Seeking Accomplishments Abroad

JINSA New York Cabinet Members and Long Island Cabinet Members heard a remarkable presentation from a retired four-star Marine general this week. Rather than just providing an update from the field – Iraq and Afghanistan, with a look at Iran and Israel – Gen. Robert Magnus, USMC (ret.) asked our favorite question, with a twist.

JINSA New York Cabinet Members and Long Island Cabinet Members heard a remarkable presentation from a retired four-star Marine general this week. Rather than just providing an update from the field – Iraq and Afghanistan, with a look at Iran and Israel – Gen. Robert Magnus, USMC (ret.) asked our favorite question, with a twist.

First the question: “What is it the United States wants to accomplish in and with those countries?” Not, “What should we do there?” Not, “When or how should we get out?” And never, “Should we have undertaken the mission in the first place?” But, “What is our goal?” The twist is his understanding that whatever our goal, the United States cannot go beyond two important barriers – their goals and their capabilities. “They have to do it, they have to want it, and they have to be capable of creating and holding it,” he said.

To operate otherwise is an arrogant overstretch, which, coupled with the American propensity to believe in and promote quick solutions to long-standing problems, seems like a pretty good summary of where we are in each case.

For Iraq, the general was fairly confident that Sunnis and Shiites would be able to build something that worked for them – although the role of the Kurds in national life remains difficult. They appear to have surmounted enormous difficulties to reach this point – some of which the United States created. What were we thinking, Gen. Magnus asked, when we disbanded Saddam’s army and sent 400,000 armed adult men “home” without jobs, without the means to support their families, and without their former status? Each abandoned soldier became fodder for religious and ethnic militias and terrorist groups.

Because we stuck with it, and because the move toward democratic forms met with the needs and capabilities of the local people, Iraq may have a better future than past. But what relationship will it have with the United States? The Obama administration appears to want to close the door on our relationship with the Iraqi government. Paradoxically, we are willing to interfere mightily in Israeli government policy – down to the issuance of building permits for various neighborhoods – we are unwilling to help the Iraqis overcome their coalition building difficulties, even though creating a government after a democratic election is probably the most important building block to consensual governance.

Whatever successes emerge in Iraq, it must be remembered that the country has 50 percent literacy (including female literacy), a judicial and prison system (abused by the Saddam government, but functional nonetheless), experience with a parliament and with nationhood (again, in mutant form under Saddam). The potential for oil wealth, the habit of entrepreneurialism, and active contacts around the world work in favor of Iraq’s future. In contrast, Afghanistan has 11 percent literacy, few or no national habits of governance or nationhood, and tribal borders that are disconnected from national borders.

If Iraq is Fred Astaire, trying to dance lightly through the impossible and stay on his feet, Afghanistan is Ginger Rogers, doing it backwards and in high heels.