The Wells Brothers' Wartime Assessment: October 2005

by David R. Wells and Lawrence H. Wells
29 Oct 2005


0: Table of Contents

1: 9/11 Plus 4 Years
2: The War in Iraq
3: Other national security problems
4: Links

1: 9/11 Plus 4 Years

It has now been over four years since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. We started writing these messages immediately afterward. This is a good time to review the war on terror.

1.1: War on Terror: Progress (?) Report

The results for the US are a mixed bag. There have been successes and failures.

1.1.1: Successes in the War on Terror

1.1.2: Failures in the War on Terror

1.2: Have We Misidentified the Problem?

Back in 2002, we wrote: "In general, happy prosperous people in democratic nations don't become terrorists. When grievances, real or perceived, are not addressed, people sometimes wrongly think that terrorism is the only solution."

The terrorist attacks on London this July refute this assertion somewhat. In those cases, the terrorists were native born British citizens. Even the 9/11 attacks were carried out mostly by middle class Saudi Arabian citizens, not the poor. That is why we had the "grievances, real or perceived" caveat. It may be time for a re-think.

1.2.1: Defining the War on Terror: Insights from the 9/11 Commission

There are still some Americans who do not seem to understand exactly what the war on terror is actually about. Recently we've heard people argue that US behavior in the world causes terrorism, and if the US stopped being a "bully" terrorism would end. We can only assume that these people have not read the 9/11 Commission Report. The 9/11 Commission Report discusses the origins of al Qaeda and its goals:

"The enemy rallies broad support in the Arab and Muslim world by demanding redress of political grievances, but its hostility towards us and our values is limitless. Its purpose is to rid the world of religious and political pluralism, the plebiscite, and equal rights for women." (page xvi)

“Many Americans have wondered, 'Why do they hate us?' Some also ask 'What can we do to stop these attacks?'

"Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions. To the first, they say America has attacked Islam; America is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights with ethnic Muslims in its southern islands. ..."

"Bin Ladin's grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far deeper. To the second question, what America could do [to avoid future attacks], al Qaeda's answer was that the Americans should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture ... If the United States did not comply, it would be at war with the Islamic nation ..." (page 51)

The 9/11 Commission Report notes that Bin Ladin and his followers subscribe to a radical version of Islam that recognizes only two options: Their brand of Islam, or "unbelief". Those who do not accept their version of Islam are literally considered to be in league with Satan, and must be converted or killed.

Bin Ladin and his followers fear that most people, including Muslims, prefer "western" democratic values and material wealth to his version of Islam. Since the U.S. is the leading "western" nation, it is Bin Ladin's primary target.

Those who subscribe to the "U.S. behavior causes terrorism" theory also ignore the fact that even countries opposed to U.S. policies are plagued by radical Islamic terrorism. Following last year's Madrid train bombings Spain replaced its government and withdrew its troops from Iraq. Al Qaeda's response was to attempt an even more extensive bombing campaign, which fortunately was detected by Italian and Spanish police. This was reported in the January 2005 Frontline episode Al Qaeda's New Front

In the Netherlands, a country famous for its tolerant political culture, filmmaker Teddy Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic radical for "insulting Islam." The BBC reported that Van Gogh's killer was completely remorseless during his trial, and even said he would do it again.

1.2.2: Another View: Collapse of Arab Civilization?

Current US policy in the War on Terror is largely based on the belief that the underlying cause of radical Islamic terrorism is a crisis within Islam. This view is articulated in the influential books The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis, and The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P. Huntington.

In the September 2005 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings Lieutenant Colonel James G. Lacey proposes an alternate explanation that makes a great deal of sense: The underlying problem is the long-term collapse of Arab civilization, and not a crisis in Islam. Lacey argues that the religion of Islam is not in a state of crisis, noting that Islam is gaining both converts and monetary donations at a rate other religions would envy. He also points out that many of southeast Asia's Muslim countries are doing reasonably well economically, while many Arab nations are declining economically despite their great oil wealth. To make matters worse many Arab countries suppress dissent, leaving Islamic radicalism as the only available form of opposition. Add a rapidly growing and increasingly young population to the mix, and you have an excellent recipe for terrorism.

If we are to solve the problem of radical Islamic terrorism we must correctly identify its root causes. If we've misidentified the problem, we may be applying “solutions” that cannot work.

This article is well worth reading, and we recommend it to everyone. We might not agree with all of his proposed solutions, but he seems to have numerous valid historical points. Col. Lacey repeatedly points out the advantages of having a public debate on these issues, and we agree that these fundamental issues should be discussed.

1.3 Conclusions

  1. The United States has no choice but to continue the global war on terrorism.

  2. Greater military effort is required. This will require more "boots on the ground" in places like Afghanistan.

  3. The United States must make sure that we are fighting the right battle. The terrorists want this to be a war between Islam and the West. We must not play their game.


2: The War in Iraq

2.1: Still Winning the War, Losing the Peace?

We've often said that winning the war was the easy part; the really hard part is winning the peace. Unfortunately this is certainly the case in Iraq. If this sounds like our October 2004 message, it should. We don't think that the situation has changed as much as it should have.

Our ideals on the Iraq operation haven't changed much. We still support constitutional democracy in Iraq. We still don't advocate a military withdrawal from Iraq. Running away at this point would be disastrous.

Since our last message, Iraq has held elections, and has written a constitution. Conceptually, this is good, but it is not working nearly as well as we would like.

Much of the blame for the current sorry state of affairs belongs with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Since joining the Bush Administration he has been the leading advocate of "military transformation". While we applaud efforts to think outside the box, Mr. Rumsfeld's version of "military transformation" seems to be little more than "Do more with less resources." This is a frighteningly Clintonian method of military reform.

It still isn't working very well in Iraq.

2.1.1: Failure of the Neo-Cons

As we've noted before, a large part of the reason the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq is that we simply did not send enough troops to win the peace. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein the fundamental problem in Iraq has been insufficient internal security. This is a problem that can only be solved by having armed soldiers physically controlling the trouble spots. This has been true for thousands of years, and our experience in Iraq shows that it's still true today.

In October 2004, we blamed such people as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Ken Adelman, and Doug Feith for the mess in Iraq. These people and their allies have been collectively called the "Neo-Cons". The Newark Star Ledger columnist John Farmer Sr. dubbed them "Neo-Con Men", which might be more fitting.

We have noticed that they have been leaving the Pentagon lately, for one reason or another. Wolfowitz has been made head of the World Bank. At least he's out of the Pentagon, but we can't help wondering how much he will damage the World Bank. Pearle has been removed from the Defense Policy Board for a separate scandal. (tried to sell out the Pentagon to Red China for $600,000; not only did he not go to jail, he got to keep the money!) Feith resigned as of 8 August 2005. Some sources suggest that it was because of the Larry Franklin/AIPAC Israeli spy scandal.

That said, Wolfowitz, Pearle, and Feith were not in charge; Donald Rumsfeld was in charge at the Pentagon, and he could have ignored there advice. Indeed, one of Rumsfeld's predecessors, a certain Dick Cheney, explicitly overruled Wolfowitz's first planned invasion of Iraq in 1992; Rumsfeld himself overruled Wolfowitz's proposed invasion of Iraq in September 2001.

Ultimately the blame for the problems in Iraq must rest with President George W. Bush. Bush is the Commander in Chief. He could easily have replaced Mr. Rumsfeld and the others with little loss of face at the start of his new term, when personnel changes are commonplace. He didn't. There have even been reports that Rumsfeld offered to resign at least twice. We can only assume he is satisfied with their dubious performance.

2.2: Conclusions

Our conclusions on Iraq have not changed substantially in the last year.

  1. Whether one agreed with the invasion of Iraq or not, we are there now, and we can't afford to fail. We do not need an "exit strategy" for Iraq, we need a plan for victory. We should define "victory" as a stable, democratic Iraq. The United States should encourage a new democratic government in Iraq. The election of a transitional government in January 2005 was a step in the right direction. The constitutional referendum in October 2005 is another good step towards Iraqi self-rule. We are nonetheless obliged to keep US military forces in Iraq until the nation is stabilized, and democracy is established.

  2. The consequences of losing in Iraq would be catastrophic. Al Qaeda routinely points out in its propaganda that the US can be defeated, and cites Viet Nam, Lebanon, and Somalia as examples. We cannot afford to give them a victory in Iraq. If that were not bad enough, consider the implications of allowing terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi to gain control of Iraq's oil wealth.

    The benefits of success in Iraq are potentially large. One of the root causes of radical Islamic terrorism is that few Arabs have any real voice in their governments. Building Iraq into a functioning democracy directly attacks this root cause of terrorism. We would note that US action in Iraq has already encouraged some positive developments in Lebanon and Libya.

    As painful as it might be to continue operations in Iraq, it is our "least bad" option.

  3. The United States should continue to support real, legitimate elections in Iraq. In December, the Iraqi people will elect their own permanent government. We hope that this new government will deliver better performance than the various interim governments. The Iraqis have more or less defined their own democratic process with their new Constitution. We should give them the opportunity to make it work. We'd like to see elections become a regular habit in Iraq.

  4. While the US is now irrevocably committed to the war in Iraq, we always questioned whether Iraq represented an imminent threat. Al Qaeda has demonstrated that it is an immediate threat, and we still think that Osama bin Ladin and his followers should be the first priority of our military and intelligence efforts. While Saddam Hussein unquestionably supported some other terrorist organizations, (typically, the "traditional" secular Palestinian terrorist groups) there is still little evidence of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin's al Qaeda network. It is also now clear that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were not an immediate threat, though they were a long term threat.

  5. Very few "Weapons of Mass Destruction" have been found in Iraq, and those weapons that were there after the 1991 war probably were destroyed in the early 1990s. This demonstrates a huge US intelligence failure, which should be investigated in a non-partisan manner. Congressional Democrats and Republicans (who should have had access to all of the available intelligence data) supported the war, which lead us to believe that the WMDs were real. We should question these politicians about their vote to authorize the war. We should also ask similarly difficult questions to Mr. Bush. We have wondered if it is time for "regime change" in Washington, but we need an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties......


3: Other national security problems

3.1: Iran

In years past, we had expressed cautious optimism about Iran's future. Iran actually had more democratic institutions than most states in the region, and Iranian voters had regularly elected moderate, reform-minded politicians.

Last year, we reported that Iran had taken several large steps backwards.

In 2005, things have gotten still worse.

In 2005, Iran had an "election" for a new president. It was effectively rigged by the unelected, hard-line Council of Guardians. The Council removed all of the true reformers from the ballot, leaving only the discredited former president Rafsanjani (who was not really a reformer anyway) to run against their preferred candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As one might have expected, the Council's preferred candidate won.

We predict only bad things from the new Iranian president. We already see some evidence of this.

An Iranian nuclear weapons program presents problems similar to the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Iran's hard-line rulers already support some terrorist organizations, so there would be a risk of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists. Iranian hard-liners might under some circumstances even be tempted to use a nuclear weapon themselves. There is also the frightening prospect that deterrence may not work against Iran's hard line rulers. For example an Iranian attempt to destroy Israel would be suicidal, since Israel almost certainly already has the capacity to deliver a devastating retaliatory strike; but Iran's president recently called for the destruction of Israel anyway.

On the surface Iran's nuclear weapons program and support for Iraqi insurgents appear to be contrary to Iran's own national interest. The weapons program may yet lead to Iran's economic isolation, and would be of little military value in a confrontation with either Israel or the west. Iraq's Sunni insurgents are in general extremely hostile to Iran's Shi'ia government, and have killed many Iraqi Shi'ia. In the October 2005 issue of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings respected defense analyst Norman Friedman suggests that Iran's apparently counterproductive behavior has more to do with keeping Iran's increasingly unpopular rulers in power than with furthering the interests of Iran's people. The rise of a truly democratic Iraq, for example, might lead the Iranian people to demand real democratic reforms.

3.1.1 No Good Military Options

As in North Korea the US has no good military options, though for somewhat different reasons. Attacking the uranium production facilities risks causing widespread radioactive contamination. Any attack would likely enrage the Iranian public at large - people who for the most part would otherwise favor better relations with the United States.

We must also note that given the recent US intelligence problems any preemptive strike against Iran is highly questionable. Iran has gone to great lengths to hide its nuclear facilities, and a preemptive strike would require accurate intelligence. Further, the US military is still bogged down in Iraq, and there are few forces to spare for any putative operations against Iran. We do not advocate any military strike against Iran at this point.

3.1.2 Few Good Diplomatic Options

Hopes for diplomacy in Iran have diminished. While the United Nations has shown some uncharacteristic firmness in its diplomatic efforts to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program, they have been largely unsuccessful. The IAEA has still not referred the matter to the Security Council, and its warnings to Iran have been watered down under pressure from Russia and China. Unfortunately, even if the matter is referred to the UN Security Council, we can expect Russia and China to veto any meaningful resolution. Russia has been assisting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for much needed hard cash, and China is increasingly dependent on Iran's oil. Iran is also a major customer of China's arms industry.

We had been willing to give the European and UN efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program a chance to work, but these efforts seem to be approaching a dead end. We can only hope that the international community will develop a backbone, and start diplomatically and economically isolating Iran. We have little expectation that this will happen. Even if it does happen, if Iran's leaders are concerned only with maintaining their power they may not care about the consequences for their own people. Economic sanctions against Iran may be as ineffective as they were against Saddam Hussein.

3.1.3 A New Cold War?

It is more realistic to expect a sort of "cold war" with Iran. We have an enemy who will not negotiate with us. The failure of the most recent round of negotiations with the UK, France and Germany should demonstrate to them what the US learned the hard way on November 4, 1979: we cannot deal with Iran diplomatically. We cannot negotiate our way to a mutual understanding. We have no viable military option. There is the potential for a nuclear standoff. There are good historical parallels to the Cold War with the Soviet Union (1946-1991). The United States and her allies should use cold war style economic and diplomatic efforts against Iran. This will not be easy. We should not expect quick results. The original Cold War took 45 years to win.

3.2: North Korea

The North Korean problem continues to fester. As we've said previously all our options are bad. Once again, if this sounds familiar to you, it should. The situation has not changed as much as we would like.

The least bad option is still to continue with the current multilateral negotiations, even though progress has been agonizingly slow. The process has produced some minimal results, and still continues.

The multilateral negotiations have produced an "agreement in principle" that North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons. On the one hand, this promise is better than nothing. On the other hand, a promise from an unstable dictator like Kim Jong Il is of questionable value. In characteristic fashion, after the last round of negotiations were completed, Kim Jong Il added a new condition: that the other powers supply him with light water reactors for power generation.

Since there are few, if any, other options available to us (we have noted in the past that military options are especially impractical) we continue to advocate negotiations. We continue to have low expectations.

3.3: The Use of Torture and other "Extreme" Forms of Interrogation

On reviewing our previous messages, it occurs to us that we never condemned the abuse of prisoners by US forces. To an extent, this oversight on our part was caused by timing. Our last two messages were in April of 2004, just before the story hit the mainstream media, and in October 2004, when we were primarily concerned with the US elections. (Note: the Abu Ghraib story was announced by the US military in January 2004, several months before Seymour Hersch's notorious article in The New Yorker. The military started the investigation long before the media did! Maybe the mainstream media don't believe anything until it's printed in The New Yorker.....)

This should be so obvious that we shouldn't need to say it. Unfortunately, instances of prisoner abuse have forced us to speak out on the issue.

We condemn the use of torture in all cases. In addition to being immoral and illegal (explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, to which the US is a party), it is ineffective. Prisoners being tortured will say almost anything, true or false, to get the torture to stop.

If the United States wishes to be seen by the world as the “Good Guys", we must behave accordingly. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners has significantly hurt the US cause in Iraq, by making us appear to be the villains. The terrorists have used our abuse of prisoners as a recruiting tool.

While the terrorists have certainly given their prisoners even worse treatment, we have to be much better than they are. We're supposed to be the "good guys", and our treatment of prisoners must be clearly better than theirs.

We support the efforts of numerous US senators, notably Senators McCain (who was tortured by the North Vietnamese during his captivity in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton"), Warner, and Graham, to explicitly forbid the US military from using torture. These senators and others added amendment 1977 to the The Department of Defense Appropriations bill. Their modest proposal, to require that prisoners be treated in accordance with the US Army's existing Field Manual, which already explicitly forbids torture, should not be controversial. The US Senate passed this amendment overwhelmingly. We call upon the House of Representatives to do likewise. We are dismayed that it has become necessary for them to take this action.


4: Links:


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