When Did They Know?

I have had numerous discussions with friends about the origins of the war in Iraq where they argued that the Bush administration knew, without doubt, that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. A loose reading of Paul Pillar's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs can lend some credence to this, though he does say that "there was indeed a broad consensus [in the intelligence community] that such programs existed."

(Parenthetically, Pillar's article gives an instructive description of the subtle ways that the analysis of data by the CIA was skewed by predelictions for policy of those at the top of the U.S. Government.)

My answer to my friends has included reference to Hans Blix's memoir, Disarming Iraq. Blix indicates that as late as early February 2003 he believed that his inspectors would find Iraq's WMD, despite their failure to turn up anything after months of trying.

Now, it appears that even Saddam's generals believed that they had them. The New York Times citing a classified Pentagon report, writes that:

The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense.

That was in December 2002.

In addition, an article in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs, based on what appears to be the same report, includes this footnote:

For many months after the fall of Baghdad, a number of senior Iraqi officials in coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a WMD capability hidden away somewhere (although they adamantly insisted that they had no direct knowledge of WMD programs). Coalition interviewers discovered that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret, compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.

If senior Iraqi officials believed these weapons existed, it cannot be surprising that American officials, and American intelligence, believed the same. Was this a casus belli? That is a different question. In my view it was not.

As often happens when policy goes wrong, critics can be divided into those who believe those responsible were knaves, who did wrong purposefully, and those who believe they were fools, who did wrong out of ignorance or stupidity. The last word may be too strong--President Bush and his advisors are not stupid. But they were fools, not knaves.

Freedom is Not Enough

President Bush has often said that that freedom is a universal value, desired by everyone, made possible by democracy. He reiterated this recently, in January, when speaking to students and others at Kansas State University:

History has shown that democracies yield the peace. Europe is free, whole, and at peace because the nations are democratic. That wasn't always the case, obviously, in the 1900s. Two major wars were fought where a lot of Americans died, and yet systems and forms of government changed. And now Europe is completely different, in terms of security and peace. The Far East -- I just mentioned the Japanese example. And that's what the enemy understands, and that's why they're so brutal and relentless. They understand the march of peace will be contagious. Part of my decision-making process is my firm belief in the natural rights of men and women; my belief that deep in everybody's soul is the desire to live free. I believe there's an Almighty, and I believe the Almighty's great gift to each man and woman in this world is the desire to be free. This isn't America's gift to the world, it is a universal gift to the world, and people want to be free. (Applause.)

And if you believe that, and if you believe freedom yields the peace, it's important for the United States of America, with friends, to lead the cause of liberty.

This is a marvelous vision, one that many people share, and not just in the United States. Why, then, do people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere reject democracy, or at least do not embrace it? The answer to this question is a key to understanding what is happening in Iraq. It seems that when we "broke" Iraq we believed in the universality of this vision, that no sane person could fight against it.

There have been many ideological and religious arguments against democracy. Lenin and Hitler made theirs, which amounted to the need for a small group or leader, armed with a true understanding of the world, to take charge and foster change in the polity. The masses could not be trusted to act unguided. Before these 20th Century monsters, royalists made their own form of the argument. Long before that, Plato did much the same thing. Bin Laden and the jihadis, calling on the true followers of Muhammed, are the most recent bears of this tradition.

But the essence of the weakness of democracy in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Weimer Germany stems from something more basic than the somewhat abstract and convoluted thinking of Bolsheviks, Nazis, and Jihadis. People crave security. They want to exile fear. Where democracy is weak, fear runs rampant.

Democracy requires trust. As a citizen, you have to trust that the people you live and work with will adhere to democratic processes, that they will accept the limitations that democracy imposes. These limits have to do with the power of the state, which, following Weber, holds a monopoly on the use of force--it controls the army, the police, and other institutions that are licensed to use force.

But in Iraq and Afghanistan, that trust is absent. So is the monopoly on the use of force. People must rely on the means available to them and their neighbors to defend themselves.

Before the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, the Sunni-dominated insurgency was the major apparent source of fear. The link between the insecurity the insurgency has fostered and the success of our democratic project in Iraq has been recognized by the United States. From all appearances, significant progress has been made in at least parts of Iraq in reducing the fear felt by the population. The rising totals of people goaing to the polls through 2005 is an indication of that. (Whether the progress has been sufficient is a different question.)

But the destruction of the mosque has clarifed the threats to democracy in Iraq. It is now clear that Iraqis have reason to fear each other. The insurgents, particularly Zarqawi's group, are bringing their murderous antipathy to the Shiites to the fore. Shiites have replied in kind. All are adding to memories from Iraqi history of brutality that have left suspicions, fears, that will not dissipate. Each group has given the others reasons to distrust it: Sunni massacres of Shiites in 1991 and throughout Saddam's regime; Sunni memories of Shiite insurgents under British rule; Kurdish experiences as targets of Arabs and Turks over a century and more. They all can declare a right to vengeance and exercise it.

What has become most clear is that each group is turning to its own to defend itself against the others. The Sunnis have insurgents. The Kurds have had their own militias for decades. Now the Shiites have the Mahdi Army and the like. In short, the Iraqi democracy has no monopoly of force, particularly as the army and police are formed of ethnic-based units, many of which seem to have more loyalty to their own kind than to the Iraqi state.

This is much like a communalist riff on Weimar Germany. In the 1920s, all large German political parties--nationalist, socialist, or communist--had its own group of thugs. The most renowned of these, of course, was the SA, the brownshirts. When economic security disappeared as the Depression deepened, the strength of these groups grew. Each group assaulted its enemies, with little interference from the republic. The Nazis, promising security, triumphed. Democracy, illegitimate, ineffective, died.

Of course, Iraq is not Germany. The conflicts now differ widely from the conflicts then. The legitimacy of the Iraqi government has not yet been fatally compromised. And an external power retains some capacity to influence the outcome. But the challenge is a difficult one. Each of the three sides must, somehow, engender trust in the other two. Trust is not liking. It is simply the belief that the other will abide by the rules of democratic government, that it will accept those limits.

The results of the violence that followed the destruction of the mosque are as yet unclear. It may have scared the sides into compromise. But it may also lead Iraqis to seek security provided by their own kind. This is a turning point for Iraq and the American enterprise there. The only thing certain is that the promise of democracy alone will not suffice.

Invasion of Privacy

Bruce Schneier has a column on the threats to privacy that the advance of computer technology is generating. The march of technology, he argues, "has resulted in the almost constant surveillance of everyone, with profound implications for our society and our freedoms." Therefore, he continues, we need laws to protect our privacy as strong as those of the Europeans. Can he be right? European law, particularly as issued by Brussels, has tended to produce economic stagnation (examine the economic growth rates of European countries compared to those of the United States). And few of us feel an immediate threat of persecution by our government or private enterprise. Yet threats exist, as Schneier points out, and we would be foolish not to consider them.

There are two drivers that are increasing the threats to our privacy. One, of course, represented by the spat over surveillance by the NSA, is security. The other is convenience. Most of us are willing to give up a part of our privacy if we can increase either one of these. The question is how much privacy are we willing we give up?

This problem is that this will change; we will give it up by degrees and find that the next bit is not so precious after all. One day, however, we'll find that we miss it. People are like this. You have only to look at what was shocking in popular entertainment just twenty years ago and what is perfectly acceptable now. Martin Niemöller found the same phenomenon in a different context:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Privacy seems destined to follow a similar path. Who would not allow our security agencies to listen in on people who seem to be allied to Al Qaeda? We value our own privacy, not theirs. And who does not give the information, hardly precious, that Amazon, Yahoo, Google, or a credit card company requests in exchange for easy access to the delights they dangle before us?

But once it's gone, how do we get it back? And when organizations or groups, governmental or private, use it to pursue interests contraposed to ours, will there be anyone left to speak for us?

Privacy is maintained through both custom and law. Would that custom alone would suffice. But it will not, or so it appears. We must, alas, rely on law instead to protect us. If we cannot, then we may find that a dystopia has become our own brave new world.

Civil War?

The destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra has brought Iraq to the brink of the civil war that has been threatened since the collapse of Saddam's dictatorship released the bonds that had held the sectarian and ethnic divisions of the country in check. Make no mistake, this is an event that will have long-term consequences.

It has already strengthened the militias that provide the Shiites in particular, but the Kurds as well, with an armed force that at best dilutes the power of the Iraqi government. It may be that Shiite reprisals have, in their turn, strengthened the appeal of the domestic insurgents, allies of Zarqawi's terrorists, who are likely to have bombed the mosque. The Sunni party involved in the talks to form a new government has suspended the negotiations, demanding an apology from the Shia. This makes it even less likely than before than a non-sectarian, all-inclusive government will be formed.

Calls from both Sunni and Shiite leaders for calm are encouraging. But they have come with accusations from all sides that the United States bears responsibility for the bombing and from the Sunnis that Shiite leaders are doing too little to minimize retaliation. Moreover, according to The Washington Post, Sistani issued a statement that "If its security institutions are unable to provide the necessary security, the faithful are able to do that by the will and blessings of God."

The longer the openly sectarian violence continues, the less likely it will be that a united, peaceful Iraq can emerge from the ashes left by our destruction of Saddam's regime. What do we do then? What can we do now to try to undo the harm that has been done?

Withdrawal is the simple answer, of course. But we still have a role that we can play if Iraq does not swirl out of control. Our forces are not insubstantial, after all, and we have immense resources that we can draw on to improve the situation. We still have a responsibility to do what we can.

Zero Day Exploit

A recent problem with an ancient file-type found in Microsoft products raises a host of questions about how ready we are to face computer attacks. This vulnerability was described as a zero-day exploit. That is, the vulnerability was discovered and ready for exploitation well before it could be patched. As it happened, the vulnerability was made public on December 26, a third party patch (written by a single developer, Ilfan Guilfanov) was issued on December 31, and Microsoft issued its own patch on January 4, six days before the next set of patches was scheduled to be issued.

I wrote about one question all this raises in a response to a post on the SecuriTeam blog

Microsoft has institutional problems with fixes that good will, excellent design, and technical acuity cannot solve.

Consider the recent wmf vulnerability. Microsoft put 200 people to work to find the fix. Once it was found, it had to be tested extensively. Once approved, the documentation for it had to be translated into more than 20 languages.

Microsoft's customers require all this. They have also preferred to have all fixes come on a predictable schedule.

Given that all this is required, and that it takes time, Microsoft showed remarkable flexibility and speed. To ask them to react as quickly as Ilfan Guilfanov, who wrote and issued a patch in a matter of hours, would be to ask a supertanker to turn on a dime.

This is neither simply to praise Microsoft nor to offer one more argument for abandoning IE. It is to outline a problem that affects all of us when the millions of users who rely on Microsoft get attacked.

There must be a way for Microsoft to respond more quickly. Interestingly, Microsoft's OneCare program told its customers that the problem was solved several days before the patch was issued. But other questions arise as well. Can we--should we--rely on third party patches like those Guilfanov created. At about the time his patch came out, the Metasploit project issued a way of exploiting the vulnerability. They argued that it gave the good guys a way to test the vulnerability of their systems. But the bad guys latched onto it to create additional exploits. Did they issue their framework for exploiting the vulnerability too soon? Or are they really allies of the bad guys?

In more general terms: What should we do about old code that was not written with security in mind? Do we really have to keep it? If not, who is responsible for the problems it causes? After all, updating any software has costs--monetary and in the time it takes to learn it.

It was a fascinating series of events. You can expect a paper about them.

Dual-Track Politics?

Two points made by Mahan Abedin in the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor suggest that progress has been made in Iraq, but suggest that the future maybe more complex than many seem to anticipate. First, he calls the political process that has centered on elections "irreversible." That seems optimistic, but it is certainly plausible, given the growing participation of all parties, especially the Sunnis. All parties, save Zarqawi's jihadists, seem to believe that they have a stake in the formation of the new Iraqi government.

The other point is allied to this. To quote Abedin:

There is already evidence that the Arab Sunni political parties coordinated their electoral strategy with several insurgent organizations. Indeed several insurgent groups have called for a ceasefire during the elections, and virtually the entire “nationalist” insurgency (save for a few hardcore Ba’athists) was in favor of Arab Sunni participation in the elections.

Abedin suggests that the insurgents may try to follow a sort of dual-track politics. They will use a combination of violence and political means to gain their ends. The election made this possible, as the quote suggests, by giving the insurgents a voice in the political process through Sunni parties like those that make up the Iraqi Accord Front. This voice can help both to legitimize the insurgency and to add pressure on the Americans to leave. While, Abedin argues, Moqtada El-Sadr has been co-opted by the political process, other Shiite groups may adopt a similar dual-track strategy.

This does not diminish the threat of civil war. Indeed, the success of religious parties in the election may have increased it. Iraqis seem bent on factionalism, which the infant political system may not be able to contain.

Moreover, there is no figure comparable to Mandela or Kenyatta in the insurgency--a widely respected nationalist who could unite the country should the insurgents succeed in gaining political power. That is one more unfortunate result of Zarqawi's success in becoming the public face of the anti-American forces in Iraq. And yet El-Sadr might become such a figure, if he can reach out to the Sunnis (and the Kurds) as Mandela was able to reach out across the color lines in South Africa.

Elections in Iraq

The Iraqi elections seem to have turned out well for everyone but the hard-core insurgents. Turnout was high, even in Sunni areas, and violence was low.

The most remarkable thing was that the insurgents not only did not try to disrupt the elections, in parts of Iraq they even posted guards at polling stations. The Guardian, among other sources, reported on this:

In Ramadi, a centre of armed resistance to the US occupation, masked gunmen guarded polling stations in Ramadi. "The mujahedin were at the polling station urging us not to let our voice be split. They urged us to go for either of the two Sunni lists, the Consensus Front or Saleh al-Mutlaq," said Ali Abed al-Dulaimi, a retired car salesman, in a telephone interview. Both lists, one Islamist, one secular, claim to have links with the nationalist gunmen.

No doubt there was some intimidation there. There can be little doubt, too, that there were irregularities in the election. But even the insurgents seem to believe that their aims can be served through representation in the newly elected government. And Zarqawi's decision to stand aside and let the vote happen is one more indication that sentiment favoring elections was strong. As if actions were not enough.

Elections alone do not a democracy make, and while the success of this is promising, all three groups of Iraqis--the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds--must perceive that the government that will be formed can serve their needs adequately. Given the agendas of the Kurds and the Shiites and the strength they will probably have when the new government is formed, this perception may be difficult to achieve. Moreover, the insurgency, with its irreconcilable, Zarqawi-led kernel, and the need--ever paramount--for all in Iraq to feel secure will create their own difficulties for the new government and the United States.

Fortunately, the elections left those inclined toward peace stronger.

We Will Withdraw, Like It or Not

The Times has published a story that reports that American and British troops will leave Iraq soon after the new government is sworn in. The story says that will be as early as March and that the number of American troops may fall below 100,000 "in the coming months." The sources seem to be both American and British.

This is one more sign that the apparent hard-line against withdrawal taken by President Bush and others is softer than it appears. Political reality is pushing us toward withdrawal.

Two other points of the article are worth noting as they point to dangers that withdrawal may bring. The first is the protestation of Iraqi authorities that premature withdrawal may, first, increase the risk of intervention by Iraq's neighbors (primarily Iran and Turkey, though those two countries are not named) and, second, "encourage the rise of militias, leading to sectarian strife and the settling of old scores."

The second point worth noting is a poll the BBC conducted in Iraq. Only 10 percent of those responding thought that American withdrawal should have a high priority for the new government. Indeed, the Times concludes: "The public has doubts about the ability of the Iraqi security forces, in particular the police, which is riddled with militia, and the army, which lacks equipment, training and leadership." Others have different opinions about the results of the poll.

The poll results do show the respondents to be optimistic about the future. Moreover, when asked about what would be the best thing that could happen to Iraq in the next year, less than 6 percent said it would be with withdrawal of American troops. Security was named by a third and peace and stability were named by another fifth. A question about priorities also showed that an increase in security ranked far higher than the removal of foreign troops. In answer to a question about when the coalition forces should leave Iraq, only a quarter said they should leave now. More than that said they should leave when stability is restored. On the other hand, only an infinitesimal number are eager for American troops to stay and well more than half oppose the presence of coalition forces.

A successful withdrawal is predicated on the Iraqi forces improving, becoming much better than they currently appear. The poll and the concerns of the Iraqi authorities underline the dangers of leaving too quickly. While national feeling remains strong, there may be an important role for American troops until Iraqis feel secure.

A question few seem to ask is how long and in what strength the United States should remain in Iraq. An allied question is whether the Iraqi public can accept a large, extended deployment. The BBC poll suggests that they may. If we want a secure, peaceful Iraq, we may have to. Those who cite the model of Japan and Germany after World War II should remember that we only left Japan after 5 years (and retained extensive basing rights) and that we still remain in Germany.

Timetables

The disagreement over timetables reflects a failure of imagination. This is too often true in public disputes over policy. The Democrats are urging the President to simply pull troops out according to a strict timetable, with the moderates simplifying lengthening the time. The President digs in his heels and says "No."

This serves nobody. There are real benefits that a timetable for withdrawal can give us, by making it clearer to the players in Iraq and the region that the United States will withdraw. I doubt that anyone truly believes that the United States will not withdraw, given the falling support for the war in Iraq. SO the President is gaining little by being stubborn.

But why not set a timetable linked to milestones? These could be accomplishments of the Iraqi government--number of troops trained; number of units reaching certain levels of accomplishment. Some of the discussion by officials in the administration has suggested linking the withdrawal of troops to such measures, anyway. Other milestones could be economic accomplishments--these could be linked to other measures. They could also be successful actions of the insurgents: for example, if incidents across the country or in certain provinces fall below a given number, then troops can go home. An advantage of a milestone like that is that it puts part of the onus for the continuing presence of American troops on the insurgents. That could be a weapon to use against reconcilable elements among them.

Senator Kerry has proposed something like this, linking withdrawal to "benchmarks" like this month's elections. But he still has the goal of withdrawing "the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year." That makes the deadline too certain and, as the Administration will point out, gives the insurgents notice that they simply have to wait for the Americans to leave.

A more imaginative, subtle approach might help the administration out the trap into which it is falling by trying to hold firm to a policy that is becoming unsustainable owing to changes in American public opinion.

Wesley Clark on Iraq

In this morning's New York Times, Wesley Clark, the former commander on NATO forces who had a brief fling as presidential candidate in 2004, presents his plan for Iraq. Much of it makes sense. Much of his analysis is focused on Iran, which he and his interlocutors in the Arab World see as the big winner in Iraq. I have read elsewhere that the Iraqi Shiites are by no means as taken with Iran as others feel, but we should work to minimize the influence of Iran in Iraq. One distressing result of a civil war could well be the creation of an Iranian satellite state centered on Basra.

Two other things are noteworthy. First, his critique of other approaches on the table:

"Staying the course" risks a slow and costly departure of American forces with Iraq increasingly factionalized and aligned with Iran. Yet a more rapid departure of American troops along a timeline, as some Democrats are calling for, simply reduces our ability to affect the outcome and risks broader regional conflict.

Note that he has both the Administration and the Democrats advocating departure, only at different speeds. The President is not saying that, but as a matter of practical politics, he may soon have to begin a slow withdrawal.

Second, he advocates a stronger effort to co-opt the insurgents, a bigger carrot to go along with a solid stick:

...these efforts must go hand-in-glove with intensified outreach to Iraqi insurgents, to seek their reassimilation into society and their assistance in wiping out residual foreign jihadists. Iraqi and American officials have had sporadic communications with insurgent leaders, but these must lead to deeper discussions on issues like amnesty for insurgents who lay down their arms and opportunities for their further participation in public and private life.

As I said before, some of the decisions necessary to make such a policy effective will not be easy to make ("...amnesty for insurgents...."?), but this offers a course toward becoming effective on the ground that seems more likely to be successful than what we are doing now.

Games, Viruses, and Our Experiment Life

The world of malware--worms, viruses, and the like--is changing. Once the loner teen wrote the bad code while burning the midnight oil, soaking in Mountain Dew. Now it is becoming a commercial enterprise and the bad guys are becoming more professional. The threats are becoming more sophisticated. This entry by Eugene in the weblog of Kaspersky Labs has some interesting observations about this:

Once upon a time, back when everyone knew why a "floppy disk" was "floppy", computers were not completely Windows-ized, and the black screen of DOS was the standard "desktop", virus writers were just kids who happened to write viruses. They did it for fun, to assert themselves, to hit their friends and neighbours systems, or to get revenge on the world at large. They wrote some very silly viruses, and some very complicated viruses. They used different kinds of infection and stealth technologies, and there were lot of these "true" viruses - I remember a time when we were adding about 100 records per week to our antivirus database updates.

And now most malicious code is "commercial" - it's designed to control infected networks and/or earn money (see more at the beginning of this article. In among these programs, we still find "true" viruses and Trojans. But surprise! Not as many as in the past. Looking at our statistics, I see that we are now adding less than 10 "true" viruses and Trojan programs a week - ten times less than ten years ago. Does this mean that virus writers have stopped creating "true" viruses? Yes. But why? The situation should be totally the opposite - there are more and more teenagers getting access to computers, so shouldn't there be more and more "true" viruses written by them?

I think increased access to computers is actually the reason why the number of "true" viruses is decreasing. The fact is teenagers don't have time for writing viruses - they're busy playing online games.

They can assert their personality, they can create their own worlds, and destroy the existing one. They can find real friends, and "kill" virtual enemies in their virtual worlds. They attack and protect. They don't need extra proof anymore.

So - the kids have left the world of "true" virus writing. This was a world which had bad, sometimes very bad, consequences, but sometimes it lead to the creation of technically interesting or sophisticated programs. In moving out of this world, they stopped training their brains by developing their own virtual creatures - now they're lost in the virtual underworld of online computer games.

Is this good or bad, for us and for them? I don't know. My colleague Teodor Cimpoesu, from KL Romania, has also had some thoughts about this:

"People might think that it's good for the AV vendors if virus writers produce malicious programs, and the more numerous and more complex, the better. This is one point of view.

From a security point of view, less complex viruses mean easier intervention. But with serious virus writers moving into the commercial arena, it looks like we may start to see more complex business malware soon - and then the AV industry may end up playing a significant role in blocking or breaking cybercrime.

Most of the social effects of video games, when we come to understand them, are unlikely to be so beneficial. Unfortunately, we hardly know what they are. As has often happened, technology has thrown us into the middle of a social experiment. We may know the outcome twenty or thirty years from now. If we are wise enough to recognize it. But do we really know how television has changed us? Or how radio and the movies changed our parents? In truth, we lose context and become unable to compare our own experience with pervasive technologies like radio and television with that of others who have not had them. This can be a challenge for sociology.

Withdrawal from Iraq?

The withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is now on the table. Rep. Jack Murtha and some Democrats favor a complete withdrawal immediately. Senator Russell Feingold has called for one in a year. Senators Kerry and Biden and more Democrats support a partial withdrawal. There a three rationales for a withdrawal, aside from any wish to simply disengage from a war that they (and this writer) view as a mistake. The first, which Murtha suggests, is that if we leave, the Iraqis will be forced to step up to the plate to defend themselves. Murtha assumes that, just as the ill-trained colonists were able to defeat the professional Redcoats after 1776, so the ill-trained Iraqis will find the strength and skill to defeat the insurgents.

The second rationale is that much of the insurgency is fueled by the presence of American troops. The third is that the insurgency gains strength because of the sense that the Americans will never leave. The second and third rationales are linked. A complete withdrawal, of course, addresses both. A partial withdrawal (and a timetable, for that matter), provides hope that the Americans will soon be on their way out and so indirectly addresses the second rationale.

The Administration opposes a withdrawal largely on the grounds that it would send a wrong message to both our allies and our enemies in Iraq and in the rest of the Middle East.

Any proposal for a withdrawal makes assumptions about the capabilities of Iraqi forces that will not be addressed here, aside from noting that those who favor withdrawal tend to optimistic at the same time that many of them criticize the Administration for being ineffective in training the Iraqi forces and the Administration is pessimistic while arguing that the training is effective. We cannot now know which side is right. We can only guess.

Another interesting set of assumptions on both sides, however, is about the message that a withdrawal sends. Or, rather, messages, because different groups will, in fact, get different messages if our troops leave. This is a case where both sides of an argument are correct. The difference is really about whose point will prove to be the more significant.

There are five possible audiences within the Arab world listening to sounds. We will leave aside the greater Middle East, Europe, and the American electorate, all of whom have their ears cocked to catch any words uttered about withdrawal, as the discussion about a withdrawal is focused on its consequences for American policy in Iraq. The insurgents, of course, who can be divided into the irreconcilable foreigners and the domestic insurgents (see my last two posts for more on divisions within the insurgency), and lastly, the Iraqi people who do not actively oppose us. The last group can assuredly be subdivided as well, but we will avoid that complication here.

The President asserted in his speech in Annapolis that a withdrawal or a timetable to withdraw "will encourage the terrorists, it will confuse the Iraqi people." There can be little doubt about the first part of this formulation, particularly if they do not fear the Iraqi security forces. Almost assuredly, they do not now fear them. The second part, confusing the Iraqi people, is curious. Rather than describe a departure as abandoning our friends, he describes consequences that are somewhat less serious. Why? At least part of it has to be that he does not want to suggest that the Iraqi security forces are not on the verge of becoming able to hold their own against the opposition. It might also be that he is holding open the possibility of a change in position. After all, important forces in Iraq have been calling for a timetable for withdrawal. Moqtada El-Sadr is one. The Cairo conference, held last month under the auspices of the Arab League is another. Negotiating a timetable for withdrawal with the government that will be elected on December 15 would have benefits for both sides--it would help legitimate the Iraqis and help the Administration lead us out of an increasingly unpopular war. A timetable created under such circumstances need not cause confusion in Iraq.

President Bush minimizes the effects that a withdrawal will have on the Iraqi people; those who favor one focus on those effects almost exclusively. All who favor withdrawal see the American presence in Iraq as a source of anger among Iraqis that helps to fill the ranks of the insurgency. An American withdrawal, therefore, far from sowing confusion among Iraqis will, they argue, make it clear to the Iraqi people and, perhaps, the domestic insurgents that the current government is legitimate. The insurgency would then weaken; the irreconcilables would be defeated and fade away.

These are not their terms, of course, and I may be suggesting an argument that the proponents of withdrawal do not make. Nonetheless, if seems to follow easily from what they say. If the withdrawal did not help legitimate the government, then its collapse and either anarchy or the victory of the insurgents must follow. No one suggests that.

Murtha. Kerry, and others make the additional argument that with the Americans gone, our Iraqi allies would become more effective. If you favor withdrawal and are concerned about the subsequent outcome in Iraq, you must believe that the legitimacy and effectiveness of our Iraqi allies will increase, at least relative to those of the insurgents. That is the bottom line, and neither legitimacy nor effectiveness can be assumed.

Yet that is close to what many of the proponents of withdrawal do. Murtha, Kerry, and others make assertions about what will happen. They argue based on historical precedent and experience, but much of what they say amounts to a leap in the dark. The failure of the president to come with a timeline of some kind for withdrawing from Iraq seems increasingly untenable politically. Yet the case for withdrawing is not tied to a strong case that a withdrawal will do anything but weaken our allies. A decision will soon be made that will engender costs to be borne. Let us hope they are seen clearly.

Iraq: Presidential Distinctions

A key element of President Bush's speech on Iraq at the Naval Academy was the distinction he made between parts of the Iraqi insurgency. He was echoing the National Security Council's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq. Indeed, much of his speech came verbatim from that document.

The three parts are the Rejectionists, the Saddamists, and the Terrorists, in descending order of reconcilability. The President seemed to suggest what my previous blog entry indicated might prove useful, a strategy to divide the insurgency and to coopt its reconcilable, Iraqi-born elements.

There are three points to make here. First, an effective strategy of cooption will mean that hard choices must sometimes be made. It has to be a carrot and stick policy: in war, sticks are easy to wield, easy to justify, because a war is easiest to conduct when it is done in black and white. Carrots are harder to use if you are not offering your opponent only a chance to surrender because they suggest that the opposition includes grays as well as black. Second, I hope that intelligence analysts have found that "Saddamists" is a meaningful category in how the insurgents think of themselves. The category may prove counterproductive in policy if we refuse to offer former Baathists a chance to change sides. That kind of thinking--equating members of the Baathist Party with hard-core supporters of Saddam, led to some of our most grievous mistakes in Iraq, when we forbade Baathists to hold position in the new government and when we dissolved the Iraqi army. Both errors filled the ranks of the insurgency.

The third point is about the President's rhetoric. In his speech, after introducing the terms for the segmentation of the opposition, he seemed to reserve "Terrorists" for Zarqawi and the irreconcilable foreigners who have infiltrated Iraq. This rhetorical distinction would be welcome if he holds to it, for it suggests that the "War on Terror" is being limited, at least in Iraq. But this may or may not prove significant. Rhetoric that recognizes subtle distinctions had not been characteristic of the Administration. Or its opponents, for that matter.

Progress in Iraq?

Last week saw the first call for a rapid, complete withdrawal from Iraq by a congressman and increasing indications that there will be a partial withdrawal early next year. Americans are tiring of the war. It seems clear that we will be unable to sustain the presence of more than 150,000 troops there for much longer.

Yet there are indications that we are making progress toward ending the insurgency. It is difficult to know how significant they are. The truth is, I doubt that anyone truly knows which way the wind is blowing in Iraq, even the intel people in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Nonetheless, there have been a few signs in recent weeks that things may be looking up for our side. These signs become much more significant if you keep in mind that the insurgency has at least two parts that do not have the same goals past getting the Americans out. The jihadists--Zarqawi's group--are almost assuredly incapable of compromise. The local insurgents may not be. Indeed, omne of the revelations of Larry Diamond's Squandered Victory is that in December 2003 "They were indicating a readiness, a desire, to come out into the open and become political. They wanted to talk to the United States directly." (p. 64) Nothing came of it then, but it suggest that we may be able to coopt at least part of the opposition and make our counterinsurgency efforts more effective. Indeed, General Abizaid and Secretary Rumsfeld confirmed in June that such talks had already occurred. Recently, some insurgents have tried to reach out to the Iraqi government and Ambassador Khalilzad spoke again of reaching out to a part of the insurgency.

Any willingness on either side to talk becomes more important as the disenchantment with Zarqawi increases. The bombing in Amman seems to have accelerated the spread of a sense that Zarqawi had been going too far. Writing in The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus, Stephen Ulph writes of "the rising controversy over the targeting of civilians in Iraq, and the negative response to high-profile errors such as the toll of Jordanian Muslims in the November 9 Amman bombings." Even Zawahiri, Bin Ladin's right-hand man, believes that Zarqawi's beheadings and attacks on Shiites are alienating Iraqis if one can believe the letter that he purportedly wrote in an effort to convince Zarqawi to adopt more careful tactics. Perhaps more important, if true, is the story from The Washington Post that Iraqis are turning in insurgents.

None of this is to suggest that the war in Iraq is close to being won. As I wrote above, nobody say say for certain whether it is or not. But Zarqawi's actions show that, unlike the North Vietnamese, he has a tin ear for public opinion and a political outlook that not all in the Arab world share. The possibility that we can coopt the opposition was not present in Vietnam. This may be the difference that makes this war winnable.

But we have to show a patience, a subtlety, a willingness to tolerate political differences, and a wisdom that we have rarely shown in Iraq since we defeated Saddam Hussein. And we have to deal with allies among the Shiites and Kurds who have their own agendas that may make a strategy based on coopting part of the opposition impossible. Almost anything is possible.

Too Little, Too Late?

The announcement that an agreement was reached between leaders of the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds should be greeted with muted applause. The sides agreed, it seems, to punt on the major issues, setting up a commission in the new parliament that can propose revisions in the constitution. On the part of the Shiites and Kurds, this is a step beyond just saying no when the Sunnis demand changes. And there can be little doubt that concession was difficult to get. As some of the Sunni leaders have found the changes sufficient to gain their support for the document, some applause is appropriate.

One danger that the agreement adds to the many dangers already present in the development of an Iraqi polity is that this new commission will be ineffective. It is easy for the three sides to set a commission up, but to be effective, each of the sides must be willing to give up something in order to give the new government legitimacy among all three Iraqi groups. Getting such compromise has been like pulling teeth. Will this change? One hopes.

Yet, can what amounts to a change in procedure, produced four days before tomorrow's vote, offset months of propaganda by the legal opposition, the insurgents, and their allies against the constitution? Almost assuredly not, particularly as the arguments the constitution touch deep seated attitudes that the proposed changes cannot. And there is no guarantee that the Sunni leaders who made the agreement are regarded as legitimate spokesmen for the Sunni community at large.

Perhaps worse, it is not at all clear that United States, the Kurds, or the Shiites are prepared for the defeat of the constitution. The United States, at the least, might have issued statements talking about the value of even a negative vote. As I wrote before, the defeat of the constitution might be the best outcome, albeit a dangerous one. A victory regarded as illegitimate by any one community in Iraq might be worse.

Iraq: The Game's Afoot

Events in Iraq are coming to a head. The vote on the constitution next month will have consequences for our involvement there that may well determine its outcome.

Unfortunately, the agreement to place this text before the voters was made over the opposition of the Sunni negotiators. The Iraqis did us no favors. No side placed the interests of a new Iraq before the interests of their own faction. The killer issue appears to have been federalism. This issue gained its constitution-killing importance only in August, not long before the deadline for an agreement on a draft, when Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of several important Shiite leaders, said "Regarding federalism, we think that it is necessary to form one entire region in the south." Others agreed. The right to do this and its expression in the draft constitution soon became a non-negotiable demand. It left the Sunnis aghast, fearful that the Kurds and Shiites would leave them with only a poor, rump state, the runt of the litter. Agreement was reached, in rough agreement with an arbitrary American deadline. The Shiites were left out.

If the Sunni body politic is truly opposed to this text, with federalism embedded, the best outcome will be for the Shiites to decisively reject the constitution. Such a rejection must be honored: a new legislature would have to be elected; a new constitution would have to be written and approved according to the fundamental law under which Iraq operates.

If all that happened, the Sunnis would know that their vote--their presence in the political process--counts, despite their minority status. It would show that they can affect what happens to them in the new Iraq. That should weaken the influence of Zarqawi and his Iraqi colleagues.

As desirable as this may be, if the Sunnis reject the constitution, Iraq could disintegrate. Easily. Would the Kurds sit still for another election merely to satisfy the Sunnis? Would the Shiites do the same? Would there be enough goodwill on both sides to find the compromises needed make a new draft possible? And then to both have it approved and elect a new government to be governed by it?

Whatever happens, we are entering a field of many hazards. As the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, told the U.S. press, centrifugal forces are threatening to fling Iraqis apart. Their neighbors will be pulled into the conflict as a result. They can already be seen to be watchful, standing ready to intervene if they sense the need. Iran may already be exercising influence among the Shiites covertly. The Turks have long been wary of an independent Kurdish polity. The Saudis look at the mess in Iraq with grave concern. Both Syria and Jordan also have both the means to influence the conflict and interests, vital because of their proximity, at stake there. Chaos in Iraq can easily lead to chaos in the region.

That leaves the United States to tame a dangerous, unpredictable Iraqi Cerberus, a labor that will take more skill than strength. It will take an understanding of the people and forces at play greater than we have shown in most of our time there. Because of our errors and the nature of the Iraqis, the outcome may be in our hands, but just barely. As they say in Monte Carlo: "Les jeux sont faits!"

Seeing Us Through Enemy Eyes

Yesterday President Bush, at the Pentagon, made another speech about Iraq. This was a minor speech. Little of it, if any of it, was new. He has said little new about it for months. In fact, until he announces some change in course, events on the ground--military and political--will have more influence on the American public than any speech of our highest government official.

There is much more to be said about that, later. For now, one passage in his speech caught my ear:

To leave Iraq now would be to repeat the costly mistakes of the past that led to the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole. The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves, and so they attacked us.

Now the terrorists are testing our will and resolve in Iraq. If we fail that test, the consequences for the safety and security of the American people would be enormous. Our withdrawal from Iraq would allow the terrorists to claim an historic victory over the United States. It would leave our enemies emboldened...

He has said this many times. But this argument of the president is not just posturing. He is serious about it, and the argument is worthy of our attention. The insurgents in Iraq, the terrorists everywhere, look at the history of American involvement in the Muslin world and see us withdrawing when things get difficult. In Lebanon, the Marine Barracks was bombed and President Reagan withdrew (this is not characteristic of Democrats alone). In Somalia, our soldiers were beaten by a mob and we withdrew. Those are just two examples, but they are recent, prominent, important. And now, the rising toll in Iraq has us rethinking our involvement. Indeed, 100,000 or more people have gathered on the Mall today to protest our presence in Iraq. We are not now, and have rarely been, a power geared to the long term.

In fact, our military is set up to accomplish its goals quickly and as painlessly as possible. It is a central element in the American way of war and something our president has to consider as he charts our course in Iraq.

The point here is that our enemies consider it, too. As we, the American public, contemplate what we will do in Iraq and elsewhere as we fight Al Qaeda and its allies, we must include their perception of us as we weigh the costs against the benefits of the alternatives available to us, including withdrawal. No course of action will be costless.

There are many other considerations, of course: the cost in lives and the financial cost among them. But let us also remember that if we leave with our task undone--however we define that task--our enemies will take note and act accordingly.

Money, Katrina, and Tsongas

The fallout from Katrina continues even as Rita approaches. The storm caught us unawares in many ways. It shook how we see ourselves. It may define what we do as a society for the next few years. The first intallment of this story is the tremendous effort that the Federal government and the public as a whole has made in the last few weeks to make New Orleans right. Much of what has been been done involves money, but the cost and how we will pay it have yet to be determined.

E.J. Dionne addressed some of these issues in this morning's column in The Washington Post. He suggested that the administration's fiscal policy is "stupid." A milder word will not do. I do not disagree. As I wrote him:

"Stupid." Good word; accurate description. But the blame for our fiscal policies can be spread well beyond the White House. No one seems to be willing to stand and say "Tax me, please."

Of course it would be naive to expect that. But who has come out in favor of sacrifice for the goals we seek. We praise the efforts of others in New Orleans and elsewhere (and, indeed, the outpouring of money and effort for the people hurt by Katrina has said much that is good about this country). But who has said that we as a society must tighten our belts for the good of the country? Who has made a modest suggestion that we might cut back for the sake of the future?

Democrats tend to say that the budget deficit can be solved by taxing, in effect, someone else--the rich. (Even the rich think of themselves as middle class.) President Bush, of course, has never asked us to give up anything for the war on terror--or anything else--other than nail clippers at airports.

We all tend to behave as if the bons temps will roll on forever. These "stupid" fiscal policies will guarantee both that they won't and that they will end with something louder than a whisper.

Where are the people who dare to ask us to give up something now to prevent that bang?

In a postscript, I suggested that we may need Paul Tsongas. The Massachusetts senator ran a losing presidential campaign in 1992 and died a few years after. He made no bones about the need for fiscal sanity. He offerred a conservative, straighforward approach to federal spending, arguing bluntly that the budget should be balanced. In a commencement address at MIT in 1989, he said:

In the 1980s we have gone from being the world's largest creditor nation to the worst debtor nation the world has ever known. And all of this debt we give to you, our beloved children. America is on the verge of economic decline. We are now in an undeclared and unfelt and unrecognized battle for our future standard of living.

We had a good run after that. The economy grew at a fantastic pace. As a result, we were able to balance the budget. But that is past, and we stand again where Tsongas saw us more than 25 years ago. Can we revitalize ourselves as we did then? Many of the President's supporters will say we can. I am less certain. There was bipartisan sentiment that taxes could be increased. They were. It cost the older Bush an election. Both parties agreed to budgetary constraints that vanished soon after the new millenium began. Most importantly, we are a country growing old, with a greater share of its resources promised to the old and less productive (this includes me). No one is saying the things that Tsongas did. No one is asking us to serve the greater good before our personal comfort.

Our country may be on the edge of decline, with our place in the world gradually, but perceptibly diminishing. If we are lucky. If we are not, a greater storm than either Rita or Katrina, born of economic difficulty, may engulf us.

Katrina and FEMA

The best comment on the response to Katrina comes from Bruce Schneier. He says that DHS, including FEMA, should focus on gathering intelligence and responding to emergencies, rather than developing measures designed to prevent terrorism that are bound to be ineffective, like profiling passengers and developing a national ID card.

Indeed, the inattention paid to FEMA over the last few years, particularly since 9/11, is puzzling and, to be kind, myopic. If terrorists had caused a disaster, would not FEMA had been called in? Nor have we been able to postpone natural disasters for duration of the war on terrorism. If FEMA stops being left to people whose most impressive quality is the strength of their political contacts, we may do better with the next emergency than we did with this one.

On the other hand, two friends provide a different perspective on what FEMA has done. Given what it has been designed to do, it has not performed all that badly. Bruce Henderson wrote the Morris Dance Discussion List about his own experience with a hurricane-induced flood in North Carolina. He found that

The Federal government response was much the same. It takes time to assure that the storm has past, then the type of storm damage must be quantified (you really have to deal with a wind-hurricane much differently from a flood-hurricane). Then advance teams have to work out logistics (do people need food more than medical help? Or is a police presence needed first? Are airports open*? Our local airport was flooded and couldn't be used -- and teams have to open roads. Even the Interstates in our area were blocked -- trees were literally broken in half and blown in the road. It took highway crews 3 1/2 days to fully open I-40 from I-95 to Wilmington but some of that delay was waiting for flood water to go down. But a number of areas had been so badly flooded that large trucks couldn't get through.

Once the situation has been analyzed, then the agencies affected (mostly governmental, plus a very large input from the power companies) can agree and Federal agencies can be authorized by local government. Then, coordination between the different groups must be set up.

I asked another friend with extensive experience in disaster relief with FEMA about New Orleans. Bruce's message confirmed what he told me: FEMA was not set up to provide instant response. It is set up to go into an area after the storm has done its worst and some measure of stability has been reached. He did not think this approach best and suggested to his superiors at FEMA that somthing else be tried. In regard to New Orleans in particular, he favored making sure that what would be needed would be in place beforehand and that the more vulnerable people--he had older peoole in mind in particular--be removed before the storm hit.

That approach would probably have prevented much of the horrible scenes that we are now watching in New Orleans. But it has two problems. First, it is expensive. Damn the expense, you might say, people's lives are at stake. Consider the second problem, however: most threats of disaster are false alarms. For each Katrina, several storms will pass by. Yet for each one, preparations will be made and people will be removed. You cannot tell beforehand which alarm will prove real and which false. How many of us will willingly relocate once each year or two to prevent what is, in truth, a remote chance that harm will befall us? Consider that the levees in New Orleans had held for more than a century. that, more than any failure on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers, explains why the levees had not been strengthened. The vulnerability was known but the risk was deemed too small. For the same reason, I find that most people do not back up the data on their computers. As someone who works on computer security, I believe they are shortsighted, but like the people responsible for New Orleans, they choose not to take the time and spend the money to make themselves less vulnerable.

FEMA's plans and actions are the result of political choices made from the day it was organized. There can be little doubt that the agency needs to be reorganized and that it can become more effective. Indeed, my friend stopped working for FEMA because he believed that the agencies managers were serving political expediency rather than the public interest. But that was in the 1990s, when President Bush's work address was in Austin, not Washington.

Fallout from Katrina

The anarchy in New Orleans resembled nothing so much as the horrors of Lord of the Flies after the constraints of authority and civilization were removed. As usual, it is easy to conclude that neither we nor our neighbors would behave like that. Let us hope we are right in thinking so, but we should not be certain that we are. Much of what happened, was a crowd like any other getting out of control. Behavior that had been unacceptable became common. If our neighbors benefit from doing things they shouldn't and it seems that no harm will come to them, can any of us be absolutely certain that we would not join in?

On the other hand, giving to help those who have suffered because of Katrina has become close to a social norm. At work, the question asked has not been whether you will give, but when. I was hit up at the grocery store yesterday (Shoppers Food Warehouse), when the cashier pointed out that the Red Cross would accept contributions made there and then at the checkout stand. That is a mild form of extortion, but when it for an acknowledged social good, that's not always a bad thing.

Alan Abelson is a columnist in Barron's, and perhaps the best reason to buy the paper. You might think of him as the Mark twain of Wall Street, or a combination of Jeremiah and Bob Hope. He usually writes well pointed (and well aimed) wit. But this week he was somber as he described what had happened in New Orleans. He gave a warning to keep in mind over the next few months: we can expect the economic ills that will soon befall us to be blamed on Katrina. We should keep in mind when the bad news comes that our twin deficits (of foreign trade and the federal budget), housing prices that are out of control, and energy prices that were following them even before Katrina are not things that make for a healthy economy. "In sum," quoth Abelson, "never before will a hurricane have done so much to bail out so many people."