Obama and the legacy of the “dark side”
Conflicts Forum, 13 November 2015
“We also have to work – though sort of on the dark side – if you will”
Dick Cheney
When, in early August, the Pentagon’s former highest ranking intelligence official, Lt General Michael Flynn, said that it had been a “wilful decision” by the “West” to back the establishment of “a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria” in order to bring pressure on the Syrian government, and then went on to confirm that the recently declassified 2012 US Defence Intelligence Agency report on the rise of ISIS in Syria, had explicitly warned of the possibility of “an Islamic State” being declared “through a union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria”, there was almost silence in the mainstream media. No one wanted to touch the ‘live wire’ of possible US collusion with Caliphate forces.
But it was clear enough what the American General was saying: the jihadification of the Syrian conflict had been a ‘wilful’ policy decision, and that since Al-Qaida and the ISIS embryo were the only movements capable of establishing such a Caliphate across Syria and Iraq, then it plainly followed that the US Administration, and its allies, tacitly accepted this outcome, in the interests of weakening, or of overthrowing, the Syrian state.
Many in the West found General Fynn’s comments hard to believe – in spite of his direct knowledge of events. How could this be? It must have seemed so counter-intuitive to most viewers or readers. And it is something which touches on a still suppurating wound to the western psyche: 9/11. But now, with Russia and Iran’s military intervention, the Syria mess in which the West finds itself is only too evident: Russia is providing air cover to the Syrian army, intent on severing the insurgent supply lines from Turkey, on the one hand, and to cutting the Mosul to Aleppo supply route, on the other – as a precursor to the strategic defeat of ISIS.
But in face of these actions, western leaders are widely seen to be prevaricating, and even seem to wish to impede, and to inflict direct pain, on Russian and others’ attempts to defeat the radical Caliphate forces, by endorsing a wave of TOW missiles and MANPADS reaching Syria from their Gulf suppliers. So where exactly does the West stand?
The forces which the 4+1 Alliance has to defeat sometimes are not ISIS, but An-Nusrah and Arhrar al-Sham — jihadist, Caliphate forces, in short, who have absolutely no interest in any political settlement other than their own victory. Yet western leaders shout ‘foul’, and imply that these are somehow ‘our boys’ and should not be attacked. The ‘mess’ that the West is in is apparent to all across the region: the US and its allies are both ostensibly ‘at war’ with head-chopping, radical Sunni forces, and ‘in bed’ with them, at the same time. How could this have happened? How can this mess be resolved?
The roots to US ambivalence towards fired-up radical Sunni Islam (as we have previously noted – see here) lie primarily with the group of American neo-conservatives who formed an influential ‘Cold-Warrior’ nexus around Vice-President Dick Cheney, and who were obsessed with rolling-back Soviet influence in the Middle East, and in overturning the Arab socialist-nationalist states who were viewed both as Soviet clients, and as threats to Israel.
David Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East adviser, stressed (in 1996) that “limiting and expediting the chaotic collapse” of Ba’athism must be America’s foremost priority in the region. Secular-Arab nationalism should be given no quarter, not even, he added, for the sake of stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism. In setting the destruction of secular nationalism as its overwhelming priority, America by default found itself compelled to be allied with the Gulf Kings and Emirs who traditionally have resorted to Sunni jihadism as the inoculation against democracy.
But America (and Britain’s) use of radical Sunni jihadist movements for their ‘greater geo-political ends’ was already well-embedded long before 1996. When asked whether he regretted the CIA giving covert support to jihadists in Afghanistan six months prior to the Soviet military intervention (at Kabul’s request), President Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbig Brzezinski, replied:
“Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul [the Soviets intervened on 24 December 1979]. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid [to radical Islamic forces] was going to induce a Soviet military intervention [in Afghanistan]”.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war, and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war…
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic mujahedeen, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! …
Though the principle of using fired up Sunni jihadism for US geo-political ends was already well-established, the roots to today’s American Syria imbroglio lie more with the events of 2006 and 2007: the 2003 war in Iraq had not brought about the pro-Israeli, pro-American regional block that had been foreseen by the neo-cons, but rather, it had stimulated a powerful ‘Shia Crescent’ of resistance stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean — and Gulf leaders had become frightened. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,” a US government consultant said at the time. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it.”
It had been Israel’s failure in its 2006 war to seriously damage Hizbollah, that had been the straw, as it were, that broke the camel’s back — so unnerving Israel and Gulf leaders. And it provoked too, a fierce debate within Washington: “It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Seymour Hersh: “The Saudis and some in the Administration, have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran; and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”
It was also, in a sense, a victory for the closely, Saudi-aligned Sunni leadership of Lebanon, which over the preceding years, had deepened its connection with Sunni extremist groups that espoused a militant vision of Islam (such as Fatah al-Islam), and were hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaida. These covert allies of March 14th were viewed by the Lebanese Sunni élite as the putative foot soldiers – ‘war experienced’ from the Iraq conflict – who could be nurtured, and eventually would rise sufficiently in their capabilities, to take on Hizbullah militarily in Lebanon: they were to be March 14th’s Sunni shock-troops, in other words, who would contain Shia influence, and perhaps even ultimately defeat it.
This Lebanese experience was held up to the US Administration by those such as Jeff Feltman (then US ambassador in Beirut) as the ‘pilot’ strategy for what could be achieved in Syria. March 14th leaders argued that they could safely manage these radical elements: that despite inclining towards an al-Qaida orientation, they stood somehow within the broad Sunni ‘tent’, erected and led by Saad Hariri and Saudi Arabia. The fall of Syria held out the prospect of a wedge being jammed in between Iran and Israel’s nemesis: Hizbullah. It was a prospect that enticed the US Administration: “This time, the U.S. government consultant told me”, wrote Seymour Hersh, “Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at— [they should throw them at] Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians – [should] they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”
Not all Saudis however were so sure: one former Saudi diplomat, speaking to Hersh, accused Hizbullah’s leader, Nasrallah, of attempting “to hijack the state,” but he also objected to the Lebanese and Saudi sponsorship of Sunni jihadists in Lebanon: “Salafis are sick and hateful, and I’m very much against the idea of flirting with them,” he said. “They hate the Shiites, but they hate Americans more. If you try to outsmart them, they will outsmart us. It will be ugly.”
Cheney and his team nevertheless were intrigued by Bandar’s ideas for Syria, but remained cautious: “We need to do everything possible to destabilise the Syrian regime and exploit every single moment they strategically overstep”. In an interview with the Telegraph in 2007, David Wurmser (former adviser to Cheney and John Bolton) confirmed, “that [this] would include the willingness to escalate as far as we need to go to topple the [Syrian] regime if necessary.” He said that “an end to Baathist rule in Damascus could trigger a domino effect that would then bring down the Teheran regime.”
Bandar had boasted of his ability to manage the jihadists: ‘Leave that aspect to me’. Cheney’s then National Security Adviser, John Hannah, later noted the consensus at the time: “Bandar working without reference to US interests is clearly cause for concern. But Bandar working as a partner … against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset.” This point – the entry of Saudi Arabia into a major initiative against Syria – also marked the start of the strategic alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, united in their common hostility to Iran.
In fact, the former Saudi diplomat had been right. Neither Hariri, nor Prince Bandar, were able to control the inflamed Caliphate forces with which they were working. What moderates there were, simply kept migrating politically towards the Al-Qaida and the ISIS Caliphate camp – and CIA supplied weapons migrated too. The Syrian conflict was becoming, in character, increasingly jihadist, just as General Flynn was warning – as early as 2012.
President Obama is clear that, from the outset, he never believed in the notion of ‘moderates’. In 2012, he told Jeffry Goldberg, “When you have a professional army that is well-armed and sponsored by two large states who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict — the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.” (CF emphasis added).
Obama did not believe in the moderates, but was under pressure from the ‘hawks’, including his own envoys, Fred Hof and General Allen, to expedite President Assad’s ouster. But the President was adamantthat “We’re not going to just dive in and get involved with a civil war that in fact involves some elements of people who are genuinely trying to get a better life but also involve some folks who would over the long term do the United States harm.” The answer – as so often – was to move to more covert means in order to mollify the ‘hawks’ by increasing the clandestine operations in support of the opposition – including the jihadists:
President Obama: And it is our estimation that [President Bashar al-Assad’s] days are numbered. It’s a matter not of if, but when. Now, can we accelerate that? We’re working with the world community to try to do that. (…)
Goldberg: Is there anything you could do to move it faster?
President Obama: Well, nothing that I can tell you, because your classified clearance isn’t good enough. (Laughter.)
But plainly, the Administration could see how others – not in “a clean way” – were changing “the equation on the ground”. In 2014, Vice -President Biden was rather more candid:
“The fact of the matter is the ability to identify a moderate middle in Syria was — there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers …
And what my constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies — our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks … the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world …
… and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So what happened? Now all of a sudden – I don’t want to be too facetious – but they had seen the Lord [that is to say, the Gulf States said they would join a coalition against ISIS]. Now we have – the President’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a Muslim nation and be seen as the aggressor – it has to be led by Sunnis to go and attack a Sunni organization.”
Paradoxically, John Hannah – perhaps with the benefit of experience – had this to say about Obama’s Syria policy, referring to Obama’s June 2015 meeting with Gulf leaders at Camp David. Hannah noted that having “stressed his understanding of the threat Iran poses to the region”:
…. [Obama] let loose with this little gem: The Arabs, according to the president of the United States, need to learn from Iran’s example. In fact, they need to take a page out of the playbook of the Qods Force — by which he meant developing their own local proxies capable of going toe-to-toe with Iran’s agents and defeating them. The president seemed to marvel at the fact that from Hezbollah to the Houthis to the Iraqi militias, Iran has such a deep bench of effective proxies willing to advance its interests. Where, he asked, are their equivalent on the Sunni side? Why, he wanted to know in particular, have the Saudis and their partners not been able to cultivate enough Yemenis to carry the burden of the fight against the Houthis? The Arabs, Obama suggested, badly need to develop a toolbox that goes beyond the brute force of direct intervention. Instead, they need to, be subtler, sneakier, more effective — well, just more like Iran”.
To which John Hannah reflected (clearly now with the benefit of experience):
“Think about it. Feeling threatened, desperate, uncertain of U.S. support, and in an existential death match with an intensely sectarian Shiite Iran, who do you think the Wahhabis are most likely to turn to as potential proxies in a pinch? AQAP in Yemen? Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria? The Islamic State in Iraq? Impossible, you say? Maybe. But maybe not. The past isn’t necessarily prologue, but it’s certainly reason to proceed very, very cautiously. The president appears to have a special infatuation with the relatively low cost, under-the-radar utility of black ops, covert action, and paramilitary activities. He also seems eager, even desperate, to ease the burdens of U.S. global leadership by compelling difficult allies to step up and police their own neighborhoods. Combine these impulses together and it all sounds great in theory as a means of countering Iran. But this is the Middle East and the coming jihad vs. jihad sectarian conflagration is only just getting started. So be careful what you wish for.”
Hence the nature of the mess in Syria: Sometimes it is just not possible to ‘square a circle’ by conceding a little to all sides – to domestic ‘hawks’, to the Special Ops industry, to Gulf allies – whilst trying to hold on to the line of no decisive US military intervention. Semantics and ‘horse-trading‘ aside, no matter how frequent the re-branding, Al-Qaida/An-Nusra and their ilk(Ahrar Al-Sham, etc.), cannot be conceived as ‘moderate’ in a peculiarly British “Weybridge” sense, nor in any other sense.
Tom Friedman put it well: “Obama has been right in his ambivalence about getting deeply involved in Syria. But he’s never had the courage of his own ambivalence to spell out his reasoning to the American people. He keeps letting himself get pummeled into doing and saying things that his gut tells him won’t work, so he gets the worst of all worlds: His rhetoric exceeds the policy, and the policy doesn’t work”.
Not surprisingly, then, some in America are (cautiously) beginning to see President Putin’s military initiative as the only way to cut the Gordian knot and release President Obama from his ‘knot’ of ambivalence: Let Russia and its allies defeat ISIS, and let “the farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict” – in Obama’s words – become somehow assimilated into the political process. Now that could become an ‘achievement’.