Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack have a very important piece up at the Washington Post. It analyzes the current situation in Iraq by examining the history of civil war during the 20th-Century. Their conclusions are very sobering. I’ll provide a few snips here, and some of my own analysis.
This is their opening:
The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed, the only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into total Bosnia-like devastation is 135,000 U.S. troops — and even they are merely slowing the fall. The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with instability, turmoil and war.
The consequences of an all-out civil war in Iraq could be dire. Considering the experiences of recent such conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people may die. Refugees and displaced people could number in the millions. And with Iraqi insurgents, militias and organized crime rings wreaking havoc on Iraq’s oil infrastructure, a full-scale civil war could send global oil prices soaring even higher.
Unfortunately, I do not think they are engaging in ‘stay-the-course’ hyperbole here. I agree with their predictions for a post-occupation Iraq. The question then becomes what, if anything, we can do to prevent the worst from happening not only to Iraq but also to the world economy. Their worst case scenario is laid out here:
However, the greatest threat that the United States would face from civil war in Iraq is from the spillover — the burdens, the instability, the copycat secession attempts and even the follow-on wars that could emerge in neighboring countries. Welcome to the new “new Middle East” — a region where civil wars could follow one after another, like so many Cold War dominoes.
And unlike communism, these dominoes may actually fall.
They document many cases where civil war in one country has led to spillover and terrorism in other countries. The IRA began bombing London, the Tamil Tigers assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, Palestinians attacked Israelis in Germany, Argentina and elsewhere, the Afghani muj morphed into the Taliban and harbored al-Qaeda. But what can be done about it?
Some of the risks of civil war in Iraq include massive and destabilizing refugee camps, secessionary movements from Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, and minority Shi’ite populations in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, foreign intervention in Iraq, and disruption of energy supplies.
Much as Americans may want to believe that the United States can just walk away from Iraq should it slide into all-out civil war, the threat of spillover from such a conflict throughout the Middle East means it can’t. Instead, Washington will have to devise strategies to deal with refugees, minimize terrorist attacks emanating from Iraq, dampen the anger in neighboring populations caused by the conflict, prevent secession fever and keep Iraq’s neighbors from intervening. The odds of success are poor, but, nonetheless, we have to try.
The tragedy of the situation is all contained in the above paragraph. But it also contains a kind of roadmap for a progressive solution to the problem. Byman and Pollack lay out their ideas, many of which are quite sensible.
The first priority is to try to dissuade the regional players from intervening. Byman and Pollack suggest that Saudi Arabia and Jordan can be dissuaded from intervention through a reinvigorated peace process in Palestine. They also suggest that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait may be satisfied if we can convince them that we will conitnue to vigorously confront Iran. They suggest that we lay down some red lines for Iran, including an absolute prohibition on inserting uniformed military or annexing Iraqi territory. The punishment could involve sanctions or costly attacks on their infrastructure.
There is also the pesky problem of the Turkish-Kurdish problem. We need to convince the Kurds to put off declaring independence.
Should chaos engulf Iraq, the Kurds will understandably want out, but this risks inspiring secessionists elsewhere in Iraq and throughout the region. In return for the Kurds agreeing to postpone formal secession, Washington should offer them extensive economic aid, assistance with refugees and security assurances (perhaps backed by U.S. troops) — as well as promising support for their eventual independence when Iraq is more stable.
Their most interesting proposals are related to controlling the refugee problem. I will quote them in full.
One of Washington’s hardest tasks would be to prevent the flow of dangerous people across Iraq’s borders in either direction — refugees, militias, foreign invaders and terrorists.
One option might be to create a system of buffer zones and refugee collection points inside Iraq staffed by U.S. and other coalition personnel. These collection points would be located on major roads, preferably near airstrips along Iraq’s border — thus on the principal routes that refugees would take to flee, providing a good logistical infrastructure to house, feed and otherwise care for tens or hundreds of thousands of refugees. Iraqi refugees would be gathered at these points and held there. In addition, coalition military forces would defend the refugee camps against attack, pacify and disarm them, and patrol large swaths of Iraqi territory nearby.
These zones would serve as “catch basins” for Iraqis fleeing the fighting, offering a secure place to stay within the nation’s borders and thus preventing them from destabilizing neighboring countries. At the same time, they would serve as buffers between Iraq and its neighbors, preventing other forms of spillover — such as militia movements, refugee flows out of Iraq and invasions into Iraq.
The catch-basin concept, while potentially useful, faces at least one big problem: Iran. Unlike Iraq’s borders with Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria, the Iranian border is too long and has too many crossing points for it to be policed effectively by smaller numbers of coalition troops. Iran will never allow the United States the access across its territory, let alone logistical support, that would be necessary to make catch-basins along the Iran-Iraq border realistic. Thus, this scheme could make it look as though the United States was turning Iraq over to the Iranians, with the catch-basins effectively preventing intervention by Iraq’s Sunni neighbors while doing nothing to deter Iran. For this reason, the United States’s clear red lines to Iran about not intervening (at least overtly) would have to be enforced assiduously.
If this all seems unmanageable, it’s because it is.
No country in recent history has successfully managed the spillovers from a full-blown civil war; in fact, most attempts have failed miserably. Syria spent at least eight years trying to end the Lebanese civil war before the 1989 Taif accords and the 1991 Persian Gulf War gave it the opportunity to finally do so. Israel’s 1982 invasion was also a bid to end the Lebanese civil war after its previous efforts to contain it had failed, and when this also failed, Jerusalem tried to go back to managing spillover. By 2000, it was clear that this was again ineffective and so Israel pulled out of Lebanon altogether.
Withdrawing from Lebanon was smart for Israel for many reasons, but it did not end its Lebanon problem — as the latest conflict showed all too clearly. In the Balkans, the United States and its NATO allies realized that it was impossible to manage the Bosnian or Kosovar civil wars and so in both cases they employed coercion — including the deployment of massive ground forces — to bring them to an end.
That point is critical: Ending an all-out civil war typically requires overwhelming military power to nail down a political settlement. It took 30,000 British troops to bring the Irish civil war to an end, 45,000 Syrian troops to conclude the Lebanese civil war, 50,000 NATO troops to stop the Bosnian civil war, and 60,000 to do the job in Kosovo. Considering Iraq’s much larger population, it probably would require 450,000 troops to quash an all-out civil war there. Such an effort would require a commitment of enormous military and economic resources, far in excess of what the United States has already put forth.
How Iraq got to this point is now an issue for historians (and perhaps for voters in 2008); what matters today is how to move forward and prepare for the tremendous risks an Iraqi civil war poses for this critical region. The outbreak of a large-scale civil conflict would not relieve us of our responsibilities in Iraq; in fact, it could multiply them. Unfortunately, in the Middle East, one should never assume that the situation can’t get worse. It always can — and usually does.
So, in short, our odds of preventing the worst case scenarios are poor. To actually stop the civil war would probably require a sustained force of about 450,000 troops. That, in turn, would require a draft and probably trillions of dollars over more than one decade. We can’t realistically stop the civil war. We can only hope to contain it.
The civil war is really an internal fight between the Shi’a and the Sunni, although there are also tribal, ethnic, and national components to it. If Islam goes into an internecine sectarian fight there will be less pressure on Israel, which may be the logic behind how this war has been fought. But I actually think that the worse this gets the worse it will be for both U.S. and Israeli interests. The governments most likely to be destabilized in this fight are some our closest allies. The most productive thing we can do is to hammer out a final settlement of the Palestinian question. If we can take that issue off the table it will be a lot easier for our allies to work with us. It is becoming impossible for the Sauds, King Abdallah II, Hosni Mubarak, and the Kuwaitis to openly side with us because of the unusually one-sided pro-Israeli policies of the Bush administration.
If we can realistically provide force protection for our soldiers, we might be able to provide refugee camps within Iraq (and perhaps Kurdistan) that will mitigate against some of the problems associated with mass displacement.
Iran is certainly the biggest challenge. Byman and Pollack suggest a very confrontational approach that will likely result in occassional air strikes on their territory. I think such an approach will result in the very escalation we seek to avoid. Yet, their redlines are not unreasonable. Iran should not introduce uniformed military nor should they annex Iraqi territory.
We really need to begin direct talks with the Iranians because containing the chaos within Iraq will require intense diplomacy and mutual assurances from the whole plethora of regional players. Iran holds most of the cards and cannot be ignored. Focusing on the nuclear ambitions, whatever they might be, at the cost of these other pressing issues is not wise. Direct talks would allow everything to be put on the table.
As for our main occupying force, they need to be withdrawn in spite of the catastrophic consequences for Iraqi society. They are not successful at supplying security and are just fueling anti-American feelings around the globe.
If we can get a settlement in Palestine, contain the fighting to within Iraq, and provide assistance on the refugee and general humanitarian problem, we may begin to repair our foreign relations.
As for the energy issues, we need an Apollo program for alternative fuels, and we need a Marshall Plan for our middle east allies that will help them diversify their economies and prepare for a post fossil fuel world.
