“Ladies and gentleman, we got him,” declared administrator Paul Bremer after Saddam Hussein was captured. Once head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (which oversaw the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion), Bremer will most likely be remembered as the face of everything the United States did wrong during their first years of the war. But if Bremer is the face of failure, General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander appointed by President Bush to take over the mission after the Democratic sweep in the 2006 mid-term election, is the one most associated—rightly or wrongly—with the U.S. military’s fortunes after early 2007. Petraeus, whose appointment was reportedly unanimously opposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is known for having retooled military operations to enable troops to fight unconventional wars, particularly counterinsurgencies. Yet there are obstacles in ensuring the continued success of programs like those Petraeus designed.
Last week, The New York Times revealed that President Bush issued an order in 2004 that “streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones.” Recent attacks, like the September 3 ground assault in Pakistan and the October 26 strike in Syria, indicate the serious dangers of attempting to prosecute the War on Terror without considering the stability of geopolitical hot spots. In the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Petraeus notes “political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies,” while “the insurgent succeeds by sowing chaos and disorder anywhere, the government fails unless it maintains a degree of order everywhere.”
The outcry in countries like Syria and Pakistan—both covered under the 2004 executive order, and recently attacked by the U.S.—should make policymakers consider whether the short-term gains of eliminating high-value targets is worth the instability that results from these incursions.
That some countries have acceded to U.S. interests makes such unilateral actions even harder to comprehend. Syria, which has cooperated in the past (despite being turned into a pariah by the American press), was instrumental in securing the border with Iraq—today, military commanders estimate that less than 20 foreign fighters cross into Iraq every month; that number was closer to 120 a year ago. Pakistan’s cooperation with the U.S. is common knowledge, and a continual source of frustration for a new government trying desperately to convince its electorate that terrorism is a Pakistani problem, not one foisted on the nation by Americans. The U.S. has undermined the authority of these governments by staging operations on their grounds. This is counterproductive to U.S. long-term goals: it emboldens those who want to do the country harm.
What do Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Dadullah, Baitullah Mehsud, and Abu Ghadiya have in common? All were high-value targets, and all were killed or brought to justice (although the jury is still out on the notoriously secretive Mehsud). The War on Terror continues with no end in sight. The rationale behind Bush’s 2004 executive order fails to account for the fact that there is always another bad guy, another angry young man, and another terrorist.
There was excitement in the room when Bremer made his famous announcement. Perhaps we thought that something significant had been accomplished, and that things would be different from then onward. We quickly received a rude awakening as violence in Iraq continued to escalate. It wasn’t until 2007, with the Sunni Revival and General Petraeus’ appointment, that the country began to settle. If the U.S. is to build on its successes, it should look to Petraeus’ strategy. It should avoid destabilizing countries with attacks that are counter to its own interests in addition to those of foreign nations.
