Suzanne Maloney is the interim vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. Before becoming interim vice president and director in 2020, she served as the deputy director for Foreign Policy for five years. Her books include the 2008 monograph “Iran’s Long Reach” (United States Institute of Peace, 2008) as well as “Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution,” published in August 2015 by Cambridge University Press. Her Brookings Essay, “Iran Surprises Itself And The World,” was released in September 2013, and she has also published articles in a variety of academic and policy journals.

Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining Brookings, she served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, as Middle East advisor for ExxonMobil Corporation, and director of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

She holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Affiliations: 
Johns Hopkins University/SAIS, adjunct professor

       

President Bush promised to democratize the Middle East, but the results so far have dispirited democracy advocates and brought their project into disrepute. After the debacle in Iraq and the electoral success of Hamas, the pursuit of Arab democracy seems to many observers a fool’s errand, an unfortunate combination of ideology and wishful thinking. In F reedom’s Unsteady March , Tamara Cofman Wittes dissects the Bush administration’s failure to advance freedom in the Middle East and lays out a better strategy for future efforts to promote democracy. Wittes argues that only the development of a more liberal and democratic politics in the Arab world will secure America’s long-term goals in the region and that America must continue trying to foster progress in that direction. To do so, however, it must confront more honestly the risks of change and act more effectively to contain them. A dangerous combination of growing populations, economic stagnation, and political alienation poses the primary threat to Middle East stability today, severely testing the legitimacy and governability of key states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. If Arab governments cannot sustain the support of their citizens, they will find it difficult to work with America on issues of common concern such as stabilizing Iraq, confronting Iran on nuclear weapons, and promoting Arab-Israeli peace. Despite President Bush’s failures, Wittes argues, the United States cannot afford to ignore the momentous social, economic, and political changes already taking place in Arab states. Wittes’ detailed analysis of Arab politics and American policy presents an alternative—in her view, the only alternative: overcoming America’s deep ambivalence about Arab democracy to support positive, liberal change in the region that will create a firmer foundation for Arab-American ties.

       

As Jordan’s chief diplomat, Dr. Muasher has served his country with great distinction, energy and creativity and has been instrumental in promoting an important regional role for Jordan at the same time as strengthening its relations with the United States. He served as Jordan’s Ambassador to the United States from September 1997 to January 2002, and during that time played an instrumental role in securing the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. Prior to that he served as the first Jordanian Ambassador to Israel and as Jordan’s Minister for Information. As a member of Jordan’s negotiating team, he also played a significant role in the achievement of the Jordan-Israel Peace Agreement, whose tenth anniversary will be celebrated next month. Dr. Muasher received a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Purdue University and is also a graduate of the American University of Beirut.

       

As Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and President of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, Sheikha Mozah has spearheaded the promotion and development of higher education and science in Qatar. Sheikha Mozah’s dedication to education and building a stronger foundation for her country’s youth has become a model for education reform throughout the region while she herself is a model for women assuming a leadership role in Arab society. This is a unique opportunity to exchange views with an outstanding personality who has taken on an important leadership role in her country and in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

       

Saban Center Event

       

Senator Lugar, who has served five terms as Indiana’s senator, proposed a partnership between the G-8 and major countries in the region willing to join a Greater Middle East 21st Century Trust. The aim of the new partnership would be to promote “a restructuring of the region from within,” through improved governance, economic and education reform, empowerment of women, and enhanced security cooperation.

In his speech, Senator Lugar discussed other policy options and responsibilities for the United States as well as an expanded role for NATO in the Middle East.

Following his remarks, Senator Lugar took questions from the audience.

The Leadership Forums provide high-level government officials from around the world the opportunity to address members of the Washington policy community and to share their insights and perspectives on world events as well as on issues of particular concern to their countries.

       

The poll was Telhami’s third annual survey of public opinion in the Arab world. He presented preliminary findings, focusing on patterns of media consumption, opinions towards the United States, and opinions towards Al-Qa’ida. Among the notable findings presented were respondents’ general disagreement with U.S. policies in the Middle East. In addition, the data indicate that among Western countries, France has the strongest support for its policies within the Arab world.

Telhami began by raising the issue of whether there is a connection between identity and media. Identity in the Middle East is changing, Telhami argued. The way in which people identify themselves—as Arabs, Muslims, or nationals of a specific country—may be associated with the media they consume. Forthcoming analysis by Telhami will address this issue more in depth.

The first series of data gave an indication of what satellite television stations are being watched in the six countries covered by the survey. To determine this, Telhami argued that it is important to not limit the respondent’s answers to one choice. Telhami explained that because viewers tend to gather information from multiple media sources, it is important to ask which networks are their first choice and which is the second choice when watching international news. Al-Jazeera comfortably topped the poll, while Al- Arabiya was the second choice.

Telhami then discussed the effect of the war in Iraq on public opinion in the Arab world. According to Telhami, the war in Iraq has replaced the Arab-Israeli conflict as the prism through which Arabs view international events. Therefore, because the Arab world largely views the war in a negative light, many view U.S foreign policy with considerable suspicion.

In a series of questions, Telhami found a largely negative view of the conflict in Iraq. A strong majority of respondents answered that the war in Iraq has brought less peace (81 percent), more terrorism (78 percent), and less democracy (58 per cent) to the region. In addition, 77 percent of respondents said that Iraqis were worse off as a result of the war. Only a small number of respondents believed that the United States’ objective in Iraq was to spread democracy. Rather, a plurality of respondents believed that the United States’ primary motivation for the war is its interest in oil, and an important number believed that the war was motivated by a desire to protect Israel and to seek regional dominance.

As a result, Telhami argued, it should be no surprise that the Arab world is uneasy with the United States as the world’s only superpower. In an open ended question, respondents were asked, “Name the two countries that you think pose the biggest threat to you.” By large margins, respondents offered the United States and Israel. In addition, when asked which country they would prefer as the world’s only superpower (with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and Pakistan as the choices), 21 percent of respondents preferred France and 13 percent preferred China, whereas only 7 percent preferred Britain and 6 percent preferred the United States. Telhami argued that Britain’s participation in the war in Iraq has had a direct effect on its negative standing in the Arab world.

However, one question in particular indicated that, despite a general dislike of U.S. policies, there is a vacuum of leadership in the Arab world. When asked to “please tell me which leader (outside of your own country) you admire most,” there was no Arab leader that won much support.

Therefore, Telhami argued, the data indicate that despite a disagreement with U.S. policies, people admire the values of the United States. In other words, people dislike what the United States is doing, but not what the United States is. For instance, when asked where they would like to live or where they would like a relative to study, respondents chose Western European countries and the United States over Pakistan, Russia, or China. In addition, when asked the open ended question, “Name two countries where you think there is most freedom and democracy for their own people,” France, Germany, the United States, Britain, and Sweden were named most. Therefore, although the respondents might prefer China and Pakistan as the world’s superpower, most people would rather live in Western Europe or the United States.

Telhami noted that in the past he had been reluctant to ask questions relating to Al-Qa’ida, fearing that he would be unable to obtain honest answers. In this survey, respondents were asked, “When you think about Al-Qaeda, what aspects of the organization, if any, do you sympathize with most?” Thirty six percent chose the answer “Confronts the United States” and 20 percent chose “Stands up for Muslim causes such as the Palestinian issue,” whereas only 7 percent chose the answer “Its methods of operation.” Telhami argued that this is consistent with an overall trend in Arab public opinion: respondents are uncomfortable with the lack of any perceived check on U.S. policies in the Middle East. Telhami said that while people feel frustrated with U.S. policies, there was no evidence in his poll to indicate that people are punishing the United States in the marketplace. Data indicate that people are not boycotting U.S. products for political reasons, rather they make their consumer decisions on the basis of price rather than country of origin.

Following Professor Telhami’s presentation, Diehl responded by questioning both the methodology and the responses. He asked whether respondents in the Middle Eastern countries surveyed are honest with their answers. Diehl argued that there is a phenomenon in the Middle East of people telling you what they think you want to hear. For example, Diehl pointed to one of Telhami’s questions about Iran, which indicates that only 21 percent of respondents think that “Iran should be pressured to stop its nuclear program.” Diehl asked if the data are accurate, because he said that it is difficult to believe that citizens of Iran’s neighboring states, notably Saudi Arabia, would want Iran to have nuclear weapons. Therefore, Diehl argued, the wording of the question makes it hard to determine what people think about a nuclear Iran. Diehl also observed that the data indicated that respondents admire France and would like a relative to study in France. If this is the case, Diehl asked, why are more students from the Arab world applying for visas to study in the United States than France?

In response, Telhami stressed that the polling did not delve into the precise Arab public opinion view of whether Iran should have nuclear weapons. Rather, the questions were designed to discover how respondents feel about the international community’s stance towards the question of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Telhami also said there is no clear answer as to whether people are honest in polls. This is a challenge that all pollsters face. He argued that any bias that dishonesty might introduce into the polls would be corrected for by analyzing the data in relation to long-term trends.

Diehl expressed his concern about mentioning Iraq in the survey because he felt that doing so might taint subsequent answers due to the sensitivity of the topic. In addition, he argued that while the polling gives light to what people think are the motivations of the Unties States, it is difficult to tell from the data whether people support the overall U.S. backed concept of democratization. Telhami said that most people probably support the notion of democracy and freedom. Yet, it was important to remember that his polling was meant to get information on the perceptions that people have towards the United States rather on their views of the broad concept of democratization.

Diehl pointed to a question that asked about sympathy for Al-Qa’ida. He said he was troubled that while the data indicate that most people do not support Al-Qa’ida’s methods, in practice many people seem to tolerate its methods. In effect, there was no way to tell the magnitude of disagreement that respondents in Arab countries may have with the group.

During the question and answer period, one participant pointed to a poll result that many respondents believed that President Bush was acting way to further U.S. national interests in the Middle East rather than to further democracy. The participant was troubled by the fact that this might mean citizens in the Middle East perceive U.S. national interests to be incompatible with their own interests. Telhami noted that one positive element in his polling was that the data did not indicate people believed U.S. foreign policy was dictated by U.S. domestic politics—namely, the belief that a strong Jewish lobby in the U.S. controls foreign policy. Telhami also said that although it is safe to say most people in the Middle East would like more freedoms, they do not want it at the expense of their national or security. Telhami also made the point that most people in the Middle East, especially élites, differentiate between their views of President Bush and their opinions about the United States as a whole.

       

Pollack expressed a fundamental concern that developments in Iraq make an outbreak of civil war increasingly likely. The security vacuum created in the wake of the United States’ overthrow of Saddam’s regime in April 2003 has had two major consequences. First, it has allowed the insurgency to develop. Second, it set a stage for a failed state, which Pollack argues is the greater of the two problems. The combination of these two elements is severely hindering progress in Iraq and underlies every other problem in the country. This suggests that the situation in Iraq cannot be improved by military means alone. A comprehensive political, military, and economic strategy is required for Iraq. The problem, Pollack argued, is that security is a precondition for all the other processes to take place. The foremost concern of the Iraqi people is security and basic needs such as employment, electricity, and clean water.

There are several components to the security issue in Iraq and here, argued Pollack, the United States has its priorities wrong. One these components is battling the insurgency. However, Pollack feels that the U.S. military is investing too many resources in fighting the insurgency. He argued that such an approach is problematic because it diverts resources and personnel away from addressing the causes of a failed state. The current U.S. policy and media coverage have tended to focus on the insurgency and to describe the manifestation of the failed state in terms of the insurgency. However, Pollack feels that the second component, training up the new Iraqi forces, should be the first priority and not, as it is now, the second. He argued that while many high ranking U.S. military commanders recognize that fighting the insurgency should come second to training Iraqi forces the priorities are often reversed in practice.

Pollack characterized the war in Iraq as a “patchwork” war. Decentralization of command and control has gone to extremes. Every division and brigade commander fights his own war differently. While some commanders understand the insurgency very well and are implementing a traditional counterinsurgency strategy, others have failed to correctly identify the nature of the war and are therefore mistakenly pursuing a conventional military approach. For example, they conduct large-scale offensive sweep operations, which are counterproductive. There are not enough Special Operations Forces (SOF), which are designed for counterinsurgency and for training indigenous forces, deployed in Iraq. The SOF that are in Iraq are often misused, such as by being assigned to perform reconnaissance for the large sweep operations. Moreover, there is little institutionalized effort to disseminate lessons learned. Knowledge is lost during handovers as new units come in and lose the benefit of the experience and learning of the units that are being replaced.

Misleading metrics have also been adopted, Pollack argued. The practice of detainee counts in Iraq has come to replace the body count used in Vietnam, which he felt was another indication that the U.S. military leadership did not have a handle on how best to win this war. Overall, Pollack found a lack of serious determination to win the war at all costs. Unlike the Second World War, where all capabilities were geared towards winning the conflict, a similar sense of purpose is often lacking in Iraq. For example, incompetent US commanders are not punished for their failings. The failure of some commanders to advance security is overlooked because of the application of flawed metrics such as the detainee count. The underlying problem, according to Pollack, is that some many senior officers are not interested in counterinsurgency and consider such operations an aberration from what the U.S. military is “supposed” so do. The converse is that good commanders are not left in place. Once an outstanding commander has completed his tour, he leaves Iraq with the rest of his brigade or division. Instead, Pollack suggested, the U.S. military should keep competent commanders in place and reward them in their military careers.

There is some evidence that tactics are changing, as for example, in Tal Afar, where the U.S. military not only cleared the area of insurgents but also attempted to hold the area. Pollack argued, however, that Tal Afar is not the sort of place that the United States should be implementing these tactics as it will take years to bring Tal Afar’s population around. Such tactics should be pursued in friendlier areas of Iraq first, such as the Shi’a-dominated south. Moreover, the difficulty with “holding” operations is that the U.S. military does not commit enough troops to them for enough time. Nor do those charged with assisting with political and economic reconstruction provide enough economic assistance to restore life to some kind of normality in the areas that have been cleared. As a result, the feeling is that the Americans make promises but fulfill few of them. So, even if the United States implements right tactics in many cases, the overall strategy is wrong and the strategic emphasis is misplaced in terms of security priorities.

Pollack observed that training of Iraqi forces is very uneven, but probably better than most people in Washington recognize. Training problems range from basic technical issues to those at the strategic level. For instance, the metrics that the U.S. military uses to categorize readiness of Iraqi military units are inconsistent. Every echelon in the chain of command uses different metrics and different criteria. Also, Pollack argued, the US military often sets the bar too high by demanding that Iraqi units be at category one status, which means that they can fight independently and support themselves without US assistance. However, Pollack observed that category two or three level units can perform many key counterinsurgency functions such as local area security.

Pollack said that the US military has trained many outstanding Iraqi units. These units have high morale, excellent tactics, and outstanding leadership. The correct approach would be to replicate this model across Iraq. In practice that is problematic as many of the best units are composed overwhelmingly of Kurds, all of whom are former Peshmerga, with a few Sunni Arabs in the command structure, which severely restricts where these units can be used. Pollack observed that the most of the good units in Iraq are single ethnicity, either Kurdish or Shi’a Arab.

According to Pollack, some of the training of Iraqi forces is inadequate because either the wrong doctrine or wrong tactics are used. Some American units are training the Iraqis to fight as they were trained—for high-intensity mechanized combat. In other cases, training is poor because it is not done by the best personnel. A merit system is not emphasized and incompetent Iraqi leaders are not replaced. As a result, bad Iraqi leaders corrupt their units. A further problem is that organized crime gangs, insurgents, and militias have penetrated the security services.

Pollack believes that there is a profound challenge ahead in terms of unit cohesion. Good Iraqi units collapsed when they faced insurgent opposition in Mosul in November 2004 and up against Moqtada as-Sadr’s forces in southern Iraq in the summer of 2004. There is, he argued, no guarantee that such a pattern will not be repeated. What can help, he argued, is time. The more opportunities that Iraqis have to train with Americans, to improve their skills, to adapt to new equipment, personnel, and leaders, then the more likely it is that they will build unit cohesion and not collapse in the future.

In addition, Pollack identified structural and logistical problems facing the Iraqi army, which is composed now only of combat formations. There is a lack of command, communications, training systems and the other back up that an army requires. If the US were to leave tomorrow, then Iraqi army units would collapse because there are virtually no indigenous institutions or infrastructure, civilian or military, to support them. Although this problem has been recognized, solving it requires reforming entire Iraqi ministries, which are plagued with corruption and inefficiency. Moreover, for the moment, the United States faces a “Hobson’s choice” in terms of equipping Iraqi units: If the U.S. military does not provide equipment, then it cannot expect the Iraqis to fight well; but if the U.S. does supply equipment, then much of it could find its way onto the black market where it is bought by the insurgents.

Pollack argues that one of the most serious mistakes the U.S. has made in the past has been the rush to create Iraqi forces. The U.S. military wanted to train these forces slowly, but came under tremendous political pressure to speed up the process, which meant that they were trained poorly. In addition, units from various militias, such as the Badr Organization (affiliated to the Iranian-backed Shi’a Islamist party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), have been integrated wholesale into the new Iraqi Army. These militias often pursue their own agendas. In an odd way, the growth of the militias has enhanced security for the moment as the militias enforce order in the areas under their control. Unfortunately, this is not the right kind of security, rather it is a form of security that is likely to provoke a civil war if history is any lesson. There are already examples of people being stopped at checkpoints and never seen again. There is evidence of ethnic cleansing in Iraq. As a consequence, people are joining militias, not because they want to but because the militias can protect them. These are the first steps towards a civil war. This illustrates the misplaced priorities of the U.S. in concentrating on chasing insurgents around Western Iraq, rather than securing the vast bulk of the populace against the elements of Iraq as a failed state–crime, sectarian militias, insurgent attack, and other forms of lawlessness–in central and southern Iraq.

The Iraqi police, who ought to be the first line of defense, are incompetent, corrupt, involved with organized crime, and penetrated by militias and the insurgents. The disastrous performance of the police is exacerbated by their lack of training and equipment. Iraqi police need be taught that their job is to protect and serve people, not, as they learned under Saddam, to oppress and steal from them. The Kurds have been able to improve their police through education and training. Although that process lasted for years, the Kurdish example is a good model to follow. A key lesson of the Kurdish experience is that vetting should not occur just at the beginning, at the recruitment stage, but throughout training and education.

Pollack briefly commented on the political situation. He pointed out that the United States has made a mistake of empowering what he called Shi’a chauvinists and exiles who had no political base in Iraq. To fill the security vacuum, the United States rushed to form an Iraqi government to put an Iraqi face on the political process. The United States did not wait for progressive and liberal Iraqi leaders to emerge. Instead the United States allowed Shi’a chauvinists to take over and has now decided to try to balance them by bringing in Sunni chauvinists. Pollack does not believe this is a stable solution to Iraq’s political problems. The exiles and the chauvinist parties are trying to control the ministries and reshape the Iraqi political and economic system to serve their narrow interests, which is not how nation building should work. The result of these mistakes is that there is a rampant corruption in the government. The irony, Pollack observed was that the Kurds, who have the least stake in the future of Iraq, have shown themselves to be Iraq’s greatest statesmen. Kurdish politicians such as Jalal Talabani, Barham Salih, and Hoshyar Zebari are in Baghdad doing the best for Iraq, putting the nation’s interests ahead of their own and, as a result, are alienating their own base.

Concluding, Pollack identified a fundamental problem in terms of the electoral process and legitimacy. The United States expects to bestow legitimacy on the Iraqi government through the political process, through free and fair elections. For most Iraqis, however, legitimacy will be conferred when the new government that is elected on December 15, 2005, starts delivering their basic needs, such as security, employment, electricity, and other essentials. The problem is that the new government will struggle to meet these expectations because it will lack the institutional capacity and resources to do so. Only the United States can deliver and meet these expectations. Unless the United States is willing to make fundamental changes in its Iraq strategy, six months from now Iraqis will likely be disappointed with this new government just as they have been disappointed in the four previous governments since the fall of Saddam. Iraqis will end up being governed by the same politicians as before, politicians who are more interested in squabbling over the spoils of government than delivering services to the population. In such a scenario, disappointed Iraqis will end up backing militia leaders like Moqtada as-Sadr and others like him who can deliver immediate security but at the price of long-term strife and possibly civil war.

       

July 28, 2005