THE CENTER FOR WAR, PEACE AND THE NEWS MEDIA AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY December 9 - 16, 2003

Mark Burgess: on fighting the Iraqi insurgency

Vsevolod Gunitskiy: on civilians in the Iraq military calculation

John Feffer: on changing North Korea

Erik Goldstein: on President Bush in London

 

New York University

 

 

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U.S. State Department's
Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2002

The US State Department's Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2001

 

 

 

IRAQ: U.S. TACTICS LEARNED FROM ISRAEL?
The U.S. Army's large armored infantry divisions in Iraq are not exactly a natural fit for a down-and-dirty counterinsurgency war, so the Pentagon is planning a new offensive led by hunter-killer special forces teams sent out to identify and eliminate the command structure of the insurgency. Seymour Hirsh reports that the new units are being trained with the help of Israeli personnel, and that the U.S. is discreetly availing itself of Israeli expertise assembled over the years of fighting Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza. One problem, of course, is that the Israeli tactics have not achieved much more than simply containing the insurgency. And Hirsh sees great dangers in unleashing hunter-killer teams given the obvious weaknesses in U.S. intelligence gathering on the insurgents.
(New Yorker, December 8, 2003)

  • The New York Times reports that new harsher U.S. tactics against the Iraqi insurgency are those learned from Israel. The objective is not simply to neutralize insurgents, but to punish the local population for supporting them. But as in the Israeli case, such tactics inevitably alienate the civilian population, and ultimately strengthen the insurgents.
  • The Guardian's Julian Borger reports that Israeli personnel have actually been assisting U.S. forces in Iraq in a "consultant" capacity, but that such contacts are kept discreet because of the catastrophic PR implications. They're helping the U.S. plan a "dirty war" using unconventional tactics in the hope of eliminating the insurgency.
  • Ed Blanche of the International Institute for Strategic Studies writes that the U.S. has also sought the help of the Shin Bet, Israel's security service whose intelligence operatives have penetrated the militant organizations running the Palestinian intifada. Intelligence is probably the greatest weakness of the U.S. forces fighting the insurgents, he notes. But he suggests that Washington also take note of the recent warnings by four former Shin Bet chiefs that the current tactics are leading Israel on a road to disaster.
  • In a profile of General John Abizaid, the Atlantic's Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. notes that the man now commanding U.S. forces in Iraq has distinguished himself as an innovator of counterinsurgency and civil administration tactics. But what remains to be seen is whether he can choreograph a whole army to implement his vision.
  • Iraqi Governing Council member Iyad Alawi tells David Ignatius that the scale of the insurgency is a product of U.S. mistakes, particularly the dissolution of the Iraqi army and wholesale purge of anyone connected with the Baath party. That, says Alawi, signaled Iraq's Sunnis that they had no stake in the new order, and they rallied behind the insurgency.
  • On the basis of his on-the-ground assessment of the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq, the CSIS's Anthony Cordesman suggests changes in the grand strategy, strategy, tactics, technology and training of U.S. forces there. (PDF download.) To achieve victory, he warns, the U.S. will have to set goals more attainable (and therefore limited) than those with which it entered Iraq.
  • That may already be happening, if the Times's Simon Jenkins is to be believed. He writes that the National Security Council has put Robert Blackwill in charge of finding a new Iraqi strongman to run the place and allow the U.S. a dignified withdrawal.
  • Erich Marquardt sees the potential for a strategic stalemate in Iraq that could work against the U.S. While the insurgents are unable to beat the U.S. by military means, nor is the U.S. able to beat the insurgents by military means. The question becomes can the U.S. win Iraqi hearts and minds faster than the insurgents can sap America's will to stay?

    IRAQ: NOW FOR THE TRADE WAR
    After the U.S. took the predictable step of restricting bidding on $18 billion of Iraq reconstruction contracts to coalition partners, the European Union moved to investigate the legality of the decision under World Trade Organization rules. The Bush administration insists it is simply directing that aid provided by the U.S. taxpayer be spent on approved contracts. But the Europeans and Canada are warning that such a decision is unlikely to help repair transatlantic relations, while Russia is warning that it will force Moscow to cancel any plans to forgive Iraqi debt.
    (BBC, December 10, 2003)

  • Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's document outlining the list of approved bidders for U.S.-funded reconstruction projects is available from rebuilding-iraq.net as a pdf download.

    NAJAF RISING
    The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid provides an excellent analysis of the resurgence of Shiite communal leadership in Iraq, and the influence radiating out of Najaf throughout Iraq and the wider Shiite world. "The U.S. invasion dismantled one system," Shadid writes. "The construction of another is lagging, and a vacuum of leadership has ensued. With renewed confidence, the clergy have begun fashioning their headquarters into the spiritual capital of the country, and their leaders as the guardians of Iraq's Shiite majority. Few endorse Iran's Islamic government and perhaps even fewer support the U.S. goal of a secular state. But in between are vigorous debates -- over law and religion, Islam and state -- that could resonate throughout the Shiite world, where Iran and its revolution have long held sway as the unchallenged model."
    (Washington Post, December 10, 2003)

    AFGHANISTAN AT A PRECIPICE
    "Operation Avalanche" may be an unfortunate name for the largest U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban fled Kabul, because Afghanistan's future remains precariously balanced. In the capital, delegates are gathering for a "loya jirga" constitutional assembly, but out in the provinces power is in the hands of warlords and insurgents. The NATO-run International Security Assistance Force remains confined to the capital, with only three helicopters at its disposal. And the Taliban is mounting daily and increasingly brazen attacks against government targets and U.S. forces. The government of President Hamid Karzai are hoping that the constitutional process will turn the tide; but out in the country the Taliban are hoping that the new order in Kabul will remained defined by U.S. counterinsurgency tactics. After all, the current U.S. operation has seen some 15 Afghan children killed in two separate air strikes.
    (Asia Times, December 10, 2003)

  • Antiwar blogger Paul Wood skewers CNN's coverage of the first incident in which children were killed. The network's headlines and phrasing read more like that of a Pentagon flakking operation than an independent media outlet -- even after the U.S. military had admitted its actions had killed the children, CNN insisted on inserting the qualifier "apparent," and on reassuring its viewers that the Afghans "understand" U.S. actions.
  • The reason the children were killed, says Asia Times, is that the U.S. is relying too heavily on air power and poor intelligence in its latest campaign against the Taliban. Hunter-killer operations are best undertaken by ground forces, but that may require troop strength greater than what the U.S. is prepared to commit to its "other" war.
  • The Christian Science Monitor reports that because of the reluctance of NATO to relieve the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, the scale of the security mission there is determined by the availability of NATO troops rather than the other way around.
  • Despite the ongoing security problems, writes the Economist, the very fact of the constitutional convention in Kabul is a sign of significant progress in Afghanistan.
  • The LA Times Paul Watson provides a fascinating account of discreet negotiations with representatives of the Taliban and the forces of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar with a view to bringing them into the political process, as a way of neutralizing the insurgency.

    TAIWAN, NEOCONS LOSE OUT IN BUSH-WEN TALKS
    President Bush sent Taiwan a blunt message during his meeting this week with Chinese premier Wen Jibao: Not only does the U.S. continue to uphold the "One China" principle; it opposes any movement in Taiwan in the direction of independence. Beijing had been pressing for such a move from Washington, in light of plans by Taiwan's President Chen Shubian to hold a referendum next year demanding that China withdraw the threat of military action to prevent formal secession by Taiwan. The Taiwanese leader has vowed to defy Washington on the referendum, and neoconservatives in Bush's party are furious at what they see as appeasement. But "One China" has been a consistent U.S. policy since the Nixon era, and the U.S.-China economic relationship now is so critical to the fate of the U.S. economy that the Bush administration is unlikely to change it.
    (Financial Times, December 10, 2003)

  • The Council on Foreign Relations's Elizabeth Economy sees a maturing in the U.S.-China relationship reflected in the growing ability of the two sides to manage their differences on issues ranging from trade to arms sales to Taiwan.
  • Premier Wen was well-received by leadership audiences in the U.S., who appreciated his easygoing frankness. Typical of these interactions was the CFR forum he addressed in Washington, D.C.
  • Jon Fei of the Carnegie Endowmen't China program notes that among the more important issues discussed by Bush and Wen was how to manage North Korea's nuclear threat. Beijing is urging Washington to show more flexibility in addressing Pyongyang's security concerns.

    OVERESTIMATING NORTH KOREA
    The operating assumption in Washington today is that North Korea already has a couple of crude nuclear devices, and will soon be in a position to substantially expand its arsenal. But Douglas Frantz writes that a number of experts outside of the administration have serious doubts about a number of the claims put out by North Korea itself and by Washington, suggesting these are based on evidence at least as flimsy as that which was used to make the case for war against Iraq.
    (LA Times, December 9, 2003)

    MIDEAST PEACE PLANS: A POCKET GUIDE
    There may be very little real movement on the ground towards Israeli-Palestinian peace, but the headlines are suddenly filled with competing peace proposals. There's the "Geneva Accord," a virtual final-status agreement between people who lack the power to implement it; the plan for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank and Gaza floated by Likud cabinet minister Ehud Olmert; Ariel Sharon's own map for a unilateral settlement; a number of other citizens' initiatives on the Israeli side and, of course, the settlers' plan to annex the occupied territories. On the Palestinian side, also, there are the embattled efforts by Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei to achieve a "hudna" truce among militant factions. Haaretz provides a useful comparative guide to all of the proposals, and their prospects.
    (Haaretz, December 10, 2003)

  • The authors of the Geneva Accord explained their initiative to a forum at the Brookings Institution.
  • Al Ahram's Graham Usher examines hostility to the plan by Palestinian militants.

    RETHINKING KASHMIR
    An extensive study by the International Crisis Group examines strategic thinking in New Delhi and Islamabad on the question of Kashmir. More than a half century after the conflict began, the two sides remain strategically stalemated. The ICG suggests that progress will require a substantial rethinking of the outlook on Kashmir in both capitals, as well as in the disputed territory itself.
    (International Crisis Group, December 4, 2003)

    MANAGING GEORGIA'S TRANSITION
    Post-Shevardnadze Georgia is threatened by a number of factors promoting instability, from domestic political competition and secessionist tendencies to competing geopolitical agendas among its neighbors and more distant powers. The key factors in ensuring a stable transition, the ICG suggests, are the ability of the country's interim leaders to act prudently in compromising with existing elites to maintain stability and continuity, strengthening the legal framework for new elections and government reform, and achieving a consensus position among the Russians, the Europeans and the U.S.
    (International Crisis Group, December 3, 2003)

    PUTIN ENTRENCHES HIS POWER
    The results of this week's parliamentary election in Russia have strengthened the grip on power of President Vladimir Putin, and that's likely to bring more authoritarian tendencies to the fore, both in respect of political dissent and in the management of the strategic sectors of the economy. The liberals were punished at the ballot box for their support of the hated oligarchs against Putin. But the outcome will force the opposition to reorganize for a long-term challenge.
    (The Economist, December 10, 2003)


    • Setting the global agenda

    'Bin Laden is Winning'

    He may have lost his terror campuses in Afghanistan and be unable to show his face anywhere in the world, but even if he's buried under a pile of rubble in a cave at Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden is winning. That's the view of Guardian diplomatic editor Ewen MacAskill, who notes that the fundamental objective of al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks was to polarize the world between the U.S. on the one side and the jihadis on the other. And while the U.S. and its allies have had considerable success in wiping out some of al Qaeda's organizational network, they're losing badly in the wider political battle for Muslim hearts and minds. While only a tiny minority in the Muslim world actively identify with al-Qaeda's actions, the franchise has grown substantially -- and more importantly, a majority of Muslims find little to quarrel with in Bin Laden's characterization of the United States as a force innately hostile to Arab and Muslim interests. And the war in Iraq has proved to be a major boon to the jihadi cause worldwide. MacAskill argues that the only way the U.S. can begin to reverse the tide is to move forcefully to achieve a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which remains the benchmark by which U.S. intentions are measured in the Muslim world.
    (Guardian, December 8, 2003)

    WHAT MUSLIM LIBERALS ARE SAYING

    The decision by the Nobel Committee to award this year's peace prize to Iranian human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi was correctly viewed as a blistering rebuke to that country's authoritarian clerical leadership. And in her acceptance speech, Ebadi challenged them to recognize the democratic and humanitarian values of Islam, and reform their society accordingly. But she also had a stern rebuke for the United States, slamming it for invading and occupying Iraq, for failing to enforce UN resolutions when those require action by Israel and for what she sees as its poor example to others when it comes to suppressing rights in the name of security. And she insisted that military intervention hurt rather than helped those who were fighting for democracy in the Middle East.
    (Tornto Globe and Mail, December 11, 2003)


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