Brookings: Experts - Bruce Riedel

Will Arming Syrian Rebels Lead to Disaster?

Bruce Riedel — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The United States is about to start arming and training the Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. If done well, this move can end a bloody civil war. If done poorly, it could lead to disaster. Will Obama and his team do the right thing?

It turns out Afghanistan of the 1980s is a terrific test case for how to handle the Syrian rebels. The Afghan mujahedin then and the Syrian rebels now both seem incapable of forming a broad national consensus or an effective united political and military organization. Both have a significant component of hard-core Islamist extremists in their midst who are fundamentally opposed to American interests. But both also have a legitimate cause that deserves our support. The issue is how to help wisely.

The CIA’s support of the Afghans ended in brilliant success and the downfall of the Soviet Union, but it succeeded only because it was fought with a clear mission, strong allies and broad bipartisan support. Even then, it also had serious unintended consequences that haunt us to this day.

A key lesson of Afghanistan is to be very clear from the beginning about your objective and mission. In the 1980s the goal was to defeat the Soviets by creating a quagmire for the Red Army like Vietnam was for America. The key planners behind the CIA operation to support the mujahedin, especially CIA Director Bill Casey, wanted to turn Afghanistan into Moscow’s Vietnam. They did.

Then Washington let mission creep develop. The Reagan and Bush administrations were unsure of what they wanted to do next. Some in Washington wanted to overthrow the communist government in Kabul that survived after the Russian withdrawal. Others wanted to support a political process to build a broad-based national unity government. And others wanted to forget Afghanistan and concentrate on forging a new world order with the post-communist leadership in Moscow. The American national-security bureaucracy became almost dysfunctional. In the end chaos ensued in Afghanistan.

What mission does arming the rebels in Syria support? It must be more than stopping Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Is it regime change or bolstering a political process in Geneva? Is it a means to unite the opposition and purge it of the al Nusra front, al Qaeda’s arm in Syria? Is it to defeat Iran and Hezbollah and bring regime change beyond Syria? We have yet to hear the answers to these questions.

Then there’s the matter of allies. The American support for the Afghan resistance was built around strong support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Only some 50 or so CIA officers were ever engaged at one time in helping the mujahedin. Their job was to buy arms for the rebels and ship them to Karachi. After they arrived in that port the war was fought by the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), which did all the training of the insurgents. ISI officers crossed the border into Afghanistan and even Soviet Central Asia to provide critical “boots on the ground” expertise and leadership when needed. The Pakistanis took all the risks of Soviet blowback at home as the KGB used terror operations inside Pakistan to try to shake Islamabad’s resolve. The Saudis helped pay for the operation with both government and private funds.

Of course, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had different interests in Afghanistan than America. Our interests only overlapped for a time. Saudi Arabia wanted to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan and repress Shia (it wants the same in Syria today). And Pakistan was determined to install a puppet government in Afghanistan once the Russians left. That remains the ISI’s goal today, which is why we are now fighting a proxy war with Pakistan in Afghanistan.

In Syria, we will need the same sort of help. We can’t arm the rebels without a base next door. We should work with Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar as well as the U.K. and France. But we should have no illusions that we all share the same end game. Our arms could end up in al Qaeda’s hands not just in Syria but in Iraq, Jordan, and elsewhere. They could be used to kill Americans.

And there is going to need to be bipartisan support in the Congress for a major covert operation arming a rebellion. Reagan and Casey had that in the 1980s. It was famously Democratic congressman Charlie Wilson’s war as much as it was Reagan’s war (at least in Hollywood). Some of the enthusiasm included a great deal of naiveté about our allies, especially the ISI, and a lot of romanticism about the mujahedin, but it also provided a solid base of support.

If America’s Syria mission lacks that, it will be constantly second-guessed. If the administration wants to arm the rebels, then it needs to make the case clearly and strongly. The president will need to take ownership. Hesitancy and uncertainty are a recipe for disaster.

Of course, there are many differences between Afghanistan in the 1980s and Syria today. Assad is not Brezhnev, and frankly, the stakes are not nearly as great. But no matter what, there will be unintended consequences. Arming the mujahedin was the right policy in the 1980s; Casey and Reagan never dreamed that Afghanistan would become a base for jihadists who would attack America. But it also had unintended and dangerous fallout. Clear thinking about goal, avoiding mission creep, frank talk with allies, and building bipartisan support can help bring the right outcome. Arming the rebels in Syria may be the right move today, but it could also be the start to a process that ends in another deeply unpopular, expensive, and counterproductive American war in the Islamic world.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Muzaffar Salman / Reuters

Syria, the U.S., and Arming the Rebels: Assad’s Use of Chemical Weapons and Obama’s Red Line

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:30:00 -0400

Following confirmation that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in Syria, the Obama administration may send small arms, ammunition and potentially anti-tank weapons to the Syrian rebels. As the United States weighs its options, Foreign Policy at Brookings experts assess the situation in Syria and the Obama administration’s options going forward.

Tamara Wittes
Senior Fellow and Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

“Having apparently made the decision to provide lethal support to the Syrian opposition, the Obama administration must still make clear its ultimate interests and objectives. If the goal is limited to addressing the military imbalance to make way for a negotiated settlement, I fear they may be disappointed. For Assad, this is an existential struggle and the fighting will likely intensify. In addition, the more the sectarian aspect of the conflict deepens, the more existential the fight will be for Syrians on all sides of the conflict. The likely and unintended result? Making a negotiated peace very hard to achieve and creating a situation where the post-conflict phase will demand an intensive international presence.”

Michael Doran
Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

“President Obama has been extremely reluctant to get involved in Syria. But the combination of chemical weapons, pressure from allies, including the British and French, and the recent victories on the battlefield by Hezbollah have forced the president’s hand. In addition, there was a growing awareness in Washington that the Geneva II conference, the flagship of America’s Syria policy, would never take place without a greater commitment by the United States to strengthening the rebels.

“It remains to be seen, however, exactly what the United States has in mind when it says it will increase “the scope and scale” of aid. Leaks to the media suggest that this aid includes weapons, but as of yet we have no clear idea of exactly what the president has in mind. The provision of weapons alone is unlikely to drastically change the balance of power on the ground. What is needed, at a bare minimum, is a robust program of training and equipping the opposition, coupled with significant support in the areas of strategic planning, intelligence, and logistics. It is doubtful if at this stage the administration is considering such a broad package.”

Daniel Byman
Senior Fellow and Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

“Regime change as the only way to end this conflict. And to go further, the United States wants this regime to fall. By comparison, regime change in Egypt was the right thing to support diplomatically and in terms of U.S. values, even though we were betraying an ally nonetheless. It was also a big strategic risk, but an important one to take. In the case of Syria, however, the U.S. would be undermining an enemy. The Obama administration has been slow to recognize that difference and has shown a preference for pursuing stability instead of making a full commitment to regime change.

“In addition, I increasingly worry that the opposition will turn on itself should it ever start to truly triumph. It’s inability to unify after over two years is staggering. At the height f the Libyan revolution, many in the U.S. administration complained about how poorly united the Libyan opposition was. Now Obama officials are saying, ‘if only the Syrians could be like the Libyans,’ reflecting how low the expectations have become for the opposition forces. If nothings else at this point, the U.S. needs to arm and train the Syrian rebels in order to create a stable post-Assad Syria. After Assad falls, there may be a fight among the opposition forces, and I would think the Obama administration would want someone who is not Jabhat al-Nusra to take power.

“It may be too little too late in terms of really affecting the military balance or, for that matter, scoring points with the Syrian people who will wonder why it took 90,000 dead for the United States to become more involved in the conflict. And as in Libya, the administration seemed to have waited until the forces it is backing are losing before becoming directly involved. But only by becoming involved can the U.S. help manage spillover of the conflict in the wider region and enable the U.S. to deal with a post-Assad Syria.”

Shadi Hamid
Fellow and Director of Research, Brookings Doha Center

“By itself, arming the Syrian rebels is unlikely to tip the balance in their favor. It might have made a difference a year ago, but, today, the Assad regime - particularly after re-taking Qusayr - has the advantage. With that, it is no surprise that Assad seems as confident as ever and, put another way, that the rebels are losing. At this point, a much more concerted effort is required for the Syrian rebels to regain momentum. That effort likely now would have to include the use of surgical airstrikes and the establishment of no-fly and no-drive zones.

“It is worth putting the Obama administration's decision into perspective. The U.S. will provide small arms and ammunition but not the more advanced weaponry that the rebels have been practically begging for. So not only is this a half-measure, it's a particularly weak half-measure. I worry that the Obama administration is doing this largely because of domestic and international pressure, and not because there's any real strategic vision or a re-think of what its wants to accomplish in Syria.”

Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow and Director, Brookings Intelligence Project
Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence

“The United States is about to start arming and training the Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. If done well, this move can end a bloody civil war. If done poorly, it could lead to disaster. Will Obama and his team do the right thing?”

“It turns out Afghanistan of the 1980s is a terrific test case for how to handle the Syrian rebels. The Afghan mujahedin then and the Syrian rebels now both seem incapable of forming a broad national consensus or an effective united political and military organization. Both have a significant component of hard-core Islamist extremists in their midst who are fundamentally opposed to American interests. But both also have a legitimate cause that deserves our support. The issue is how to help wisely.”

Read Bruce Riedel's full op-ed on The Daily Beast website »

Authors

Image Source: © Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Educational Success in Pakistan: Implications for Stability and Security

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 6, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event
Despite the steady stream of bad news from Pakistan, there have been a number of success stories. One example is the tremendous progress made in education reform in Punjab province. During the past two years, education reforms in Punjab province have resulted in more than a million and a half more children enrolled in school, increased school attendance to 90 percent, and 81,000 new teachers hired on merit. With 40 out of 70 million young people ages 5 to 19 not in school, reforms in Pakistan’s most populous province provide important lessons for the rest of the country.

On June 6, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings hosted a discussion on what can be learned from the Punjab experience. Following a presentation by Chief Education Strategist at Pearson Sir Michael Barber, Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at Brookings, and Senior Advisor of the Aga Khan Development Network Iqbal Noor Ali discussed the implications for education reform, public-private partnerships, and security in Pakistan. Senior Fellow Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education, moderated the discussion.

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Educational Success in Pakistan: Implications for Stability and Security

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U.S.-Pakistan Relationship and the Future of Afghanistan

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:36:00 -0400

The U.S. and Pakistan are fundamentally at odds over the future of Afghanistan. Washington and Islamabad back opposite sides in the war and want different outcomes. This despite a new civilian government in Islamabad and a somewhat new counter terrorism policy in Washington.

For twenty years Pakistan's army--the real power broker in the country--has backed the Afghan Taliban. It helped create the Taliban's Islamic Emirate in the 1990s and build the al Qaeda state within a state. The army has provided safe haven, arms, expertise and other help to the Taliban. It briefly pretended to abandon the Taliban to avoid American anger in 2001 misleading George Bush. By 2004 under the leadership of its then spy chief and today top general, Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was deeply engaged in helping the Taliban again. It still is. The senior Taliban leadership including Mullah Omar are protected by the ISI in Quetta and Karachi.

The army is confident America will sooner rather than later abandon Kabul just as it did in the 1990s. Pakistan's generals make their country's Afghan policy. Nawaz Sharif told me that in 1998 when I first meet him. The elected civilians just go along for the ride or get assassinated like Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz once said if he crossed the ISI-Army-Taliban axis, America would next find his successor to be a bearded jihadist in a uniform.

This May Sharif was elected on a platform that promised an end to the drone war and a political solution to the threat posed by Pakistan's internal Taliban movement. The drones instead killed a prominent Pakistan Taliban leader (involved in killing seven CIA officers in 2009) last week, prompting the Pakistani Taliban to renounce any political process with Sharif. It has been a rocky start to America's relationship to Sharif's third term as Prime Minister.

As America draws down in Afghanistan, India will inevitably play a larger role there. It already is constructing Afghan-Iran-India transportation links designed to isolate Pakistan. Indo-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan will make the post 2014 subcontinent even more dangerous. Pakistan will draw on the aid of its allies, China and Saudi Arabia. Sharif wants to reduce tensions with India and improve trade to help Pakistan's weak economy. Kayani has already warned him to go very slowly with India.

At home Sharif faces huge challenges, including an energy crisis, rising sectarian violence and slow growth. The army top command turns over this year which is always a delicate time for Pakistani politics. Who succeeds Kayani will be hugely important to Pakistan's future.

This year's U.S. Islamic World Forum presents a timely opportunity to hear Pakistani voices discuss their nation's future. Pakistanis are angry at America so the voices in Doha will be passionate. President Karzai will provide his thoughts on Pakistan and its new leadership. It promises to be intriguing.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Image Source: © Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Saudi Arabia’s Quiet Transition

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the last year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has transitioned its top security posts from the generation that had been in office for a half century to a younger generation of princes who are now poised to inherit the last absolute monarchy in the world. The new leaders of Saudi Arabia’s security infrastructure are neither young nor inexperienced; rather, they are well prepared for their assignments at this critical juncture in their country’s history.

Late last month, King Abdullah promoted his son, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, to be the first ever minister of national guard, elevating the command of the kingdom’s elite security force to the level of a ministry and placing his son in the cabinet. The Saudi Arabian National Guard, or SANG, was commanded by Abdullah from 1962 until 2010. In the course of his half century in command of the SANG, Abdullah lavished on it the best weapons and equipment money could buy and turned it into the strongest military force in the country, larger and better led than the regular army. Over 100,000 strong and equipped with armored vehicles and helicopters, the SANG has been trained by American advisers since 1975.

The SANG functions as the praetorian guard of the royal family. It secures the capital, Riyadh, and the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, and is also deployed extensively in the oil-rich Eastern province, which has a large Shiite population and suffers frequent unrest. SANG troops intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to suppress the reform movement on the island, which demands greater political rights for the Shiite majority from the Sunni royal family in Manama. By elevating SANG to the level of a ministry, Abdullah has given his son a bigger voice in the decision-making process of the kingdom on critical internal and external security issues.

Mutaib’s promotion is part of a pattern of elevating the senior sons of the kingdom’s ruling generation, all of whom are themselves the sons of the modern kingdom’s founder, Abdelaziz bin Saud or Ibn Saud, who died in 1953. As the elders have passed away in the last few years, the king has gradually replaced them with their sons. Last November, Abdullah promoted Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, known as MBN, to be the minister of interior. MBN’s father had been interior minister himself for over thirty years before briefly serving as crown prince until his death in June 2012. The Interior Ministry is the kingdom’s internal police force with over 130,000 paramilitary troops, police and border guards.

The Interior Ministry and SANG led the campaign in 2005-2006 to quell an al-Qaeda uprising in the kingdom and were the targets of several dozen terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda before the authorities gained the upper hand and drove the remnants of the terrorist group underground into Yemen.

Abdullah also made Prince Bandar, the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, director-general of the Saudi intelligence service in July 2012. Bandar is a son of Prince Sultan, longtime minister of defense before he also briefly served as crown prince. Bandar’s predecessor as spy master, Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, is now third in line to the crown, behind Abdullah and Crown Prince Salman. The Saudi intelligence service operates outside the kingdom, roughly like the US CIA, and is now heavily involved in fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen and in supporting the Syrian opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Ironically, Bandar was crucial to the transition in Syria from Hafez Assad to Bashar back in 2000, assuring key Alawite generals then in the regime that Bashar was up to the job and had Saudi support. Now Bandar is trying to get arms to the Sunni rebels to oust Bashar.

The king has also been moving the next generation of princes into key governorships in the most politically sensitive provinces. One of Crown Prince Salman’s sons, Prince Faisal bin Salman, was made governor of Medina this January and another of Nayif’s sons, Saud bin Nayif, became governor of the Eastern province at the same time. Both were also made ministers. Faisal had been chairman of the kingdom’s largest publishing company, while Saud had been the ambassador to Spain and a senior official in the Interior Ministry.

The promotion of so many younger princes into senior positions is unprecedented in the kingdom’s history, and is a reflection of the passing of the generation of Ibn Saud’s sons, who dominated the country for well over a half century. The new ministers are experienced hands; many have been functionally running their aging fathers' portfolios for years. MBN, for example, basically took charge of the interior ministry when the al-Qaeda rebellion began in 2005. His father had assured the rest of the royal family that al-Qaeda would never be a threat to the kingdom.

The transition to the next generation is not a sign of reform. None of the new power brokers has any record of promoting fundamental change in the kingdom. After all, they are major stake holders in the system that has finally brought them to the top tier. Nonetheless, the promotion of Mutaib, MBN, Bandar and others is a major transformation in the kingdom’s leadership at a time when the last absolute monarchy in the world faces major challenges from the Arab Awakening and the sharpening sectarian Sunni-Shiite struggle across the Islamic world.

Stormy times lie ahead for the princes. How well they fair will determine the success or failure of America’s oldest ally in the Middle East. Given how slowly change comes in the royal family, if they succeed, they may be in office for decades to come.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: Al Monitor

Image Source: © FAISAL NASSER / Reuters

Obama’s National Security Speech and Pakistan

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:22:00 -0400

On Thursday, President Obama plans to deliver a speech on national security and counterterrorism issues. The speech comes at a particularly awkward time in Pakistan, the epicenter of the global jihad for more than a decade. Nawaz Sharif has just been elected for an unprecedented third term in a nation extremely unhappy with America's counterterrorism policies, especially the drone war fought in its skies from bases in Afghanistan.

President Obama faces the challenge of defending his policies and explaining why they are needed. He must do this without further alienating an angry Pakistan and its newly elected civilian government which is struggling to find its own way to deal with the terror Frankenstein that threatens the world and Pakistan itself. It may be mission impossible. Despite years of drone attacks and the death of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan remains the base for the top three most wanted terrorists on the U.S. Most Wanted list: al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Taliban chief Mullah Omar and Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT) boss Hafez Saeed.

In fact, Omar and Saeed enjoy the patronship and protection of Pakistan's army. More global terror plots have originated in Pakistan than anywhere else since 9/11. Without the drones, there would be little or no pressure on the terror infrastructure in Pakistan. Despite over $25 billion in American economic and military aid since 9/11, the Pakistani authorities cannot be relied on to fight the danger posed by al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, or LeT. Obama recognized that fact when he sent the SEALs to kill bin Laden without telling any Pakistani official that we had found him hiding inside the highly secure Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

But Pakistan is also a victim of the terror monster it has coddled for decades. Over 45,000 Pakistanis have died in terror-related violence since 9/11, and dozens more died in the election campaign just ended. Sharif has pledged to seek a political solution to the violence. He has campaigned against the drones and faces a national consensus that wants them to end. His main opponent Imran Khan promised to shoot them down if elected (probably with American supplied F-16s).

Obama significantly expanded drone attacks in 2009 and many dangerous terrorists have been eliminated by them. The price has been to further alienate the Pakistani people. His speech this Thursday is not likely to please many in Pakistan. The already very difficult U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship is at a crucial juncture with the first ever transition from one elected Pakistani civilian government to another in the country's history after a full term in office. Reconciling our counter-terror mission with our interest in promoting democracy in Pakistan will not be easy. If it is impossible, then the fate of U.S. relations with the most dangerous country in the world is headed toward an even more deadly outcome.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Lessons from America’s First War with Iran

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:35:00 -0400

President Barack Obama has committed the United States to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran seems determined to acquire them. As the United States and Iran approach confrontation and possible war to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, it is useful to remember that America has already fought one war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. During the late 1980s, President Ronald Reagan intervened in the Iran- Iraq War in support of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein, ultimately leading to an Iraqi victory. The United States engaged in an undeclared yet bloody naval and air war, while Iraq fought a brutal land war against Iran. The lessons of the first war with Iran should be carefully considered before the United States embarks hastily on a second.

In hindsight, the central lesson of the war in the 1980s is that it is easy to start a conflict with Iran and very difficult to end it. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not easy to intimidate and is likely to retaliate asymmetrically. Another key lesson is to beware the advice of your allies, both Arabs and Israelis, who are prone to give irresponsible recommendations on how to deal with Tehran.

The Toll of the Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War was devastating. It was one of the largest and longest conventional interstate wars since the Korean War ended in 1953. A half million lives were lost, and perhaps another million were injured. The economic cost of the war exceeded one trillion dollars.1 Yet, the battle lines at the end of the war were almost exactly where they had been at the beginning of hostilities. It was also the only war in modern times in which chemical weapons were used on a massive scale.

Although the war ended in 1988, it led to numerous aftershocks that rippled throughout the region including the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the liberation of Kuwait a year later, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The bloody U.S. war that President Obama recently ended in Iraq was the finale in this march of folly. The seeds of multigenerational tragedy were planted in the Iran-Iraq War. The world will live with its consequences for decades, if not longer.

There were no “good guys” in the Iran-Iraq War, only two brutal dictatorships. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who built enormous, ugly monuments to his ambitions and dreamed of becoming the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, controlling the world’s oil supplies, and destroying Israel. At the end of the first Gulf War in 1988, Hussein waged genocide against his own Kurdish population. Ayatollah Khomeini created a theocracy in Iran which imprisoned and executed thousands of its own citizens, forced tens of thousands into exile, and even took American diplomats hostage.

U.S. Policy During the War

America had no natural partners in the Iran-Iraq War, but its interests dictated that the United States allow neither Saddam nor Khomeini to dominate the region and the world’s energy supply. For most of the war, it was Iran that appeared on the verge of victory, so Washington had little choice but to support Iraq.

For those who aspire to a national security policy built on the principles of the United Nations Charter or a moral high ground, Iran-Iraq was an immoral swamp. For American policymakers in the 1980s, there was a simple difference. When the war began, Iran held dozens of American diplomats hostage and even tortured some. Only after 444 days in captivity did Iran let the American hostages go. In contrast to Khomeini, many Americans hoped that the Iraqi leader was somehow redeemable and could be worked with as a difficult but manageable partner. We realize now that this was a mirage, but in the 1980s it was still a hope. Thus, America tilted toward Iraq, hoping it would hold back the “medieval fanatics” to the east from gaining control of the world’s oil reserves.

But “our side” kept breaking the rules. First, Iraq was the aggressor in September 1980. Certainly Iraq had been provoked by Iranian actions along the border, but the main act of aggression was carried out by the Iraqi army in the form of a massive attack. As long as Iraq held Iranian territory, Washington did not call for the restoration of the status quo ante as would be the norm for most international conflicts; only when the tables turned did the United States call for respect for the international border. Then Iraq began using chemical weapons—first, in a piecemeal and largely ineffectual fashion, but by the war’s end, on an industrial scale and with decisive effect. The threat of Iraqi chemical warheads on long range missiles cleared Tehran of many of its inhabitants in 1988, and Saddam began using chemical warheads to systematically kill his own people. Rather than fall silent, the guns of war merely changed theaters with the 1988 cease-fire, as the Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds began, an act of pure genocide by the government that the United States had supported during the war.

The conflict was not President Ronald Reagan’s finest hour. At first he tilted toward Iraq, sending the CIA to Baghdad with critical intelligence in 1982 to thwart Iran’s war plans. It worked. Then Reagan tilted toward Iran, sending sophisticated arms to Tehran in an effort to get American hostages in Lebanon freed. It didn’t work. A few hostages were released but more hostages were taken. Then Reagan tilted back toward Iraq and Washington’s undeclared war followed in 1987 and 1988. The principal architect of the policy was Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Casey, who died before the Iran scandal forced his resignation and possible indictment.

Lessons for Today

So what are the lessons of this war for America today? The first lesson is that we should expect to be blamed for all that goes wrong. Both Iraqis and Iranians came to believe the United States was manipulating each of them during the war. Ironically, and perhaps naively, the United States tried to reach out to both belligerents through the course of the war— in great secrecy both times—to try to build a strategic partnership. The disastrous arms-for-hostages policy, which came to be known as the Iran- Contra affair, convinced Iraqis rightly that the United States was trying to play both sides of the conflict. The result was that when the war ended, the Iraqi regime and most Iraqis regarded the United States as a threat, despite Washington’s support during the war. That support had taken the form of critical intelligence assistance to Baghdad, considerable diplomatic cover, and largesse from our Arab allies who loaned tens of billions of dollars to Baghdad to sustain Iraq’s war effort.

Iranians call the war the “Imposed War” because they believe the United States subjected them to the conflict and orchestrated the global “tilt” toward Iraq. They note that the United Nations did not condemn Iraq for starting the war. In fact, the UN did not even discuss the war for weeks after it started, and it ultimately considered Iraq to be the aggressor only years later, as part of a deal orchestrated by President George H.W. Bush to free the remaining U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon.

Although the war had tragic consequences for Iran, by portraying the conflict as a “David and Goliath” struggle imposed by the United States and its allies, Iranian leaders managed to consolidate the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Revolution was fairly short in duration and its cost was miniscule in comparison to the Iran-Iraq War. For the generation of Iranians who are now leading their country, including men like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the war was the defining event of their lives and a major force in shaping their worldview. Their anti-Americanism and deep suspicion of the West can be traced directly to their understanding of the Iran-Iraq War. We should thus expect the next war to make Iran more extreme and more determined to get the bomb.

Another lesson of the first war is that Iran will not be easily intimidated by the United States. By 1987, Iran was devastated by the war, many of its cities had been destroyed, its oil exports were minimal. and its economy was shattered. But it did not hesitate to fight the U.S. Navy in the Gulf and to use asymmetric means to retaliate in Lebanon and elsewhere. Even with most of its navy sunk by U.S. Naval forces, Iran kept fighting and the Iranian people continued rallying behind Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iran fought a smart war, avoiding too rapid and too dangerous an escalation. As General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has noted, Iranian behavior is rational, not suicidal.2 Iran will not take steps that endanger the revolution’s survival; the country will look to exploit America’s vulnerabilities in Afghanistan and Bahrain, as well as Israel’s in Lebanon and the Saudis’ in Yemen. In the 1980s, Iran created Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack American, French, and Israeli targets as punishment for American support of Iraq. Hezbollah then tried to assassinate the emir of Kuwait to punish that country for being Iraq’s outlet to the Persian Gulf. In essence, Iran expanded the battlefield of the Iran-Iraq War to other countries where it could exploit security vulnerabilities. We should expect the same in a future war, one for which Iran and Hezbollah have had decades to prepare. Indeed, Iran and Hezbollah are already waging a low intensity terror campaign against Israel from Bulgaria to India, and they have reportedly used cyber warfare against Saudi and Qatari oil companies.3

Another lesson is that ending a future war will be a challenge. In 1988, Iran sued for a cease-fire only after suffering catastrophic defeat on the ground against Iraqi forces and after Saddam Hussein threatened to fire Scud missiles armed with chemical warheads into Iranian cities.4 Iranians feared they would face a second “Hiroshima” if they did not accept a truce; indeed many evacuated Tehran in fear of an Iraqi chemical attack. For Khomeini, accepting the truce was like “drinking poison.”5 No two wars are identical, but history suggests that Iran will not back down easily.

The final lesson is to always scrutinize the advice of allies. Ironically, in the 1980s the closest U.S. partner in the region, Israel, pressed Washington hard and repeatedly to essentially switch sides and offer assistance to Iran. Israeli leaders, generals, and spies were obsessed by the Iraqi threat in the 1980s just as they are preoccupied by the Iranian threat today, and they longed to restore the cozy relationship they had with the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s. Through the Iraq-Iran War, Israel was the only consistent source of spare parts for the Iranian air force’s U.S.-made jets.6 Israeli leaders, notably Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, brought considerable pressure to bear on Washington for an American engagement with Tehran, and Iran-Contra was in many ways their idea. American diplomats and spies deployed abroad were told to turn a blind eye to Israeli arms deals with Tehran, even when it was official U.S. policy (in the Washington euphemism of the day) to “staunch” all avenues by which the Iranians might obtain weapons or other material needed for their war effort.7

America’s Arab allies provided equally bad advice. Egypt’s President Mubarak, Jordan’s King Hussein, and Saudi King Fahd all urged support for Saddam and Iraq, while turning a blind eye to Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Egypt sent arms, Jordan sent volunteers, and the Saudis bankrolled Saddam’s war, while telling America that he was a born-again moderate who could be worked with and trusted. It was not to be.

Looking back a quarter century after the war in 1988 is revealing and sobering. America accomplished its immediate goals in the first war: it halted Iran’s advance into Iraq, defended the tankers in the Gulf, and contained the war from spreading into the Arabian Peninsula. Khomeini did not conquer Basra and Baghdad and march on Jerusalem as he dreamed he would. But today, Iran is the dominant foreign power in Baghdad, thanks in large part to another war America fought in the Gulf. President George W. Bush toppled Saddam and ended his brutal dictatorship, but in doing so, Bush opened the door to a Shia majority government which is much friendlier to Tehran than to Riyadh or Amman, or Washington. These are sobering reminders of the unintended consequences of wars.

The first American war with Iran helped make Iran a more radical and extreme country. A second war may well do the same. Thus another war with Iran to stop its nuclear program may ultimately prove to be the catalyst that pushes Iran to acquire a dangerous nuclear weapons arsenal. Rather than stopping proliferation, it could incite it further.

History of course does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Lessons of old wars should be carefully considered before entering new ones. Many Americans have forgotten the lessons of our undeclared war in the 1980s. We have fought so many other wars since: in Iraq (twice), in Afghanistan, and in Libya. While it may be easy for Washington to forget, no Iranian has.

This article was originally published by The Fletcher Forum.

Endnotes
1 Janet Lang et al, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988 (Plymouth, Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), ix.
2 Fareed Zakaria, “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: We are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a ‘rational actor,’” CNN Pressroom, February 21, 2012.
3 Nicole Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi firm, U.S. sees Iran firing back,” New York Times, October 23, 2012.
4 Lang, 169.
5 Lang, 196.
6 Lang, 89.
7 Lang, 90.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Fletcher Forum

Image Source: © Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Comeback Kid

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:12:00 -0400

Nawaz Sharif is the comeback kid of Pakistani politics. With his party’s electoral victory, he is poised to become prime minister for an unprecedented third time. The Sharif odyssey has been remarkable—but now we will see if he can convert his victory into a new beginning for his deeply troubled country and our own tortured relations with it.

The 63-year-old Nawaz Sharif was born into money as the scion of a very wealthy family in Lahore. He entered politics to protect the family’s industry from nationalization. In the 1980s he became a protégé of Pakistan’s third military dictator, Zia ul Huq, and became the dominant politician in the country’s richest and most populous province, the Punjab. In 1990 Sharif was elected prime minister after his great rival, Benazir Bhutto, was booted out by the military.

I first got to know Sharif when I was President George Bush’s Director for South Asia and Persian Gulf Affairs in the White House in the early 1990s. Sharif was America’s partner in trying to wind down the decade-old war in Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed communist government that had outlived the defeat of the Soviet 40th Red Army in 1988, and was still clinging to power in Kabul. Unfortunately, when the communist government finally did collapse in 1992, it only ushered in a vicious civil war among the victorious mujahedin. Pakistan was left to deal with the consequences on its own as America abandoned Afghanistan to its fate. And Sharif lost power in 1993 to Benazir Bhutto.

He was elected back to a second term as prime minister in 1997. A year later he tested Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after India tested its first. As President Clinton’s Special Assistant for Near East and South Asia Affairs, I tried to persuade Sharif not to follow India’s path, but to no avail. In 1999 Sharif’s hand-picked Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, exploded a détente Sharif had arranged with India by starting a war in Kashmir. Normally very shy, Sharif invited himself to the White House on July 4, 1999, to find a way out, and wisely agreed to Clinton’s demand that Pakistan unilaterally abandon the war Musharraf had orchestrated. Sharif’s decision averted a wider—and very possibly nuclear—war.

Sharif fired Musharraf on October 12, 1999, while the general was visiting Sri Lanka. The general refused to step down and instead orchestrated a coup and arrested Sharif. A military court was summoned to try Sharif for treason. Only in Pakistan could a legitimately-elected prime minister be labeled a traitor for firing the country’s top general—a general who Sharif had selected for the job in the first place. Many expected Musharraf to have Sharif executed, just as Zia ul Huq had executed Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Bhutto.

Clinton tasked me with saving Sharif’s life. The president believed Sharif did not deserve death, and that it would be a disaster for Pakistan to execute another elected leader after a military coup. I spent a great deal of time arguing for clemency with the Pakistani ambassador in Washington. The ambassador was sympathetic to the argument—but I needed more help. The Saudi ambassador to Washington at the time, Prince Bandar, provided the heavy lifting.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also did not want a repeat of the Zia-Zulfi nightmare. Then Crown Prince Abdallah used the Kingdom’s considerable influence in Pakistan to save Sharif. Saudi Arabia is Pakistan’s closest ally, and has given more financial aid to Pakistan than to any other country in the world. Abdallah asked Musharraf to let Sharif go into exile in Saudi Arabia. As Musharraf later wrote in his memoirs, it was an offer he could not refuse. After 14 months in prison, Sharif went into exile in the Kingdom in December 2000. Few expected him to ever return home.

Now the tables have turned. Sharif has won a massive electoral victory and his long time tormentor, Musharraf, is under arrest in Pakistan after returning from his own exile to run in the elections. Musharraf was ousted by popular pressure in 2008, became a billionaire in exile in London, and then foolishly decided he was Pakistan’s savior this winter and decided to go home to be swept back into power by the people. He miscalculated badly. No one in Pakistan wanted the self-appointed savior, and he is now under house arrest. He faces a number of charges and could be tried for the coup he orchestrated against Sharif. The irony is rich.

But Sharif faces a real challenge over what to do with Musharraf. The general has few supporters even in the army, but the officer corps will be very uncomfortable with the prospect of one of its own serving prison time, or worse. Since many of the senior commanders in the army today, including Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, are former Musharraf protégés who rose with him to power, the question of what to do with Musharraf now is a dangerous challenge. The courts will decide his fate but the next prime minister’s voice will matter.

Deciding how to handle the Musharraf affair is only one of Sharif’s huge challenges. The country is under siege by some of the extremists it nurtured during the wars in Afghanistan. Some 45,000 Pakistanis have died in extremist terrorism since 2001, and violence wracked the election. Sharif has urged a political process to try to end the terror, and has been widely accused of being too soft on the Pakistani Taliban. He has long coddled Pakistan’s most dangerous terrorist group, Lashkar e Tayyiba, which carried out the Mumbai massacre in 2008 and which has its headquarters in Sharif’s home city of Lahore. LeT retains very close links to the army and the intelligence service, the ISI.

Nonetheless, Sharif has also promised to turn a page in Pakistan’s relations with India and has invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to his inauguration. As an industrialist billionaire, Sharif knows the Pakistani economy desperately needs more trade and investment from its far more vibrant Indian neighbor. Pakistan’s economy is in shambles, and half the people in the country are under 15 with little hope for a decent education or a good job. Sharif is not obsessed with rivalry with India like his generals; his vision of Pakistan is more about building highways and mass transit than an arms race Pakistan cannot win. In the campaign, he promised that he will build a fast bullet train line linking the port city of Karachi to the northern city of Peshawar. When last in the prime minister’s office, he built a modern highway to link Lahore to Islamabad.

America’s relations with Pakistan are at an all-time low, yet Washington provides huge quantities of military and economic aid to Pakistan: over $25 billion since 2001. We are on opposite sides of the war in Afghanistan where Pakistan and the ISI are the Afghan Taliban’s key ally, even as we depend on Pakistan for the vital supply line that allows us to withdraw our heavy equipment from Afghanistan as we transition out of the country by 2014. Inside Pakistan, our drones fly daily missions looking for al Qaeda— missions Sharif promised to try to halt during the campaign. He did not endorse his rival Imran Khan’s call to shoot down American drones (probably with American-supplied F-16s) but he will face much popular demand to end the drone war.

Two presidents, Bush and Clinton, worked with Sharif with mixed results during his two previous tours as prime minister. Now that the comeback kid of Pakistani politics is on the verge of his third time in the top office, President Barack Obama will need to partner with Sharif. It’s an opportunity Obama needs to make a success.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

When Bombing Syria, Remember Lebanon

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:23:00 -0400

For more than two years, Israel has wisely kept a low profile as civil war has engulfed its northern neighbor Syria. But this past week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his air force to strike targets in and around Damascus, significantly raising Israel’s profile in the conflict. As Israel and America consider their next steps in that unstable environment, it would be wise to remember how Israel gradually got engaged in the Lebanese civil war and found nothing but frustration and failure as its well intentioned policies yielded unanticipated effects and unintended consequences.

Syria and Lebanon share the same bitterly sectarian politics. Both are the creations of French imperialism. And both were misruled too long by minority sects that spawned vicious and violent civil wars. Israel began interfering in Lebanon’s internal affairs in the 1960s when the Palestinian movement built its headquarters there. Starting with an air attack on Beirut International Airport in 1968, successive Israeli governments got more and more sucked into the swamp of Lebanese politics and warlord conflict.

In 1978, Israeli built a proxy army in south Lebanon and created a security zone to defend northern Israel from terror attacks. Similarly, there is talk now in Israel of a security zone in Syria and perhaps a Druze collaboration partner. In 1982, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon to create a “new Middle East” that would destroy the PLO and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. Instead, Operation Peace for Galilee led to the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Marine barracks bombing, two attacks on the American embassy, an eighteen-year-long insurgency in south Lebanon, the awakening of Lebanese Shia militancy and creation of Hezbollah.

Peace for Galilee was followed by Operation Accountability in 1993, Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1995 and finally Israel’s complete and unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. Israel’s Lebanese allies were abandoned to their fate. But the war continued across the border. In 2006, a half million Israelis were displaced from their homes during the thirty-four-day war with Hezbollah. Today Hezbollah has more weapons than ever before.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Sana Sana / Reuters

Lone Wolf Terrorists – No Easy Catch

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The terrible attack on the Boston Marathon is the most vivid and violent demonstration of terrorism confronting the United States and its allies today. Instead of large, complex plots hatched by organized jihadist terror gangs abroad, the new challenge is homegrown Muslim extremists who use the internet to self-radicalize and learn how to build bombs and create chaos by studying Al Qaeda texts online.

Much remains unknown about the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly built the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the marathon and killed three and wounded more than 200 on April 15. Experience shows that it’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions about a terror plot until the investigation is finished, but a preliminary judgment or two can be made about the Boston case.

The surviving terrorist, Dzhokhar, has reportedly told investigators that he and his brother were not part of an organized terror group like Al Qaeda or a broader conspiracy in the United States and that they decided to attack the marathon only a week or so before the event. They then decided to drive to New York City and carry out another attack in Times Square as a follow-up. The police stopped them before they got out of Boston, killing Tamerlan and capturing Dzhokhar.

The two reportedly learned how to build their bombs from an internet magazine produced by Al Qaeda called Inspire, the brainchild of an American citizen of Yemeni origin, Anwar al Awlaki, killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. They also listened to tapes of Awlaki’s sermons on jihad, available on the internet. The older brother, Tamerlan, traveled to Russia last year, and his activities there remain largely a mystery. He may have had contact with the Chechen jihadist movement which has longstanding ties to Al Qaeda and especially its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, who traveled there in the 1990s.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: YaleGlobal Online

Image Source: © Brian Snyder / Reuters

Syria's Use of Chemical Weapons: The Ball’s in Your Court, Mr. President

Bruce Riedel — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:18:00 -0400

The news that Washington and London finally believe Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against its own people is both an opportunity and a series of traps. Both the opportunity and the traps are huge, and President Obama needs to tread carefully to quickly exploit the first and avoid the second.

Credible observers of Syria like my colleague at the Brookings Doha Center, Salman Shaikh, have been reporting since December on the evidence that Assad’s forces have used small quantities of chemical weapons in the civil war that has been raging in Syria for more than two years. Like almost everything else in Syria, Assad’s arsenal of missiles and chemical weapons are a legacy of his father Hafez Assad. After the Syrian army and air force was defeated by Israel in Lebanon in 1982, Hafez ordered development of a chemical arsenal to provide a deterrent against the Israelis. Syrian scientists developed an effective chemical weapons program using the nerve agent sarin, a substance 500 times more toxic than cyanide. In 1988, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used sarin in his war against the Iranians and in attacks on Iraqi Kurds with devastating impact.

Syria mated the nerve agent with Scud missiles acquired from the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. When Israeli learned of the Syrian program, it considered military action to destroy it but concluded the program was too developed and too disbursed to be susceptible to air attacks without an unacceptable risk that Syria would respond by firing chemicals into Tel Aviv, potentially killing thousands. The Syrian arsenal remains disbursed in numerous facilities making it a complex military challenge.

By using chemical weapons Assad has crossed not only an American red line but an international consensus against the use of chemical weapons that goes back to the First World War. He has given Obama the opportunity to break the Russian and Chinese diplomatic support for Syria that has paralyzed the United Nations from imposing harsh sanctions on Syria as well as a total arms embargo on the Assad regime. Washington is right to demand an immediate UN-led inspection on the ground in Syria with a very short deadline.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Lessons of the Syrian Reactor

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

The office of the assistant to the president for national-security affairs in the West Wing of the White House is a spacious, well-lit corner room in a building where space is at a premium. It contains not only the national-security adviser’s large desk but also a table for lunch discussions and other small meetings as well as a couch and easy chairs for more relaxed discussions. In April 2007, this commodious setting was the scene of a remarkable meeting. Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser at the time, welcomed Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad, who came with a special briefing for his American host. Dagan revealed a secret nuclear reactor in the final stages of construction in the Syrian desert, developed with the help of North Korea. Knowledge of this project constituted a stunning intelligence coup for Israel.

Later that year, on September 6, 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syria’s nuclear facility at Al Kibar along the Euphrates River. The mission emerged from more than two decades of comprehensive intelligence collection and analysis by American and Israeli intelligence services targeting Syria’s development of weapons of mass destruction. It was a dramatic demonstration of intelligence success—all the more so given the ongoing civil war that has devastated Syria since 2011. The world does not need to worry about a Syrian nuclear reactor under threat of capture by Islamic radicals. Israel took that concern off the table.

But the incident also demonstrated that once a policy-intelligence feedback loop becomes dysfunctional, as happened to the George W. Bush administration after it exaggerated and distorted intelligence estimates to justify the Iraq War, there are serious policy implications. Israel wanted America to take out the reactor, but Bush was constrained by an intelligence community unwilling to cooperate with another major military operation based primarily on intelligence data.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Ho New / Reuters

Could al-Qaeda Direct a Canadian Plot From Iran?

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:30:00 -0400

The revelation of an alleged plot to attack the Canada-U.S. train system by a small cell somehow connected to al-Qaeda’s presence in Iran has sparked interest in the relationship between the Sunni Muslim terror group and the Shia Muslim Iranian government. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda has a presence in Iran – but how it relates to the Tehran regime has been murky for years.

The relationship between al-Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shrouded in mystery and secrecy for years. Al-Qaeda operatives have transited through Iran regularly before and after Sept. 11, 2001, and some found sanctuary in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001, although the circumstances of their status in Iran was always unclear. But the hints of occasional operational co-operation between al-Qaeda and Tehran are mostly outweighed by the very considerable and public evidence of the deep animosity between Sunni-extremist al-Qaeda and Shia-extremist Iran.

Antipathy for each other is at the root of their ideologies and narratives. It has been most visible in their competition for influence in Iraq, and now also in Syria.

The Sept. 11 plot is a good place to start if we wish to understand the mystery. The 9/11 Commission report concluded that there was evidence of contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iran (through its Lebanese Hezbollah ally) dating back to his years in Khartoum in the mid 1990s.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Globe and Mail

Image Source: © Jon Blacker / Reuters

Battle for Afghanistan: Lessons from the First Anglo-Afghan War

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:30:00 -0400

Event Information

April 24, 2013
3:30 PM - 4:45 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event
A discussion with William Dalrymple on current day Afghanistan and lessons learned from the British experience there, as detailed in his new book, "Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan."

On April 24, the Brookings Institution hosted noted historian and journalist William Dalrymple for a discussion on current day Afghanistan and lessons learned from the British experience in Afghanistan, as detailed in his new book, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan (Bloomsbury, 2013). Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel participated as a discussant and Brookings President Strobe Talbott moderated the conversation.

When Westerners talk about the Taliban, they object to the treatment of women and football stadium executions. When you talk to Afghans about the Taliban, they object to the fact there was no electricity, there was no mobile phone network, the economy was a complete mess and it was a medieval darkness economically. No one wants that back again. - William Dalrymple

We have, in my view, studied Afghanistan as pitifully little as the British in the 19th century and the Soviets in the 20th century. One concrete examination of that is the Taliban, our enemy. - Bruce Riedel

We are extremely unlikely to see the Taliban roll through Afghanistan as they did in the late-90s. I think the Northern Alliance is too well-armed. I think the Taliban is too unpopular. - William Dalrymple

In the spring of 1839, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured into Afghanistan, in a massive invasion for its time. From first-hand accounts, the Afghan people initially offered little organized resistance, but in 1842 rose in violent rebellion across the country. The first Anglo-Afghan War ended in retreat, ambush and rout; an utter military humiliation for the then-most powerful nation in the world at the hands of poorly equipped Afghan tribesmen. Fast forward to the 20th and 21st centuries—new global powers enter Afghanistan with new motivations and goals. Each finds Afghanistan to be a military challenge of unexpected proportions. Each nation leaves the country questioning its mission and arguably facing national humiliation, forced out by tribal fighters. Britain's greatest military disaster serves as a powerful and important parable for our times, underscoring the terrible outcomes when cultures and national agendas collide.

Organizing and Managing Intelligence Analysis to Fight Terrorism

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 22, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event
A discussion with Philip Mudd on his new book, "Takedown: the Hunt for al Qaeda" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)

I made a mistake. I thought we were fighting al Qaeda. What we were fighting was al Qaedism, and al Qaeda itself, the group, was only a subset of that. - Philip Mudd

Listen to this engaging conversation between Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and a former CIA officer, and Philip Mudd, a former CIA and FBI counter-terrorism official. The two intelligence veterans had a provocative, wide-ranging coversation about how the U.S. intelligence community does its work, touching on the Boston Marathon bombings, the investigation of the two Tsarnaev brothers suspected of commiting the act and their origins in Chechnya, and comparison to the 2006 plot to blow up jumbo jets flying between Britain and North America. The conversation also considered to free speech rights and the potential conflict with extremist actions.

The elder of the two brothers who are accused of being responsible for the attack on the Boston Marathon, Tamerlan, traveled to Russia sometime in the last year. He seems to fit a pattern that we've been seeing more and more frequently. Radicalized Americans, Muslims, who seem to have a fairly normal life the United States, and then something changes dramatically. - Bruce Riedel

If you look at the 7/7 attacks in the UK in 2005, if you look at the attempt that was well publicized in Canada—I'm going to guess that was about three-four years ago—to blow up the Parliament, you will often find somebody in that circle, psychologically, who plays the role of an older brother or father figure. Someone who has the respect of younger folks. - Philip Mudd

As an outside, nongovernment commentator, I would say the likelihood of a terrorist group conceiving, plotting, organizing, training, executing a 9/11 style attack, it's hard for me to imagine that. - Philip Mudd

On April 22, the Intelligence Project at Brookings, hosted a discussion with Philip Mudd on his new book, Takedown: the Hunt for al Qaeda (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), which examines how the intelligence community collects, analyzes and employs data to combat terrorism, and details the challenges still ahead in the war against al Qaeda. Mudd served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Center, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch and as the FBI’s senior intelligence adviser.

Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Video

Audio

Organizing and Managing Intelligence Analysis to Fight Terrorism

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20130422_intelligence_terrorism_transcript

Al Qaeda is Probably Pleased with Boston Bombing

Bruce Riedel — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:40:00 -0400

The two Chechen immigrants apparently responsible for the terror attack on the Boston Marathon may never have had any contact with al Qaeda—or even a single member of al Qaeda—but they are likely soon to be lauded as “heroes” of the global jihad.

It is much too soon to come to any hard conclusions about the motives and intentions of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged perpetrators, but it is not too soon to understand how al Qaeda and associated jihadists see the Chechen struggle against Russia in the context of their own ideology and narrative. Al Qaeda has long seen the Chechen struggle as part of the global war between Islam and its enemies. For the extremists who run al Qaeda and related movements, Russia’s actions in Chechnya are no different than Israeli actions in Gaza, French actions in Mali, or American actions in Afghanistan. All are allegedly part of a global conspiracy against Islam that ranges from the Caucasus to Kashmir to Bali.

In an audio message issued less than two weeks ago, Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda and its chief ideologue, said the greatest enemies of Islam are the “biggest criminals in Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.” Thus Zawahiri lumped American, Russia and Israel together as the enemies of Muslims everywhere.

For Zawahiri and his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, this argument that Islam is under siege by a global conspiracy is nothing new. Zawahiri and bin Laden began their careers fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians. The Chechen struggle against Russia is for them only a continuation of that war and indeed of the Central Asian and Caucasian Muslims’ struggle against Tsars, Commissars, and now Putin that goes back to the 18th century. Zawahiri himself was briefly arrested in Russia in the mid-1990s, apparently while he was actively assisting the Chechen insurgency. Bin Laden encouraged Saudis to go to Chechnya to fight Russia.

For angry young Muslims radicalized by what has happened in their own homeland, the al Qaeda narrative provides an explanation for a bigger struggle that involves not just their own country but the entire Muslim world. At the same time it also gives them more targets for their anger. If an angry Chechen cannot attack a Russian target, then a soft target in his own city in America or Europe—a marathon or another public space—is an easier target.

Al Qaeda has been encouraging just such attacks for the last several years. The Yemeni American Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a drone strike in 2011, articulated it in the English language web magazine he helped create, called Inspire, that also printed simple manuals for how to build a bomb in your family kitchen. The attempt by a Pakistani American, Faysal Shahzad, to blow up a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 (which was foiled by NYPD at the last minute), was an early example of this kind of small but devastating attack. Shahzad has now become a hero in the al Qaeda narrative even though he failed in his attempt.

Whether al Qaeda had any role – direct or indirect by the internet – in the radicalization of these two men, it is likely to revel in the results of their attacks in Boston. While the attack was nowhere near the magnitude of 9/11, it has consumed the American media and political scene for almost a week so far, led to the unprecedented lockdown of an entire American city, and sent the White House itself into enhanced security.

Americans have every right to ask: Why do they hate us? Americans are not responsible for the ugly civil war in Chechnya, or the horrendous terrorist attacks carried out by Chechen terrorists in Moscow and other Russian cities. Unfortunately the global jihadist movement and its violent ideology doesn’t see the differences that we rightly see. For according to the narrative of Ayman Zawahiri, Islam is under attack from every direction, and the jihadist answer is to strike back in New York, Madrid, London, Toulouse—and now Boston.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Al Qaeda Comeback

Bruce Riedel — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

After months of silence, al Qaeda’s Amir Ayman Zawahiri reappeared this week with a long diatribe on the state of the global jihad with special emphasis on Syria, Iraq, and Mali. His commentary underscores his central role in the Qaeda movement once again and in providing leadership to the group and its franchises across the Islamic world.

Zawahiri’s latest audio message, his first since last November, runs over a hundred minutes long and was distributed by al Qaeda’s media arm, As Sahab (“In the Clouds”) from his hide-out in Pakistan. It is vintage Zawahiri. He bemoans the fall of the Ottoman caliphate at the end of the First World War and breakup of the Islamic world into 50 or so small states ruled by “traitor rulers” playing the “satanic American program” to benefit the “biggest criminals in Washington, Moscow, and Tel Aviv.” Zawahiri says some of these countries are so small they can only be seen with a microscope on the map and “barely fit the foreign military bases that occupy them,” a likely reference to the American naval base in Bahrain.

Much of his commentary is devoted to attacking France for intervening in Mali this year. Al Qaeda’s North African franchise, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had taken control of the northern half of Mali last year and threatened the capital, Bamako, this winter before Paris sent in elite troops and air power to reverse the situation. Al Qaeda has been driven out of the cities like Timbuktu and into the desert, many of its foot soldiers have been killed and some of its top leaders as well. For Zawahiri it is a bitter setback. The stronghold in Mali was to be the centerpiece of a larger Qaeda emirate across the Sahel from Mauretania to Nigeria. He warns the French to expect a quagmire in Mali like “what America was met with in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Zawahiri lauds the success of al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq in contrast. In Syria, al Qaeda’s franchise, Jabhat al Nusra, has become the fastest-growing Qaeda movement in the world after Zawahiri called upon jihadists from across Islam to go and fight in Syria a year ago. Since then the Qaeda core headquarters in Pakistan has been in close communication with the Nusra front in Syria. Zawahiri also praises the Qaeda organization in Iraq for outlasting the American occupation and for its constant attacks on the Shia government in Baghdad.

In both Syria and Iraq, Zawahiri blames Iran and its ally Hezbollah for supporting the Assad and Maliki governments. He accuses Tehran of secretly colluding with Washington in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Zawahiri says the “true faces of Iran and Hezbollah have been unmasked” by their opposition to al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

Zawahiri pays tribute to the Qaeda franchise in Iraq, the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, for helping the al Nusra front in Syria get organized. Shortly after Zawahiri’s statement the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, who uses the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, publicly claimed credit for helping set up the Qaeda franchise in Syria and announced the two groups had merged into an Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. Al Baghdadi’s statement confirmed what the United States had been saying for months: the al Nusra front is an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Next the leader of al Nusra, who calls himself Abu Muhammad al Golani, walked it back a bit. He said he had not been “consulted” on any merger with the Iraqi group, although he was careful not to criticize al Baghdadi and stressed his loyalty to Zawahiri and al Qaeda. The exchange has brought al Nusra out of the closet; it is clearly now part of the Qaeda global jihadist campaign. Al Golani admitted that he had earlier been a fighter in Iraq and was a supporter of the Iraqi franchise but he went out of his way to declare al Nusra’s loyalty is to Zawahiri and the Qaeda core group.

The tempest over al Baghdadi’s comments is likely to pass, and the two Qaeda groups will continue to collaborate closely. Both in Syria and Iraq al Qaeda is growing in numbers and power at a dangerous pace. And with Zawahiri’s encouragement, al Qaeda’s support base across the Islamic world is funneling sympathizers to go to Syria and Iraq to join the fight. In his statement Zawahiri makes clear the end state is creation of a new caliphate across Islam that can lead the struggle to recover Jerusalem for Islam and destroy Israel.

Despite his rambling, Zawahiri’s new statement also underscores his continued centrality to the Qaeda movement as a whole. Often underestimated, the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda provides a strategic leadership role that would probably vanish if he was killed or captured. He smoothly and quickly replaced his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, when the SEALS killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. No one challenged him then or challenges him now for leadership of al Qaeda. There is no comparable figure in al Qaeda today serving as Zawahiri’s deputy and heir apparent. Zawahiri has made no effort to groom a successor to lead the global jihad. The lack of a clearly identified number two is a potential vulnerability but only if Ayman’s hideout in Pakistan can be found.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Brookings Launches the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence (21CSI)

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:40:00 -0400

Washington, D.C. — The Brookings Institution announced today the establishment of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence (21CSI). The new center will be unique in addressing defense, cybersecurity, arms control and intelligence challenges in a comprehensive manner, seeking not just to explore key emerging security issues, but also how they cross traditional fields and domains.

“With the launch of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Brookings will be at the forefront of research and public debate on the critical security issues of our time,” said Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. "21CSI will bring together the extraordinary array of scholars already working on defense and security issues at Brookings, along with adding new experts in fields that range from cyber to intelligence policy."

The Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence will be housed in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and Peter W. Singer will serve as its founding director. One of the world’s leading experts on modern warfare and author of the New York Times bestseller, Wired for War (Penguin, 2009), Singer has founded and managed two previous projects at Brookings, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and the 21st Century Defense Initiative.

The center will encompass four key focal points of policy research on security and defense issues:

A Defense Policy team will be led by Michael O'Hanlon, one of the most influential and widely published defense scholars in the world, who also serves as director of research in the Foreign Policy program. He will be joined by other resident and nonresident scholars including Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown, a leading expert on counterinsurgency and illicit networks, and Senior Fellow Stephen Cohen, a pre-eminent expert in South Asian security issues. The team will also comprise the Federal Executive Fellows (FEFs), career officers from each military service and the Coast Guard, who spend a year in residence researching and writing on defense topics.
The new Intelligence Project, focusing on the nexus of intelligence and policymaking, will be led by Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the intelligence community who also served on the National Security Council staff for three presidents. Riedel will be supported by a team of resident and nonresident scholars, including Paul Pillar and John McLaughlin, as well as career officers seconded from the intelligence community, and an advisory group of distinguished former senior intelligence officials and policymakers. The Intelligence Project is the first of its kind to be established at a major research institution.
The Arms Control Initiative will combine a focus on existing challenges of nuclear and conventional disarmament with new policy research on the Iranian and North Korean challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. It is led by Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, a former special assistant to the president with substantial arms control experience. Robert Einhorn, currently the State Department’s special adviser for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, is expected to join later this spring as a Senior Fellow. The Initiative will also house a new program designed to cultivate and mentor the next generation of arms control and nonproliferation scholars.
The new Cybersecurity project will bring together the work of Visiting Fellow Ian Wallace, a former senior official at the British Ministry of Defence, who helped develop British cyber strategy, as well as its cyber-relationship with the United States, and a team of nonresident fellows, including Noah Shachtman, national security editor at Wired magazine, recently named one of the top 10 cybersecurity writers in the world; Ben Hammersley, a war journalist, noted technology writer, and author of the upcoming book Approaching the Future: 64 Things You Need to Know Now for Then; and Ralph Langner, the cybersecurity expert credited with “decoding” Stuxnet.

21CSI will focus on cutting-edge, in-depth, policy-relevant research and programming, designed to help shape the public policy debate and inform policy-makers. Bringing together a diverse group of experts and scholars, it will seek to promote collaboration across the various policy domains, in order to better understand the rapidly evolving, increasingly complex 21st century battlefield.

“We’ve created 21CSI in response to the enormous changes playing out in the global security environment,” said Martin Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. “To address the diverse range of issues in this field, we’ve assembled a world-class team of researchers, who are some of the leading voices on the current challenges driving security policy today, as well as how we should think about tomorrow.”

The United States, India and Pakistan: To the Brink and Back

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Event Information

February 26, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

India and Pakistan are among the most important countries in the 21st century. The two nations share a common heritage, but their relationship remains tenuous. The nuclear rivals have waged four wars against each other and have gone to the brink of war several times. While India is already the world’s largest democracy and will soon become the planet’s most populous nation, Pakistan has a troubled history of military coups and dictators, and has harbored terrorists such as Osama bin Laden. In his new book, Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, director of Brookings Intelligence Project, clearly explains the challenge and importance of successfully managing America’s affairs with these two emerging powers while navigating their toxic relationship.

Based on extensive research and his experience advising four U.S. presidents on the region, Riedel reviews the history of American diplomacy in South Asia, the conflicts that have flared in recent years and the prospects for future crisis. Riedel provides an in-depth look at the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008—the worst terrorist outrage since 9/11—and concludes with authoritative analysis on what the future is likely to hold for the United States and South Asia, offering concrete recommendations for Washington’s policymakers.

On February 26, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted an event marking the release of Avoiding Armageddon. Bruce Riedel discussed the history and future of U.S. relations with India and Pakistan and options for avoiding future conflagration in the region. Senior Fellow Tamara Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, provided introductory remarks, and Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, lead the discussion.

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The United States, India and Pakistan: To the Brink and Back

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Al Nusra: Al Qaeda’s Syria Offensive

Bruce Riedel — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria, just one year old, is now the fastest-growing al Qaeda front in the world, attracting fighters from across the Islamic world. Jabhat al Nusra, translated variously as the Victory Front or the Support Front for the Syrian People, was founded in January 2012, almost a year after the first demonstrations against the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad. It was created with the assistance of the al Qaeda franchise in Iraq that was formed nearly a decade ago during the American invasion. The Iraqi base provided a safe haven for setting up the front in Syria and still provides sanctuary for the Syrian group to this day.

The Syrian franchise has also gotten crucial support from the al Qaeda core in Pakistan. Al Qaeda’s Amir Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a public call in February 2012 in which he demanded that “every Muslim and every free and honest person in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon to rise and help their brothers in Syria with everything they have and can do.” Zawahiri’s call, just after the announcement of the creation of the al Nusra front and its first major attacks in Aleppo, was clearly coordinated with the fighters on the ground. Since Zawahiri’s call, at least one senior member of the al Qaeda shura council in Pakistan has traveled to Syria to further coordinate plans and operations with the core hiding in Pakistan. Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton termed the exchanges of messages between al Qaeda in Pakistan and al Nusra in Syria as “deeply disturbing” in one of her final interviews in office.

Estimates of the size of the al Nusra organization vary, but they may now account for up to a quarter of the opposition fighters in Syria. The al Qaeda presence is stronger around Aleppo and the north than around Damascus, but it is becoming a national phenomenon. Without doubt, they are among the most effective fighters in the resistance to the Assad regime and the most willing to use multiple simultaneous suicide bombings, an al Qaeda trademark. Al Qaeda in Iraq has a wealth of experience in developing large sophisticated bombs—experience that has been exported into Syria.

And the front is attracting more fighters rapidly, not just among Syrians but from across the Muslim world. A recent review of jihadist websites found more than a 130 martyrdom notices—that is, obituaries posted on extremist websites “celebrating” the martyrdom of fighters in Syria. Most are relatively new—85 of the 130 were posted in the past four months. The majority of these were for fighters in the al Nusra front. They came to Syria from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon, Australia, Chechnya, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, France, Iraq, and Spain.

The Danish press reported this week that a 39-year-old Danish citizen, Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, along with another unnamed Danish citizen, were killed fighting in Syria. Abderrahmane, the son of a Danish mother and an Algerian father, had served two years in Guantánamo, Cuba, after being captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2002. Danish reports say at least 30 Danish Muslims have gone to fight with al Nusra in Syria. Senior European intelligence officials have told me that there is a wave of angry young Muslim men from all across Western Europe going to Syria to join al Qaeda and fight Assad.

Assad, of course, from the beginning of the uprising against his tyranny, has blamed it all on terrorists and al Qaeda. But the truth is that by refusing to give up power and by resorting to a brutal war against his own people, he has created a self-fulfilling prophecy and brought al Qaeda to Syria. The longer the war goes on now, the stronger al Qaeda will get in Syria.

The Syrian group has also tried to export its violence to Jordan. Last October the Jordanian intelligence service foiled a plot based in Syria by al Qaeda to stage a mass-casualty terror attack in Amman that was apparently modeled on the 2008 attack by Pakistani terrorists on Mumbai, India. The attack would have begun with suicide bombers in two shopping malls in Amman; then, when the security forces rushed to deal with those, other attackers would attack the American embassy and other Western diplomats in the city.

Jordanian authorities believe that the planned attacks were scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of the November 9, 2005, terrorist attacks in Amman, in which 60 people were killed and 115 injured in multiple hotel bombings. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks, citing its rejection of Jordan’s alliance with the United States and its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. Jordanian intelligence said that group nicknamed its terror plot “9/11 the second” after the 2005 bombings. Among those arrested were two cousins of the Jordanian founder of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musaib al Zarqawi, who planned the 2005 attack.

For now the jihadists are focused on Syria and winning the war against Assad. But their ambitions are much larger. With a base in Syria they can threaten American interests in the entire Levant region, Europe, and our allies in Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. The worst danger is that the al Nusra front will get control of some of Syria’s large chemical weapons arsenal. Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, built major chemical-weapon capability in the 1980s, including the deadly nerve agent sarin, which was first developed by the Nazis. Al Qaeda has been trying to get a weapon of mass destruction for years. Now in Syria it may be closer than ever.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast