July 22, 2015 7:15 pm
To balance the nuclear deal, defeat Isis and confront Iran
Philip Zelikow
US should now develop a serious strategy to defeat the terror group, writes Philip Zelikow
In the next couple of months, the US Congress will debate whether the Iranian nuclear deal is likely to work as arms control. But the bigger debate is whether the agreement, with its relaxation of sanctions, means America is halfhearted — at most — in confronting Iranian sponsorship of so much of the violent chaos that is spreading across the Middle East. That is why the US should choose this moment to develop a serious, full-bodied strategy to defeat the barbaric Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) in Syria as well as Iraq.
The terrorist danger Isis presents is rising towards the level that al-Qaeda presented in the years immediately before the 9/11 attacks on the US. Leaders should ask themselves: if Isis carries out a truly catastrophic attack, in the region or in America, what would they wish they had done before that day? Those post-catastrophe plans must be prepared now, before such an event. Surely no one thinks the current level of effort really is all America could or would do.
As executive director of the 9/11 Commission, I saw that cycle of horror, recrimination and reaction close up. I remember all too well what people wished they had done in the preceding years. There were political and military options short of an invasion and indefinite occupation of Afghanistan but they were deemed too risky. So, having refused to take limited risks to prevent a catastrophe, Americans have paid and are still paying a far heavier price.
A powerful coalition to defeat Isis must lead with a new political strategy before the military one. And that means confronting Iranian ambitions.
In the case of Syria, Sunni Muslims, including Turkey, will unite against the terrorist Isis only if the effort is aimed equally at the terrorist Assad regime. That regime is propped up by Iran and its expeditionary Hizbollah fighters.
In the case of Iraq, Sunni Muslims will unite against Isis only if effort is aimed equally at sheltering them from terrorist Shia torture squads. Those Iraqi torturers are also becoming an expeditionary wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Flush with the vast funds to be released by the nuclear deal, by 2016 Iran will have much more money to invest in all these creatures.
The military side will need more Americans — on the ground — to offer meaningful combat support, show commitment and mediate among coalition members. In this case, military effort is not an alternative to diplomacy. It is the enabler of diplomacy. In addition to Syrians and Iraqis fighting to liberate their towns and lands, such a coalition would involve Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, and Kurdish authorities in both Syria and Iraq.
This coalition effort would be a formidably difficult undertaking. But the US can either face it now or face it later. Waiting is not likely to make the job any easier. Nor will it reduce the risk of yet another cycle of catastrophe, recrimination and reaction (or overreaction).
Meanwhile, such a regional initiative is the ideal counterweight to the controversy over the Iranian nuclear deal. There is a precedent. Though in America both Democrats and Republicans may prefer to forget it, the diplomatic outreach to Iran that produced the current deal originated in the administration of President George W Bush.
It was in 2006, after much internal argument, that the Bush administration and its European friends offered direct negotiations with Iran in the same kind of process as the one that has produced the present deal. This opening was accompanied by ingenious and powerful financial sanctions developed at the same time. UN Security Council support for those sanctions was attainable only because of the Bush administration’s readiness to negotiate. And the diplomacy was matched by a tough, and at the time successful, battle against Iran’s proxies in Iraq.
As US President Barack Obama has made clear, the nuclear deal has a narrow but important role: to curb the Iranian nuclear threat. That threat is ultimately restrained by military deterrence. And the nuclear deal may actually strengthen that deterrence. With that big picture firmly in view, it should become part of a maximum multinational effort to avert broader catastrophes in the Middle East and beyond.
The writer is a professor at the University of Virginia and was executive director of the 9/11 Commission
0 comments:
Publicar un comentario