Article
Restore Trust in America's Leadership
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Fall 2007
James M. Lindsay, Director, Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, LBJ School of Public Affairs and Ivo Daalder, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
No foreign policy decision since America’s retreat into isolationism in the 1930s has done more to harm American and global security than the Iraq war. The invasion and incompetently executed occupation have devastated
Iraq and unleashed a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Iraq has become a recruiting cause and training ground for a new generation of terrorists—young men bent on the suicidal destruction of Americans and Iraqis alike. The balance of power within the Middle East has shifted dramatically
in favor of the most radical and extremist elements in the region—led by a newly confident Iran. But what has made the war a blunder of truly historic proportions is that it has cost America the trust of its friends and allies around the world—a trust that since 1945 has been instrumental in translating America’s economic and military power into global influence and leadership.
The overarching challenge confronting the United States after Iraq, therefore, is to restore trust in American leadership. The world needs good reason to once again place its confidence in America’s power, policy, and purposes. That will require broad changes in how Washington conducts foreign policy, especially in its willingness to listen to others and practice what it preaches. But to succeed in rebuilding trust, Washington must first contain the problems that the Iraq war has unleashed: the rising violence inside Iraq, the renewed confidence of a newly ambitious Iran, and the ideological gains made by the jihadist terrorist network. Before we build a new house, we have to put out the fire burning down the old one. If we don’t, whatever rebuilt trust we enjoy elsewhere will be moot in the Middle East: Even a well-behaved Washington that is once again trusted by friends and allies around the world will have trouble attracting followers if
the region spirals into greater instability and violence.
The first and most immediate task facing the United States in the Middle East
is to minimize bloodshed within Iraq, provide help to those caught in the crossfire,
and prevent instability within the country from spilling across its borders. As much as Americans might wish otherwise, the departure of American soldiers and Marines will likely trigger more fighting, at least in the short term. The flame
of sectarian and ethnic warfare has been lit. As the sad histories of the Balkans,
Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Sudan show, fires like these are difficult to extinguish
and often produce staggering death tolls. Trying to prevent that outcome is not
only a moral obligation, but a strategic necessity: American interests can only
be harmed if we leave behind an Iraq that collapses into the sort of communal violence that wracked Lebanon in the 1980s and Bosnia in the 1990s.
To avoid that nightmare, any U.S. troop withdrawal must be accompanied by a major, Dayton-like effort that would bring all the parties to the table to
negotiate a settlement on key political issues: sharing oil revenue, distributing power between the central government and local political entities, and ensuring a monopoly over the means of violence by abolishing militias—within a fixed timetable (say, one month). At the same time, Washington must be prepared to do everything to help Iraqis caught in the full-scale civil war that will ensue should the peace effort fail; American and other international forces still in the country could establish safe havens inside Iraq to provide security, shelter, and safe transit abroad for those who want to leave.
Washington will also need to take steps to keep Iraq’s problems within its
borders. Talk that Iraq’s troubles will trigger a regional war is overblown; none of the half-dozen civil wars the Middle East has witnessed over the past halfcentury led to a regional conflagration. But obvious flashpoints exist. Therefore, Washington will need to maintain substantial troops in northern Iraq to reassure the Turks and deter the Kurds from declaring independence. Elsewhere, the United States will need to use diplomatic tools—as well as the continued presence of troops in the Gulf region—to persuade Iraq’s neighbors to limit their efforts to manipulate the Iraqi civil war to their own ends.
The second challenge the United States faces is to contain Iran’s ambitions
and redirect its aspirations. Four years after U.S. troops entered Baghdad, Tehran has emerged the big winner. Saddam Hussein is dead, the limits of American power have been revealed, and Iran’s co-religionists dominate Iraq’s government. It is not surprising, then, that Iran is keen to flex its muscles. The problem is that the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seeks regional domination, intends
to acquire nuclear weapons, and supports terrorists.
The Bush Administration’s policy of working with European allies to press for
U.N. sanctions against Iran needs to continue. Iran should pay a price for breaking
its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty. But a policy based
solely on coercion is guaranteed to fail.
Too many countries—led by China and
Russia—want economic relations with
Tehran for isolation to work. Military
strikes are unlikely to end Iran’s nuclear
program. They will, however, enrage
Iranians, who can easily retaliate against U.S. interests in the region.
As distasteful as it is, then, the United States has to complement its policy of
sticks by offering Tehran some substantial carrots. First, there needs to be an
unconditional offer to reestablish full diplomatic relations. If the United States
could restore diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union 15 years after the October
Revolution, it can restore them with Iran 28 years after the Islamic Revolution.
Second, Washington should offer to normalize economic ties if Tehran limits
its nuclear program and halts support for terrorist groups. Such an offer won’t
succeed in buying off Ahmadinejad. Rather, its purpose would be to exploit
divisions within Iran and encourage the opposition. The Administration’s open
hostility to Iran has enabled Ahmadinejad to deflect domestic criticism of his
government’s many missteps and to silence pro-American voices. Supplementing
the closed fist with an open hand can help reverse that dynamic.
America’s third challenge will be the same one we have faced since 9/11:
stopping jihadist terrorism. The invasion of Iraq has reinvigorated a jihadist
threat that was in shambles after the Afghanistan war. Al Qaeda’s recruiting
efforts could not have received a bigger boost. At the same time, Iraq is now a
training school and testing ground for jihadists. The lessons they learned, such
as how to effectively deploy road-side bombs, have already migrated beyond Iraq, as battle-tested jihadists head home to help spread their knowledge and
hatred to others.
Containing and ultimately defeating the jihadist threat will require a mix of
strategies. Notwithstanding the Iraq debacle, Washington will occasionally need
to use military force to take out jihadi cells training in the mountains of Afghanistan
or the wilds of Somalia. But because the next jihadist plot could come just as
easily from a neighborhood in Hamburg or Harrisburg, it will be more important
for Washington to improve other counterterrorism efforts. In spite (or because) of
massive bureaucratic reorganizations, the quality of U.S. intelligence and homeland
security efforts remains deeply inadequate. We can and must do much better.
The flip side to trying to stop jihadists is to decrease the number of young
Muslims who want to join their fight in the first place. That will require taking
active steps to diminish the intense anger many Muslims and most Arabs feel
toward the United States. The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will help, but
it will not be enough; minimizing the suffering of Iraqis will also be important.
Washington must avoid the appearance of abandoning Iraqis to their fate. To that
end, and as painful as it might be in the context of America’s ongoing immigration
debate, Washington must do much more to help the millions of Iraqis who
have been displaced or become refugees as a result of this misbegotten war.
But the most important step toward diminishing Muslim and Arab anger will
be to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. Although the chances that
Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved any time soon are slim at best, taking
Palestinian grievances seriously and pushing both sides to take risks for peace is
crucial. It counters the jihadist narrative about America’s pernicious role in the
Middle East and can turn the public relations tide in favor of the United States.
As long as Osama bin Laden can credibly claim that Washington is indifferent
to Palestinian suffering, he will have purchase on the Muslim imagination.
Ultimately, America’s ability to successfully manage the fallout from Iraq,
contain Iran, and defeat the jihadist threat will greatly influence its ability to
repair the damage that has been done to its claims of global leadership. But
that broader effort will also require far-reaching changes in how Washington
operates in the world. A go-it-alone foreign policy will not work. The Bush
revolution has made much of the world deeply suspicious of American claims
to global leadership. The importance of the elections of pro-American leaders,
such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, for America’s
ability to regain the trust it has lost overseas is easily overstated; the publics in
many allied countries remain deeply skeptical about American motives and values.
Unless the United States can demonstrate that it too is willing to abide by
the rule of law and work with others on shared global challenges, even friendly leaders will find it difficult to follow Washington’s lead. If that happens, the
ultimate costs of the Iraq war will be far more devastating and long-lasting than
we currently anticipate.
Copyright 2007 Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
