Iraq was a failure of the neo-conservative world view

Aaron Ellis 9.17am

Iraq is the centre of the world and crucial to the United States’ wider foreign policy. President Obama is a failure and President Bush is as wise and as farsighted a statesman as General Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan.

This is the context in which we must understand the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, says Tim Montgomerie.

Last week, Mr Montgomerie attacked President Obama’s withdrawal from the country. He contrasts it with President Bush’s decision in 2007 to ‘surge’ American troops in order to regain momentum against the insurgency. Typically, Mr Montgomerie presents the reader with black-or-white choices: Bush is good, Obama is bad; and if you support the withdrawal, you “hate freedom”.

Neo-conservatives possess a dated worldview – and it shows. They are stuck in the early 2000s and the language of the War on Terror. They show no appreciation of grand strategy in his article or the coming of the ‘Pacific Century’. This is in stark contrast to President Obama, which is why Iraq should be added to the list of foreign policy failures by neo-conservatives and not the President’s.

The two decisions of Presidents Bush and Obama that we should contrast are the former’s decision to invade Iraq and the latter’s announcement last month of a new American military base in Australia.

For no good reason at all, President Bush burdened the United States with a disastrous war in a country of only marginal importance; he handed “a massive gift” to Tehran as a result, and distracted Washington from a real challenge to its power: China.

With his own announcement, however, President Obama sent a signal to Beijing that the U.S. was no longer distracted. The new base, the President said, was “a deliberate and strategic decision – as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping the region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with allies and friends.”

The great scholar Walter Russell Mead has described President Obama’s announcement, and other diplomatic coups the U.S. achieved in Asia last month, as the “coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.”

If we understand the Iraq withdrawal in this context then it is obvious which of the two presidents can claim to be a wise and farsighted statesman. “Regardless of whether the twenty-first century will be another ‘American century’, it is certain that it will be an Asian and Pacific century”, Richard Haass, President of the Council of Foreign Relations, has written. “It is both natural and sensible that the US be central to whatever evolves from that fact.”

This undermines many of the neo-conservatives’ other beliefs. Tim Montgomerie is disappointed that the U.S. will not have a “foothold” in Iraq but he does not explain why such a foothold is important to the U.S. He has tweeted praise for a Mitt Romney line about whether a government scheme is so crucial that it is worth borrowing money from China to pay for it, but he hasn’t yet answered whether the same test can be applied to Iraq.

The fact that the interests of the United States are in Asia-Pacific also undermines the examples of post-war Germany and Japan as templates for American policy vis-à-vis Iraq. Those two countries mattered to U.S. security after 1945, justifying the time and money spent on developing them. You cannot make the same argument with regard to Iraq.

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British foreign policy must be relevant and useful

Aaron Ellis 6.03am

Conservative thinking on foreign policy is a contradiction in terms. The time and energy spent on a distinctly Conservative world outlook is tiny compared to the thinking on the economy or welfare reform, for instance.

There are two reasons for this: first, there are few votes in foreign policy and second, there is scant funding for foreign policy think tanks. Many British politicians and pundits take their ideas from America.

The worldview of many Conservatives is infected by a ‘hidden Blairism’, from the Prime Minister downwards. Although Mr Cameron has often dismissed the moral certainties of Tony Blair, he buys into the ‘internationalisation’ of the national interest, which was a hallmark of Blairite foreign policy. In short, it is the belief that the world is so globalised and interconnected that every massacre or famine or failed state is a direct threat to our national security and it is vital that we get involved to sort it out. Libya is the most recent case in point.

In an attempt to fix the Conservatives’ deficiency in foreign policy, Dominic Raab MP recently wrote an op-ed in the Telegraph outlining how he thought his party should approach world affairs. Alex Massie criticised the piece for the Spectator, but I would like to explain my own concerns and offer a new foreign policy for the ‘post-coalitionists’.

On top of those detailed by Massie, there are two problems with Dominic Raab’s article: one is conceptual, the other is policy related.

Mr Raab argues that British foreign policy needs to be focused on ‘the national interest’, yet he too buys into its ‘internationalisation’, thus undermining any attempt for that foreign policy to be focused. It is in our interests, he believes, to resolve conflicts and rebuild failed states, but he fails to say which of these problems and where is specifically a national interest to sort out. By linking failed states to terrorism - a link that I criticised recently - shows that Mr Raab’s foreign policy is as much subconsciously Blairite as David Cameron’s and the coalition’s, despite claiming to be an alternative.

His policy recommendations are also similar to those favoured by the coalition government and like them, they leave you asking some basic strategic questions.

Mr Raab suggests that the UK should loosen ties with the United States and strengthen them with emerging powers. We should rehabilitate the Commonwealth. But what exactly does the UK gain from balancing power in the Far East? And with regard to the loosening of ties with the US, we need an explanation of how this radical shift would impact on the Trident nuclear deterrent and close intelligence relationship we enjoy.

The watchwords for British foreign policy in the twenty-first century must be relevance and usefulness.

Lee Kuan Yew, the great Singaporean statesman, has said that the only way his small country can exercise influence in a world dominated by geographical giants is by being relevant to them. One key feature of this policy is acquiring expertise in niche technologies. It would be obtuse to say we should become a ‘mega-Singapore’ but a policy of relevance is appropriate to Tory ideas on the economy, education and welfare reform.

Britain also needs to be useful, mostly to the United States. Prof Christopher Coker, a sharp observer of world affairs, has noted that being useful to the Americans is not in itself an objective but “a tactical instrument to follow a larger strategy - that of the national interest”. The hope is that our usefulness will be repaid in influence on US policy, as well as justifying the benefits we already enjoy. Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that this hope was misguided then, but the benefits of the Special Relationship continue to be important. Fifty per cent of intelligence processed by the Join Intelligence Committee (JIC) comes from American sources. This is a privilege we should not relinquish.

If we are to be successful then it is essential to impose restraints. Britain needs to determine our areas of expertise that make us relevant and which areas of the world we are useful to. These decisions require leadership. In my opinion, we are still waiting.

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What next after bin Laden?

Alexander Pannett 2.05pm

As the dust from the impact of Osama bin Laden’s death settles, the West has to ask itself what the next step must be for ending Islamic extremism.

Pakistan is still a mess and the proximity of bin Laden’s mansion to the elite Pakistani officer training academy in Abbottabad raises troubling questions about possible complicity between sections of Pakistani military-intelligence and Islamic terrorists.  However, pointing fingers is not going to turn back the tide of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan.  The country needs to be stabilised if democracy is to triumph and this requires constructive engagement, not negative intimidation. 

Even if evidence is found that ties ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence organisation, to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, it is not clear what the West’s response should be.  They should not end their support to Pakistan, as this would condemn a nuclear armed Pakistan to a dangerous civil war.  Abandoning Pakistan would also undermine Afghanistan, where the key to defeating the insurgency lies in tackling the insurgent strongholds in the tribal areas of North-West Pakistan.  This cannot be achieved without the support of Pakistan.  Any thought of military reprisals for ISI complicity is a non sequitor considering the current precarious military and economic strength of the West. 

However, if ISI has been sheltering Bin Laden then a strong message must be sent out that this unacceptable.  The most effective message would be one that truly strikes fear into the Pakistani military-intelligence community; generous military aid to India.  This strategy may already have been put into action.  If the US did know of Bin Laden’s whereabouts up to a year ago and suspected ISI involvement, this may explain the huge India/US military deals that have been made in the past year. 

With any stick must come a carrot.  The West should support Pakistan in building its local economy and infrastructure.  This is why it was right and prescient of the Coalition not to cut the international development budget and prioritise Pakistan for aid.  The Pakistani education system should be strengthened so that children are not radicalised in extremist madrasas.  Building projects should be instigated to create jobs and support the local economy.  At the same time, development must respect the traditions of an Islamic country and recognise that whilst Western technology and funds may be welcomed, an imposition of Western culture may cause resentment and further divisions. 

The death of Osama bin Laden may either be the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.  But the struggle against extremism will not finish with military conquest.  It will end when there is mutual respect and understanding between our different cultures.  On the West’s part, we must earn respect by demonstrating that our skills and expertise can bring prosperity and development to the impoverished of Pakistan.  To earn understanding we must abide by our enlightenment values that justice is attained through lawful due process and not by arbitrary retribution.  “Legalised” torture and kill squads will not bring us closer to a peaceful solution.

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Osama bin Laden’s death is not a knockout blow - just another punch

Jack Blackburn 8.30am

It is one of those moments when you hear a piece of news and become quite frantic: you must gather every possible piece of information. Yet with the early hours announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden, there really is little else to say. The man was evil and he has met the fate subjected to thousands by his design.

11th September 2001 was the defining moment of my childhood. It set the international agenda for the ensuing decade and triggered a series of events that include two major wars and many more deaths. Bin Laden’s demise seems to mark the closing of a chapter but this is not so. The cycle continues. Al-Qaeda will gain recruits today but it will also lose supporters. This is not a knockout blow; just another punch.

The reactions of President Obama and David Cameron have been careful. The death of bin Laden is good news but nobody wishes to be joyous at the death of another human being: relieved, yes, but not delighted. Some reactions this morning have been distasteful and incendiary. I repeat: Osama bin Laden was evil. But he was a man. Let humanity and decency be our trademark in the face of his cruelty and murder.

Those commentators now declaring Barack Obama as a shoo-in for a second term as President are merely desperate to say something about a story that defies opinion and permits only speculation. They should know better. It is rather condescending to suggest that the American people will make an important decision in 2012 on the basis of a covert military operation eighteen months previously.

There must be reflection on how the man died. First, there are reports that Osama bin Laden was asked to surrender by troops before he was shot. If true, it must be investigated. Secondly, there must be informed speculation about the only other questions that remain for Western governments: what is going to happen now and what are we going to do?

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