The recent killing of Osama Bin Ladin revealed at best, a Pakistani regime either unwilling or unable to be an effective ally in our ongoing battle against Al Qaeda. Troubling questions need to be answered. What did Pakistani officials know about Bin Ladin’s presence and when did they know it? How effectively have Pakistani national security officials used $20 Billion in US aid to combat Al Qaeda and the Taliban? Why is the main debate in Pakistan today focusing on the US “violation” of their sovereignty in attacking Bin Ladin instead of on their own failure to find him? Is Pakistan worthy of the designation of major non-NATO ally and the steady stream of financial assistance provided by the American people?

To answer these questions and fashion a long term and sustainable approach to relations with Pakistan, Congress should authorize and the President should support the creation of a “Commission on US-Pakistan Relations”. Precedents are available for quickly moving forward with just such an effort.

The 9/11 Commission served as a thorough and credible fact finder concerning the events of 9/11. Its factual findings provided a necessary narrative on the events and raised questions that then could be answered with future policy action. The Iraq Study Group trained consistent attention on one national security challenge and provided a series of potential options for policy makers. In each of these instances the national security challenge to be confronted needed sustained focus and bi-partisan engagement. In a world of rapidly changing events demanding many responses, the President and the US Congress need the assistance of just such a Commission to provide the answers and options regarding our past and future relationship with Pakistan.

A “Commission on US-Pakistan Relations” should be provided with sufficient resources to gain a high level expert staff that is able to conduct interviews, investigations and support hearings that could culminate in a Final Report to be delivered within six months. The Commission Membership should be appointed by a combination of the President and Congress; two from the Speaker of the House, one from the Democratic Leader of the House, two from the Senate Majority Leader, one from the Senate Minority Leader, and five from the President of the United States.

Our relationship with Pakistan is too important for the security of our nation, and for the peace of the South Asia region, to let it be shaped by the pressures of cable talk shows and the necessarily shifting attention of senior policy makers. The creation of a “Commission on US-Pakistan Relations” can go far toward letting the American people know that policymakers are not satisfied with the status quo, are committed to finding answers and charting a new and sustainable way forward for protecting our interests in this most challenging part of the world.

Scott Bates is the former Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee. Bates is currently Vice-President of the Center for National Policy and can be reached at sdbates66@hotmail.com.

Related posts:

1. Bin Laden and the Rocky Road to Islamabad
2. A New Approach to Interventionism
3. PSA Advisory Board member Marc Grossman named Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Last week the Pew Global Attitudes Project released its 2009 poll results on the US image in the world.  This year’s results showed a dramatic change since last year’s poll.  With Obama’s election, views of the US by people around the world have improved dramatically.  Considering that during the presidential campaign, Obama was receiving a tremendous outpouring of support from around the world, this result is not altogether surprising.  Amidst this good news, however, the poll indicates that there remain real reasons for concern, particularly amongst those in the Muslim world.  Although Obama’s election has certainly improved the view of the US by many around the world, many of those whose opinions count most in America’s struggle against terrorism have not been won over by Obama’s persona nor his oratory skills.  They are waiting for concrete changes in US policy.

Certainly there is much to celebrate in this poll, particularly regarding America’s relations with its traditional friends and allies.  In Britain positive views of the US increased from 53 to 69 percent.  In France, there was a 33 percentage point increase to 75 percent favorability.  And in Germany favorable ratings of the US increased from 31 to 64 percent.  In Germany and France more people expressed support for Obama than for Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy.  Although America’s foreign policy interests are impacted by a variety of factors, certainly having a favorable public in allied countries should not be underestimated.

Admittedly, however, getting Europeans to like Americans should be considered low hanging fruit.  My guess is that few Europeans would report that the US foreign policy of the past several years has impacted them on a personal level.  Rather, their disdain for the Bush administration had more to do with the symbolic “ugly American” that it represented – the swaggering American cowboy quick to pull his pistol rather than resort to more “civilized” discourse.  So, it’s not surprising that when the symbolic ugly American exits the stage, approval ratings rebound.

Considering that our experience with the Iraq war has demonstrated that the go-it-alone approach to US foreign policy is seriously flawed, having the Europeans on board is certainly a welcome change.  Unfortunately, however, it’s not enough.

The element of this poll that should have us all concerned is that which deals specifically with the Muslim world.  We are currently engaged in two wars simultaneously – both in the Muslim world.  One of the often heard refrains in these conflicts refers to the need to win the “hearts and minds” of the local population.  Unfortunately, the recent Pew polling shows that in the parts of the world that are intimately tied our national security,  America continues to be seen in a very negative light.  Since last year, in Turkey, US favorability inched up from 12 to 14 percent.  Since 2007, positive views of the US in the Palestinian territories increased from 13 to 15 percent.  During the past year favorable views of the US in Pakistan have decreased from 19 to 16 percent.   There were, however, somewhat more positive answers when respondents were asked if they felt that the US would do the right thing in world affairs.

Of course, one would not expect that the election of a charismatic leader would dramatically shift the views of these people, many of whom have been affected on a personal level by US policy.   It will take much more.  The Muslim world is waiting for real changes in US policy.  So far, Obama has at least been saying the right things.  The Cairo speech was a positive first step and the Pew poll shows that in some countries there was a slight increase in support for the US after that speech.  However, it will take more than one speech to undo years of mistrust.  Muslims are waiting to see if positive actions will follow the President’s eloquent words.

Probably the biggest single issue that dominates the Muslim psyche  is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The bipartisan Iraq Study Group pointed to this issue as an important component to the resolution of the conflict in Iraq – not because it has a direct link to Iraq, but rather, because it leads to a common sense of injustice amongst Muslims that inflames tensions and inspires extremist recruits.  President Obama’s appointment of George Mitchell to head up America’s efforts in restarting the peace process is certainly a step in the right direction.  However, it’s going to take a concerted effort, willing Israeli and Palestinian partners, and tremendous political capital to make serious headway.

But it’s not just about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Although favorability ratings of the US increased slightly in most Muslim countries, they actually decreased in Pakistan, a country that is ground zero in the current struggle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  The Obama administration’s new strategy for the Af-Pak region that stresses a civilian surge along with an expanded military presence is a step in the right direction.  The related legislation for a dramatic increase in humanitarian and development assistance has finally passed the Senate and House and must now proceed to conference committee.  Every day of delay in this process strengthens the hand of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Until some concrete progress is made that truly affects the lives of the Muslim, my expectation is that the view of the Muslim world towards the US will remain quite negative, further complicating our most serious foreign policy challenges.  Although we aren’t seeking to win a popularity contest, if we do expect to win hearts and minds, these poll results show that we still have long way to go.  It will take more than a charismatic leader or a good speech to heal years of mistrust and animosity.

No related posts.

Over the past few days I have noticed another spike in media talking heads suggesting that the Obama administration will find it tough to roll back the Bush admin torture/interrogation policies. The case they are making is that it is these policies that have kept us safe over the last few years.

I wish that someone would respond by reminding these media types that last year the Washington Post ran an op-ed from a US interrogator in Iraq who made clear that when his team went against the grain and did not use torture they got the intel that led to the discovery of Zarqawi. He also notes that Abu Gharib and Gitmo caused foreign fighters to flood to Iraq and calculates the number of US troop casualties caused by this flocking of foreign fighters.

 Money Quote:

“I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.”

See here for more details from that piece.

It is also worth reminding these same talking heads that when Sen. McCain was interviewed by George Step (This Week) in Dec he noted that a high level al-Qaeda in Iraq member made clear to him that their success was driven by two issues – one of which was Abu Gharib and Gitmo as a recruiting tool.

Money Quote: 

“Let me just tell you a brief story. Not that long ago, a year and a half ago, Senator Lindsey Graham and I were in Iraq. We were in the prison. The general, our U.S. general in charge of prison had us in a secluded area and met a former high-ranking member of Al Qaida, one of the toughest guys I’ve ever seen. I said, how did you succeed so well after the initial American victory?

He said, “Two things” — he said, “One” — he said, “there was no control by your troops. It was total lawlessness. There was rape, looting, pillage, murder, settling of old scores. So there was
lawlessness. Second, the greatest recruiting tool we had — we were able to recruit thousands of young men,” he said, “was Abu Ghraib.” So you can’t underestimate the damage that our treatment of prisoners, both at Abu Ghraib and other…”

Link here for more details.

The fact that this information does not seem to have penetrated the public discourse is why I believe we need an Independent Bipartisan Commission on Torture – an informed public is crucial to ensuring we don’t repeat the errors of recent years.

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The New America Foundation hosted a seminar last Friday on US counterterrorism policy. The seminar was jointly sponsored by the Better World Campaign, an advocacy branch of the United Nations Foundation, and the Center for Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, a nonpartisan research group working to improve internationally coordinated responses to evolving terrorist threats. Experts contracted by the two groups unveiled a paper they had produced, offering strategies for improving international cooperation on counterterrorism policy, which could enhance perceptions of the US abroad while promoting America’s own national security agenda.

In terms of proscriptive policy, the paper did not break new ground. Much of the advice echoes that of prominent US homeland security figures such as Michael Chertoff, as well as the leading presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. The authors offered suggestions for ways in which the US could re-engage the UN and other multilateral bodies in creating and implementing counterterrorist policies, while providing sound justification for such re-engagement strategies. As a thesis, they offered the following:

“A robust military and effective covert intelligence gathering capabilities must remain at the cutting edge of our efforts to capture and defeat terrorists. Focusing on these measures alone, however, is not sufficient to address a multifaceted and adapting global threat. International cooperation on a broader range of approaches using a wide array of tools deserves greater attention and resources to improve collective efforts to address emerging threats. To protect America against another major terrorist attack, the new Administration will have to make strengthening international cooperation, including reasserting American leadership in the UN… a top priority.”

The suggestions offered by the group focused on creating human levers, strategically placed in the US government, to implement this ambitious campaign of international cooperation. Authors mentioned creating a white house “czar” for international counterterrorism policy, appointing a diplomat as the State Department’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, enduring ambassadorial level leadership on counterterrorism at the UN, and calling for the establishment of a global anti-terrorism organization.

These people, the authors argued, would be more effective, expedient instruments of change than using a resource-shifting strategy. Their reasoning is pragmatic, if pessimistic, given the difficulty (as 9/11 continues to recede in our minds) of convincing Congress to shift federal appropriations from well funded agencies with have neither the time nor manpower for such projects (such as DOD), towards more relevant would-be actors, such as the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau.

One cannot logically argue against the justification the authors provided. Multilateral bodies such as the UN could accomplish many things the US cannot, working unilaterally or bilaterally. For instance, the UN can implement legal frameworks for cooperative counterterrorism policy. It can enable technical cooperation between countries, working as both informational and operational hub. It can assist states in capacity building, and reduces the burden or onus for any one country in fighting the war on terror. Perhaps most importantly, it can transcend the political realities that ground the US time and again in multinational enterprises, by engaging with non-traditional allies.

All of the experts were well aware a new President will not necessarily find this proposal any more palatable than the current Administration. However, their point is that pessimism cannot keep us from lobbying for what we believe is the best course of US action. Their paper concludes: “While no American President should ever put alliances and international cooperation before the security of the American people, failure to provide the leadership needed today to strengthen counterterrorism alliances around the world…undermines the security of the United States.”

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The pressure on the Administration to call for a new round of top-level Middle East peace talks is substantial. A few of the main drivers are: (1) that the bipartisan Iraq Study Group correctly identified Israeli-Palestinian peace as a potential linchpin of a larger Middle East settlement, which could calm Iraq while effectively containing Iran; (2) that any serious conversation with Arab or Muslim leaders about the US role in the Middle East invariably includes a diatribe against our support for the “Israeli occupation;” (3) that the longer Palestinians live without a single, sovereign, responsible government, the more their political life comes to resemble Iraq’s civil war; and (4) that the Israelis themselves have for the first time put partitioning Jerusalem on the table.

It is also significant that the Israeli and US governments have developed a closer working relationship under Bush and Olmert than under previous leaders. This fact may have persuaded the President that he can broker a diplomatic triumph at Annapolis to temporarily clear Iraq from the headlines and even salvage the foreign policy legacy of his presidency.

But consider for a moment the less auspicious circumstances of a November summit.

The letter’s authors correctly caution against sidelining Hamas or Syria from the dialog, which would increase their likelihood of playing a spoiler role and result in “escalating violence from the West Bank or from Gaza, either of which would overwhelm any political achievement.” Yet it is not clear that Hamas or Syria will participate in comprehensive final status talks with Israel under any circumstances. And even if they do, recent history suggests there will be other spoilers, who will find a way to upset any deal from which they do not extract maximum profit.

One likely spoiler is a resurgent Hezbollah, a powerful quasi-state operating outside the effective control of the Lebanese or Syrian governments. Hezbollah has the ability to rain terror on Northern Israel and possibly even drag the Israelis into another incursion into Syria or Lebanon. An even more troubling potential spoiler is Iran, which would undercut any Israeli-Arab progress it perceived as a threat to its ambitions in Iraq or its bid to unite and lead the Muslim world on an anti-Israel platform.

All of this underlines the importance of inclusion. Yet we cannot dictate terms to Syria or Hamas, and they may not come prepared to make concessions, assuming they come at all. Likewise, even if we somehow wrangle a commitment from Hezbollah and Iran not to undermine the deal, there will be other outsiders to this latest process whose status as potential spoilers by itself will magnify their power.

Success at Annapolis would yield huge dividends for the US, Israel, and the Arab states, which is doubtless why the administration seems resolved to move forward in November, whether or not it heeds the letter writers’ advice. But even under the best of circumstances, a final settlement is far from guaranteed to emerge from next month’s talks, and what happens afterward is largely out of American hands.

Sound foreign policy, like all good decision making, requires us to look not only at the benefits of success, but to consider the costs of failure and the likelihood of each outcome. A US-led Middle East summit in November 2007 is a gamble: the upside would be fantastic, but the odds are worse than even and a loss could cost us the farm.

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The ISG recommendation would be useful for many reasons. The first is that it has bipartisan support. When it was created, the Group was praised by both sides of the aisle. Two weeks ago, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the House that would implement the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations which has 52 co-sponsors, almost split evenly between the two parties. If the Bush Administration were to embrace the ISG plan, it would certainly be met with praise on Capitol Hill, something that has been sorely lacking from our Iraq policy lately.

The recommendations made by the Iraq Study group also included a plan that most of the combat troops in Iraq could begin to leave by the end of March 2008. Obviously that date would have to be pushed back a little because of the delay in implementation, but it would provide the American public what it has wanted for months, a way to start bringing our soldiers home from Iraq. Almost 60 percent of Americans, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, want to start reducing the number of troops we have in Iraq. The ISG plan would allow that to happen, while also ramping up training for Iraqi military forces. Because of this, when American forces do withdraw from Iraq, the Iraqi forces would be stronger and better equipped to handle the ongoing security problems in the country. Therefore, the American public would get what they clamor for and it would avoid a calamitous security vacuum.

One of the more controversial recommendations from the ISG involved engaging Syria and Iran directly in talks about the security situation in Iraq. The Bush administration has begun talking to Iran and Syria, but must keep the channels of dialogue open and consistent. By engaging these two countries directly and most important, respectfully, we can encourage them to be responsible stake holders in the conflict. At the very least, through honest and open dialogue, we can better gauge what their expectations and interests are for Iraq and respond accordingly. Finally, constructive engagement on Iraq can be used as a foundation to begin discussions on other issues such as a freeze on nuclear activity in Iran or peace negotiations between Syria and Israel.

It is obvious that the troop surge has not lived up to the expectations of the Bush administration or the general public. President Bush is now seeing more and more members of his own party abandon him on Capitol Hill. He needs to do what he failed to do in January and accept the ISG recommendations. When the report was originally released, Bush remarked that he wanted Congress to work with his administration to find “common ground”. What he missed, however, was that the common ground has existed in the form of the Baker-Hamilton report. It is time for the President to embrace the ISG report and move this country’s Iraq policy forward in a way that both parties and the American public can support.

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Among several tenets of social psychology, the authors cite the understanding of loss aversion imbedded in prospect theory, a formula pioneered by Prof. Kahneman and his fellow Nobel laureate, Stanford’s Amos Tversky.  Prospect theory holds that human beings assign greater weight to losses than to numerically equal gains.  So, on average, we will be more upset to lose ten dollars than we are happy to gain ten dollars.  What’s more, we’re risk averse:  We don’t like the possibility of losing and we’ll actually spend money to eliminate the risk—-often more than the estimated monetary value of the risk itself (for example we’ll pay $100 a year to insure $1000 against only a 5% chance of total loss). 

Neither risk aversion nor loss aversion is a totally new insight, but the authors reconcile the two to suggest that risk may actually be preferable to certainty when the latter involves certain loss.  In other words, rather than be sure to lose, say, $500, most people would prefer a scenario offering a 10% chance of losing nothing, even at the cost of a 90% chance of losing $600.  Although a purely rational calculation shows the latter option to be more costly (an estimated loss of $540), loss aversion overcomes risk aversion to favor rolling the dice most of the time.

On the international political stage, Kahneman and Renshon argue, this bias causes decision makers to favor more costly military solutions over less costly diplomatic compromises.  They cite the example of the Iraq “surge” as a case where a negotiated pull out would amount to an admission of loss, whereas the cost of sending in more troops, even when top generals doubt their ability to effect change, is offset by the  slight chance of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.  The implication, of course, is that a purely rational calculation would put the cost of the surge well above that of a negotiated withdrawal.

Kahneman and Renshon cite two other broad social psychological theories to explain the human bias toward armed conflict, but I’ll offer just a few observations on their application of loss aversion to international relations (IR):

1.  Whose decisions are we analyzing?  President Bush may be “the decider” in his own idiosyncratic worldview, but it is practically an IR theory truism that domestic political forces matter.  Whether they act rationally or irrationally, states (and for that matter heads of state) are not independent actors.  Consequently, analyzing the US “surge” in Iraq as a binary choice by one decision maker ignores the calculus of whole subsets of the US leadership where even perfectly rational considerations might favor sending in more troops (think of those in the Republican Party who have staked electoral success on opposing Democrats’ call for withdrawal).

2.  Prospect theory, like any other economic or social psychological model, really only works under “perfect” theoretical conditions, including known, quantifiable costs and benefits, known probabilities of success or failure, and independence among many closely related choices.  But we have none of these in the real world.  Can we be certain that the surge is 90% likely to fail?  What if it has a 50/50 chance of success?  What about a 90% chance of success?  Do we even really have the option to negotiate with Iran and Syria that the experts say must be part of a successful withdrawal from Iraq?  Given how often expert forecasts are wrong (let’s not forget the pre-war predictions), we should be exceedingly careful about assessing the costs and benefits of any geopolitical move.

3.  Another feature of innate human risk aversion is that, being at least partly emotional, it can be fed by fluctuating emotional states like fear and insecurity.  Thus, what might one day seem like an acceptable risk (say, jaywalking or speeding) might seem utterly unacceptable the very next (say, after seeing a jaywalker hit by a car, or a speeder pulled over), even if the actual probability of a negative outcome has not changed at all.  What this means for Kahneman and Renshon’s argument is that even if we are irrationally conflict prone today, we won’t necessarily be so tomorrow.  If, for example, we are stung by a dramatic and memorable defeat in Iraq, odds are we’ll harbor an irrational bias against going to war the next time round.

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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s talk about Iraq. You mentioned the House Democrats passed their bill. Their version of the Iraq war funding bill this week which imposed benchmarks on the Iraqi government but also set a deadline for the removal of all U.S. combat forces. Can you sign on to that? …  So combining legislation, what kind of conditions are you going to try to impose?
 
HAGEL: It will be binding legislation, and it will be focused on deployment, redeployment, training, equipment. What we’re doing to our force structure in this country is disastrous.
 
We essentially are ruining our National Guard. We are destroying our Army. We’re destroying our Marine Corps.

We can’t sustain this kind of not only deployment, but training tempo, and the consequences of that, you’re seeing at Walter Reed Hospital, for example and the consequences of that, for example, dumbing down your United States Army. We are now in a situation, we’re waiving criminal records, drug abuse records to entice people to join the Army. You are ruining a 30-year effort to produce, which we have, the best Army in the world.  
 
HAGEL: I would want to see what, in the end, I have to vote on. Let me put it this way, I will not accept the status quo. I will not continue to support with my vote the status quo. I am opposed to the president’s current policy. I am opposed to the president’s further escalation of America’s military involvement. We are undermining our interest in the Middle East. We are undermining our military. We’re undermining the confidence of people around the world in what we’re doing.  

And what is the senator’s response to the White House talking point that setting an early date for redeployment, not an actual withdrawal of troops (even though the one passed in the House last Friday is, as Brian Vogt noted last week, actually six months after the deadline suggested by the Iraq Study Group) is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the White House has argued, Stephen Hadley was here last week, that right now we’re actually seeing the increase in forces actually start to deliver some results in Baghdad. Don’t you see that at all?

HAGEL: No, I don’t see that. In fact, there are more incidents, not less. Sure, in parts of Baghdad, in overall Baghdad, over the last two or three weeks, we have seen some fewer, but not around the country. Look at what happened two days ago, one of the two vice presidents of Iraq was attacked there at his own compound and is lying mortally wounded in a hospital.
 
No, it isn’t getting any less dangerous, and the fact is that was predictable, the more American troops you flood into a zone, sure, you’re going to see some immediate effect of that but that has nothing to do with the long-term or lasting effect. This solution in Iraq is not going to come by continuing to put more and more Americans in there because we’re bogging ourselves down. We are further eroding our credibility and stature in the Middle East. It’s going to make it more and more difficult for us to get out because we are going to have to get out.
 
You know, we had the Inspector General testifying, our Inspector General, Mr. Bowen, he was testifying before the Congress this week. I met with him alone for an hour and a half. He reminded all of us that we have now spent almost a half a trillion dollars in Iraq. We have put at least 40 billion in economic development there. Which we don’t know what we got out of it. There’s still no oil law. Billions of dollars have been ripped off, unaccounted for, and one more point on this — over $12 billion of Iraqi money still sits in the accounts of the Iraqi government that they haven’t spent. So something has to give here, George.

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My question is one that I feel very personally because my own vociferous anger over this war has somehow declined even as the urgency for change has increased. I think for me a lot of it has to do with the fact that you feel like you are speaking to deaf ears. Even after our initial protests — and indeed even after the election and the Iraq study group — it is not clear that this democratically elected president really sees himself as much as a democratic leader as a stalwart commander-in-chief. He is “the decider” and somehow his strategy seems to work — tell people you’re the decider and they will believe you and quiet down.

Hopefully, if the President continues to sidestep the ISG report, he may be faced with protests like those that proceeded this war. Of course, these protests would recognize the bravery and courage of our troops. And that’s precisely why we would be out there — to say that their bravery and courage deserves a commander in chief at the top with a coherent plan for victory.

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Now, though, bipartisan support is mounting for reductions in the American presence in Iraq (e.g., at a minimum, the Iraq Study Group’s proposal to redeploy combat troops to neighboring countries) — and public opinion is falling into place behind a timetable for withdrawal. President Bush is looking for a “new plan” that will offer hope for the future, and as he has said over and over again, he does not intend to consider withdrawal as part of the new plan.

Unfortunately, the generals are now a political liability. Top generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff — those responsible for the long-term future of the military rather than the day-to-day combat operations in Iraq — are starting to admit that the situation in Iraq poses a real threat to the military institution (its readiness, recruitment, etc.). But what the President really seems to want to do is “surge” more troops into the theater — troops that might temporarily stabilize the situation, at least until the insurgents adapt. But if a surge is what you want, suddenly the operational commanders’ statements that they have “the right number of troops” become a problem.

In passing, it’s worth noting that over time, the surge is likely to fail: insurgents will find new areas to attack, and they will recruit additional legions by arguing that the surge represents a clear commitment from the U.S. to an extended occupation; meanwhile, the surge of American troops will undercut the motivation and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces to act on their own, prolonging the “need” for the American deployment. The surge is not a strategy to end the conflict. It is a strategy (at best) to postpone the day of reckoning.

But in the short term, the big problem is the position in which the President is putting his military commanders. For good reasons, they want to be on the same page as the President: he is their commander in chief, and they want to do the best that they can to execute the policy that the President sets. If the President steadfastly wants to resist calls for increased troops, as he did until recently, then many operational commanders view their job as to explain how they can succeed within that constraint. In the classic definition of “objective control” of the military by civilian leaders — a definition that is drilled into our military leadership over and over during their careers from the time that they are first sworn in as officers — the job of top officers (especially operational commanders) is not to set the strategy but to execute it. Adherence to this definition avoids some of the traditional problems of civil-military relations (e.g., coups), but it reduces the combatant commanders’ ability to provide objective, high-quality military advice.

Moreover, commanders in the field have trouble offering objective advice: they are invested in their current mission, and they don’t have time and perspective for independent analysis of the situation. In a typical war, their career trajectory is inexorably tied to their ability to succeed in executing the current strategy (this war is atypical in that very few generals have been fired / paid a price for failure in the field — but they also know that they would pay a price for dissent).

Normally, the U.S. military relies on the Joint Chiefs (and their staff) to provide high-level military advice to the President. The Chiefs have the perspective, the experience, and the long-term institutional values to offer strategic advice. But at present, the President doesn’t like their answer. And he has the leverage to browbeat the generals in the field to flip-flop on their preferred troop levels. Now, General Casey (our commander in Iraq) is in the awkward position of backtracking on his view on troop levels. He now supports a surge (see coverage in the Los Angeles Times).

The American public should not believe him. Maybe a surge would be best, although I doubt it (see above). But I would feel better if independent military advisors called for it. And, by the way, even the Joint Chiefs in today’s environment are somewhat politicized — hand-picked by top political leaders, who know a good deal about the sort of advice the generals are likely to give before they do the picking. In the midst of the controversial fight in Iraq, it’s hard to find independent military advice.

Civilian defense intellectuals are not a good substitute. Civilian advice is certainly worse on operational matters than on strategy (because we know less about the operational situation, and our training is more suited to thinking about strategy than tactics and operations).

But when all voices are imperfect, maybe the only way we can get a decent result in the policy debate is to pay attention to as many voices as possible: civilians outside government, civilians in government, and the Joint Chiefs. We’re deep in a hole for strategic advice. And I say that with the deepest respect for the military, including its leadership.

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