MAKE GOOD ON THE PROMISE:

Chalabi Outlines Steps to Save Iraq from Ruin (IRA STOLL, October 31, 2006, NY Sun)

[The former deputy prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq, Ahmad] Chalabi, who as president of the Iraqi National Congress lobbied for the Iraq Liberation Act that helped set America on the path of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, had a series of suggestions for "how we can get out of this conundrum."

Mr. Chalabi called on America and Britain to "make good on the promise of handing over security to the government of Iraq."

"Iraqis must be in charge of recruitment, training, supply, and deployment of the army," he said. He called for those provisions to be included in a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq that is planned for next month. And he said Iraq needs to build up, within its defense ministry, "a competent staff" of accountants, auditors, and supply officers.

Mr. Chalabi said that while the Iraqi budget funds 372,000 police jobs, fewer than 250,000 of them have been filled.

He said the Iraqi intelligence service is "entirely funded in a mysterious way that is not disclosed."

"Put the Iraqi intelligence service under Iraqi control," Mr. Chalabi urged. Mr. Chalabi also urged a diplomatic offensive aimed at Iraq's neighbors, many of which are hoping that Iraq's experiment with pluralism, democracy, and federalism ends in failure.

What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick? (Stan Crock, 7/06/05, Business Week)

Here's a summary of [Robert Pape's] analysis, which is based on the 315 suicide terrorist attacks from 1980 to 2003:

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist Hindu group opposed to religion, committed the largest number of suicide attacks, 76. The Kurdish PKK, which used the tactic 14 times, is headed by a secular Marxist-Leninist, Abdulah Ocalan. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another Marxist-Leninist group, and the al-Aqsa Brigade, which has ties to the socialist Fatah movement, account for a third of the attacks against Israel. Communist and socialist groups account for 75% of the attacks in Lebanon. Islamic fundamentalists, he concludes, were associated with about only half of the attacks from 1980 to 2003. And such fundamentalist Islamic countries as Iran and Sudan aren't producing any suicide bombers.

Pape argues that the common denominator among the bombers in 95% of the cases is that they're nationalist insurgents with a secular, strategic goal: ousting the military forces of democratic countries from land the insurgents believe is theirs. The suicide terrorists, who account for about 5% of all terrorist incidents but about 75% of all fatalities, believe their land and way of life are threatened. The religions of the occupier and the insurgents invariably are different, Pape notes, but he contends that difference is merely a useful recruiting tool and isn't at the root of the animosity.

Al Qaeda fits this pattern. Osama bin Laden's opposition to the House of Saud stemmed from its decision to allow U.S. troops on Saudi soil. Bin Laden's goal is not simply to kick the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, a country that's a Western construct, but rather from the Arabian Peninsula, which arguably stretches as far north as Iraq and includes Kuwait, Bahrain, and other countries in the region where the U.S. has troops.

Almost every suicide attack is aimed at a democracy, from the Tamil Tigers targeting Sri Lanka to Kashmir strikes against India. That's because the insurgents view democracies as vulnerable to this pressure, as President Bush noted. Indeed, the watershed event that sparked copycat attacks was the suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, which prompted President Reagan to bring U.S. troops home. Indeed, governments have made concessions in 7 of 13 completed campaigns (5 are ongoing). Not bad odds. And growing American disenchantment with the military operation in Iraq proves the point yet again.

The mere presence of foreign troops is the instigation for the attacks, so lengthy stays to secure democracy actually make attacks more probable and help boost recruitment. Substituting Iraqi security forces for U.S. troops is the only thing that will likely make a difference. Pape notes that arrests of al Qaeda and other insurgent leaders are rising, but the metric that counts is the number of attacks, and they're rising, too. That suggests al Qaeda is growing stronger, not weaker.

Equally troubling is that even as the total number of terrorist attacks globally is declining, the number of suicide attacks is rising. The first five months of this year saw as many suicide attacks as all of last year.

Yet there are some encouraging signs. Pape points to the sharp decline in attacks in Israel when it left southern Lebanon, as it prepares to leave Gaza, and as it builds a protective fence. The insurgents need public support to survive, and if the goal of getting the enemy out is achieved, support for such tactics evaporates.

STRATEGIC PLANNING. Interestingly, Pape doesn't believe Uncle Sam should high-tail it out of Baghdad right away. He thinks the U.S. needs to turn the security responsibility over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible but says doing it immediately isn't feasible.

And Pape isn't an isolationist. He suggests that long-term, America should revert to the strategy of the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S. relied on local regimes but had forces ready to jump when needed -- but not constantly on the ground, poisoning the atmosphere with their presence on land.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 31, 2006 7:54 AM