Barnett: A war that no one wants but everybody needs

By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Sunday, July 13, 2008

The world heads for another war in the Persian Gulf that nobody wants but everybody seems to need.

Looming behind the most crucial dynamics is the possible presidency of Barack Obama, suggesting that war may become inevitable due to the fear of peace. After eight years of Bush-Cheney, such is the state of our world.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency has been a disaster for the Iranian people. Despite all the oil wealth, inflation is raging, and the economy goes nowhere. Add in a stunning birth dearth, the world's worst brain drain, plus Iranian prostitutes headlining European brothels, and this is clearly a society in a death spiral.

With restless students chanting in public for Ahmadinejad's death, little wonder the man pines for a splendid little war.

Ahmadinejad's one popular success has been to champion Iran's brazen reach for nuclear capacity, an effort cleverly designed to emphasize the strategic dangers of attempted regime change by outsiders.

Toss in ritualistic threats against Israel, and Tehran's stance qualifies as pan-Islamic - all the better to mask the region's Shia revival that empowers Iran.

But Ahmadinejad's time grows short. A bevy of candidates seeks to oust him next year, and his opponents now head the parliament, the crucial Assembly of Experts and Tehran's city hall.

With Obama currently leading decisively in the U.S. electoral college race, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, faces the prospect of losing his most useful - for internal politics, that is - external enemy, reducing Ahmadinejad's utility as frontman.

This is where Israel becomes most useful to Iran's headliners. With Bush-Cheney seemingly content to reward North Korea with a peace treaty for generating nuclear weapons and sharing the technology with fellow rogue Syria, Israel's dead set on preserving its long-standing regional monopoly on weapons of mass destruction.

Now we turn to another supremely unpopular leader, Israel's Ehud Olmert, who has privately begged Bush to end Iran's nuclear bid before leaving office. But, as Bush's military leaders and even his secretary of Defense now argue publicly against that course, that seems like a long shot.

With Obama's presidency threatening, Olmert's freedom of action narrows. Strike before the election, and two birds may be killed: Iran receives the same lesson that Syria got earlier this year on its nuclear program, and the resulting regional conflict(s) logically boosts John McCain's presidential bid. After all, America will need a "war president" in this time of inevitable wars.

And so Israel clears the decks in anticipation of striking Iran: a ceasefire with Hamas, the rapprochement with Syria, and the ramping up of military training for a predominantly air campaign. Iran's hardline leadership naturally returns the favor by test-firing missiles this past week.

And what of the other great powers who might step into this fray to prevent this war? Europe is too interested in Iran's oil and gas, as are the Chinese and Indians.

Moscow, meanwhile, sees all of its major interests served by letting Washington embroil itself in another Persian Gulf war: Oil prices will skyrocket, Iran will need its patronage, Europe's energy portfolio will become further dependent on Russia's good graces, and troublesome superpower America will remain strategically tied down.

When the Iraq Study Group argued 18 months ago that a military surge strategy in Iraq would logically fail without an accompanying regional diplomatic surge, this is the outcome those members must have feared: One war solved just in time for another to begin.

The problem, of course, is that the "other war" is already here, demanding America's attention - namely, the ongoing Afghanistan conflict where last month the U.S. military suffered more deaths than in now-stabilizing Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, Obama's primary argument for reducing the U.S. military presence in Iraq has been to increase America's efforts in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Right now, that strategic logic appeals to nobody who needs another war in the Gulf.

Too bad.

Thomas P.M. Barnett (tom@thomaspmbarnett.com) is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and author of the forthcoming book "Great Powers: America and the World After Bush."

IRAN: AHMADINEJAD WILL TALK DIRECTLY WITH BUSH

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 13 said he is prepared to talk directly with U.S. President George W. Bush, Iran's IRNA news agency reported. Iran does not need an intermediary to hold talks with the United States, Ahmadinejad added. He also said Iran's military will "cut off the hands" of any aggressor that attacks Iran.

Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

From The Sunday Times
July 13, 2008

British government ‘to pull troops out of Iraq by mid-2009’
Michael Smith
The government is aiming to pull the vast majority of British troops out of Iraq by the middle of next year, defence sources have revealed.

While there are no plans to withdraw before George W Bush hands over to the new American president at the turn of the year, the decision is now expected to be made “in the first half of 2009”.

Only troops training Iraqi military or police and special forces are likely to stay, unless there is a sharp change for the worse.

In an indication of Britain’s keenness to withdraw, Des Browne, the defence secretary, emphasised last week that Iraqi troops were better able to keep southern Iraq peaceful than British soldiers.

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The Iraqi military had broken the grip of militias controlling the southern city of Basra, he said on a visit to the United States. If British troops had tried to oust the militias, “we would still be fighting”, Browne told the Brookings Institution in Washington.

His comments followed the leaking of an army report that criticises the Treasury for fuelling unrest in southern Iraq by failing to fund reconstruction quickly enough.

The paper, written in 2006 and overseen by Lieutenant-General Bill Rollo, now deputy coalition commander, said “too few resources, both human and financial, were allocated”.

— Military police are investigating an alleged sexual assault on a 14-year-old boy by British troops in Iraq in 2003, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

The incident is alleged to have taken place at Camp Breadbasket, Basra. The boy, now 19, is launching a civil case against the ministry.

Additional reporting: Georgia Warren

Overseas crews coming to battle Calif. wildfires
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Jul 12, 7:59 AM (ET)

By DON THOMPSON and TERENCE CHEA

(AP) Firefighter Nicole Scott, of the Novato Fire District, takes a break while working on the Butte...

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PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - As hundreds of blazes continue to char California, additional National Guard troops and overseas crews are being called in to assist exhausted firefighters, and President Bush has scheduled a visit to the state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered 2,000 more National Guard troops to join the 400 already on firefighting duty. Australia, Canada, Greece, Mexico and New Zealand are also sending firefighters and equipment, federal officials said.
"We are stretched thin, and our firefighters are exhausted," Schwarzenegger said. "The fire season as we've known it is pretty much over. ... Now we have fire season all year round."
Federal officials said they would send more equipment and personnel to California. The federal government has committed $100 million and 80 percent of its firefighting resources to California, said Glen Cannon, an assistant administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

(AP) A firefighter hoses downs some flames from the Butte Lightening Complex fire near Jarbo Gap,...
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"We've put a significant amount of resources there, and we'll continue to add resources until we bring the fires under control," Cannon said.
Meanwhile, President Bush scheduled a visit to survey the damage from the wildfires that have burned more than 1,100 square miles and destroyed about 100 homes.
White House spokesman Trey Bohn did not say where Bush would go to get his briefing on Thursday, when the president also plans to attend a private Republican fundraising event in Napa.
Investigators believe the hundreds of blazes that have tormented the state for the last three weeks claimed their first civilian casualty in the rural Sierra Nevada foothills this week, although an autopsy will be needed to confirm the cause of death.
The badly burned body was found in the smoldering ruins of one of several homes destroyed by the wind-whipped blaze that swept through Concow, about 90 miles north of Sacramento.

(AP) The remains of a home which burned down in the Pine Hills and Pine Meadows neighborhood of Spokane...
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The fire was so hot that it melted beer bottles, mason jars and windows into puddles of glass. Cans of food had swelled then exploded from the heat. Crews also found the remains of at least two dogs.
Concow, where 50 homes were destroyed, was under a mandatory evacuation order when flames approached the community early Tuesday, "but unfortunately not everyone chose to leave and you cannot force them to," said Sgt. Steven Pelton, a Butte County deputy coroner-sheriff. "This appears to be one of those people."
Tom Tirey, 49, who has lived in the area for 10 years, said he rode out the fire despite orders to evacuate, spending more than two hours in a hog-trough while the blaze flared around him. He survived, but his trailer and barn didn't.
"We'd been through so many evacuations and false warnings. You cry wolf too many times. This time it really did it," he said.
State officials said the current fire season has seen the most fires burning at one time in recorded California history. Aided by unusually dry and hot conditions, wildfires have burned more than 1,100 square miles and destroyed about 100 homes statewide since a lightning storm ignited 1,460 separate blazes on June 21. By Friday, more than 320 fires still were active, state officials said.
Considering the scope of the wildfires, there so far have been few fatalities and major injuries, officials said. During the first fire in Paradise last month, an elderly woman died after suffering a heart attack while voluntarily leaving her home. On July 2, a volunteer firefighter collapsed on the fire line in Mendocino County and died at a hospital a day later.
In Butte County, crews made progress Friday in containing a blaze burning in the mountains near the town of Paradise, where an earlier fire last month destroyed 74 homes. On Friday evening, officials downgraded the evacuation order that had affected about 10,000 residents since Tuesday and told people they could return home as long as they remained ready to leave on short notice.
Elsewhere in California, state transportation officials on Friday evening reopened a slice of coastal Highway 1 that had been closed for more than two weeks as a wildfire bore down on the tourist town of Big Sur. The full, 15-mile stretch of the highway is scheduled to reopen on Sunday, officials said.
The Big Sur fire was about 41 percent contained Friday after having burned 170 square miles and destroyed 26 homes.
Farther south, a separate blaze in Santa Barbara County that prompted mass evacuations last weekend was 80 percent contained after blackening more than 15 square miles. At the southern tip of Sequoia National Forest, 90 miles north of Los Angeles, a 54-square-mile blaze was almost one-third contained.
A letup in the wind aided firefighters in eastern Washington state battling a wildfire that erupted Thursday in a heavily wooded part of the Spokane Valley. It destroyed at least 13 houses and forced 200 residents to evacuate. No injuries have been reported.
The cause of the suburban Spokane fire, which grew to nearly 2 square miles, was not immediately known.

July 13, 2008
U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for withdrawal, the officials said.

The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.

The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to 130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the “surge” of additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.

Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly, as has the confidence of Iraq’s government and military and police, raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped to the lowest levels since early 2004.

“As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in Fort Lewis, Wash., on Tuesday. “And I think that this transition of control and of responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process that’s already well under way and based on everything that I’m hearing will be able to continue.”

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Mr. Bush promised in April that such a review would take place. General Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller reduction, but still a withdrawal.

One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and democratic government in Baghdad.

Still, there is broad consensus in Washington and Baghdad that more American forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in Afghanistan.

“There hasn’t really been any discussion of numbers, and it’s definitely based on conditions on the ground,” a military officer in Baghdad said. And conditions, he went on, “are a lot more favorable than in December or April or even two months ago.”

General Petraeus, who will step down as commander in Iraq in September, will soon take over as the commander of the United States Central Command. In that position, he will oversee American forces and operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate confirmed him and his replacement as commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, to their new positions on Thursday.

The Pentagon has previously signaled that commanders wanted additional troops in Afghanistan — as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000 there now — but with two wars seriously straining the Army and Marines in particular, officials have struggled to produce the extra forces.

A reduction of combat brigades in Iraq would free additional troops that could instead be sent to Afghanistan, though officials said that no additional forces would go until next year, when fighting is expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.

Mr. Gates has already extended the deployment of a force of 3,200 marines in southern Afghanistan by one month, essentially until winter arrives and closes many of the country’s mountain passes and remote villages.

The Pentagon also announced the redeployment of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its support ships from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea to provide what one official described as greater air power and surveillance for the mission in Afghanistan until next spring.

“We have clearly seen an increase in violence in Afghanistan,” Mr. Gates said at Fort Lewis, discussing the carrier’s redeployment. “At the same time, we’ve seen a reduction in violence and casualties in Iraq. And I think it’s just part of our commitment to ensure that we have the resources available to be successful in Afghanistan over the long haul.”

Last year Mr. Bush accepted General Petraeus’s recommendation to gradually withdraw the five extra combat brigades that he had ordered to Iraq. The last of those, Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division, is completing its withdrawal this month, bringing the number of combat brigades to 15 and the overall troop levels to about 140,000.

If the withdrawals continued at the same pace, roughly one every 45 days, three more brigades could leave Iraq by the end of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

In April, Mr. Bush approved the general’s plan to “pause” the withdrawals for 45 days, basically until mid-September, while reviewing the effect of having fewer American troops in the country. The Bush administration has been wrongly optimistic before about the future of the war in Iraq. But with major military operations in Basra, Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, and Mosul, violence has continued to drop, and Iraqi forces have increased their share of the fighting.

The White House declined to discuss the withdrawals now under consideration, but a spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, cautioned that while the president hoped to bring more troops home, he would await General Petraeus’s recommendation in September.

“For now,” he said, “we will continue discussions with the Iraqis on our shared goals of a reduced U.S. troop presence.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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