Reflection on America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by Andrew J. Bacevich

               This book puts forward the argument that American military intervention in the Middle East since 1980 has been a failure because it neither stays out of problems, nor commits to them, rather aggravating them with an unsatisfying middle ground. It’s a military history, chronicling every American shot fired in the “Greater Middle East” since the Carter Administration. I thought it was an excellent analysis, as it was basically what I already agreed with in many ways. I wanted to read it because after finishing Ken Burns’ Vietnam War documentary I wanted to learn more about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How did the United States become to deeply involved in Middle Eastern conflict?

               It begins with United States Central Command, or CENTCOM, which was founded in 1983, with an Area of Responsibility (AOR) of 19 countries, meant by the Pentagon to respond to specific crises. However, the organization would soon find itself drawn in to a great number of specific crises, many of which were over quickly, but would have great diplomatic ramifications. It ties very well into The War on Peace by Ronan Farrow, in that both discuss how diplomacy became subordinate to the military. While this is a familiar situation in Israel, it was new in the United States and hasn’t gone so well.

               CENTCOM intervened in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia before invading Afghanistan in 2001 and all of these military actions served to draw us into more action. This happened firstly because it created friends and enemies who wanted us to defend them or wanted to attack us, and secondly because in each of these places, the presence of American soldiers attracted foreign fighters to attach them. Why would foreigners get involved? Because these are all Muslim countries, and radical Islamists see them all as part of the greater Muslim community, just as Muslims from Indonesia, Belgium, Egypt, and other countries today go to fight in Syria. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the head of American forces in Iraq for about a year, called the invasion a “terrorist magnet,” though he meant it as a good thing, saying he wanted to fight them there. It was during his tenure that Al-Qaeda in Iraq would be established in October 2004. It was unable to do so earlier, but thanks to US invasion it could. It was this organization that would evolve to form ISIS.

So what’s the deal with Afghanistan and Iraq?

The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan in 1989 and the regime they installed lasted surprisingly long, until 1992. After it’s fall, a civil war ensued until 1996, when the Taliban gained control of the country for five years and Osama bin Laden returned. He then planned the 9/11 attack on the United States and the United States invaded in 2001, continuing with a force in the country to this day. The Bush administration saw that it was strategically a dead end to fight the Taliban, as Afghanistan had nothing for us, yet they remained, and the Obama administration actually increased focus on the Taliban, which the author felt was a mistake. I liked this analogy he used: “The war against the Taliban became an exercise in strategic irrelevance—as if in response to Southern secession, Abraham Lincoln had sent the Union Army to Brazil to liberate the black multitudes held in bondage there.”

 In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran hoping to gain control of oil field in southwestern Iran. Seeking an opportunity to disrupt the new Islamic Republic, the United States bolstered Iraq, managing to keep Iraq from being overrun, ending the war in a stalemate in 1988. In 1990, overconfident, Saddam invaded Kuwait when its ruling family refused to forgive his debts to them and was rebuffed by the United States, easily defeated, though not toppled. This was because George HW Bush wanted to leave the regime intact to counter Iran. In 2003, the United States chose to finish the job, crushing Hussein and eventually killing him, though the peace was harder to win than the war. In 2006, sectarian violence erupted between Sunnis and Shiites, complicating the American occupation, as the USA lost all initiative and the war went on with US forces trapped in the middle. The United States managed to withdraw by 2011, pretending it was a victory, but had to return by 2014 when ISIS, originally a part of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, broke off to form its own Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

What is the American strategy in the Middle East?

               Bacevich writes that it begins with the Carter administration seeking to secure free passage of oil in the Arabian Gulf so that the United States’ supply is never threatened. However, by the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it had changed. By that point, he writes that Bush was seeking to prove the “efficacy of preventative war,” the legitimacy of the United States to remove regimes that it did not like, and to impose American-style liberalism on the Iraqi people. The greater Middle East strategy since the Bush administration has been to shape the entire region using American military strength to try to convert these countries into our social, economic, and most of all military allies.

Why has American strategy in the Middle East been a failure?

               The author writes that it comes from the compromising urge to take the middle ground. For example, consider that when beginning the War on Terror, unlike the Civil War, World War II, or the Cold War, President Bush 43 asked for no sacrificed from the American people. He did not ask for a draft, higher taxes, or any rationing. Instead people maintained their lives as normal. This was hubris talking. When it was not possible for the USA to win the war with the scant resources civilian leadership provided, there would be no more resources coming because the urgent threat was by the point of realization to far in the past. Then it becomes the worst of both worlds, because, as Bacevich puts it, “Wherever the American army shows up, it tends to stay a while,” meaning that not only would the USA not win the war, but that it would stay there, stuck in a stalemate, hemorrhaging blood and dollars.

               I agree with this sentiment with one addition: the focus on the army is flawed and should be more focused on the navy. In general, the United States should spend far more money and effort on building up a stronger navy and use it to blockade countries that choose to be our enemy. Our land forces are not good in enemy territory, especially not for a long time. In places where they are without significant naval support, they cannot succeed, and that makes it nearly impossible to win wars in countries that are poor and have few roads to connect our soldiers to the sea. The ocean is the American military’s lifeline and we neglected it far too much in Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a perfect example, where supplies have to enter Karachi by sea and travel hundreds of miles inland. Sea power is America’s past, present, and future. When we neglect it, we fail.

Conclusion

               Bacevich writes that before 9/11 our great problem in the Middle East was ignorance. After 9/11 it was hubris. Since the Obama administration it has been diffusion. I would add that in the Trump presidency we have brought back the hubris to add to the diffusion with inconsistency as well. We just withdrew from Syria, a move that I hope will turn out well for us because we really need out of these conflicts. This is a five-star book for anybody who studied international affairs or the Middle East and wants to learn more. Extremely good, if critical military history.

Miscellaneous thoughts/facts/reflections on the book:

• While American forces in Operation Desert Storm were approximately 560,000, equaling the total strength of American forces at the height of the Vietnam War, forces were only 170,000 when the United States invaded again in 2003.
• While NATO is “nominally a partnership of equals” the United States actually occupies a special position as the leader.
• George W. Bush never convened a meeting to ask his advisers about the idea of invading Iraq and there was never a paper discussing pros and cons passed around the White House. There was no decision-making process so much as a consensus that it was the next step after Afghanistan.
• Pakistan proved to be a very bad ally in the Second Afghanistan War (our invasion from 2001 onward, not the earlier Soviet invasion) for two reasons. First, they knew the USA would eventually leave, and they wanted the Taliban as an ally, and second, because they were already busy with the Indian border. Fighting Islamist terrorism was not out Pakistani ally’s priority.
• Why don’t American tactics work in the Middle East? Because it’s good to meet your enemy at their level of combat and beat them at their own game, and we refuse to play any game but our own.