[This travels far from current events and predictions about their future and, perhaps because of that, might be some of their best stuff.]
URL: http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/GIU/083099.ASP
GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE UPDATE
The War That Time Forgot
August 30, 1999
SUMMARY
The war in Iraq, the war that time has forgotten, appears to be
shifting into a mildly higher gear. The policy put into place after
the December bombing has generated constant sorties and frequent air
strikes, the reasoning behind them forgotten in the mists of time.
This makes the apparent shift in focus over the past week difficult to
understand. In order to understand things, it is necessary to think
through the foundations of U.S. policy in the region.
ANALYSIS
More than eight years after Operation Desert Storm, U.S. aircraft
continue to patrol the skies over Iraq, carrying out regular air
strikes against targets within the northern and southern no-fly zones.
Last December, U.S. aircraft conducted several days of intense
bombing, called Operation Desert Fox. Since the end of that series of
strikes, we estimate that U.S. aircraft have flown over 10,000 sorties
in Iraqi air space, including strikes at about 400 targets. The air
strikes are carried out from Gulf states friendly to the U.S., from
Incirlik, Turkey, and U.S. aircraft carriers rotating through the
Persian Gulf. Officially, the strikes are in response to attempts by
Iraqi anti-air systems to lock on to U.S. aircraft, in preparation for
attempts at bringing down U.S. aircraft. Since not a single aircraft
has been shot down, one would think that the Iraqis would have learned
not to turn on their radar by now. They are either extraordinarily
dense or U.S. air strikes are not actually being triggered by
aggressive Iraqi actions.
Under U.N. resolutions, Iraq contains two no-fly zones, one in the
north and south of the country. Iraqi aircraft are not permitted to
operate in these zones. U.S. aircraft are permitted to operate there
in order to make sure that the Iraqis are in compliance. It follows
that U.S. aircraft on patrol in these areas are permitted to defend
themselves against the Iraqis. Thus, if Iraqi anti-air systems try to
shoot them down, the U.S. is permitted to protect the aircraft by
attacking the systems. This has been the explanation for the ongoing
air campaign. It was, at least, an explanation.
However, this sleepy little war has had a significant character change
in the past few weeks. On August 19, U.S. aircraft bombed a target
outside of the no-fly zones, inside the central region where Iraq
retains clear sovereignty. At about the same time, the U.S. openly
shifted its targeting from responsive attacks against aggressive Iraqi
moves, to an attack on a fuel and ammunition dump.
So, about 10 days ago, the war shifted. About a week after that, an
Agence France-Presse report out of Amman claimed that an unnamed
Western diplomat had stated that the U.S. and U.K. were preparing a
"large-scale" operation against Iraq. Simultaneously, Arab leaders
started to condemn Saddam Hussein ostentatiously. The Jordanians,
after an opening to Saddam following the death of King Hussein, cooled
their relations with Saddam. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was
reported to have "washed his hands" of Iraq. Bashar al-Assad, son of
the Syrian president, called Saddam a "human beast." All told, it
appears that the war is shifting from its sleepy phase. The question,
of course, is what it is shifting to and why it is shifting now. To
figure that out, we need to understand what U.S. policy was from
December 1998 until now, a topic which is itself confusing.
When immediate policies don't make sense, we find it useful to go back
to first principles and try to understand what the underlying American
interests are. That takes us back to oil and the British. The U.S.,
like Britain before it, has had two interests in the Persian Gulf. The
first has been to make certain that no global rival could take control
of the region and deny the U.S. and its allies access to the oil. The
second interest has been to make certain that no power native to the
Persian Gulf could impose hegemony on the region, control all of the
oil and be in a position to manipulate the supplies and prices of
petroleum on a global basis.
A huge amount of the region's oil is on the western shore of the
Persian Gulf. Aside from petroleum, this is inhospitable country that
is relatively under-populated. Britain worked very hard to transform
the existing tribes and clans into administrative units that could
claim control of oil deposits as nation-states. The largest of these
entities was, of course, Saudi Arabia, but they included smaller
principalities like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and so on.
Each of these had vast amounts of oil under their control. They were
also too small and weak to defend their wealth. There was therefore a
natural affinity between these states and Britain and then America.
The latter were interested in seeing the oil producers divided,
competitive and dependent on them for security. The former were
interested in maximizing returns on oil production within the
framework of a foreign guarantor of their security.
The British task was to keep German influence out of the region - and
to keep the Wehrmacht far away as well. The region was later subject
to the same policy, with different actors: the U.S. wanted to keep
Soviet influence out of the region and the Red Army far away. There
was a secondary policy derived from this: no regional power could
conquer the western shore of the Persian Gulf. Now, none of the
western Persian Gulf powers, Saudi Arabia included, was in a position
to act militarily. But the two northern powers, Iraq and Iran, were
each alone capable of invading and occupying the western shore.
Fortunately, from the American point of view, the two were mortal
enemies since the days of Babylon and Persia. This relieved the U.S.
of the need to insert massive forces into the region to protect the
western shore. Instead, the United States engaged in a
balance-of-power strategy, playing Iraq against Iran, fostering
conflicts that forced each to focus on the other, leaving no forces
remaining to invade the western shore. This policy neatly intersected
the U.S. policy of containing the Soviet Union. By allying with Iran,
the U.S. simultaneously tied down the Iraqis while blocking the Soviet
Union's aspirations in the Gulf.
When the shah fell, the U.S. was forced to shift policy. On the one
hand, it was forced to settle for an Iran neutral to the U.S. and
Soviet Union. But the real U.S. concern was the security of the
western shore of the Persian Gulf. Therefore, the U.S. quietly
encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Iran. This served two purposes.
First, it gave the U.S. leverage with Iran, which now needed access to
spare parts and material (remember Iran-Contra). It also kept the
Iraqis occupied, which secured the western shore of the Persian Gulf
while opening channels to Iraq and limiting Soviet influence to some
extent.
Now, it is important to understand why Iraq agreed to play this role.
It was not for Saddam's health nor was it because Saddam coveted Iran.
Rather, Saddam wanted to dominate the Persian Gulf's western shore and
he understood, rightly or wrongly, that if Iraq were willing to invade
and defeat Iran, it would be permitted to take its place as the
dominant power in the Persian Gulf. This, of course, was not something
that the U.S. wanted to see, but the U.S. did want to motivate Saddam.
The U.S. expectation was that the war would go on interminably and
that the U.S. would be in a position to prevent any clear victor. The
war did go on for nearly a decade with countless casualties, but it
was not inconclusive. Iraq won. If not an absolute victory, there was
still no question that Iraq could act for a time without concerning
itself with Iran.
Iraq turned fairly quickly to gather the fruits of its victory--fruits
that it believed were its rights under implicit agreement with the
U.S. Indeed, Saddam informed the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq that he was
about to invade Kuwait as if it were understood that this was a
logical and necessary evolution. Indeed, with the effective
neutralization of the Soviet Union, one of the dimensions of U.S.
policy in the region no longer existed. Saddam thought that he had not
only an understanding, but that events had evolved to ease U.S.
concern. When the U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad was informed of the
impending invasion, she didn't even protest. It was an expected
evolution of policy.
But obviously, given the underlying U.S. interests in the region, any
promises made to induce Iraq to bear the burden of the war were not
actually made with the intention of allowing Iraq to collect the
fruits. The U.S. did not intend that Iraq dominate the western shore
of the Persian Gulf. The U.S. reacted by re-invading Kuwait and
securing the western shore of the Persian Gulf. However, the U.S. did
not invade Iraq, nor did it topple Saddam. There were three reasons
for this. First, the U.S. did not have the military resources to reach
all the way to Baghdad without a massive buildup, which would take
several more months. Taking a major city would mean substantial
casualties and the U.S. was casualty-averse. Second, the U.S. did not
want to destroy Iraq. It needed Iraq to counterbalance Iran, which was
still a long-term threat. Finally, the United States expected Saddam
to fall because of his failure.
Therefore, the U.S. instituted a policy that was designed to preserve
the Iraqi nation-state and simultaneously bring down Saddam. It
succeeded in the first and failed in the second. The U.S. simply
underestimated Saddam's ability to maintain his position. Saddam's
intelligence services detected and blocked every coup attempt. Saddam
combined terror and politics to maintain a degree of control over the
Kurds and the Shiites. Saddam manipulated the military so that any
potential threat - and several non-existent threats - were destroyed.
From a strategic standpoint, this was not an unsatisfactory outcome.
The western shore remained fragmented and dependent on the U.S. for
its security. Iran remained hemmed in on its western flank, unable to
expand, unable to drop its guard. Iraq remained unable to move south.
At low cost relative to the prize, the U.S. achieved what it wanted
strategically.
Politically, however, the survival of Saddam posed a challenge. The
inability to destroy Saddam represented a severe limit on U.S. power.
As with Milosevic, Saddam's survival communicates that the personal
risk involved in challenging the U.S. may not be so great. This
increases the willingness of others to take risks. The survival of
Saddam is also a major problem domestically. Having worked to convince
Americans that Saddam is the reincarnation of Hitler, the U.S. has a
great deal of trouble negotiating with him. Since strategic interests
dictate that the U.S. maintain relations with Iraq, it is politically
necessary to remove Saddam.
Now, it is important to understand that the sanctions against Saddam
have collapsed. Since neither Russia nor China is likely to honor
them, Saddam can get what he wants when he wants it. He can also sell
his oil, especially at recent prices. Moreover, with a Sino-Russian
alliance in the offing, the security of the Persian Gulf from outside
forces - a non-issue since 1989 - might once more be on the table.
Getting rid of Saddam so that the U.S. can create a working policy in
Iraq is a strategic imperative. More precisely, politics is getting in
the way of strategy.
This was the point of Desert Fox and its aftermath. The U.S. bombed
Saddam after he refused to let U.N. inspectors in, on the grounds that
they were spying for the CIA. Since then, it has been revealed that
Saddam was pretty much right. This information left the U.S. UN fig
leaf in tatters. The second phase of the bombing, from the beginning
of the year until August 19, seemed to have been driven by some
strange theory that Saddam was utterly insane and that bombing him
would push him over the edge. He may be bonkers, but it is a stable
insanity. He did not collapse under the strain. The bombing continued
without any apparent effect or purpose.
We are now in a new stage, of which the purpose is clear: to deal once
and for all with the Saddam question so that we can move on to more
important strategic issues in the region. But there is a problem: why
should a strategy that has failed to unseat Saddam since 1991 succeed
today? There is no reason to believe it will, and U.S. policy makers
are fully aware of that. It appears to us that the U.S. has a two-tier
policy. Tier one is a final attempt to crack his regime, followed by
the much more important tier two--positioning the U.S. to be
reconciled not so much to Saddam himself, but as to Saddam being a
feature of the Middle East.
The U.S. and U.K. are going to be submitting proposals to the UN next
month on renewing inspections of Iraqi facilities for weapons of mass
destruction. Since the last round ended in a complete and utterly
embarrassing foul up, getting approval will not be easy. Indeed, since
the proposal needs Security Council approval, passage is more than a
little doubtful with China and Russia in the mood they are in. If that
resolution fails, the post-1991 regime will have collapsed. But if it
collapses because of the UN, the U.S. will have the political cover
needed to deal with Iraq. In other words, if the U.S. hangs tough and
the policy collapses anyway, the politics might shift a bit.
There is a lesson in the U.S. Iraq strategy: do not personalize
strategic interests. The U.S. must drive strategy in Iraq according to
its interests on the western shore of the Persian Gulf. These
interests should not be held hostage by the survival of a particular
personality. The constant identification of U.S. enemies as the
reincarnation of Hitler's absolute evil may help solidify public
opinion during war, but it makes the conduct of foreign policy in the
post-war world extremely difficult when the personality in question
refuses to go quietly. This is a lesson for U.S. dealings with
Milosevic as well as Saddam Hussein. Demonizing the enemy is fine, if
you can crush him. If not, you are left negotiating with the devil,
which is not only politically embarrassing but reveals underlying
strategic weaknesses for all to see.
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