by Vali Nasr
Copyright © 2013 by Vali Nasr
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.doubleday.com
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Jacket design by Emily Mahon
Jacket illustration © Stefano
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza
The dispensable nation : American foreign policy in retreat / Vali Nasr.
pages cm.
1. United States—Foreign relations—Middle East. 2. Middle East—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—Islamic countries. 4. Islamic countries—Foreign relations—United States. I. Title.
JZ1670.N37 2013
327.73056—dc23 2012043100
eISBN: 978-0-385-53648-6
v3.1
To Richard C. Holbrooke, a tireless champion of American leadership in the world
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
—William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Asia in the New Global Order (Map)
Introduction
Prologue: “A Week in September”
1: Afghanistan: The Good War Gone Bad
2: Afghanistan: Reconciliation?
3: Who Lost Pakistan?
4: Iran: Between War and Containment
5: Iraq: The Signal Democracy
6: The Fading Promise of the Arab Spring
7: The Gathering Storm
8: The China Challenge
Conclusion: America, the Pivotal Nation
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Other books by This Author
INTRODUCTION
This book tells the story of my two years working in the Obama administration on the problems of the greater Middle East. I thought long and hard about writing it—I didn’t want it used as a political bludgeon. My goal instead is to shed light on the making of American foreign policy during the Obama years and explain what its consequences will be for the greater Middle East and for us.
The book tells three stories simultaneously.
The first is the story of an administration that made it extremely difficult for its own foreign policy experts to be heard. This book will describe how both Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign policy initiatives. Holbrooke never succeeded; Hillary Clinton did—but it was often a battle, and usually happened only when it finally became clear, to a White House that had jealously guarded all foreign policy making and then relied heavily on the military and intelligence agencies to guide its decisions, that these agencies’ solutions were not, and could never be, a substitute for the type of patient, long-range, credible diplomacy that garners the respect of our allies and their support when we need it. In other words, when things seemed to be falling apart, the administration finally turned to Hillary because they knew she was the only person who could save the situation, and she did that time and again.
One could argue that in most administrations, there is an inevitable imbalance between the military intelligence complex, with its offerings of swift and dynamic, as well as media-attracting, action, and the foreign policy establishment, with its slow and seemingly plodding deliberative style. But this administration advertised itself as something different. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama repeatedly stressed that he wanted to get things right in the Middle East, reversing the damage that had been done by the previous administration’s reliance on faulty intelligence and its willingness to apply military solutions to problems it barely understood.
Candidate Obama said he would engage the Muslim world, not just threaten to attack it. He would work to change the standing of the United States in the region. He would show leadership by listening, not just by talking. While the American Right was belittling the benefits of his community-organizing background, I thought to myself that the Middle East could use a little community organizing. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that American leadership in building and nurturing economic and political ties, rooted in regional and international institutions that would bring stability in a chaotic place, was just what was missing in the region. It is why I joined the administration.
The imbalance in influence between the military and the foreign policy establishment was cause enough for concern, but the president’s habit of funneling major foreign policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics was truly disturbing. The primary concern of these advisers was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans in the relentless war they were waging against the president. That the Obama administration has been praised during the 2012 election season for its successful handling of foreign policy has, I believe, less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how American actions in that region of the world were reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns in a way unimaginable a few decades ago.
By September 2012, when violent anti-American protests swept across the Muslim world, claiming the lives of four American diplomats and dozens of demonstrators, two things were clear: first, that we had got the Middle East badly wrong and the administration’s policies had been off the mark. And second, that retreating from the region given the direction it is moving in would be disastrous. This book will explain all this.
The second story this book will tell is what happened when those of us in the foreign policy establishment were told to go out and sell often stunningly obtuse proposals to our allies in the region. Many Americans hold a picture in their head of Middle East leaders as militaristic thugs, corrupt political operators, narrow-minded connivers, or American stooges. And there are no doubt people who fit those descriptions in positions of power there—and elsewhere. But over the years, especially the past eleven years, the leaders of the Middle East have developed exquisitely fine-tuned ears to the potential consequences of U.S. actions for their own nations. They greatly fear our military power because they feel we use it recklessly, and they know they have few defenses against it. And they are no longer willing to sit back and nod in agreement when we propose plans that require their cooperation, plans they know won’t work and put their nations at risk, plans they have good reason to believe we will abandon when push comes to shove, and sometimes even before that, leaving them to deal with the mess we have made.
I will describe in detail what it was like to sit through these kinds of negotiations, first with Richard Holbrooke at the head of our side of the table, and later with Hillary Clinton. I will also relate what world leaders and foreign policy professionals I have known for years have seen and heard in these settings. For many Americans this will be an eye-opening view of how their country presents itself in world councils. It will give voice to
those who call the shots in the Middle East and ask whether their responses to our plans are worth hearing and perhaps heeding. For the American public has to understand that when your grand plans for a region persuade no one but yourself—not your friends, not your “frenemies,” not your collaborators, and certainly not your enemies—it’s time to start asking some hard questions back home.
But perhaps the most important story this book tells is this one: the story of the price the United States will pay for its failure to understand that the coming geopolitical competition with China will not be played out in the Pacific theater alone. Important parts of that competition will be played out in the Middle East, and we had better be prepared for the jousting and its global consequences.
The American people are tired of war, rightly so, and welcome talk of leaving the region—not just packing up the soldiers but closing up shop altogether. Indeed, the president has marketed our exit from the Middle East as a foreign policy coup, one that will not only unburden us from the weight of the region’s problems but also give us the freedom we need to pursue other, more pressing, initiatives to address significant national security concerns.
Ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the broader ill-defined “war on terror,” is, I agree, a very good idea, provided it is done properly without damage to our interests or the region’s stability. But we should not kid ourselves that the rhetoric of departure is anything more than rhetoric; we are bringing home our troops and winding down diplomatic and economic engagement, but leaving behind our drones and Special Forces. We should not expect that the region will look more kindly on drone attacks and secret raids than they did on broader U.S. military operations. But the more important point is that none of the issues that brought us to the Middle East in the first place have been resolved—not those that existed at the end of World War II, when Britain handed over to us the role of the great power in the region, not those that have kept us there for over sixty years, and certainly not those that attracted our attention after 9/11. If anything, the region is less stable and more vulnerable to crisis than ever before. And its importance to commerce and global order has not diminished.
Here is what America’s leaders and the American public cannot afford to miss. The near- and even long-term prospects for the Middle East are not difficult to predict. Either some outside power will have to step in and impose order on the region or it will collapse into chaos and instability, becoming the stage upon which untold numbers of nonstate actors, each with a different script, will attempt to wreak havoc upon us. China would love to play the role of great power in the region, and, one might argue, is preparing to do exactly that. Just as we pivot east, China is pivoting farther west. And it is doing so through its close and growing economic and diplomatic relationships with the Arab world, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. Indeed, while we scratched our heads about how to turn Pakistan our way during my tenure in the Obama administration, Chinese leaders were serenading Pakistan with reassurances that Sino-Pakistani relations are “higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, stronger than steel, and sweeter than honey.”1
Will we be comfortable having China pull the Middle East into its sphere of influence? Letting China manage al-Qaeda or Iran’s nuclear ambition? Or try to resolve Arab-Israeli conflicts? Of course not. The Middle East will once again become the region where a great rivalry is played out, with China now playing the role of the Soviet Union.
These past four years presented us with an unrecognized opportunity to build regional economic, political, and military institutions to help the region resolve its many crises and allow it to manage on its own without constant new infusions of American lives and dollars. We could have simultaneously reduced the threat of al-Qaeda and strengthened the push for democracy, and figured out a way to draw Iran into the fold and minimize China’s influence in the region, not to mention saving the lives and money spent on yet another surge whose ultimate benefits remain questionable. But there is no equivalent to NATO or ASEAN in the Middle East—no organization anchored in an economic and security alliance with the United States. Nor does the Obama administration, despite its own claim to engaging the region and building comity and community, show any indication of understanding the need for such institution building. This, of course, would be even truer of a Republican administration. And so instead, after China further strengthens its position in the Middle East, we will find ourselves on the back foot, having to play catch-up with money we don’t have or will have to borrow from China.
But it is not too late. It is still possible to look ahead and deal with the problems in the region before they become another major crisis. This is why I have written this book.
—Vali Nasr, November 1, 2012
PROLOGUE:
“A WEEK IN SEPTEMBER”
Once a year, in mid-September, dozens of heads of state and many more foreign ministers fly into New York City for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Generally speaking, it is not the speeches that draw these diplomats to New York. It is the chance to see and be seen, to exchange ideas and compare notes, to talk shop and even gossip. And it is an ideal place for a diplomat looking to drum up support for his country’s plans to get things done.
That’s what Richard Holbrooke intended to do in September 2009. Seven months earlier, he had been appointed by the president as his special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the campaign and once in office, the president had made clear that getting Afghanistan right would be a high priority for his administration. I knew how seriously Holbrooke took that charge. If we get Afghanistan right, he told me when he brought me on board as his senior adviser, it will be the end of America’s wars in the Muslim world, and if we get it wrong, the “forever war” will continue, well, forever.
By late summer of 2009, the final plan for Afghanistan—more troops and serious nation-building—was clear enough for Holbrooke to inform some of our most important allies where we were heading. He told me he intended to start by meeting with a half dozen of those allies in New York during the UNGA meetings and that he wanted me to go with him. It was a week I will never forget.
Our very first meeting was with Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmad Abu Ghaith. He was Holbrooke’s longtime friend and could not have been more gracious in his greetings. Holbrooke launched into his presentation of our plans for Afghanistan—defeating the insurgency and building democracy, a vibrant economy, a large army, and a strong civil society. He spoke with enthusiasm and grace, and Abu Ghaith nodded gently throughout. But whenever there was the slightest pause on Holbrooke’s part, and sometimes even before Holbrooke had quite finished his thought, Abu Ghaith interjected in rather blunt, borderline-rude terms that everything Holbrooke was saying sounded a lot like our plans for Iraq, none of which worked out as we had hoped. When Holbrooke finished, the foreign minister immediately launched into his own presentation, certainly not one we were expecting.
“Richard,” he began, “of course we will support you, we always have. But why do you want to get mixed up in another war? This will only help the terrorists. All the talk among our youth now is of going to Afghanistan for jihad against the Americans.”
Abu Ghaith was not altogether correct; many of Egypt’s youth were then dreaming of democracy. But the correlation between U.S. attacks and Arab (but also Pakistani) youth packing up to fight America was surely correct. Still, it was not just the words he used that came through loud and clear to us. It was his dismissiveness and frustration at having to once again support a plan that made no sense to him and that was being presented as a near fait accompli.
Reactions only worsened after that. At our next meeting with an Arab foreign minister, we sipped tea and nibbled on dates as Holbrooke went through his talking points, this time giving a long, glowing description of what America hoped to accomplish in Afghanistan. By this time he had a good idea what the reaction would be, but Holbrooke was always a loyal soldier. It was his
job to sell our plan. And he tried.
Once again the diplomats on the other side of the table made it painfully clear that they thought we were way off in la-la land with our talk of building democracy and a strong civil society and everything else we were offering.
And when it was their turn to talk, they said just that. “It is much better you buy local warlords to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan,” our host responded. “I figure that will cost you $20 billion, which is what, one fifth of what you spend every year in Afghanistan? Spend that and then just go home!”
I had to repeat those last words to myself—just go home!—to have the meaning sink in. It was such a stunning rebuke that for a moment neither side said anything. It wasn’t as if the foreign minister was trying to put us down; you could tell from the way he spoke that he truly believed that we didn’t understand and that he was doing us a favor. Once again it was not the response we were looking for, but perhaps it was a response we should have listened to. About a year later, Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post reported that in the parts of Afghanistan that experienced the least violence, credit went to American-backed local warlords.1
Between this meeting and the next, I asked Holbrooke about the responses we had encountered. I could see that he was deeply disturbed by how dismissive our interlocutors were about America’s ability to do good in the region. At first he said little, fumbling for an answer. Then he managed the rejoinder that the doubters did not understand our strategy. Our problem was communication—we had to exorcise the ghosts of Iraq before we could create new hopes for Afghanistan. And then, after a pause, he came clean. “They have a point,” he said.
Next on our list was another Arab foreign minister. I could have closed my eyes and thought I was in the previous meeting. In fact, had there been more time between the two meetings we could have concluded that the two foreign ministers had compared notes. As Holbrooke went through the same talking points—which, I have to admit, had lost a little oomph by now—our host fidgeted, as if he were impatient for Holbrooke to finish so he could bring the discussion back to reality. When his turn came, he jumped right in.
