “super pac” that supports his Despite their denunciations of liberal presidential run, from the seventy-eight- Jews as feckless and foolhardy, however, year-old casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the neocons have failed to produce many who admires Gingrich’s pro-Israel fervor votes for the gop, and this failure is a pe- (including his remark that the Palestinians rennial source of vexation for them. In are an “invented people,” which Adelson 2008, Obama won 78 percent of the Jew- endorsed during a charity event last Decem- ish vote. His tally may slip slightly in 2012 ber in Israel). but will surely remain well over 70 percent. This attempt to transform Israel into a What’s more, neocons have for years at- wedge issue has its origins in the neocon- tracted much criticism from some liberal servative affiliation with the gop, which Jews for their defense of Israel. In his sear- took root in the 1970s, budded during the ing 1982 book Jews Without Mercy: A La- Reagan administration and flowered under ment, author and social critic Earl Shorris George W. Bush. The late Irving Kristol, declared that the neocons’ ruthlessness both often called the godfather of neoconser- at home and abroad meant that they were vatism, complained that American Jews no longer truly Jews. Publications such as did not support the Republican Party and the New York Review of Books have steadily demanded that Jewish intellectuals not chronicled and criticized the adamantine only ally themselves with Christian evan- stance of both the neocons and successive gelicals but also subordinate themselves to Israeli governments. them in an act of “prudence.” In his 2009 book Why Are Jews Liberals?, neoconserva- ut no criticism has approached the tive writer Norman Podhoretz castigated B barrage unleashed by Beinart in his his coreligionists for their naïveté about new book, which explores today’s Israel the perils that Israel faces and wrote that against the backdrop of the early concepts no group is “more passionate in its sup- put forth for the Jewish state in the late port of Israel than the conservative Chris- nineteenth century. If Herzl, who envi- tian community.” As a practical measure, in sioned the idea of Israel in his 1896 book 2010 the Weekly Standard’s editor William Der Judenstaat, could see the country today, Kristol founded the Emergency Commit- he would probably be astounded by its tee for Israel, an organization designed to technological prowess and dismayed by serve as a counterweight to the liberal J its political system. Early Zionism was an Street, which obtains funding from finan- offshoot of European nationalism, which is cier George Soros and itself seeks to coun- why some secular Jewish socialists regard-

72 The National Interest Reviews & Essays ed it with misgivings and even hostility. To some extent, the Israel of Herzl’s mus- Herzl himself had a capacious and hope- ings does exist today. The country’s Arab ful view of the future Jewish state, which citizens can vote and serve in the Knesset. he limned in his novel Altneuland, or Old They have more rights than Arabs do in a New Land. Herzl and his novel form the number of Arab countries. And Israel is a intellectual scaffolding for Beinart’s new democracy. But only—and this is one of book. As Beinart correctly notes, Herzl’s Beinart’s major contentions—up to a point. work propounds a Jewish state that cher- Beinart emphasizes that the Green Line— ishes liberal ideals. In it, Israel is a model the dividing marker between Israel’s pre- of technological progress. Jews and Arabs and post-1967 borders—is steadily being are able to work side by side, enjoying the effaced by the growth of settlements. In fruits of their labor. In many ways, Israeli 1980, only about twelve thousand Jews president Shimon Peres’s vision of a techno- lived beyond the Green Line; today that logically advanced “new Middle East” that number is about three hundred thou- subordinates conflict to economic coopera- sand. As Israel establishes new facts on the tion is rooted in Altneuland. The Israel of ground, it becomes increasingly difficult to the novel promises freedom of speech and contemplate the construction of a Palestin- religion as well as rabbis that enjoy “no ian state that is contiguous. The word “con- privileged voice in the state.” The protago- tiguity” appears a lot in Beinart’s account. nist, one David Littwak, speaks Arabic and The Netanyahu government, he suggests, is announces that his party does “not ask to working overtime to thwart the existence of what race or religion a man belongs. If he is any contiguous Palestinian state. In 2010, a man, that is enough for us.” The malcon- Netanyahu called Ariel, a settlement that tent is one Rabbi Geyer, who is modeled stretches no fewer than thirteen miles into on Karl Lueger, the anti-Semitic mayor of the West Bank, “the heart of our country.” Vienna. Geyer wants to strip non-Jews of Meanwhile, the country’s foreign minister, the right to vote. Geyer loses the election, Avigdor Lieberman, refers to what he terms and Herzl includes an epilogue in which he the “enemy within”—Israeli Arabs—and es- beseeches his readers to make the Zionist pouses what is delicately called “population dream come true. As Beinart puts it: transfer”—either the extrusion of Israeli Arabs by redrawing the map to boot them Herzl knew that a tolerant, cosmopolitan re- out of Israel proper or direct expulsion to public like Venice was not preordained, that other Arab states. Jews were entirely capable of birthing a Boer The occupation of the West Bank, in state. This conflict, between the desire to build other words, is having profoundly corrosive a Jewish state premised on liberal democratic effects upon Israeli democracy. Attachment principles and the temptation to flout those to liberal institutions is not foreordained. principles in the name of Jewish security and Beinart notes, “In Israel today, it is not only power, runs throughout the Zionist enterprise. Arab citizens who are routinely described

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 73 in the language of treason, so are Jews who out that in Washington and later in New actively oppose Israel’s policies in the West York, where Netanyahu served as Israel’s Bank.” Yet even with mounting evidence un ambassador, he grew close to Malcolm of Israel’s woes, says Beinart, the American Hoenlein, who in 1986 became the top Jewish establishment has remained quies- staffer at the Conference of Presidents of cent. Why? Major American Jewish Organizations. He One reason is that Netanyahu himself, also developed friendships with major right- Beinart says, played a pivotal role in creat- wing Zionists—including cosmetics heir ing it. He attended high school in Chel- Ronald Lauder and the real-estate mag- tenham, Pennsylvania, and began his career nate Mortimer Zuckerman, both of whom in 1982 as a political attaché at the Israeli went on to chair the conference; with Shel- embassy in Washington. He soon became don Adelson, one of the largest donors to a star on the lecture circuit. According to aipac and to the more right-leaning Zionist Beinart, “As a Revisionist with no ties to Organization of America; and with Irving

Zionism’s socialist heritage, he was perfectly Moskowitz, who provides major funding placed to forge ties to the conservative Jews to settler and prosettler groups in Israel and who were gaining influence in an Ameri- the United States. Thus, when Netanyahu can Jewish establishment newly freed from ran for the Knesset in 1988, he was not its own left-liberal roots.” Beinart points especially well-known in Israel but already

74 The National Interest Reviews & Essays a celebrity among activist Jews in America. writing.” His model for Israel is the Otto- Jewish conservatives, Beinart suggests, be- man Empire, which hanged Arabs in town came Netanyahu’s enablers. They not only squares for even minor infractions. Netan- helped fund his political aspirations but also yahu fils has dismissed talk of his father’s sought to subvert Prime Minister Yitzhak influence upon him as “psychobabble.” The Rabin’s signing of the Oslo accords and evidence suggests otherwise. Numerous Ne- his requests that the U.S. Congress pro- tanyahu advisers have testified to his father’s vide the Palestinian Authority with financial Vulcan mind lock. In January 2012, Ben- aid. One former aipac staffer told Beinart jamin Netanyahu reportedly identified the that the board members spent the Rabin New York Times and the liberal Israeli news- years “waiting for Bibi to ascend.” Upon paper Haaretz as Israel’s two greatest threats. his ascension to the prime ministership in And Netanyahu himself has suggested that 1996, he and his American backers worked Arabs are savages; Palestinian negotiator overtime to foil Bill Clinton’s attempts to Saeb Erekat said that Netanyahu referred to promote peace. Instead of creating a unity him in 2009 as a “wild beast of a man.” government with Labor, Netanyahu chose If Beinart sees Netanyahu’s skill at wooing to create one with some of the most retro- America’s conservative Jews as one factor in grade splinter parties, telling Clinton aide the corruption of the Jewish establishment, Dennis Ross that a true leader never jetti- he singles out its embrace of victimhood sons “his tribe.” as another. In his book Power and Power- Beinart traces Netanyahu’s own tribal pas- lessness in Jewish History, historian David sions back to his father, Benzion. Benzion Biale pointed out that the notion that Jews Netanyahu was an acolyte of the right-wing have always been victims is something of revisionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, who be- a consoling myth. During the Holocaust, lieved that any idea of an accommodation of course, Jews were victims of the Nazi with the Palestinians was delusional. Bein- regime, which sought nothing less than art goes back to some of the editorials that the utter destruction of European Jewry. Benzion wrote for a revisionist newspaper But beginning in the 1970s, a preoccu- in New York called Zionews. “The prowess pation with the Holocaust supplanted a of Jewish youth in Palestine should serve as wider understanding of Judaism and Is- a warning that the blood of the old warrior rael. Beinart says, “In its embrace of victim- race is still alive in the Jewish people,” one hood as a strategy for dealing with gentiles of his editorials read. In 2009, at the age of and younger Jews, the American Jewish ninety-nine, he remained just as truculent, establishment was turning away from the stating that Israel should retake the Gaza universalism that had defined it for a half- Strip: “We should conquer any disputed century.” As a new emphasis on victimhood territory in the land of Israel. . . . You don’t arose, American Jews began to distance return land.” Beinart adds, “Unsurprising- themselves from the organizations that ly, racism pervades Benzion Netanyahu’s purported to represent them. Even though

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 75 most American Jews are liberal and want to doing more to forward liberal causes. His halt settlement growth, the pool of donors disciple, Wolf, condemned American Jews to Jewish causes has shriveled to a point for emphasizing victimhood, observing that where an emboldened minority espouses in “Jewish school or synagogue . . . one conservative sentiments. “Far more than in does not now learn about God or the Mi- the past,” Beinart warns, “a small number drash or Zionism nearly as carefully as one of large donors now sustain American Jew- learns about the Holocaust.” He decried ish groups, and far more than in the past, the readiness of Jewish leaders to employ they set the agenda.” The main interest of the Holocaust to depict Israel as besieged these organizations, he says, is in fundrais- by anti-Semites. What does this have to do ing rather than pointing to shortcomings with Obama? Beinart’s answer: “Quite a in Israel that might upset their donors. He bit.” He notes that Obama’s mentors were singles out for particular criticism Hoenlein Jews and that he was embedded in a Chica- of the Presidents’ Conference; Abraham go Jewish community that was profoundly Foxman, national director of the adl; How- estranged from the “see-no-evil Zionism of ard Kohr of aipac; and David Harris, the the American Jewish establishment.” One executive director of the American Jewish such mentor was Judge Abner Mikva, who Committee. “All have built their careers on signed a public statement in 2010 that read: stories of Jewish victimhood and survival. “We abhor the continuing occupation that None accept that we live in a new era in has persisted for far too long; it cannot and Jewish history in which our challenges stem should not be sustained.” less from weakness than from power.” The No matter how much he soaked up this contrast, Beinart writes, with such Ameri- worldview, Obama’s determined efforts can Jewish leaders as Louis Brandeis and to revive the peace process went nowhere. Stephen Wise, who saw Israel’s creation as a Beinart offers a close reconstruction of what pathway to achieving Herzlian liberal ideals, he calls the administration’s humbling. He could hardly be starker. writes that the clash in May 2011 over the 1967 Green Line was the last time Obama he true liberal friend of Israel, Bein- endorsed liberal Zionism. Newspaper ar- T art argues, is none other than Barack ticles were circulating with the message that Obama. In a highly intriguing chapter, Jewish donors would refuse to support him. Beinart suggests that Obama is the antith- Yet Beinart notes that a September 2011 esis of Netanyahu. It is Obama who was Gallup poll found that Jewish support for profoundly shaped by his liberal Jewish Obama had not significantly eroded. But mentors in Chicago, among them Rabbi perhaps Obama, in largely abandoning the Arnold Jacob Wolf, himself a protégé of attempt to bring about negotiations be- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel tween Israelis and Palestinians, was simply played a distinctive role during the civ- acceding to reality. The ability of America il-rights movement, scolding Jews for not to push the Netanyahu government to alter

76 The National Interest Reviews & Essays The true liberal friend of Israel, Beinart argues, is none other than Barack Obama.

its policies was virtually nonexistent, par- urge that it include the caveat: only within ticularly given the emergence of an anti- the green line.” Obama Republican House in 2010. This is cutting things rather finely. How, Still, as Beinart sees it, a struggle for Jew- for example, could anyone discriminate ish democracy has emerged. After pasting between goods produced in the occupied Jewish organizations, Beinart goes on to territories and Israel proper? More fervent argue that younger American Jews are sim- critics of Israel will say that his compli- ply becoming indifferent to Israel’s fate. cated scheme is merely an effort to salve But perhaps some of them will become his conscience; supporters will say that he more attached to Israel as they grow older. is contributing to Israel’s delegitimization. What’s more, American influence on Israel There is a whiff of the crusader (also pres- may have passed its meridian. No doubt ent in Beinart’s first book, The Good Fight: Israel relies on America for financial sup- Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win port. But questioning that support has be- the War on Terror and Make America Great come taboo. And demographic and political Again) in his insistence that Israel can be trends inside Israel suggest that country will made to follow a more righteous path if continue to move to the Right. Thus, even enough good will and effort can be ap- if Netanyahu or a future prime minister plied by American Jews upon Israel. It’s a wanted to adopt Obama’s political agenda, noble aspiration. But it is not necessarily a he couldn’t do so without committing po- realistic one. On the broader question of litical suicide. The Israeli Left lost much of whether the old-time Zionism that once its political credibility after the collapse of permeated American Jewish organizations the Oslo accords and the second Palestinian can be revived, it is impossible to reach a intifada, which was triggered when Ariel definitive answer, just as it is on the ques- Sharon took a stroll through the Temple tion of whether younger American Jews Mount in September 2000. really are—or will remain—as disenchanted But Beinart clings to the hope that the with Israel as Beinart suggests. In any case, old-time Zionist faith can be revived. He there was a good deal of naïveté also in the proposes a rather complicated scheme in older version of Zionism and its faith in which America should recognize that there prospects for an amicable agreement with are two Israels. The first is democratic Isra- the Palestinians over the issue of territory. el. The second is the West Bank—nondem- It was the Arab states, after all, that rejected ocratic Israel. He proposes a boycott of the the 1947 United Nations partition plan, West Bank and argues that the government which would have granted the Palestinians should exempt settler goods from its free- far more land than is contemplated in any trade deal with Israel and end tax-deduct- current agreement. The deep hostility to ible gifts to charities that fund settlements. Israel and anti-Semitism endemic to Arab “Every time any American newspaper calls societies prompted them to attempt to wipe Israel a democracy,” he says, “we should out Israel for decades rather than reach a

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 77 state, one that justifies its self-inflicted isolation in order to impose even more drastic measures on the Palestinians, thereby creating an unvirtuous cycle of events. Beinart would like to head off such an inglorious prospect. Certainly his book will stimulate debate about America’s relationship with Israel, and this is a good thing. For too long a kind of omertà has prevailed when it comes to discussing Israel in America. But it is difficult to assess what effect this debate will have upon Israel it- self. Beinart probably overestimates the power of American Jews to help deter- mine Israel’s future. Israel is responsible for itself. A solution, if one is forth- settlement. Now they are confronted with a coming, will be hammered out between the far more powerful country than they could Palestinians and Israelis. It will not be made ever have imagined. in America. If Beinart is longer on diagnosis than he Still, Beinart’s main point stands. There is is on solutions, he is not the first observer no plausible reason to swaddle admiration to be confounded by the Israeli-Palestinian for Israel in comforting illusions and fables conflict. He has eviscerated many canards about the course it is following. The longer that pass for profundity about Israel—that Israel occupies the West Bank, the more it to criticize it is tantamount to anti-Semi- fuels the very terrorist forces that plague it tism and that Israel faces a new 1939. And and America. That occupation also means the truth may be that there isn’t that much that, to a large extent, the nimbus of a pro- America can do to attenuate the hostilities. gressive, liberal Israel is fading away. It is Each party in the conflict, as the historian being replaced with a nightmarish vision of Walter Laqueur once observed to me, has a state based on a modern form of colonial not yet experienced enough pain to want to rule over a hostile people. This inconve- terminate it. Anyway, it may already be too nient truth is bad for the Palestinians, bad late for Israel to reach a two-state solution for Israeli democracy and bad for America. with the Palestinians. Perhaps a single state It has been ignored and suppressed and will eventually emerge if Israel keeps up its denied for decades. No longer. Beinart’s settlement expansion. Then Israel will con- eloquent book ensures that it has now been tinue down the road to becoming a pariah fully exposed. n

78 The National Interest Reviews & Essays the Great: His Life and World, works that Great Catherine’s bring Russian rulers and their courts to life and give the reader a sense of witnessing Many Dimensions scenes from the past. Massie evokes Catherine’s personal life By Richard S. Wortman and the figures she knew with great skill and in telling detail. But the separation of Catherine as woman from Catherine as em- Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great: press introduces a misleading duality to our Portrait of a Woman (New York: Random understanding of her personality and her House, 2011), 656 pp., $35.00. historical significance. Catherine’s personal life served her political goals and unfolded he subtitle of Robert K. Massie’s within the context of her status as absolute biography announces the book’s monarch who played multiple roles in ex- Tkeynote: it is to be a “portrait of ercising authority to advance the enlighten- a woman,” perhaps with a nod to Henry ment and power of Russia. By narrowing James. The epigraph, in the words of the his focus, the author diminishes her person Earl of Buckinghamshire, the British am- and provides only a limited sense of Cath- bassador to Russia in the first years of Cath- erine’s dedicated efforts as an enlightener, erine’s reign, concurs: “Perhaps the best lawgiver and reformer of state institutions. description of her is that she is a woman Catherine the Great is particularly well as well as an empress.” Massie’s focus is on suited to Massie’s talents. Possessing great Catherine’s personal life. More than half intellectual gifts, extraordinary ambition and the book’s pages are devoted to the period irresistible charm, she combined the cha- before her accession. Describing Catherine risma of power with a seemingly insatiable as a woman allows him to exercise the for- sexual appetite. Catherine comes to life in midable perceptive and stylistic gifts that part through Massie’s frequent citation of have distinguished his previous biographies, her memoirs, which chart the course of her Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account personal life in often absorbing detail. Cath- of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty and Peter erine tells us of a neglected and emotion- ally deprived childhood, a cold and rigid fa- Richard S. Wortman is the James Bryce Professor ther, and a mother whose affections were for Emeritus of European Legal History at Columbia her afflicted older brother, who died at age University. His latest book, Scenarios of Power: twelve. Catherine felt disregarded, unloved Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from and homely. Massie concludes that Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton University Press, 2006), is a revised her rejection as a child helps to explain her and abridged version of his previous volumes on constant search as a woman for what she had Russian monarchy. missed. Even as Empress Catherine, at the

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 79 Catherine’s rise from the daughter of a minor German prince to the throne of the Russian Empire is an amazing one, combining the pathos of a Cinderella tale with an epic narrative of triumph.

height of her autocratic power, she wished not sidered the fundamental law of all monar- only to be admired for her extraordinary mind chies. The decree openly subordinated the and obeyed as an empress, but also to find the principle of heredity to the well-being of elemental creature warmth that her brother— the realm, determined by the untrammeled but not she—had been given by her mother. will of the rational legislator. Heredity had produced a feeble-minded half brother and Catherine’s rise from the neglected a recalcitrant son. He decreed that the rul- daughter of a minor German prince to the ing czar always would have the freedom to throne of the Russian Empire is indeed designate whom he wished and to remove an amazing one, combining the pathos the one who had been designated. In declar- of a Cinderella tale with an epic narrative ing this prerogative, he claimed to act as of triumph. With the encouragement of defender of “the integrity of the state.” Frederick the Great, who sought diplomatic Peter’s law aroused serious misgivings in advantages for Prussia, Empress Elizabeth Russia and Europe. In subsequent decades, of Russia (the daughter of Peter the Great) it sowed doubts about succession that led to brought the fourteen-year-old Princess So- crises resolved only with the intervention of phia of Anhalt-Zerbst to St. Petersburg to the principal regiments of the Imperial Rus- prepare her to wed Peter’s grandson, Grand sian Guards. The Guards helped ensure the Duke Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, then fif- accession of the empresses Anna Ioannov- teen years old. In the absence of a law of na and Elizabeth as well as Catherine the hereditary succession, Elizabeth had desig- Great. Elizabeth and Catherine subsequent- nated young Peter heir to the throne. This ly took command of the Guards. After was expedient because in 1722, Peter the seizing power, both women appeared in Great had replaced the customary practice the uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guard, of hereditary succession based on primo- the oldest and most prestigious of the regi- geniture with designation by the ruling ments. The destabilizing consequences of monarch. Peter’s decree gave rise to a number of proj- Peter’s decree both complicated the prac- ects to create a more established and pre- tice of succession and introduced a new dictable order of succession. Elizabeth, who requirement of merit. He promulgated his had participated in the writing of such proj- decree in contravention of the statutes of ects, hoped to bring an end to these succes- the first decades of the eighteenth century sion crises by designating Peter of Holstein issued by European monarchs. Those had heir, marrying him off at an early age and established permanent, fundamental laws encouraging the birth of a son. of hereditary succession, but Peter the Great This explains the drama of the boudoir openly repudiated the premise of these laws that unfolded after the sixteen-year-old and asserted the supremacy of the mon- Princess Sophia, renamed Catherine after arch’s will to all regulation, even that of a Peter the Great’s spouse, wed Grand Duke succession law, which in Europe was con- Peter Fedorovich in 1745 at a lavish celebra-

80 The National Interest Reviews & Essays tion publicized across Europe. Catherine’s ing of what to do and whom to approach, memoirs detailed the tragic-comedic dilem- which grew more formidable as her situa- mas and the chagrin of her apparently un- tion deteriorated. Unlike her husband, she consummated marriage to the heir. As chil- took an active interest in the Enlightenment dren, they got along well enough, but Peter thought of the time. She befriended foreign felt no attraction to his assigned bedmate. ambassadors at the Russian court and influ- Catherine, willing enough to undergo this enced officials responsible for Russian for- trial for the title of empress, was again sub- eign policy. Massie gives detailed and vivid ject to painful rejection. Massie describes accounts of the shifting alliances and attach- Elizabeth’s efforts as she appointed women ments formed under the empress’s hand, of different temperaments to watch over the and his sections on the dynastic politics couple and devise various schemes to get of the era are among the most impressive them to mate. All was to no avail. Eventu- in the book. He conveys Catherine’s for- ally, Serge Saltykov, a deft and charming midable powers of seduction, dominating seducer, was introduced to the scene and through love. Her unremitting sexual appe- succeeded in impregnating the grand duch- tite became a way to acquire intelligent and ess. He was the likely father of the grand energetic devotees upon whom she could duke and future heir and emperor, Paul rely in the snake pit of the Russian court. Petrovich. But the paternity of Paul has Such lovers as Stanislaus Poniatowski, Grig- long been subject to controversy, and due ory Potemkin and Grigory Orlov served to the effort to preserve a semblance of dy- the purposes of Empress Catherine. Her nastic continuity, it cannot be established boudoir became a source of charisma that conclusively. In the nineteenth and early would enable her to find reliable agents of twentieth centuries, the Almanach de Gotha, her will once she ascended the throne. a royal genealogical directory, referred to the The death of Empress Elizabeth brought dynasty as “Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov” the young Peter to the throne as Emperor to give official sanction to Paul Petrovich’s Peter III and enabled him to unleash his dubious paternity. worst intentions. Massie describes how he Not only did Catherine’s husband seem prepared to divorce Catherine and marry infertile or impotent, he also acted in an his mistress, Elizabeth Vorontsova. In this erratic and infantile manner. In Catherine’s respect, he would break with the practice rendering, he was cruel and witless, occupy- introduced by Peter the Great of marrying ing himself by parading soldiers, playing children of the ruling emperor to foreign with toys, carousing and taking dubious royalty rather than to members of Russian mistresses. All of this naturally heightened noble families, as had been the practice of Catherine’s sense of worthlessness and help- seventeenth-century czars. He antagonized lessness, which Massie evokes with great the Orthodox Church by ordering the con- skill. But if the grand duke was witless, the fiscation of monastery lands, and he upset grand duchess showed a sure understand- the Guards’ regiments by introducing Prus-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 81 sian uniforms and discipline, following the 1762, presented the seizure of power in the example of his idol, Frederick the Great of rhetoric of rebirth by conquest that legiti- Prussia. Finally, he spared Frederick defeat mized her coup and painted Peter III’s reign in the Seven Years’ War by withdrawing the in the darkest colors. Though Petersburg Russian armies, which were approaching remained tense and quiet in the aftermath Berlin, and suing for peace. Despite Fred- of the coup, official rhetoric described the erick the Great’s admonition, he even failed joyous acclaim of the people. to announce plans for a coronation, a cer- emony that would have consecrated his ac- hus, Catherine brought down the cur- cession in the eyes of the elite. At this point, T tain on the reign of her predecessor. Catherine allied herself with the Guards Like Peter the Great, she cast the immediate and organized her assault on power. past into oblivion. For the historian, the Massie describes the drama of the coup question remains: How much of her mem- with especial flair, bringing out Catherine’s oirs and those of her contemporaries are to brilliant strategy and tactics designed to be believed? Massie’s smooth account avoids isolate, remove and incarcerate her hus- the kind of doubts that frequently assail the band. Like Elizabeth, she made herself the professional historian. Where does he find leader of the rough and ambitious mem- sparkling descriptions of the figures when bers of the Imperial Guards, wore the Preo- he describes their appearance, manners, brazhensky uniform, rode astride rather charms and shortcomings? We feel we know than side saddle, and led the Guards in Catherine, but how much of the portrait their capture of the emperor at Peterhof. is the product only of expert and cunning Then, at their head, she proceeded to Pe- artifice? Footnotes attribute quotations, but tersburg, where she received their oath of the narrative is not annotated and seems to allegiance. Though she let fly some rumors be drawn principally from the same works that she would be acting as regent for her as the quotations: a legion of popular bi- son, Paul, these were soon quashed, and ographies of Catherine, none of which are she ascended the throne as Catherine II, annotated. Footnotes are irksome and often empress of Russia. distracting in scholarly history, but they do Her coup was very much in the spirit of indicate a certain tribute to veracity. They Peter the Great; she subordinated heredi- show that the author is not engaging in tary right to the welfare of the realm and invention and perhaps leaving truth at the consecrated her rule by a show of heroic mercy of a well-meaning imagination. and violent conquest. Paintings executed Massie does draw upon a few scholarly to her order show her girded with sword, works and primary sources, including the astride a white horse, departing Peterhof memoirs and letters of Catherine and her with the Guards behind her and receiving contemporaries, but they cannot be read- their oath on the steps of the Kazan Ca- ily taken as innocent reproductions of the thedral. Her accession manifesto of July 6, truth. After Catherine’s accession, she saw

82 The National Interest Reviews & Essays to the destruc- worth suspend- tion of nearly all ing judgment the documents and enjoying remaining from the story. In ad- Peter III’s six- dition, it intro- month reign. duces a welcome The only mem- note of approval oirs of her earlier for Catherine, years to appear in this respect after her acces- sharing the posi- sion were works tive valuation of of those loyal to her reign elabo- her. “Catherine’s rated by Isabel de suppression of Madariaga and the publication other recent his- of anything posi- torians. My prin- tive about Peter cipal discomfort III contributed arises not from to the remarkable conformity of the liter- the inevitable methodological transgressions ary record with the official point of view,” of popular biography but from the author’s writes historian Carol S. Leonard in her initial premise of a sharp distinction be- book Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter tween the woman and the empress, which III of Russia. She adduces reforms later de- I find anachronistic and questionable. The veloped by Catherine that originated in the personal ties so important to our contempo- reign of her presumably addled spouse: the rary post-Freudian sensibility—the affective emancipation of the nobility from service, bonds with parents, husband, lovers and the confiscation of church lands and the son—were hardly Catherine’s chief preoc- liberalization of commercial regulation to cupation. Massie acknowledges as much. encourage grain trade. Peter III and his of- He writes that Catherine “could not remain ficials even began to reevaluate the Petrine simply a loving mistress. She was empress of legal system on the basis of Enlightenment Russia.” She rose early in the morning and principles. Could Catherine have wreaked worked fifteen hours a day, leaving at best revenge for her bedroom suffering not only an hour before she fell asleep. “This was all by humiliating and eliminating her hus- the time she could spare to be a man’s play- band but also by purging him from the thing.” historical record? Catherine was hardly her lovers’ play- Nevertheless, Massie’s account seems a thing. Rather, they played central roles in fair, if not flawless, approximation of histori- her exercise of power. Massie describes the cal reality, and his narrative charm may seem stiff regimen they took on—accompany-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 83 ing her when she wished and appearing at pires of antiquity. The two sides of her per- her side at court. The designation brought sonality were captured in the famous “mir- with it untold emoluments, estates, gifts ror” portrait by the Danish artist Virgilius and high standing, at least for the duration Eriksen, painted in the first years of Cath- of the romance. But missing is the larger erine’s reign. Catherine faces us before a symbolic and political context of absolute mirror, the imperial crown on a table before monarchy in eighteenth-century Russia and it. The frontal view is of an elegant, sympa- Catherine’s effort to enhance monarchi- thetic countenance with rosy cheeks. She is cal power by pursuing a grand design of comely and inviting. The mirror image, in transforming Russia into an enlightened profile, shows a strong jaw, a face looking European state. Her lovers were agents of beyond the picture with determination and this design. Her displays of romantic con- intelligence. quest emulated those of the exemplar of Indeed, Catherine commissioned her own absolute monarchy, Louis XIV, who rode portraits, which showed how she expected about Versailles with his various mistresses, to be seen. The paintings made known the whose names were mentioned slyly in pub- diverse representations of her protean self. lications such as La Gazette de France and After the coup, she appears as a conquering Le Mercure. Like his, her shows of amorous monarch on horseback. Baroque allegories prowess present her as a semblance of a present her as Minerva, the Roman goddess pagan deity wielding power over mere mor- of war, hovering over the generals of her tals and unbridled by biblical prescription. southern campaign, and as the lawgiver in Louis designed Versailles to instruct the the company of Minerva, holding a copy French nobility in the manners and tastes of of her Nakaz, or “Instruction,” to the codi- high culture. Catherine too played the role fication commission. She appears also as a of teacher. Massie alludes to such didactic sympathetic matron with a lap dog and as a intentions in regard to her lovers as if they modest traveler in her voyage to New Russia were mere excuses for her romantic adven- in the South. The constrictions of selfhood tures. But however much they satisfied her did not limit the absolute monarch inspired physical needs, Catherine presented her by the boundless perspectives of enlight- paramours as paragons of civilized conduct ened rule. who were at her side as she rode in her car- These perspectives are sketched only riage in her outings at Tsarskoye Selo and vaguely in Massie’s portrait, which seems elsewhere. to capture just one of her many selves. His Catherine’s allure and intelligence were brief chapter on the Enlightenment con- at the service of her political self. She was sists of accounts of her correspondence and a ruler of implacable will, determined to interaction with the philosophes Voltaire, transform the Russian nobility and state Diderot and Grimm. But it gives no no- after the Western model in order to claim tion of her intense engagement with the the cultural and political heritage of the em- eighteenth-century ethos of rationalist ab-

84 The National Interest Reviews & Essays solute rule, introduced by Peter the Great, well as memoirs, but Massie’s book gives no or of the vast scope of her activity as en- indication of the extent or variety of her lit- lightener. Massie’s close-up portrait doesn’t erary work. Her collected works fill twelve capture the paternalist conviction that ab- volumes. Her intellectual efforts engendered solute monarchy was a means of advancing the first rudimentary public sphere in Rus- the state for the welfare of the population. sia. Literary journals in the country had Catherine, a usurper, had no other claim appeared in Empress Elizabeth’s reign, but to rule than that of agent of the welfare of Catherine went further, composing and the Russian state. She inhabited a world of publishing such journals herself as a way lofty visions of Russia that she was deter- to address educated noblemen and school mined to realize through the devices of rea- them in virtue. son and enlightenment. She strove to trans- For Catherine, virtue meant civic virtue: form Russian noblemen into educated and she strove to make noblemen genteel and cultivated participants in her governmental active citizens—to show them how to con- projects. As “the philosophe on the throne,” duct themselves like educated Europeans

she instructed the nobility in conduct, mor- and to devote themselves, as she did, to als and taste but most of all in virtue. She the common weal. Education of the nobil- wrote in many genres: history, journal ar- ity was the goal of the journal she founded ticles, plays, operas and children’s books as in 1769, All Sorts of Things (Vsiakaia Vsi-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 85 Her boudoir became a source of charisma that would enable her to find reliable agents of her will once she ascended the throne.

achina), which engaged in the eighteenth- powered to establish the first nongovern- century ridicule of vices with didactic in- mental printing establishment in Russia. tent. Like many contemporary European Catherine was the first Russian ruler to journals, it followed the example of two practice a principle of tolerance, and her English publications, Joseph Addison’s Spec- policies brought into being a small but tator and Samuel Johnson’s Idler. All Sorts of important educated public—intellectuals, Things showed the nobility how to act—not poets and playwrights—who also satirized to stuff their rooms with too much furni- noble conduct and preached civic virtue. ture, not to speak in too loud a voice, not to But tolerance in an absolute monarchy drink too much coffee. Through it, Cath- has its limits, and the French Revolution erine told them how to manage their estates caused Catherine to reach the limits of her and instructed them to treat their peasants own tolerance. Novikov was dispatched to humanely. She satirized ladies of the salon Schlusselberg prison, presumably for en- for their superficiality and freethinkers for gaging in a plot to place the heir, Paul, on their cynicism and disrespect as well as their the throne. Alexander Radishchev, the only bigotry and intolerance. She encouraged member of the Catherinian intelligentsia what she called her journal’s “children,” and to appear in Massie’s book, was sent into within a year after the first issue, six new penal exile for his polemical survey of Rus- journals printing the same type of satirical sia’s problems, Journey from St. Petersburg to banter had appeared. She introduced the Moscow. Massie makes clear that the pun- principle of intellectual tolerance to the ishment was relatively mild, but he doesn’t practice of Russian monarchy, and though capture the magnitude of the intellectual she and her successors often observed it milieu Catherine created. more in its omission, it remained an ideal for the intellectual elite. f Catherine as writer played the role of The most important of the new jour- I instructor of virtue and manners, Cath- nals, the Drone (1769–70), satirized the erine as lawgiver strove to instruct the offi- ignorance of the serf-holding gentry. While cials of government and the members of the All Sorts of Things satirized treatment of estates in the principles of law. In 1767, she the serfs in muted tones, the Drone was established a legislative commission com- outright in its condemnation and sug- prising representatives of the different es- gested that the serfs should have the right tates, noblemen, townspeople, clergy and to own property. The Drone also derided even peasants. The purpose was to codify the exaggeratedly French behavior of the Russian laws. Massie makes clear that her upper levels of the imperial court. In 1770, Nakaz, written as instructions to the com- the debate became sharper, and Catherine mission and culled from writings of Mon- closed the journal. But Nikolay Novikov, tesquieu and Beccaria, aimed to acquaint the Drone’s editor, then proceeded to found the deputies with the principles of law. other publications, and he later was em- But it was also intended to play a didactic

86 The National Interest Reviews & Essays role—to show them their importance in of drawing the Russian nobility into state creating an enlightened citizenship. Article life and enhancing the power of the state 15 proclaimed that the intention and end of in the provinces. Russia lacked a tradition monarchy was “the Glory of the Citizens, of of local self-government such as the noble the State, and of the Sovereign,” and Article estate governments of the principal monar- 16 added that chies of Europe. Following the example of the Baltic estate government in the empire, from this Glory, a Sense of Liberty arises in a Catherine’s reform of 1775 (not mentioned People governed by a Monarch; which may in the book) brought the provincial and produce in these States as much Energy in district nobles, who much preferred to serve transacting the most important Affairs, and in Petersburg, into elective offices in charge may contribute as much to the Happiness of of police, fiscal and judicial matters. For the Subjects, as even Liberty itself. the first time, courts were separated from administrative institutions. The preamble Massie provides a concise discussion of to the reform made clear that their service the Nakaz and the assembly, as well as the would also inculcate civic virtue. It would assembly’s failure to compile a code. He instill in those holding office a love for jus- credits Catherine with the effort and points tice and virtue and an aversion to “idle time out that it did succeed in collecting infor- spent in luxury and other vices corrupting mation about the empire that she would to the morals.” They should regard with use in future decades. However, her efforts shame laziness, carelessness, and most of all had more enduring results. They identi- “dereliction of duty and indifference to the fied the monarchy with the advancement general good.” of law in Russia, acquainting the ruling At the same time, Catherine’s reforms elite with principles that the most progres- enhanced the power of governors of the sive members, such as Novikov and Rad- provinces who supervised the branches of ishchev, would expect to realize. The Nakaz local government. She introduced the office appeared in six editions between 1767 and of governor-general, an official who would 1771. Copies were placed in central and assume authority over several provinces. provincial offices, and on occasion its prin- A governor-general enjoyed access to the ciples would provide the grounding for fu- empress, attended the senate and appeared ture administrative and judicial decisions. as her emissary in the provinces. His arrival It was Catherine the Great who established in a provincial capital was the occasion for legality (zakonnost’) as a central goal for fu- great balls and receptions that allowed the ture rulers and officials. provincial nobility to participate in the life The Nakaz and the commission repre- of celebration centered in the capital around sented only the beginning of Catherine’s the figure of the empress. She introduced a legislative activity. She continued to draft Muslim spiritual assembly, including Mus- projects of reform and statutes with the aim lim holy men who helped define the laws of

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 87 Islam for the Tartar population and incor- mental law of this monarchical rule should porate them into the confessional structure be issued and drafted by Our Imperial of the empire. hand—that is the steadfastness of the throne In 1785, Catherine’s “Charter to the No- and stability in its inheritance.” The final bility” rewarded them with rights, the first version appeared as the fourth and largest instance in Russian history for an estate to section of her Nakaz of 1787, but it was not be so favored. The charter confirmed their enacted. Her son Paul I promulgated a law right to own serfs and landed property, their of hereditary succession at his coronation freedom from service, and the right to be in 1797, obviously to prevent a repetition tried by a court of their peers in cases in- of previous coups. (He was murdered by volving loss of life, property or noble status. the leaders of his military in 1801.) All of It vested noble assemblies with a corporate the major provisions of his succession law identity and empowered them to certify repeated articles from Catherine’s projects. and register the members of their noble as- These, of course, are only a few of Cath- semblies. Catherine continued to draft laws erine’s achievements as enlightener. She also for the duration of her reign. In 1779, she introduced educational reforms and spon- began work on a law of hereditary succes- sored scientific expeditions to study the sion. One incomplete draft asserted that physical and ethnographic variety of the the stability of the throne depended upon empire. The expansion to the south under hereditary succession. “The first and funda- the aegis of Potemkin not only brought Russian culture and institutions to the shores of the Black Sea but also invigo- rated a feeling of kinship with Greek classical culture. Catherine’s great- est failure was at the impossible task of improving the condition of the vast majority of the enserfed peasants. Indeed, under her rule the legal status of the serfs declined further. She granted thousands of serfs to

88 The National Interest Reviews & Essays her favorites, extended serfdom into west- ern Ukraine and increased the authority The Better War of landlords over their serfs’ lives. Massie attributes this to the necessity to reward That Never Was her supporters among the gentry, but there was a larger dynamic at work. The Petrine By Gian P. Gentile monarchy promoted Westernization at the expense of the serf population, much as Stalin later advanced industrialization by Lewis Sorley, Westmoreland: The General dispossessing the peasantry. Catherine’s suc- Who Lost Vietnam (New York: Houghton cesses in domestic and foreign policy helped Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 416 pp., $30.00. consolidate the power of the landlords over the peasantry. Her successors would inherit id General Westmoreland lose a monarchy whose cultural ideals depended Vietnam? The answer is no. on a social system that increasingly contra- D But he did lose the war over the dicted the fundamental ethical principles memory of the Vietnam War. He lost it to of both the monarch and the educated elite military historian Lewis Sorley, among oth- that she helped foster. ers. In his recent biography of William C. Massie has written an engrossing and in- Westmoreland, Sorley posits what might be formative narrative describing Catherine’s called “the better-war thesis”—that a better personal life that satisfies our curiosity war leading to American victory was avail- about her amours and entanglements. But able to the United States if only the right the professional historian seeks more than general had been in charge. The problem, an absorbing chronicle of the lives of per- however, is that this so-called better war ex- sonages of the court and boudoir. He seeks ists mostly in the minds of misguided histo- to understand these figures on a historical rians and agenda-driven pundits. stage, fathoming the social and intellectual In the battle over the memory of the world they inhabited, the ideas and visions Vietnam War, Sorley annihilates Westmore- that inspired them, and their legacies, both land and leaves his character and reputation beneficial and tragic. Catherine appeared in smoldering ruins. Yet Sorley’s victory in in many personas: thinker, legislatrix, re- the fight for the memory of Vietnam has former, savior of Russia and conqueror of not brought us a balanced historical biogra- new territories. All the while she proved a phy of Westmoreland. firm and, when necessary, ruthless empress, strengthening the institutions of the state Colonel Gian P. Gentile directs the American and furthering the subjugation of the mass- History Program at West Point. In 2006, he es. In these roles, she continues to bedazzle commanded a combat battalion in West Baghdad. us—a prodigious, almost superhuman ruler He holds a PhD in history from Stanford who happened to be a woman. n University.

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 89 In 2008, then secretary of defense Robert would probably end up as the “definitive” Gates chided the American military estab- biography of Westmoreland. If one is in- lishment, and the army in particular, for terested, however, in a fair and balanced its affliction of “Next-War-itis.” Parts of the historical biography of William C. Westmo- American military, lamented Gates, were reland, Ricks is wildly off the mark. too focused on fighting hypothetical future The better-war thesis argues that there wars rather than the immediate wars in was a tactical panacea in Vietnam—a gold- Iraq and Afghanistan. But the secretary also en cipher of success—just waiting for the might have noted another dangerous af- right general who could grasp and apply fliction suffered by parts of the U.S. Army: it. Instead, for the first three years of the “Past-War-itis.” Those afflicted with this war beginning in 1965, the U.S. Army was disease obsess about a Vietnam defeat they led by a fumbling general named William believe should have been averted. Childs Westmoreland, who did not crack Sorley titles his book Westmoreland: The the code that would have produced victory General Who Lost Vietnam. This is “Past- for the United States. Luckily, as the better- War-itis” run amok. Is it possible that a war thesis continues, once Westmoreland single man actually lost the war and all of was replaced in the summer of 1968 by a Vietnam? The question is pertinent today savior general named Creighton Abrams, because many seeking to bring logic to the everything changed for the better, and past ten years of war in Iraq and Afghani- Abrams’s army actually won the war in the stan have embraced the simplistic concept South by 1971. The tragedy, according to that to win those wars we just need to put this thesis, was that weak American politi- the right guy in charge. One such example cians undermined the victory by eventu- is the Council on Foreign Relations’ Max ally cutting off material support to South Boot, an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq Vietnam after the United States departed in and Afghanistan wars. Boot has praised Sor- 1972. ley’s book. Writing in the Wall Street Jour- The tale of a better war in Vietnam is nal, he called it “a valuable addition to the seductive. It offers a simple explanation of . . . literature that shows the Vietnam War an army redeemed through tactical innova- was winnable if we had fought differently.” tion brought about by a savior general. But It isn’t surprising that a leading exponent of the United States did not lose the Vietnam American empire today would embrace a War because it didn’t have the right general thesis positing that America’s greatest mili- in charge at the start, or because of weak tary defeat could have been easily avoided. politicians toward the end of the war. Wash- Another example is writer Thomas Ricks, ington lost because it failed at strategy. It one of the purveyors of the better-war the- failed, in short, to discern that the war was sis for Iraq. Ricks wrote a glowing jacket unwinnable at a cost in blood and treasure endorsement for Sorley’s book, and he also that the American people would accept. noted on his military-affairs blog that it There was never a “better war” in Vietnam.

90 The National Interest Reviews & Essays his faith in the promise of better tac- ghanistan as better wars in the making based T tical wars with savior generals has on the arrival of savior generals. emerged in full force in the current wars in In the spring of 2007, Lieutenant Colo- Iraq and Afghanistan. In August 2007, as the nel Paul Yingling wrote an important article violence in Iraq dropped precipitously, Clif- about failed generalship in the U.S. Army. ford May, former New York Times reporter Yingling observed that generals should be and current president of the Foundation held accountable when they fail in war. He for Defense of Democracies, identified Pe- posed the question: Why was the powerful traeus as the main cause of the reduction in U.S. Army having such difficulties defeat-

violence. May wrote that this enlightened ing the ragtag insurgents of Iraq? His an- general replaced a failed general and then swer focused largely on failed generals who equipped his army in Iraq with new methods were not able to build effective military for conducting counterinsurgency. Later, in campaigns using proven counterinsurgency October 2009, Sorley penned a New York methods based on the “lessons” of Vietnam. Times article that praised the counterinsur- Yingling’s article argued that there was a gency tactics of General Stanley McChrystal, better tactical way to do counterinsurgency then senior American commander in Af- in Iraq and that a better batch of generals, ghanistan. May and Sorley saw Iraq and Af- such as David Petraeus, already was mak-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 91 ing it happen in spring 2007 with the troop start on building up the South Vietnam- surge. ese armed forces and winning the hearts But the conditions in Iraq that would and minds of the South Vietnamese people lead to the lowering of violence in late 2007 through limited applications of military were already in place. They included the force, we would have won the war. But spread of the Anbar Awakening and the de- the question remains: Precisely how could cision of Shia militias to end attacks against tactical adjustments early in the war have Sunni civilians. Recently published data- overpowered the political constraints placed bases such as the Iraq Body Count project’s on the army by the Johnson administra- show quite clearly that the sectarian vio- tion, which kept it from taking the fight lence peaked in December 2006 and then to the North Vietnamese? Or the dysfunc- started to drop a good two months before tional nature of the South Vietnamese gov- Petraeus ever rode onto the scene with his ernment and military that precluded them new counterinsurgency manual in hand. from standing on their own? Or the declin- Petraeus, the savior general, played only a ing popular support and political will in the marginal role in the greater series of events United States as the war dragged on with- and circumstances that brought down the out a decent end in sight? Or, perhaps most level of Iraqi violence. importantly, how could tactical adjustments The ancient Chinese philosopher of war toward better methods of counterinsurgen- Sun Tzu reportedly said thousands of years cy have overpowered a communist enemy ago that “strategy without tactics is the slow that fought the war totally while the United road to victory,” but “tactics without strat- States fought it with limited means? In his egy is the noise before defeat.” His point Westmoreland biography, Sorley essentially was simple but breathtakingly profound: ignores these questions. If a state gets its strategy right—achieving Could the United States have prevailed policy aims at the least cost in blood and in Vietnam? Yes, but it would have had to treasure—the tactics of fighting a war will commit to staying there for generations, fall into place. But if the strategy is wrong, not a mere handful of years. The Vietnam no amount of tactical excellence can bring War was an attempt at armed nation build- victory. The German army in World War ing for South Vietnam. Nations and their II was probably the finest industrial fight- societies, however, are not built overnight, ing force the world had ever seen, with an especially when they are violently contested ability to create huge amounts of fighting by internal and external enemies. Thus, power. Yet all of that tactical excellence on to prevail in Vietnam the United States the part of the German army could not would have needed the collective will that rescue it from a broken strategy and an im- it mustered to win World War II and would moral policy driven by Nazism. have had to be able to maintain it for gen- The better-war thesis argues that if only erations. That kind of will—or staying the U.S. Army had concentrated from the power—was never a real possibility.

92 The National Interest Reviews & Essays In war, political and societal will are cal- new Westmoreland biography amplifies this culations of strategy, and strategists in Viet- interpretation. nam should have discerned early on that Sorley concedes that Westmoreland had the war was simply unwinnable based on some redeeming qualities, displayed during what the American people were willing his many years in the military, but ulti- to pay. Once the war started and it be- mately he failed because other aspects of his came clear that to prevail meant staying for character undermined his effectiveness. Sor- an unacceptable amount of time, Ameri- ley portrays the general as overly ambitious can strategy should have moved to with- and lacking in feeling for the soldiers who draw much earlier than it did. Ending wars served under him. fought under botched strategy and policy It is the Vietnam story that constitutes can be every bit as damaging as the wars the heart of the book. In these highly criti- themselves. cal chapters, Sorley seeks to show that West- The better-war thesis, with its seductive- moreland didn’t understand the war he ly simple cause-and-effect schema, buries was fighting. In this view, Westmoreland the reality of American strategic failure in failed to grasp that the key to success was to Vietnam. focus on the South Vietnamese population through programs of pacification and to orley has a history with the better-war win their hearts and minds while simulta- S thesis. Over the last fifteen years, he has neously building up the South Vietnamese written four books that frame the thesis as security forces. Instead, according to Sorley, it relates to Vietnam. First came a biogra- Westmoreland directed the army to fight a phy of Creighton Abrams as a World War “big-unit” war designed to search out and II tank hero. He was portrayed as a near- destroy the main forces of the communist perfect soldier and general who grasped enemy in the South. Sorley’s Westmoreland early what was needed to win in Vietnam. was stuck in a World War II–battlefield Next, Sorley penned a biography of General mentality, unable to comprehend the de- Harold K. Johnson, army chief of staff dur- mands of counterinsurgency and the ne- ing the Vietnam War years, who, says Sor- cessity of pacifying the countryside. Sor- ley, also perceived a better way in Vietnam. ley’s Westmoreland simply didn’t care about Then in 1999, Sorley wrote A Better War: pacification and proved unable to see the The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy “better war” that was available to him if of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. Here the only he had chosen it—that is, the war later better-war thesis reaches its apogee. Sorley pursued by General Abrams. blasts Westmoreland for botching the war. Sorley’s history often lacks rigor. The Then Abrams rides onto the scene to rescue book’s harsh interpretation of Westmore- the effort and, according to Sorley, actually land’s performance flies in the face of con- won it by 1971—only to have it lost years tradictory archival evidence, which suggests later by weak American politicians. The a need for a more nuanced and balanced

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 93 approach. A large body of Vietnam War moreland and Abrams in their military tac- scholarship has emerged over the last twen- tics. And in 2008, another army historian ty years that rebuts the Sorley thesis. In named Andrew Birtle, in an award-winning 1988, historian Ronald Spector argued that article in the Journal of Military History, despite the marked differences in personal- effectively rebutted a major component of ity between Westmoreland and Abrams, the better-war thesis—namely, that a 1965 study of the war had repudiated Westmo- reland’s military approach. Not true, ar- gued Birtle. He showed that the report actually agreed with Westmoreland’s overall aim of using search and destroy to reduce the communist main-force units in South Vietnam to allow pacification to proceed. Yet, despite this robust body of competing scholarship, Sorley’s arguments have re- mained largely unchanged. Indeed, the archival record shows that Westmoreland cared deeply about pacifica- tion and winning South Vietnamese hearts and minds. In late 1965, shortly after the Battle of Ia Drang, the general told his di- vision commanders not to become enam- ored with these kinds of battlefield successes against the North Vietnamese Army be- cause “pacification” and “protection” of the population remained the most important goals. In May 1968, in his final guidance to subordinate commanders, Westmoreland still maintained that “pacification must be supported,” not just by the American mili- tary but also by “all elements of the Govern- ment of Vietnam.” Sorley constructs a picture of Westmore- they didn’t really differ much in the way land as the dolt-general who was unable to that they fought the war. More recently, see the better war in front of his eyes when in 2006, army historian Graham Cosmas nearly everybody else saw it, from the secre- argued in a book on the Vietnam army tary of defense down to the lowest private. command that there was more “continu- Sorley cites a statement by U.S. Navy Ad- ity” than “discontinuity” between West- miral Ulysses S. G. Sharp, who reportedly

94 The National Interest Reviews & Essays The essential insight from Vietnam is that the crucial elements in war are not smarter tactics, better generals or more malleable popular support but clear-headed thinking about policy and strategy.

was highly critical of Westmoreland’s Viet- changes he helped establish make clear his nam strategy. According to Sorley, Sharp commitment to understanding this new warned Westmoreland that Vietnam was counterinsurgency warfare. Westmoreland different from past wars and that Westmo- also organized counterinsurgency confer- reland needed to adjust his strategy accord- ences at West Point and brought in such ingly. But there is evidence that Sharp be- speakers as the French counterinsurgency lieved Westmoreland had it right. He once expert David Galula. Sorley slights West- stated that he considered Westmoreland’s moreland’s efforts to understand counterin- strategy of search and destroy to be both surgency during this time. well conceived and entirely appropriate to Of course, it would be unrealistic to sug- the ground-battle conditions of Vietnam. gest that historians can include everything in their narratives. They must make choices. ther critical facts also were left out of But they should acknowledge contradic- O the book. For example, in 1967 West- tions when they occur and attempt to rec- moreland initiated one of the most lauded oncile them if possible. American organizations in support of pacifi- The documentary record shows that cation: Civil Operations and Revolutionary Westmoreland thoroughly understood the Development Support (cords). American war he was fighting and saw that pacifi- counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, cation and protection of the South Viet- who served as a special adviser to General namese people were keys to success. But he Petraeus during the surge of troops in Iraq, also faced the significant threat of hundreds recently called for a “Global cords” program of thousands of North Vietnamese and modeled on the Vietnam cords to counter Vietcong main-force army units operating radical Islamic terrorists. Sorley doesn’t men- within South Vietnam. Some counterinsur- tion cords, perhaps because it would fly in gency experts have suggested that Westmo- the face of his argument that Westmoreland reland should have played down this threat didn’t care about pacification or the impera- and committed the American military to tive of winning hearts and minds. But if winning “hearts and minds” by dispersing Westmoreland didn’t care, why did he start the U.S. Army into small outposts to live cords and initiate a significant reorganiza- amongst the population. This would have tion of his army to support it? been a disaster. Such an approach would Another omission concerns Westmore- have decimated Westmoreland’s army piece land’s time as superintendent of West Point by piece. Such small outposts amongst the from 1960 to 1963, just before he got his population would have been overrun and Vietnam command. During his years as destroyed by the large communist main- superintendent, Westmoreland worked as- force units. siduously to integrate the most cutting- The hard truth of the Vietnam War is edge ideas on counterinsurgency into the that Westmoreland adapted throughout cadet-training programs and curricula. The the conflict and embraced many innova-

Reviews & Essays March/April 2012 95 tive methods of counterinsurgency, yet the is fair to a general who was handed a dif- United States still lost the war. It was a sear- ficult strategic challenge in a war where he ing national experience that left a blot upon was one of many agents. Sorley and others the American consciousness for a genera- should think hard on what they have done tion. And that no doubt has contributed to to the character and reputation of General the country’s sometimes faulty memory of Westmoreland. those disturbing years. This is not to argue that Westmoreland The eminent British military historian was a great general. But he unquestionably Richard Holmes learned through his re- was a competent general who understood search on World War I veterans that he the war he was fighting and carried it out could not trust the recollections of these as best he could. Westmoreland’s failure, soldiers who fought in the trenches. In a like so many others during that tragic war, mere handful of years, he discovered, their was his inability to see that the war could memory of that war “differed widely” from not be won at a cost that was acceptable to what actually happened. So too with Viet- the American people. Just like the American nam. If the passing of time contorted the generals of today’s wars in Iraq and Af- memories of British soldiers after the hor- ghanistan, Westmoreland in the end put too rors of World War I, it seems likely that much faith in the efficacy of American mili- American soldiers after Vietnam experi- tary power when he should have discerned enced a similar fluctuation of memory. This its limits. And so the Vietnam War trundled is significant because Sorley’s strongest in- on, as the Iraq and Afghan wars have, kill- dictments of Westmoreland are based on ing hundreds of thousands of Americans postwar interviews. Many of the interviews and South Vietnamese as it unfolded. Ironi- were conducted twenty, thirty and even cally, with all of the hoopla over General forty years after the war. No doubt inter- Petraeus and the so-called success of the views relying on memories of war can be surge, his inability to understand the limits useful in research, but they must be used of American military power puts him much carefully, particularly decades after the more closely in line with Westmoreland event. Better primary sources are contem- than many people realize. poraneous accounts and records. As noted The essential insight from Vietnam is that above, records on the Vietnam experience the crucial elements in war are not smarter are abundant. Yet Sorley bases his charges tactics, better generals or more malleable against Westmoreland largely on the memo- popular support but clear-headed thinking ries of those involved in the war. about policy and strategy that aligns ways, The Vietnam defeat was traumatic for means and ends relative to national inter- many Americans, and it is natural that some ests, national will and the enemy’s potential. would focus on Westmoreland as the single In Vietnam, the United States failed that point of failure for America’s loss. But that test. Sadly, it has failed again in Iraq and begs the question of whether such scrutiny Afghanistan. n

96 The National Interest Reviews & Essays