Citing Cordesman at CSIS as upbeat in his recent assessments of US progress in Iraq since the surge is not wholly accurate.
While Cordesman spends a lot of time collating statistics on such aspects of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as the number of USAF fixed wing and rotary aircraft missions his prognoses on the idea of any prolongation of the US presence have been unusually sober for one employed as a defense intellectual at such an institution as the CSIS.
More recently there seems to have been a recognition on Cordesman’s part that any short-term gains from the surge in the reduction in levels of violence may be overtaken by long-term centrifugal forces planted in the last century by the current sole superpower’s British allies.
Cordesman reported last October that friction between Sunni,Shia and Kurd of any longevity threatened the existence of Iraq as a nation state.The economic costs of further major population displacements would be unbearable.
Retired US military top brass like General Barry McCaffrey,a frequent visitor,have noted the absence of any real central government in Baghdad.Such military figures also warn that the US faces the bleak prospect of its political leverage in Iraq declining still further.The recent failure to deliver any important appointments in government to its Sunni allies is a case in point.
Cordesman’s report included a timeline of sectarian division in Iraq that went back to Britain’s failed occupation in the 1920s.The Kurdish population was dispersed across four neighbouring states by the Sykes-Picot Agreement.The Kurds have been a means of British destabilization tactics across the region ever since.The PKK can work against Turkey,and it can work against Arabs in Iraq.
Cordesman has noted the polls which show approbation of the US invasion among Kurds contrasts with wholesale revulsion to it on the part of Iraqi Arabs.If Mosul,Kirkuk and the vast oilfields of the north are absorbed into a putative Kurdish state then the prospects for future conflagration are compounded.
Whether the internecine Shia militia conflict around Basra fomented by the British to break up the Iraqi state was part of the US plan is an open question.Yet this is not a wholesome prospect for the future of Iraq as a nation state either.
Cordesman’s understanding of America’s bleak long-term prospects in Iraq could come from his reading of that text deservedly revered among elites:Machiavelli’s The Prince.
On the need for usurpers to be eternally vigilant Machiavelli wrote many memorable passages.Maybe Cordesman has this one in mind:
I shall remind princes who have seized a new state for themselves by encouraging subversion that they should very carefully reflect on the motives of those who helped them.
If these were not based on a natural affection for the new prince(and need we be reminded that in the case of Bush they were most assuredly were not-ed!),but rather with discontent with the existing government,he will retain their friendship only with considerable difficulty and exertion,because it will be impossible for him in his turn to satisfy them.”
Dubya might choke on his pretzels reading that one!
Citing Cordesman at CSIS as upbeat in his recent assessments of US progress in Iraq since the surge is not wholly accurate.
While Cordesman spends a lot of time collating statistics on such aspects of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as the number of USAF fixed wing and rotary aircraft missions his prognoses on the idea of any prolongation of the US presence have been unusually sober for one employed as a defense intellectual at such an institution as the CSIS.
More recently there seems to have been a recognition on Cordesman’s part that any short-term gains from the surge in the reduction in levels of violence may be overtaken by long-term centrifugal forces planted in the last century by the current sole superpower’s British allies.
Cordesman reported last October that friction between Sunni,Shia and Kurd of any longevity threatened the existence of Iraq as a nation state.The economic costs of further major population displacements would be unbearable.
Retired US military top brass like General Barry McCaffrey,a frequent visitor,have noted the absence of any real central government in Baghdad.Such military figures also warn that the US faces the bleak prospect of its political leverage in Iraq declining still further.The recent failure to deliver any important appointments in government to its Sunni allies is a case in point.
Cordesman’s report included a timeline of sectarian division in Iraq that went back to Britain’s failed occupation in the 1920s.The Kurdish population was dispersed across four neighbouring states by the Sykes-Picot Agreement.The Kurds have been a means of British destabilization tactics across the region ever since.The PKK can work against Turkey,and it can work against Arabs in Iraq.
Cordesman has noted the polls which show approbation of the US invasion among Kurds contrasts with wholesale revulsion to it on the part of Iraqi Arabs.If Mosul,Kirkuk and the vast oilfields of the north are absorbed into a putative Kurdish state then the prospects for future conflagration are compounded.
Whether the internecine Shia militia conflict around Basra fomented by the British to break up the Iraqi state was part of the US plan is an open question.Yet this is not a wholesome prospect for the future of Iraq as a nation state either.
Cordesman’s understanding of America’s bleak long-term prospects in Iraq could come from his reading of that text deservedly revered among elites:Machiavelli’s The Prince.
On the need for usurpers to be eternally vigilant Machiavelli wrote many memorable passages.Maybe Cordesman has this one in mind:
I shall remind princes who have seized a new state for themselves by encouraging subversion that they should very carefully reflect on the motives of those who helped them.
If these were not based on a natural affection for the new prince(and need we be reminded that in the case of Bush they were most assuredly were not-ed!),but rather with discontent with the existing government,he will retain their friendship only with considerable difficulty and exertion,because it will be impossible for him in his turn to satisfy them.”
Dubya might choke on his pretzels reading that one!