My new blog

Three months after announcing my retirement, I have decided to reenter the blogosphere at my new blog,  War_and_Peace.

War and Peace will be very similar to MediaShack although the blog will not  focus on the Middle East, although some of the weekly 2-4 posts will likely be on the region.  In general, the blog will focus on History and Politics. 

Rob

Coming November 1

An Announcement

Walking Off Into the Sunset

MediaShack readers,

The time has come for me to announce my retirement from the blogosphere.

I no longer have the motivation to consistently write good posts  on the Middle East.  Rather than let the quality slip,  I will be walking away from the blog, Michael Jordan style.

A special thanks goes out to all those who contributed to MediaShack  through writing comments.  I as well as other readers have learned an enormous amount from hearing different perspectives, many coming  from  people with experience and knowledge of the Middle East far greater than mine.

I also also want to thank all those who contributed as posters, and especially Blackstar for constant editorial guidance and not hesitating to tell me to shut the %^&* up on the few occasions when I may have written something stupid or outrageous.

It’s been fun.  Keep it real,

Rob

Greatest Book on American Politics Ever Written?

I’ve been away from blogging for a few days, but  I want to highlight a book I’ve been reading:  Democracy_In_America by Alexis de Tocqueville.  I am not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.   Tocqueville was a French aristocrat of the early 1800s who understood that the anciens regime of governance had to be modified, so he visited the US in 1830 to observe the new American Democracy and figure out which aspects of it might work in France or not. 

Despite being written by basically a 26 year-old French tourist, I have never read a more accurate and descriptive book on American politics and society.   Want to know why there’s an intense debate over Health Care taking place in the US right now?  Read Democracy in America and it will become very clear. 

Here are some chapters which touch on issues that have been discussed at MediaShack:

 1)  “What Are The Real Advantages Which American Society Derives From a Democratic Government?”

2) “Philosophical_Method  of the Americans.”

3) “In_What_Spirit Americans Cultivate the Arts.”

4) “How_Equality_Suggests_to_the_Americans the Idea of the Imperceptibility of Man.”

5) “How_American_Democracy_Has_Modified_the_English_Language

6)  ”Of_Individualism_In_Democratic_Countries.”

7)  ”Why_Democratic_Nations Naturally Desire Peace, and Democratic Armies, War.”

New Arabic Slang Dictionary

For students/ professors of Arabic, here’s a new on-line Arabic_slang_dictionary that’s worth checking out:

One man who was fed up with constantly asking or hearing “wait, what does that mean?” is Abdullah Arif, a 23-year-old Saudi Arabian graduate living in Dubai, who decided to do something about it.

That was last summer. In March he set about making things a little more clear for others like him and two weeks ago he launched Mo3jam.com, one of the web’s most comprehensive user-generated compendiums of slang and colloquial Arabic.

 On the first day, it had 20,000 page views, 2,000 unique visitors and 300 uploaded definitions.

After a fortnight, Mo3jam – pronounced mo’jum, the Arabic word for lexicon – has just over 900 definitions, 10 per cent of which are in English, with plans to expand the English section to include every word that has been uploaded.

Good book

I read a good book over the weekend that’s super relevant to many of the issues at play in Afghanistan.  It’s called My_Battle_of_Algiers by Ted Morgan.  Check it out, it’s well worth the read.

Interesting Interview

Yousri Fouda, a former top  al-Jazeera journalist, has an interesting_interview with a Jordanian paper explaining his new project — working for an independent station in Egypt.

Why not Buy and Burn?

Professor Walt on the new_US_strategy of taking out Afghan drug dealers:

 So first we expanded our forces in Afghanistan. Then we took on the challenge of prison reform there (ignoring the fact that America’s own prison system is a national disgrace). And yesterday we learned that U.S. armed forces are putting suspected Afghan drug dealers on a “kill or capture” list. In other words, we are now extending the “war on drugs” to Afghanistan, ignoring the fact that this “war” (first announced by Richard Nixon four decades ago) hasn’t led to victory. The new strategy also ignores some of the obvious lessons of that “war,” and places the United States on some pretty dubious moral ground.

I don’t understand why a “Buy and Burn” approach to the Afghan drug trade has never been seriously considered (as far as I know).   The simple fact is that the livelihoods of lots of Afghanis depends on the Opium trade — it’s a poor country that isn’t exactly choc full of other lucrative industries.  Deprive someone of their main source of income and they, umm, tend to get mad.  Maybe even ask “who did this to me?”  And then,  ”how can I cause them to stop  doing this to me?”   And then figure that that the best way to do that would be to support the Insurgents who are fighting the people trying to destroy the drug trade…

On the other hand, instead of trying to destroy the drug trade the US could adapt a “Buy and Burn” approach.  Simply go around and buy as much drugs as possible, all of them ideally, and then burn them.  The farmers and the dealers don’t care if their product ends up in European night-clubs or in piles of ashes on US military bases —   as long as they get paid.   Has a drug dealer ever asked his  buyer “what are you going to do with this drug when you go home?”

Moving towards the “Third Way?”

Here’s an interesting al-Jazeera_discussion between two Pakistani scholars on the  implications of Taliban leader Beit Allah Mahsood’s death.  One important point focused on the two approaches/ schools of thought within the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban:

1) The “Moderates:”   Focuses strictly on fighting US/ NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan
2) The “Extremists:”  In addition to fighting the US, expands the fight to the Pakistani Army which is seen as aligned with the US.

Remember, the Pakistanis have a strong interest in having the first group, the  ”good” or “moderate” Taliban,  in power in Afghanistan.  By ”good” they  mean those elements that  content themselves with hard-core fundamentalist governance in Afghanistan but mind their business in Pakistan and elsewhere.  

Mahsoud was a direct  threat to the Pakistani  strategy.  He had close relations with al-Qaeda ( was very close to Zarqawi but never met Bin Laden or Zawahiri) and since the 2007 Red_Mosque incident  added the Pakistani Army to his  list of enemies.   But what really made him a threat to Pakistan were his strong_connections to the Afghani Taliban.  During the 1990s he fought with them in Afghanistan, and when someone with his leadership ability and charisma starts advocating taking on the Pakistani Army,  a good segment of the Afghani Taliban is going to listen.   Remember, he’s not from Afghanistan — so if he knew noone inside that country  his calls for an aggressive approach towards the Pakistanis would be less influential.   When a radical Pakistani Taliban leader with lots of friends in Afghansitan starts calling for attacks on both the US and the Pakistani Army this jeapordizes the Army’s goal of keeping the “good” fundamentalists in Afghanistan and out of Pakistani affairs.

التقي محسود عددا من قادة القاعدة من بينهم أبو مصعب الزرقاوي قبل أن يرحل من منطقة القبائل الباكستانية إلى العراق وكانت العلاقة بينهما قوية،… لم يلتق بيعة الله بأسامة بن لادن أو الظواهري، حسبما قال في حوار معه لكنه كان يقدر قادة القاعدة ويكن لهم “كل الحب والاحترام بسبب عدائهم للكفار واليهود”.

ومن المتوقع أن يترك مقتل محسود على طالبان باكستان ذات الأثر الذي تركه رحيل الزرقاوي على تنظيم القاعدة في العراق، حيث يشهد التنظيم تراجعا منذ قتل الزرقاوي في منتصف عام 2006 ولم يتمكن رغم مرور أكثر من ثلاث سنوات على مقتله من استرداد عافيته
…وقد شارك محسود في القتال إلى جانب قوات طالبان في أفغانستان منتصف التسعينيات من القرن الماضي (العشرين)، وكان تزايد شعبيته على جانبي الحدود بين باكستان وأفغانستان كفيلا بأن يجعل منه جسرا يربط بين طالبان الباكستانية ونظيرتها الأفغانية، فقد أرسل رجاله للقتال بجانب طالبان الأفغانية ضد قوات التحالف الذي تقوده الولايات المتحدة، فالقتال ضد أمريكا بنظر محسود هو قتال مسلمين ضد كفار، ولهذا فقد بايع الملا محمد عمر باعتباره أمير المؤمنين، وربما تكون علاقته الجيدة بعمر سببا من أسباب قوته

Killing Mahsood clearly serves the Pakistani interest of bringing the “good” Taliban back to power — and getting the US out of Afghanistan.   It also helps the US and adresses the central problem — the terrorism threat from al-Qaeda.    The removal of Mahsood pushes the US towards the “Third_Way” strategy I laid out yesterday.

As good as it gets….

Just watched “Atonement.”  Watch  the trailer  here.  Outstanding movie!

Afghanistan: The Third Way

A wise reader asks:

Where does some one articulate the “third” strategy in Afghanistan in any detail? I know the two strategies of COIN and Withdrawal have lots of problems, but I want to hear more about the alternative. Can the US establish some sort of deterrence by being able to escalate and deescalate the conflict in Afghanistan based on Taliban behavior?For example, Israelis claim to have established deterrence for Hezballah by attacking and withdrawing. Are they right or is it just propaganda? If they are right, can the same sort of national security policy be applied to Afghanistan?

I’ve long been arguing that the_answer_is_Yes.  Remember, the sole reason the US got involved in Afghanistan was  because it was attacked by terrorists on 9/11.  Thus, the Central challenge is and has always been ”how to deal with and neutralize that terrorism threat?”  

The question then becomes “where is this terrorism threat coming from?”   Certainly not from the Taliban, which is not a natural enemy of the US, and had nothing to do with 9/11.  Mullah Omar even ordered Bin Laden not to plan attacks against the US  but_was_ignored.   Moreover, I’m not aware of a single member of the Taliban who has ever participated in terrorist attacks against the US; they are unsophisticated and often illiterate rural hicks, they don’t have passports and couldn’t get past Kabul Airport, in contrast to al-Qaeda which consists of worldly and sophisticated Arabs.  The Taliban are Accidental_Guerrillas – they fight the US because the US is there.

My point is, it is  extremely far from clear that the US has to nation-build in Afghanistan or destroy the Taliban ( which is the current strategy) to achieve the original goal:  defeat the al-Qaeda terrorist threat against the US.

So here’s the Third Way: start negotiations with the Taliban; essentially agree to cede control of Afghanistan to the Taliban (which they very well might ultimately achieve anyway) in return for a firm commitment that they will do everything in their power to ensure that their territory isn’t used to plan terrorist  attacks against the US.*   Make clear to them that if they don’t, then they  will get visit after visit from Hellfire missile after Hellfire missile.  I think they’d take that deal.

After all, by  threatening_to_go  Ape****_on_South_Lebanon, Israel has been able to deter Hezbollah.  Why is this approach any less valid in Afghanistan?

______________________________________________________________________

* It’s also far from clear that al-Qaeda even needed Afghanistan to plan 9/11.  People keep saying that the attacks were “planned” in Afghanistan, but the fact is that the 19 hijackers received their training  in America.  They also conducted much of the planning in Europe.

Excellent Journalism

This is an outstanding Arabic language article on the recently killed Pakistani Taliban leader Beitullah Mahsud.  

The author (as far as I know) rarely writes on Afghanistan and lives in Egypt, yet still puts together a top notch piece.  He did something shocking that I rarely see in English-language coverage of Af-Pak: he actually picked up the phone and called Afghanis and Pakistanis.   As a result I get a good sense of “what made this guy a good leader,”  “what was driving him to take up arms,” “why his particular skill-set enabled him to make an impact on the local scene,”  ”where him and his movement stood in the local context,” and “what his death means strategically to the ongoing US campaign.” 

Good leadership is critical to any type of organization, especially in a military/ political context.  And  by all accounts Mahsood was a very good leader; there is no doubt that this is a major coup for the US, at least in the tactical short-term.

Has anything changed?

[Go  to Part Two if you already follow COIN/ Strategy debates in Afghanistan]

Part One:
Some readers may not be aware of this, but  the US is now fighting  ”Population Centric Warfare” in Afghanistan,  not the “Enemy Centric Warfare” that people normally associate with military operations. The difference between the two is the difference between “killing people and breaking S***” on one hand, and “winning hearts and minds” on the other.

In previous conventional wars against nation-states, such as Iraq in 1991 or World War Two, the US won by obliterating the enemy’s forces.  Killing as many people and breaking as much S*** as possible was the way to win those wars.

 Afghanistan, however,  is a whole different ballgame.  The military’s  focus is not on the enemy, the Taliban, but on the population, the Afghani people.  The US wins if it can get the Afghani people to accept the legitimacy of the pro-American Karzai government; it loses if the Afghanis choose the Taliban.   In other words, it’s a war of competing narratives.

Here’s what worries me: this kind of war doesn’t require the ability to kill and break S*** as much as it requires the ability to understand and influence local Afghanis.  But we all know that if the US is among the world’s best in the first category,  it’s also one of  its worst when it comes to the latter category.

Part Two:
I’ve long been wondering here at MediaShack  how America can expect to compete with the Taliban in a battle for control of influence over the Afghani population if its so ill-suited to communicate with and understand them.   How does the US out-narrative the Taliban if we have no local expertise?  No officers who are fluent in the local language?  How well can one understand the population they are trying to influence if they have to rely on   translators_that_lie?  Isn’t this a serious disadvantage? 

Yet, after  recently reading an outstanding book,  Bright_Shining_Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam,   I’m not exactly more optimistic about America’s  salesmanship skills in Afghanistan.  

Many inside the US COIN community praise John_Paul_Vann for being one of the few Americans that “got it” in Vietnam.   While much of the US Army was re-fighting  World War Two,  Vann is celebrated as  one of the few that understood how to fight Counter-Insurgency or Population Centric Warfare;  “if only the US had followed his lead earlier and shifted from Enemy Centric to Pop-Centric warfare,” the narrative usually goes, “America would have won in Vietnam.”

Maybe.  But as Sheehan demonstrates  in the book,  just about everything Vann believed about the Vietnamese population he was trying to influence was based on racist,  arrogant and baseless assumptions.  I sure hope that similar assumptions aren’t being made today in Afghanistan:

” Vann also knew nothing of the Vietnamese and their culture and history.  He did not consider his ignorance any more of an impediment to effective action than his lack of knowledge of counter-guerrilla warfare.  He was convinced from his experience as a junior officer in Korea and Japan that Asians were not inscrutable Orientials. He had read the Ugly American and liked it… Vann was sure that he would be able to see what motivated the Vietnamese officers with whom he would be working and persuade them to do what was in their best interest and in the interest of the United States…. 

The fact that the French had been defeated in Indochine was irrelevant to him.  Americans were not colonialists as the French had been, and the French were, in any case, a decadent people whose time had passed.  Their army had never recovered from the humiliation of being beaten by the Germans in World War II.  Vann had seen the US Army lose battles in Korea but never a war.  History had not shown Americans to be fallible as other peoples were.  Americans were different.  History did not apply to them.”  42-43

This conclusion was based on a conviction he shared with virtually all Americans in Vietnam in this early period– a conviction that the Vietnamese peasants were especially apolitical.  The fact that the majority of the peasants in the division zone appeared to be either sympathetic to the Viet Cong or neutral did not mean they were expressing a political value judgement, according to the American thinking: the peasantry lacked the political sophistication to make such a judgement.  Except for a minority who had specific grievances against local officials of the regime, the peasants were simply responding to whichever side was stronger where they lived. 

Vann held this conviction with more than ordinary firmness because he had observed on intelligence gathering missions with his Ranger Company in Korea that the Korean peasants he questioned seemed to have no political values.  They had appeared just to respond to the side that was dominant at the moment.  What all Asian peasants wanted most, he was certain, was peace and security in which to till their land.  They did not care whether those who established the law and order were Communists or capitalists. 
 
When the farmers saw the regular and provincial guerrilla battalions and companies being destroyed one after another, they would realize that the Communists were not going to win.  Provided the Saigon side also stopped abusing them the peasants would begin to lean towards the regime.  Intelligence would improve because more and more peasants would be willing to talk. It would become easier to target and decimate the rest of the Viet Cong’s main striking force.”  p. 68

 

When the Tactical Trumps the Strategic: Bad Stuff Happens

Watched  Kingdom_of_Heaven recently.  It really got me thinking about that all critical division between the tactical and the strategic domains, and how  keeping the former  subordinate to the latter has been a challenge for just about every nation  that’s ever existed.

What do we mean by these two terms?  For me,  the strategic is simply the  ”Big Picture End-Goal” or more simply “The Ends.”   For the Crusaders in the movie this meant keeping Jerusalem under Christian control;  for America in the 20th century it was  ”win World War Two” or “maintain a strong global alliance against the Soviet Union.” 

The Tactical domain relates to how you achieve the Strategic goals.  What are the means to achieve the big picture ends?   There are many, they could include strategic communications, public diplomacy, and without question, it sometimes means the use of military force.

Since time immemorial, as Kingdom of Heaven clearly demonstrates, tactical fanatics, with their confusion of the means for the ends,  have threatened their country’s Big-Picture Strategic goals and ends.    Reynaud_de_Chattillion  was a perfect example of this.  (In the film and in real life he was the Christian noble and war-monger  who attacked Muslim caravans, violating  a truce between Saladin and the Christian king; he’s the one that Saladin executed after the battle of Hatten).

For the Crusaders, “The Big Picture” was quite simple: maintain Christian control over Jerusalem and enough of the other key cities to make this feasible.  Wise Christian leaders understood that the best way to do this was not through constant fighting, but through keeping the Muslim forces divided amongst themselves, and not giving them reasons to unite against the Christians.  After all, they knew they were were vastly outnumbered and hundreds of miles from their natural logistical base (Europe).  

Don’t get me wrong, these guys had spent their whole lives training as Knights, they knew how to fight when necessary, but the strategic goals mandated that any application of force be as a  means leading to the specific strategic goal.  Not an end in itself.

Reynaud  confused the two domains.  For him, fighting the (group he considered to be) infidels was both the means and the ends.  And by confusing the two,  he gave the Muslim armies the impetus they needed to unite and deal a decisive blow to the Christian forces, making their strategic goal of maintaining control over Jerusalem untenable.

 But as I said before, the challenge of keeping the tactical subordinate to the strategic has been an issue in all countries, since the beginning of time.  It was definitely an issue for the US  during the Cold War.   Fortunately for the US, however, in the one time when tactical fanaticism threatened to ruin the strategic  Big Picture, the Korean War, the damage caused by Douglas_MacArthur,  the 20th century version of Reynaud de Chattlion, was mitigated by the presence of outstanding Big Picture Strategic Visionaries, such as George Marshall,  Omar Bradley,and  Mathew Ridgeway.

To see why, we have to take a look at the global political atmosphere in the period before the war broke out.  Remember, in the early Cold War period the US was trying to forge a global alliance against the Soviet Union.  The problem, however,  was that potential allies around the world were skeptical that the US was serious about its commitment to their defense.   When push came to shove,  they wondered, would Washington really risk the lives of American boys to defend countries thousands of miles away, that had never before been defended by the US?   America could talk the talk,  but there was much skepticism that it would actually walk the walk military.  Would it chicken out? 

It’s also worth pointing out, that during this period, there was still widespread enthusiasm for Communism around the world.  So if the US wasn’t firm about its defense commitment, people would simply turn to the Soviets to do the same thing, and in 1950,  unlike 1970 or 1980, there was still alot of people who saw that as a good thing. 

So when North Korea suddenly invaded the South in late 1950, all eyes were on the US.  How would it react? 

America walked the walk.  Because Washington recognized that in order to achieve the larger goal of forming a strong anti-Soviet alliance, it had to make a commitment to the tactical use of military force in Korea.  Thus, the US  immediately and decisively  responded by sending troops into South Korea to repel the invasion.  The means justified the ends.  After all, if you want people in France, Italy and Japan to have confidence in you as an ally against the Soviets, you gotta show them that not only can you talk the talk, but also walk the walk.

But only to a certain extent.  And after that extent  General MacArthur’s tactical fanaticism started to seriously jeopardize Big Picture US strategic interests.  For  Big Picturists  such as George Marshall and Omar Bradley, a limited Commy Ass-kicking in South Korea was the tactic necessary to demonstrate  America’s resolve to potentially unconvinced allies around the world.   The means justified the ends.  For MacArthur, however, killing Commies everywhere, was both the means  and the ends.   

 Instead of just stopping the invasion and kicking the North Koreans out of the South, MacArthur sent US forces deep into North Korea, all the way up to the Chinese border, provoking a Chinese intervention which seriously threatened a wider war with them and with the Soviets, especially when he started  talking very loudly about nuking China.   Kicking the North out of the South was clearly in US strategic interests;  starting a wider war with the Soviets definitely was not.   

Fortunately for the US, what could have been never happened.  General Omar Bradley’s statement before Congress that MacArthur would involve the US in  ”the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy” gave President Truman the political cover he needed to fire  MacArthur before he could cause serious damage to Big Picture Strategic Interests.

So what’s the moral of the story?  When the means get confused for the ends, when tactical considerations trump strategic considerations, bad things can happen.  In any country, in any part of the world, at any time.

The Pattern Continues II

Two weeks ago  I noted that we need to start considering Salafi cleric  Abu Mohamed Al- Maqdasi of Jordan  part of the region_wide_trend of Islamist extremists trying to develop new ways to deal with society that don’t include violence.   Now we have to officially add the Libyan Armed Fighting Group to this list.  From Asharq_Al_Awsat:

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Talks began around two years between the Libyan state and the imprisoned leaders of the Islamic fighting group. This has resulted in the release of over 100 members of the group incarcerated in Busalim Jail after denouncing the group’s ideology and from taking up arms against the regime. A final round of the dialogue was reportedly held recently between the group and the state, under the auspices of the Al- Gaddafi Development Foundation which is headed by Saif-al-Islam, the son of the Libyan leader.

Most importantly concerning this dialogue round, it has been announced that revisions of the ideology and convictions of the fighting group will soon be made public. These revisions are similarto those made by the Islamic groups in Egypt, namely the Islamic Group and the Jihad Group: The Islamic Group’s initiative to halt violence in 1997, and the document on rationalization of Jihadist action by Sheikh Sayyid Imam in 2007.

 Asharq Al-Awsat received a statement from Al-Maqrizi Centre, which is run by the Egyptian Islamic figure Hani al-Siba’i, saying that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is about to appear on a satellite television channel to announce its revisions, which are similar to those made by Dr Sayyid Imam in Egypt. The fundamentalists’ statement quotes Islamists held in Busalim Jail in Tripoli as saying that a meeting is due to be held on 1 August between the group and the government to discuss ways of announcing the revisions on a satellite television channel…….

Iraqi Withdrawal: Sooner vs Later

The NY_Times_asks six high-profile Military Experts for their opinion on recent calls for  accelerated_withdrawal from Iraq.   I find noteworthy that five of the six, employing Military/ National Security Theory and Logic, argue that withdrawal should proceed slower rather than faster, basically rejecting the “Time to Go Home” memo.

Fair enough.  But I really wish that the Times had employed a more balanced approach to this question.  I wish the paper hadn’t strictly polled Military Functionalists and asked a few Iraq experts what they thought.   Contrary to common belief, both have equally valid insights about whether the situation is ripe for withdrawal or not.   Functionalists assume that the US is the prime player in Iraq, the driver of events, and controls its destiny.  They  employ an American-centric mindset but they are less suited to gauge the greater Iraqi context — they can tell you with authority everything about the US military and what it is doing and thinking, but much less about  the Iraqi arena, and what the implications of withdrawal would be on it.  

Military functionalists are masters of the military function but they are not masters of the Iraqi arena.  On the other hand, Iraq experts have a better understanding of the broader Iraqi arena that the US in operating in.  So on questions of when to withdraw, in my opinion, there should be a 50-50 balance between Functionalists and National Security-minded Iraq experts, not a 6-0 ratio in favor of the former. I suspect that if the Times had included a few Iraq experts in their poll, the argument over when to withdraw would be more balanced.

UPDATED

What a coincidence!  Just as I’m writing this post about the total lack of balance between National Security Functionalists and Regional Experts, Adrian sends me this  article from Attackerman noting that every single person on the team that just traveled to Afghanistan to conduct the 60 Day Strategy Review is a COIN Functionalist.  Not a single Afghanistan expert!   Click the link to see the list but I’ll close by highlighting Ackerman’s last paragraph:

Update: A friend of mine advises me to be more explicit about this. Notice how very very few of these experts are primarily Afghanistan experts. I’m not familiar with everyone on this list, particularly the Europeans, but this is a group of security experts, many of them quite excellent ones. No one here, to the best of my knowledge, primarily studies Afghanistan. If counterinsurgency holds local knowledge as a core principle, it’s worth asking why that perspective is underrepresented on the review.

I’ve said it before, now I’ll say it again: there’s the function (COIN),  and then there’s the arena one is trying to apply it in.  One can read Gallula and Trinquier until they are blue in the face, that tells them nothing about the arena they are trying to apply the function.  Without a mastery of the operating arena (which the US does not have), can  Functionalists be more than glorified  tourists?

Unputdownable Status

 This doesn’t have anything to do with the Middle East, but readers looking for good stuff to read  should check out  A_Tree_Grows_In_Brooklyn.  Simply put, this is one of the best novels I have ever read ( not coincidentally it’s considered one of the best in American history).  It’s the extremely inspiring story of a poor family growing up in New York City in the early 20th century.  I started reading a few nights ago around 11:30 PM and couldn’t bring myself to put it down until I looked out my window and saw the sun coming up and realized I needed to force myself to get some sleep or otherwise be non-functional for the entire day.  My sleep schedule is still messed up because of it but that’s ok because it’s that kind of book.  Anyone who likes the Cairo_Trilogy will equally enjoy A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Both are literary masterpieces but also first-rate historical fiction.

“Time to Go Home”

From The_New_York_Times: 

WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum asserts that the Iraqi forces have an array of problems, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure from Shiite political parties.

For all of these problems, however, Colonel Reese argues that Iraqi forces are competent enough to hold off Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and other internal threats to the Iraqi government. Extending the American military presence in Iraq beyond 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling a growing resentment.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Sounds like this guy sees the writing on the wall.  I’ve got a hunch that the debate over when to withdraw from Iraq is on the verge of getting decisively settled, in favor of sooner rather than later.

The Book Must Not Be Dismissed

CNN reports_on_the_Taliban’s_new_book that I’ve been talking_about the last couple of days.  I’m really struck by these dismissive comments from a US Military spokesperson:

Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, U.S. military spokeswoman in Kabul, said it was notable that the document is intended to be “prescriptive on how the bad guys are supposed to conduct themselves.”

“Their day to day actions contradict everything in it,” Sidenstricker said. “The long and the short of it is, they don’t operate in accordance to their code of conduct.”

She said more than 60 percent of civilians killed have been killed by the Taliban, and since January, more than 450 innocent Afghans have been killed and more than 1,000 others have been injured.

Also, half the casualties resulting from roadside bombs were civilians.  “The booklet also says suicide attacks should always be done against high-ranking officials. In reality, they have killed more then 200 Afghan civilians,” she said.

Maybe this is what the Military  spokesperson is expected to say but I sure hope analysts are taking it more seriously.  Peter Bergen clearly understands its significance:

CNN’s National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said the militants “clearly” are aware of the need to win “hearts and minds” and are trying to rectify the “mistakes” of al Qaeda in Iraq.

“They have their own counter-insurgency strategy in winning hearts and minds,” Bergen said. “This is a corrective, absolutely.”

He said “there’s a window for both sides to make some progress” and the Taliban want to exploit the moment.

“The Taliban believe they are either winning or not losing. If you are an insurgent not losing is important,” he said.

Taliban Making a Power Play Inside Afghan Government

Remember,  US strategy in Afghanistan is to convince the Afghani people that they should side with the pro-US government and not the Taliban.  It’s an old-school competition for hearts and minds — kind of like a high-school student council election.  US wins if the Afghanis choose the pro-US Central government, and looses if they choose the Taliban.   

On this note,  I mentioned yesterday the  Taliban’s new strategy to improve their reputation in the eyes of the all-important  Afghan people.   The 7/27_episode  of “What’s Behind the News” brought up an important point: this strategy includes a renewed effort to penetrate the Afghani government and convince its employees that it isn’t too late to switch sides.  Whereas before it was “we’ll chop your head off if we catch you” now its “leave your posts and we won’t harm you.” 

علي الظفيري: نعم، دكتور الشوبكي هناك حديث الآن من الطرف الآخر من الجانب الأميركي، الناتو، الأفغاني عن إطلاق عملية تفاوض مع حركة طالبان، هذه الوثيقة وإصدارها هل يمكن أن نوجد ربطا ما بين هاتين المسألتين بين هذين الأمرين أم أنهما مفصولان تماما؟

عمرو الشوبكي: أعتقد أن هناك رابطا وكما نعلم أنه تردد منذ فترة قريبة أن الولايات المتحدة قدمت رسالة بأنها على استعداد أن تعطي الأمان للملا عمر في حال إذا سلم نفسه، لكن في الحقيقة نحن أمام رسالة أخرى الآن أننا نجد لأول مرة تنظيما مسلحا يرسل رسالة معاكسة للسلطة القائمة وللعاملين معها بأنهم في حال إذا تخلوا عنها فهم سيحصلون على الأمان، وبالتالي هذه الرسالة في الحقيقة هي معكوس ما نشاهده دائما على الساحة، بلدان عربية وإسلامية والتي فيها نزاع بين عناصر مسلحة وسلطات قائمة أن الدعوة عادة ما تكون للعناصر المسلحة لكي تحصل على الأمان في حال إذا تخلت عن السلاح، هنا هذه الدعوة للعناصر المرتبطة بالسلطة بأنها ستحصل على الأمان في حال إذا تركت هذه السلطة، تعكس ثقة في حركة طالبان في نفسها وتعني أيضا أنها تستعد لمرحلة أخرى تحاول فيها أن تحدث اختراقات داخل السلطة الأفغانية القائمة بحيث أنها تسعى إلى التحاور مع بعض العناصر، محاولة ضم وتحييد عناصر أخرى وبالتالي هي بامتياز هي لائحة لمرحلة تفاوض لن تكون بعيدة في الحقيقة قد تكون أقرب مما نتصور بين الناتو وبين حركة طالبان إلا أن كل الرسائل التي جاءت في هذه اللائحة تصب في هذا الاتجاه

Basically, the interviewer  asks “there’s been talk from NATO circles of starting negotiations with the Taliban.  Is there a connection between the publication of this document and this NATO desire for negotiations or are they two separate matters?

Amr Shoubaki, an Egyptian expert on Islamist groups, responds by saying (basically): 

” Yes, I think there is a connection.  Note how previously the US has sent the message to Mullah Omar that it will give him security if he turns himself in.  But now we have something different. Usually in the region, it’s the  standing government that tells the insurgents that they will be given security if they put down their weapons.  But now, for the first time,  it’s the  armed rebel group telling the standing Government and its employees that if they leave their posts, the rebels will give them security.   This is a reflection of the Taliban’s self-confidence and  [ by saying they won't be harmed if they leave their posts] also an indication that they are trying to penetrate/ win over elements/ form new relationships inside the Afghan government (to negotiate with them.)  It also indicates that the period of negotiations between NATA and the Taliban is closer than we might think.”

Commentary
Just because the US has  got people on it’s side now — doesn’t mean they won’t switch back.  The Taliban clearly is trying to convince people that they should.