"I and Thou"

The Stigma Attached To Pakistani Aid

Both the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal reported today that the American Embassy in Islamabad issued a rare public complaint that “its staff were being harassed and detained as they traveled around the country.” Apparently, American government convoys are being stopped at checkpoints and visas and visa extensions are not being granted. As a consequence, the Embassy is running at 60% capacity and the civilian aid promised by the Kerry-Lugar bill will certainly not be distributed effectively.

Pakistani obstructionism from a Western perspective is one of the most frustrating aspects of this entire Afpak conflict because it seems so counterproductive. The United States is spending valuable resources on the development of a foreign country. Of course, there is a self-interest motive. It is to the United States’ advantage that Pakistan remain a viable state that does not support radical extremists and provide a safe-haven for terrorism. Moreover, in the current war in Afghanistan, Pakistan is the Vietnam-era North Korea. Militants can retreat to areas along the Pakistani border for repose, re-groupment, and training. Removing this critical region for Afghan Taliban would constitute a distinct tactical victory.

However, although the American interest is correlated to Pakistani stability and military cooperation, the American money need not be so tainted. The United States seeks to provide invaluable healthcare and infrastructure developments that could improve the lives of millions of Pakistanis. It is, in a sense, the Marshall Plan of the Middle East. And yet, suspicion and animosity are the primary products of the American investment in Pakistan. Blaming Pakistan is a useless strategy. The American Embassy’s public complaint will likely produce nothing. And the United States should move on with new strategies on how to engage itself more significantly with Pakistan.

The United States cannot ignore the security dilemmas facing the Pakistani state and the extremely negative opinion population has of the United States. The military is suspicious that its nuclear weapons are under intense observation by US intelligence agencies and that India is positioning itself for future assaults on Pakistan. The population has long-held biases that need to be confronted with grass roots efforts, sophisticated information campaigns, and education. Of course, the Kerry-Lugar bill itself was supposed to deal with some of these perception problems, but we cannot expect that the aid would magically create a new environment for American discourse to have legitimacy. Lets be patient. Lets accept that the inevitable concerns Pakistanis may have. If we have confidence in the aid program, then lets give it time to work. Arguing about it will just make the situation worse. Seed projects first need to grow, before development can be accelerated.

Old Article for the McGill Tribune

I just wanted to post an old article on Iraq that I wrote for McGill so that I have it safely copied onto my own web space. At the time, I was afraid that people would misperceive the Iraqi conflict and believed that because there were relatively successful elections the country was on the right track. Although, in retrospect, I may have overemphasized American oil interests, the rests seems most right:

GUEST SOAP: A take on Iraq

By: Roman Loonis

Posted: 1/31/06

Every day in Iraq, as American soldiers and civilians perish at the hands of “improvised explosive devices,” evidence of a relentless insurgency dedicated to the proliferation of terror mounts. At one time there was a slim hope that a new election would mark the arrival of peace and freedom. Yet following last month’s elections, claims of widespread fraud, voter intimidation and delayed vote counting marred the early optimism.

Degrading security has pushed the precarious social equilibrium out of balance. Terrified Shiites are now migrating into safer, more religiously uniform neighborhoods, as suspicious Sunnis are fighting for their lives and places in society. As tensions mount, the central conundrum of Iraq remains: Can Iraq become a democracy?

In a country composed of three distinct social groups and possessing enormous oil reserves, Iraq has been the target of foreign domination and civil strife for over a century. To become independent and democratic, Iraq must grasp its own history, establish complete sovereignty by rejecting foreign interference and understand its own ethnic and religious plurality.

With the world’s second-largest oil reserves, Iraq is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for oil-driven nations and profit-driven companies. As early as 1914, the British government deployed troops in Basra to control the Persian oil fields. Following the First World War, the United States, France and Britain negotiated complex agreements on the division of the oil-rich lands. Until 1972 and the rise of Saddam, the Iraq Petroleum Company, a consortium of American, French and British interests, maintained a monopoly of Iraq’s oil resources.

There is no doubt that America’s new involvement in Iraq is simply a continuation of ancient practices. Spurred by economic weakness and growing energy dependence, US foreign policy dictates nothing less than resource control in Iraq. Companies close to the Bush administration have won lucrative oil deals worth billions of dollars. Moreover, according to the Global Policy Forum, “the new Iraqi constitution, greatly influenced by US advisors, guarantees a major role for foreign companies.” What happened to President Bush’s remarks in March 2003 that the “oil wells belong to the Iraqi people?”

Recent polls in Iraq reveal that Iraqis and the major oil-workers union oppose the de-nationalization of the oil reserves. The Iraqi will clearly contradicts the American agenda. Thus, can a country truly become democratic when it is not independent?

As oil corrupts the political landscape in Iraq, so do religious and ethnic differences perturb the social landscape. The Sunnis, a minority Muslim group, ruled Iraq since Saddam Hussein came to power. Resentment fermented and religious zeal grew within Shiite circles during the Saddam regime. So with the rapid shift of power to the Shiites following the war, disputes between the two religious groups have fostered violence, assassinations and bombings. Sunni-Shiites marriages are in perilous decline, a symbol of this deepening gap between communities.

In addition to this existing religious instability, the Kurds, a people of Indo-European descent, have a culture and language different from those of the Iraqis. With a total population of 30 million dispersed in Southwest Asia, the Kurds represent one of the largest ethnic groups without a homeland. Under Saddam, the Kurds sought autonomy and received death by the thousands. Today, the Kurds will continue to work for autonomy and the first Kurdish state. With feuding Sunnis and Shiites and autonomy-seeking Kurds, a simplistic, western-imposed democratization of Iraq is futile.

Let there be no mistake. The road to democracy does not end with a quick trip to the ballot box. It is instead a long and winding path through a treacherous mountain pass.

Complexities of Culture and Counter Insurgency Operations

The following is an example of how local culture must be integrated into any civilian development. Developing relationships, understanding local power dynamics, and recognizing the weakness of any external approach are necessary to producing tangible, long-term success in Afghanistan. Only by mimicking projects like those of Greg Mortensen and others can we hope for improving the situation there. Objective criteria and metrics are useless in measuring success in any counter insurgency mission. Anyways, here is a good story from Michael Flynn in his report on “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan”:

“An NGO wanting to build a water well in a village may learn, as we recently did, about some of the surprising risks encountered by others who have attempted the same project. For instance, a foreign-funded well constructed in the center of a village in southern Afghanistan was destroyed — not by the Taliban — but by the village’s women. Before, the women had to walk a long distance to draw water from a river, but this was exactly what they wanted. The establishment of a village well deprived them of their only opportunity to gather socially with other women.”

Reconciliation Gone Missing

On December 14, I blogged on how the Washington Post was reporting that the reconciliation program, dedicated to bringing Taliban soldiers back into the folds of the Islamic Government of the Republic of Afghanistan, was underfunded and, thus, unsuccessful. I claimed this was part of a larger problem of a lack of responsiveness by the US government. What was most remarkable about the article was that it was published after the Obama Administration continued to claim that the Taliban who had abandoned their violent ways would be welcomed in Afghanistan.

The problem continues:

“This is my obligation, to go back and start fighting,” said Mr. Gul, whose name has been changed. “The government said it would give me land and a job if I left the Taliban. They have broken those promises. Now I will break them.”

Mr. Gul’s situation reveals the challenges facing Afghanistan’s underfunded and often counterproductive efforts to persuade Taliban insurgents to defect. In 2007, several thousand fighters surrendered throughout the country. Now, defections are reduced to a trickle…

The destitution of Taliban turncoats is common, according to Gen. Mohammed.

In all of 2008, 48 insurgents joined the program in Kandahar. In the three months since the presidential election, just five have made their way to Gen. Mohammed’s office.

“There are big problems,” he said. “At first, so many came in saying they no longer wanted to destroy Afghanistan, saying that the fighting life was too hard, saying that they wanted an ordinary life. But they now realize we have nothing to offer.”

-from The Globe and Mail

The United States has now recognized the problem and, it seems, that things may soon change. According to the Globe and Mail, “The United States is reportedly preparing a well-funded amnesty program along the lines of the Sons of Iraq program that persuaded thousands of Sunni Muslims to give up the Iraq insurgency. And Canadian officials are said to be overhauling the existing PTS program with Mr. Karzai’s blessing.” My worries are that perceptions are difficult to change and time is something the United States has very little to waste. The US needs to rush before perceptions of broken promises and misleading rhetoric further become ingrained into the psyche of moderate Afghani Taliban. Moreover, the US must resolve its systematic lack of responsiveness to the development of civilian projects. The military may have the required structure to respond to security threats on a timely basis. I am not so sure the same could be said with the civilian development agencies.

Canadian Border Crossing and Obama’s Inauguration…

‘“As the motorcade moved out, they updated Obama on gathering evidence of a major terrorist plot to attack his inauguration. After a weekend of round-the-clock analysis, the nation’s intelligence agencies were concerned that the threat was real, the men told him. A group of Somali extremists was reported to be coming across the border from Canada to detonate explosives as the new president took the oath of office. With more than a million onlookers viewing the ceremony from the National Mall and hundreds of millions more watching on television around the world, what could be a more devastating target? …”  - From “Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism” in the NY Times.

Reading about Canada, a border crossing, and Obama’s inauguration, I was reminded of my own inauguration experience: On the night of January 19, 2009, I was with a housemate discussing the possibilities of a snow-mobiling trip we wanted to organize in the later part of February of that year. Was he up for it, did he think others would come, and so forth. With time, the conversation drifted to the economy, our stock picks, and eventually Obama’s inauguration. I regretted, I told him, that I would not be there for the inauguration. This was a unique moment of history and, after the spontaneous, widespread gathering of US citizens on election day, the inauguration was supposed to attract millions. Here we were stuck in Canada, with math assignments due in the later part of the week, and no place to stay in DC.

By the morning of the 20th of January, my housemate had convinced me that school, distance, and sleep were all insigificant obstacles in reaching Washington DC.  After all, finishing a math assignment and getting a normal sleep would not make a dent in the annals of world history. Obama’s inauguration might. So on that fateful morning, my housemate and I resolved to make it to Obama’s inauguration the following day. By about 5 pm that day, the car was packed and our driving strategy established. We would both take alternating 2 to 3 hour driving shifts, before transitioning to the back of the car for a rest. The back of the car was replete with pillows and a comforter so that in a matter of minutes the drone of the car and the softness of the sheets would lure us into a refreshing sleep. The drive was tiring but, on the whole, successful.

In retrospect, we were a bit lucky. After crossing the Canadian border, we stopped at a gas station to add oil to  our 1993 Subaru Legacy’s engine. Unbeknowst to me, instead of buying engine oil, I had bought ATF Transmission Fluid. Pouring about half the bottle in, I could have seriously compromised our car’s ability to complete the journey to DC. History was with us. We would make it to the outskirts of the city.

By 3 am, my roommate and I had managed to travel through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. We decided to park the car at Glenmont, a metro station on the red line outside of the city. What was amazing when we first arrived near the Washington DC metropolitan area was the security forces present on the road encircling the capital. I saw what seemed to be anti-missile and radar installations ever 500 meters on the road. For the next hour, we dozed in the car and, when it came time, we boarded the train. Very quickly, the metro was packed and off we went into a city neither one of us really knew. If we had been smarter, we probably would have foreseen this issue…

In DC, the atmosphere was electric. Even at 4:30 in the morning with a bone-chilling wind and temperatures below freezing, there was a buzz. America was proud again and millions from around the country poured into the city. We ended up waiting for three hours to get access to the mall, but it cost me: I had to throw away my backpack. Nonetheless, we were finally in. Later that day we witnessed Obama’s poised, articulate, and inspiring speech to the nation, and we rejoiced as Bush’s helicopter whizzed away into the horizon!

Family is Complicated…

Since the Christmas day bomb plot, the United States has more than doubled its support of the Yemeni regime. Today, the United States provides about $150 million in aid to buttress its security and anti-terrorist forces. From a traditional security perspective, the investment makes sense. Yemen has long been a fertile breading group for al-Qaeda like terrorist groups to meet and plan terrorist attacks. About 1 in 8 of the Guantanamo detainees are from Yemen, and even before the attack the United States had up its aid to $67 million. Besides, supporting proxy forces to the tune of $150 million is cost-effective. For comparison, every week in Afghanistan costs the United States government about $2 billion, an order of magnitudes different from the Yemeni investment. Moreover, this strategy is not a new one. For time immemorial the United States has support pro-American regimes in critical regions. Still, I ask, is this a good policy?

One of my principal concerns is that the US is falling precisely into the terrorist strategy of overextension. Of course, I am not talking about resource and troop overextension. Like I said, the affair is really security on the cheap and does not the risk the lives of additional US soldiers. However, the United States must be careful in overextending its welcome or, in other words, its legitimacy. Supporting dubious regimes frames a conversation that the terrorists want to have: Does the United States have the right to go around coercing repressive, anti-Muslim regimes to fight for its interests? Is this an enviable status quo? American legitimacy has been in doubt for quite some time. Confirmation of abuse in Iraq, the illegality of Guantanamo, and the rising deaths in Afghanistan have all eroded the notion of American exceptionalism and undermine the international community’s acceptance of the US as the dominant policing state. Causing civil war to break out in Yemen could only further undermine its international position and provoke fears in countries around the world of the future breach of their own sovereignties.

The situation in Yemen is by no means simple. According to the NY Times,

“Much of Yemen is in turmoil. Government forces on Monday killed two militants suspected of being with Al Qaeda. There is another round of rebellion in the north and a growing secessionist movement in the south. In important provinces where key oil resources are and where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is strong, government troops and the police largely remain in their barracks or in the central cities. Order outside the cities is kept by tribal chiefs, with their own complicated loyalties.”

Besides this nationwide tumult, the political environment smells of a coup-prone monarchy. The country is run by the Saleh family and few are enthralled with the prospects of Saleh’s son’s succession. An important military commander, Ali Mohsen who is stamping out the Houthi rebellion has openly disaproved of Saleh’s son on the grounds of his incompetence. In addition, Hamid al-Ahmar, member of the the powerful Ahmar family, has definite power ambitions. In August, on al Jazeera, Ahmar claimed that “If Saleh wants the people of Yemen to be on his side against monarchy and defend national unity, he himself must quit pursuing monarchy.”

Causing unnecessary anti-Americanism, fomenting civil war, and inducing the implosion of an ineffective monarchy, the United States’ increased help is risky. The ultimate of failure of the Yemen state could produce a tactical and strategic victory for al-Qaeda and extremist forces to take advantage of. To mitigate this threat, the US must proceed with extreme caution:

How the United States manages Mr. Saleh and his family ambitions will have much to do with success or failure against Al Qaeda. “Washington must work with and behind the regime, whatever its flaws, while trying to push Saleh toward reconciliation with his opponents,” a Western diplomat said. “I am afraid it will take more delicacy than the Pentagon can do.”