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| Volume XII, Fall 2005, Number 3 |
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| Editor's Note |
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This summer, just as terrorists were bombing the transit system in central London, the
Bush administration was re-branding its "Global War on Terror" as the "global struggle
against violent extremism." This is a healthy turn toward realism. A war is something our
military knows how to win. A struggle is something more complex, to which there is no
purely military solution. Clearly, the ragtag disaffected youth of immigrant Britain are not
an appropriate adversary for the most advanced military machine ever developed.
Of course, the same might be said of at least some of the various insurgents in Iraq
(see the edited transcript of the sensational Middle East Policy Council Symposium,
"Occupied Iraq: One Country, Many Wars," p. 1). Stalemate looms in the ruined land of
the two rivers. Those fighting us and each other can neither win in a fair fight nor be
defeated in a dirty one. But they do not have to win. They have thrown sand in our war
machine's gears and our hallucinatory vision of a democratic Iraq alike. Killing Iraqis just
seems to cause more Iraqis to want to kill Americans and other Iraqis. This conundrum is
beginning to penetrate the minds of the war planners. This week Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General George Casey, said
that the time for a drawing down of American forces was approaching, perhaps as early
as next spring. This would be just in time for the 2006 congressional elections, when
discontent about the war might impose a belated political cost on the party that rushed to
invade Iraq in '03 against the advice of the uniformed military, most Middle East specialists
and the vast majority of U.S. allies.
When we intervened in Iraq, setting a date for doing so seemed to our leaders to be
more important than deciding why we were invading or what would happen next. Now
we seem increasingly to be focused on setting a date for departure from Iraq without
figuring out what we will accomplish for Iraq by doing so. It seems high time to be
discussing an exit strategy, not just setting a date (see Gareth Porter on how we might find
an exit, p. 29). In the meantime, the arbitrary nature of the decision-making process is
strikingly reminiscent of what took place at the start of the war in 2003. The "reasons"
for going in were also arbitrary. The intelligence was apparently "fixed," to use the term
of British intelligence official Richard Dearlove in the Downing Street Memo, around
political considerations. The exit strategy is also being determined by domestic American
politics. In 2003, we had to go in fast to beat the presidential electoral clock of '04 and to
beat international weapons inspector Hans Blix, who was about to get Saddam Hussein to
allow his country to be searched for WMD. This would have made war unjustifiable-if,
that is, we had mainly been concerned about the "mushroom cloud" threat-and illegal
under international law. Do not be surprised if the Bush administration finds reasons to
exit according to its particular domestic timetable. The insurgency would then start to
wane, proving that Vice President Dick Cheney was right; it was in its "last throes" back
in July 2005.
Or would it? There are those, like University of Michigan professor Juan Cole (on his
must-read Web site, www.juancole.com), who think leaving early could backfire, fomenting
a regional war involving Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia that could cause the oilproducing
region to fall into chaos and ruin. He recommends internationalizing the
"situation" and turning it over to the United Nations. But he seems to think there is little
likelihood that the Bush administration will take this route. Should we, therefore, stay,
rather than risk the "destabilization of the Middle East and the world's energy economy"?
Informed opinion is sharply divided. At least one can assume the Bush administration is
not looking to pursue shock-and-awe regime change in Iran or Syria.
This issue of the journal deals not only with Iraq, but with the entire Greater/Broader
Middle East, from the Western Sahara to Libya, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi
Arabia and Iran. Well-known scholars, writers and former government officials have
contributed articles, book-review essays and interviews. It is a privilege to be associated
with them. Eric Hall, our editor at Blackwell Publishing, has informed me that the journal
continues to grow more entrenched in its position as one of their favorite products. It sells
itself now, in particular because its citations bleed into an ever-growing array of publications
in other fields, increasing its impact factor. This is gratifying to those of us who
work on this project, as well as to those who support our endeavor with financial help.
We stretch those funds a long way, coaxing a great deal of work out of a very lean staff.
One of those dedicated employees, Emily Linnemeier, our production designer and my
treasured colleague for seven years, has left the Council to marry and work in Los
Angeles in the field of conflict resolution. She received her M.A. from George Mason
University in May, having met Mr. Right while taking prerequisites for her degree at the
federal government's USDA Graduate School. We wish Emily well and thank her for the
memory of her intelligence, competence, humor, kindness and beauty. She will be sorely
missed, not only by me, but by all of us, especially by our excellent copyeditors, Peggy
Nalle, who has been on the job for the past 18 years, and by Betsy Maalouf, who just
joined the team last year. Fortunately, one of our best former interns, Jeremy Barnum,
who filled in for Emily last summer, has joined the journal staff for the coming year as my
assistant. Sometimes you get lucky….
And sometimes you don't. Another loss to the Council staff took place in late winter,
when Richard Wilson, our executive director, left for greener pastures. Richard had been
here for 15 years, a colleague and friend through three leadership transitions and a raft of
other adventures. It was hard to see him go. Again, fortunately, someone inside the
organization has been able to pinch hit: Jon Roth, the director of our teacher workshops,
who has been at the Council for eight years. His replacement is Maria Arruda, our office
manager, a talented new addition to the staff. This is a very small office, and we need to
be able to work closely together. Council employees tend to stay at their posts for a very
long time (our accountant, Shyam Rao, has been with us for almost 20 years), making the
loss all the harder to bear when someone like Emily or Richard does leave. We are trying,
with only modest success, to maintain stiff upper lips. One piece of good news: Chas.
Freeman, our president, is still at the helm, finishing his seventh year. He is unique and
truly irreplaceable.
Anne Joyce,
August 2005
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