EVENTS

Date:	Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Time:	12:15 PM -- 2:00 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

March 2005

U.S. Strategy in Iraq and the Global War on Terror

Iraq’s January 30 elections are over, but the counterinsurgency campaign rages on. Is the United States winning in Iraq, and what does victory there mean? What are the broader implications of the U.S. military’s intervention in Iraq for the global war on terror and American foreign policy--its direction, prospects, and wisdom? These and other questions were considered at a March 16 AEI seminar featuring Boston University’s Andrew J. Bacevich and Duke University’s Peter D. Feaver.

Andrew J. Bacevich
Boston University
     
Despite the Bush administration’s claim that freedom is on the march in the Middle East, there are reasons to be deeply skeptical about the foreign policy it has adopted since the September 11 attacks. The Bush Doctrine’s premise that the United States has a unique mission to deliver mankind to the promised land of peace and freedom is deeply presumptuous; history unfolds in a frame of reference too vast to be reduced to slogans. It is likewise all but impossible to divine the full meaning of ongoing events, especially when they take place in a different cultural, social, and religious context; simply put, democracy and freedom in the Middle East may set back the cause of liberalism as well as American interests. Third, the Bush administration’s infatuation with military power and America’s post-Vietnam militarism are deeply at odds with the country’s founding traditions, as well as being wrongheaded in their own right--as demonstrated in Iraq. Finally, there is a yawning gap between the Bush administration’s declared goals and its willingness or capacity to mobilize resources to achieve them. As a consequence, the U.S. military is badly overstretched, and the U.S. economy is threatened by fiscal profligacy. If the crusade to eliminate tyranny is urgent and worthy, it should involve collective effort and collective sacrifice.
     
The Bush administration is moving with all due speed to liquidate its direct military involvement in Iraq, while obscuring as much as possible that it is an unwinnable conflict. Even after the departure of American combat troops, however, Iraq will continue to be dependent on the United States for security and economic assistance, and it is highly questionable that this massive commitment of blood and treasure will ultimately produce a liberal, democratic state aligned with the United States.
     
Beyond Iraq, the United States must choose between two broad options. The first is for Washington to forge on in its multigenerational project to rid the world of tyranny. This, however, will require the Bush administration to allocate far greater resources to this mission, which it has thus far failed to do. The active duty military will need to be substantially larger, as will U.S. support for international development--paid by increasing taxes and decreasing domestic outlays, consistent with what conservatives once deemed the first principle of responsible government.
     
Alternatively, if the administration is unable or unwilling to persuade the country to follow this path, it should adopt an entirely different approach--a foreign policy based on realism, modesty, and attention to the actual needs of the American people. This would require abrogating the Bush Doctrine of preventive war; reducing the U.S. military presence abroad; requiring the democracies of Europe and East Asia to assume greater responsibility for their own security; strengthening and reorganizing the U.S. military for national defense, not global power projection; treating terrorism as an international criminal conspiracy to be addressed chiefly through intensive law enforcement; containing Islamic radicalism rather than attempting to end it; and forming a viable, self-sufficient energy policy, which will nullify the strategic value of the Persian Gulf.

Peter D. Feaver
Duke University

If two years ago it had been suggested that the United States would invade Iraq, topple Saddam Hussein, find no stockpiles of WMD, suffer 1,300 casualties in an ongoing insurgency, receive only limited help from the UN, and endure the horrors of the Abu Ghraib scandal, very few pundits would have argued that public support for the war would remain as robust as it actually has, with a clear majority consistently determined to stick it out. This support indicates that the American public is willing to bear the human costs of the war, provided they believe the U.S. military will ultimately prevail. In the case of Iraq, President Bush’s dogged resolve has also contributed significantly to the persistence of public support, as has the widespread belief that Iraq is part of the larger global war on terror.

It has been widely reported that approximately one third of the American public erroneously believes Saddam Hussein provided direct help to al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. What is less reported, however, is that while 36 percent of Bush supporters were in this camp, so too were 27 percent of Kerry supporters. Furthermore, 21 percent of Kerry supporters erroneously believe Saddam Hussein had no connection with al Qaeda, but only 3 percent of Bush supporters hold this view.

Ultimately, the American public believes that Iraq is part of the global war on terror because they understand the global war on terror is another Cold War. This is the understanding of the war that the Bush administration has adopted, rejecting alternative arguments that the response to the 9/11 attacks should have been a new crusade, a matter strictly for law enforcement, or a all-out conflict in the mold of World War II.

Like the Cold War, the global war on terror will be long term, with few pitched battles, and as much an ideological contest as a military one, involving diplomacy, intelligence, and law enforcement. These are instruments of an overarching American strategy, which must set priorities and endure short-term costs for the sake of long-term gains. As with the Cold War, the burdens of the war on terror will be shared throughout society and not limited to soldiers; to date, more American civilians have died in this conflict than military combatants. Both conflicts also require a balance between concerns about domestic security and concern for civil rights; this was an early theme of the Cold War, and despite predictions that America would become a fortress society, the United States advanced its security interests against the Soviet Union while simultaneously expanding civil rights at home.

Certain fallacies are heard again and again in critiques of President Bush’s foreign policy. The first is a “damned if we do, damned if we don’t” calculus, in which the Bush administration is simultaneously blamed for trying to achieve too much and too little. The second is that, in characterizing U.S. foreign policy as militaristic, there is a prioritization of acts of commission over acts of omission. There have been many times in the past decade when the U.S. military could have, but did not, engage in military action; any moral calculus of American foreign policy should consider the 7 to 12 million people who have died in wars since the end of the Cold War that the United States did nothing about. Third, critiques of the Bush administration fail to acknowledge that unforeseen consequences are inevitable not only as a result of a decision to take military action but also as a result of a failure to take military action. History is replete with examples where a delay in using decisive force has made the problem worse--most recently, in the case of U.S. policy toward al Qaeda during the 1990s.
 
AEI intern Elena Alberti prepared this summary, with AEI research associate Vance Serchuk.