Lounsbury: Lovely and Rambling a bit about current MENA policy and Iraq

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July 16, 2004

Lovely and Rambling a bit about current MENA policy and Iraq

There was a fine report on the news, I think it was Euronews but perhaps BBC World in regards to the claims of Garzon (if I am spelling the name right, and excuse the accentlessness, far too lazy) re northern Morocco as haven for al-Qaeda type activities.

I am not sure I credit this entirely - on the other hand I am not sure I do not - but it certainly is ill-timed for me.

In other matters, via some site or another I stumbled upon Chris Dickey's latest comments on Iraq and the like. I like Chris a lot, not only for his commentary but for the fine Philipinno restaurant that he and his son showed me in the bowels of Jebel Amman some time back. It went out of business, unfortunately, not long thereafter.

Regardless, let me point readers to this:
Dickey responding to questions from readers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5431483/site/newsweek

First there is this comment by Dickey:
In Iraq today, the United States is playing the role of Israel in 1982, claiming to be fighting terrorism while in fact trying to remake the country to fit our specifications and imaginations. The results in Lebanon were not good for Israel, and for the same reasons the results in Iraq won't be good for us: the ethnic and sectarian friability of the state, the suspicion of outsiders, the role of religious fanaticism, and, not incidentally, the roles of Syria and Iran.

I think it spot on and worth reflecting on.

Then there is this:
"[O]ne of the great failings of the United States is its inability to read foreign cultures, and figure out how to do that. Many of our psy-ops, alas, are really aimed at the U.S. public, not the Iraqis. How it plays in Peoria, or better yet, along the Potomac, is more important than the impact in Mesopotamia."

I believe I brought up just this point relatively recently in re the idiocy that is State and general USG communications strategies, e.g. that fucked up idiotic navel gazing al-Hurra effort.

Question is, is there any way to change such? The ever more extreme bubble world the US is setting up for itself, I think not.

Then a few notes on this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5326366/site/newsweek/

On this opening, I wanted to convey my amusement (it is a bit unfair perhaps, but entertainingly so):
"Iraqis don�t grow bananas, but why should that keep the Bush administration from treating Iraq like a banana republic? The overwhelming invasion, the ill-conceived occupation, the obliviousness to what�s thought of as native culture, and the tendency to trust only those folks who know how to talk and act (and make us think they think) like us�hey, that�s the way we�ve been coming and going in the fever ports of Central America and the Caribbean for well over a century."

Emphasis added. This is, I may add, a key observation.

First, let me note that it is a hard thing not to fall into to some degree, above all over the long term. The guy who knows your social cues, he (or her) is easier to trust than the fellow who does not (and vice versa, of course the reality is the number of Arabs who know Anglo social cues exceeds the inverse). However, there are matters of degree, and a bit of critical thinking can be helpful to pull you up from the bad habit of believing the posturing uncritically. Unfortunately, that is badly lacking in American circles in re the Middle East. Private sector example. I was, several months ago, chatting with a Director of a financial firm in New York who was apparently just getting into the Middle East, and he asked me what I thought about Dubai. I gave some observations, including that the economy is something of a black box and sometimes it is hard to shake the sensation that a portion of the economy is doped, or not quite real and legit. I mentioned the issue of money laundering for example. This guy responds surprised, he's been assured that "they" take the issue seriously, blah, blah, and he's just joined the board of the DFM. I was truly incredulous, essentially I took away from the ensuing convo that this sucker bought everything the Dubai authorities sold him, like a teenager at a used car lot. Such fine English.

(I know weak anectdote, but the more substantial points are not really shareable per se)

Second, Dickey's further point:
So, too, the handover of paper sovereignty yesterday, which took place ahead of schedule and in semi-secrecy, as if departing pro-consul Paul �Jerry� Bremer was embarrassed by what he�d done for the last year, or afraid for his life, or both.

Of course this is a few weeks back. Why quote that? It also amused me. I am afraid I disagree, I don't believe Bremer is capable of being embarrassed, although he should be.

Now Dickey comments:
"Allawi is best understood as the anointed dictator in waiting. His job is to do whatever needs doing to impose order on the current chaos. Martial law, ruthless repression, you name it. With American firepower to back him up, he�s more than ready to take the blame for any rough stuff. Allawi�s defense minister proudly vows to chop off the hands and heads of terrorists. As Franklin Roosevelt is supposed to have said about an infamous Nicaraguan dictator, �He�s a son of a bitch, but at least he�s our son of a bitch.�

Bingo, and no other real choices I may add. None, nada, zilch, zero, walo, wlaishi....

Now, keeping in mind the context that there are no other choices other than a disguised dictatorship - what I have been calling Egypt on the Euphrates for I suppose a year now (remind me, my old readers, when did I start calling it the best possible option of a bad set of choices?), Dickey opines:
Problem is, these SOBs, once they�ve solved our immediate problems, create new ones. They aren�t ours at all. They�re in this for themselves. And they become the vehicles of disillusionment with everything that we Americans think we represent.

There is some following text on the fruits of our SOB policy in the past, I am not sure I entirely am in accord with the specifics, but the overall analysis is spot on.

The issue is, are there better choices? All well and good (and indeed salutory and helpful for realistically pursuing a strategy) to note the unpleasant aspects of the strategy, the negatives, but then one has to put it in the context of the overall costs and benefits of the actually available and realistic menu of options. Again realistic. To take a business analogy, it is all well and good for me to design say a competitive financing strategy for a new product and just assume I have cheap capital access that will allow me to beat the competitors, but if I can't actually achieve that in any real world sense, it mere fantasy to assume that. Such is the Ibn Bush Administration's MENA strategy now, should I need to be more explicit. Wishful thinking, pretending they have access to some magicla machinery that allows them to transform raw materials at no cost into a fancy product that they read about in a SF novel, but oops, the actually available commercialised technology can't do. Phatom widgets to respond to a market that they have imagined up.

So, this realistic menu of actually available options, sure our SOB may have real severe long term costs, but do the other options have worse costs? It would be great to have a magical production line that takes no energy inputs, for example, but if it doesn't exist, well imagining it up doesn't get us anywhere.

My own opinion, there is no way that a non SOB policy will fly, because it will involve a menu of risks that noone is willing to try. It means allowing Iraq to become an Islamic Republic of some kind, because that is what elections would produce. Don't fool oneself, real free elections at present in the region would invariably produce largely anti-Western, largely Islamist governments. Now, on a personal basis, I don't think that is a bad thing. As in Iran, the events would take away the "grass is greener" effect that leads people to yearn for this option, becuase the current options are so bloody fucked. However, the near term risks will be deemed unacceptable - my judgement is that Islamic revolutions would be long term positive for the reason just stated and given the Iranian example of discredit but it is a big gamble to take. No is going to take it. Maybe not even me, if I were in the position to make the judgement and see it become policy.

So, we're left with the SOBs.

However, there are a menu of SOBs and it may be somewhat better informed selection of SOBs can make a difference. Chalabi, in my mind, would have been a disaster (and still may be). An SOB that is reaonably restrained, and a policy that keeps in mind longer term interests of winning over Iraqis to some extent, and making them wealthier through real economic activity (not oil rents) might have a better value than an SOB like the Shah.

Hard calculus, and not clear to be sure.

Now, a final section to comment on
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5431857/site/newsweek
Of which I wanted to focus on the following:

A first priority of the new government is to make the capital city safe and restore public services. That's obviously what you'd want to do, right? But Proconsul L. Paul Bremer, based in the American city-within-the-city known as the Green Zone, lived in a world of self-serving denial every bit as delusional as that of his betters in Washington. His constant blather about free markets and democracy, mouthed in Iraq but meant to be heard inside the Beltway, was matched by a persistent failure to stabilize and revitalize Baghdad itself.
Emphasis added.

I rather like the underlined section, delusional self serving denial. That rather captures present engagement with Iraq.

Deeply frustrating.

I might add one could insert "incompetent and ineffectual."

Dickey adds the following:
Iraqis remember too well that their capital city was surrendered virtually intact, and only destroyed in the days after the Americans rolled into town. The troops stood back while liberated looters stripped the infrastructure of the city to the bone. Since then, Baghdadis have watched with sheer incredulity the Americans' inability to restore regular electrical service. They've learned to fear the ferocious, random firepower of the American soldiers patrolling their streets. At the same time, they've seen criminal gangs turn kidnapping into an industry. "People say the Americans wanted to make us suffer," an Iraqi doctor who works in the air-conditioned Green Zone told me before going home to her sweltering, lightless home.

Noted a number of times, but well worth re-emphasizing. The incompetence displayed so far in reconstruction (even being generous and allowing for the problems of the insurgency which was rather helped along by that incompetence) is a major black eye for Americans. It truly has done much to sap credibility and indeed respect.

July 16, 2004

Lovely and Rambling a bit about current MENA policy and Iraq

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