There is No Long-Term Strategy

There is No Long-Term Strategy

As I write this, on January 8th, we are a less than 24 hours removed from Iran's attack on a U.S. and Coalition Forces base at Al-Asad, Iraq. Just as a side note, while deployed in Iraq in 2005, I took a helicopter day-trip from Balad Air Base once. I cannot remember the day, and I do not remember much about Al-Asad. That was in 2005, when we had hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq. We continue to have thousands of U.S. Military personnel all over the Middle East, somewhere north of 65,000. Most Americans do not ever think about how many are there. We do pay attention when many more are issued deployment orders, as many are now.

The U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani started the latest round of tensions, but that is really an unfair statement to make. Our history of mistrust with Iran is long and complicated. But taking out Soleimani is part of the Trump Administration's strategy of "getting tough" with Iran. The Obama Administration's joint and comprehensive agreement with Iran and also signed by our Allies, to limit Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, is seen by Trump and his merry band of supporters as appeasement. It wasn't. But because Barack Obama's name was on the agreement, Trump had to shed it. Now we face an uncertain future. 

It is all well and good to have a President who talks tough. But then where do we go? There is not long-term strategy. In what seems like a lifetime ago, the United States said it adhered to something called the "Powell Doctrine," named for Colin Powell. It was a doctrine shared by officers of Powell's era, those who had been junior officers in Vietnam. And while it was never official doctrine of the United States, it had great impact on the George H.W. Bush Administration's actions in the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. The doctrine carried some specific guidelines with it regarding when and how the U.S. should become involved in wars. Among its main points were these:

          1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?

          2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?

          3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?

          4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?

          5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?

          6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?

          7. Is the action supported by the American people?

          8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

It is fair to say that the Powell Doctrine has been roundly ignored. Our invasion of Iraq was not well-considered there was really no end-state considered. It is supreme irony that the presentation of Colin Powell himself, then U.S. Secretary of State, at the United Nations, in February, 2003, led to international support for an invasion of Iraq. It is also true (no matter what people in Congress at the time said later) that Congress and the American People did support the invasion of Iraq. However, it is certain now that we did not really have clear and attainable objectives. We had a lot of "hope," and as military planners say, hope is not a course of action. We "hoped" that the Iraqi people, after years of abuse from the dictator Saddam Hussein, would suddenly come to their senses and create some kind of Jeffersonian Democracy. We failed to take into considerations ancient rivalries of the three major Peoples in the region. We also failed to really enlist the support of in-country leaders, including military leaders. Instead, we disbanded a fairly competent and equipped military and allowed many of them to become free agents. 

Barack Obama was harshly criticized for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2010, which was really carrying out what the Bush, Jr. Administration had started. Bu the criticism is that the loss of the bulk of U.S. forces provided a vacuum, one which ISIS inserted itself. That might be true. And it is also true that Obama's threat to Syria's Bashar al-Assad about a "red line" if Assad used chemical weapons was a disaster. Assad did use chemical weapons on his own people, and we did not act. The complicated wars in Syria, that have bled into Iraq, did indeed open the door for ISIS. The door was indeed open for Iran to exert its influence in Iraq and Syria. The Obama Administration also continued to carry out a strategy of using unmanned aircraft to assassinate individual members of ISIS and other groups. (The difference between Obama and Trump on this score is that the Obama Administration was quite subdued in its announcements of such killings, except of course for the killing of Osama bin Laden).

Here is where I take issue with the Trump Administration. Virtually everything Donald Trump does is "like nothing the world has ever seen." It is always the best, it is always the greatest. Donald Trump is a carnival barker and he has always been a carnival barker. His style is probably what prompted Mark Burnett to create "The Apprentice" reality show in the first place. There was Donald Trump, golf course builder and real estate mogul, who talked a much better game than he ever delivered. But it makes for great television. 

The problem is that none of this works on the international arena. International leaders realize Trump is simply a bullshit artist. The one thing that actually keeps other leaders from completely ignoring him is that he happens to be President of the United States. The "United States" still means something, even if the President does not. Trump likes to brag that we have the strongest military in the world, as if he created it. Of course, he did not. We do have the strongest military in the world. But in his hands that is quite frightening. Because simply using it on impulse, without a long-term strategy, something that might be thought through using a framework like the Powell Doctrine. 

The Powell Doctrine is not really doctrine. It is really simply a decision-making rubric. But would it be too much to ask that our leaders use such a rubric when we use our military?