US Losing The War Against Taliban in Afghanistan?

Almost 150,000 U.S. and allied troops are now in Afghanistan, some 30,000 more than the number of Soviet troops at the height of their occupation in the 1980s. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is now at the pinnacle of its strength, which is expected to start declining, one way or another, by the latter half of 2011, a trend that will have little prospect of reversing itself. Though history will undoubtedly speak of missed or squandered opportunities in the early years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, this is now the decisive moment in the campaign.

It is worth noting that nearly a year ago, then-commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the ISAF Gen. Stanley McChrystal submitted his initial assessment of the status of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan to the White House. In his analysis, McChrystal made two key assertions:

• The strategy then being implemented would not succeed, even with more troops.
• A new counterinsurgency-focused strategy just proposed would not succeed without more troops.

There was no ambiguity. The serving commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan told his commander in chief that without both a change in strategy and additional troops to implement the new strategy, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan would fail. Nowhere in the report, however, did McChrystal claim that with the new strategy and more troops the United States would win the war in Afghanistan.

Today, with the additional troops committed and a new strategy governing their employment, the ISAF is making its last big push to reshape Afghanistan. But domestic politics in ISAF troop-contributing nations are severely constraining the sustainability of these deployments at their current scale. Meanwhile, the Taliban continue to retain the upper hand, and the incompatibilities of the political climates in troop-contributing nations with the military imperatives of an effective counterinsurgency are becoming ever more apparent. This leads to the question: What is the United States ultimately trying to achieve in Afghanistan and can it succeed?

The Iraq Campaign

The surges of U.S. troops into Iraq in 2007 and into Afghanistan in 2010 represent very different military campaigns, and a look at the contrasts between the two campaigns can be instructive. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Washington had originally intended to install a stable, pro-American government in Baghdad in order to fundamentally reshape the region. Instead, after the U.S. invasion destroyed the existing Iraqi-Iranian balance of power, Washington found itself on the defensive, struggling to prevent the opposite outcome — a pro-Iranian regime. An Iran unchecked by Iraq (a key factor in Iran’s rise and assertiveness over the last seven years) and able to use Mesopotamia as a stepping-stone for expanding its influence across the Middle East would reshape the region every bit as much as a pro-American regime.

The American adversaries in Iraq were Sunni insurgents (including a steadily declining pool of Baathist nationalists), al Qaeda fighters and a smattering of other foreign jihadists and Iranian-backed Shiite militias. The Sunnis provided support and shelter for the jihadists while fighting a pair of losing battles they viewed as existential struggles — simultaneously taking on the U.S. military and the security forces of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, with a Shiite Iran meddling all the while in Iraqi Shiite politics.

But the foreign jihadists ultimately overplayed their hand with Iraq’s Sunnis, a decisive factor in their demise. Their attempts to impose a harsh and draconian form of Islamism and the slaying of traditional Sunni tribal leaders cut against the grain of Iraqi cultural and societal norms. In response, beginning well-before the surge of 2007, Sunni Awakening Councils and militias under the Sons of Iraq program were formed to defend against and drive out the foreign jihadists.

At the heart of this shift was Sunni self-interest. Not only were the foreign jihadists imposing a severe and unwelcome form of Islamism, but it was also becoming clear to the Sunnis that the battles they were waging held little promise of actually protecting them from Shiite subjugation. Indeed, with foreign jihadist attacks on the traditional tribal power structure, it was increasingly clear that the foreign jihadists themselves were, in their own way, attempting to subjugate Iraqi Sunnis for their own purposes. As the Sunnis began to warm to the United States, they found themselves with very few options. Faced with subjugation from many directions and having realized that the way they held the upper hand in Iraq before 2003 was simply not recoverable, the Sunnis came to see siding with the United States as the best alternative.

When the United States surged troops into Iraq in 2007, one of the main U.S. adversaries in Iraq (the Sunnis) turned against another (al Qaeda and the jihadists). While the surge was instrumental in breaking the cycle of violence in Baghdad and shifting perceptions both within Iraq and around the wider region, there were nowhere near enough troops to impose a military reality on the country by force. Instead, the strategy relied heavily on capitalizing on a shift already taking place: the realignment of the Sunnis, who not only fed the U.S. actionable intelligence on the foreign jihadists but also became actively engaged in the campaign against them.

While success appeared anything but certain in 2007, almost an entire segment of Iraqi society had effectively changed sides to ally with the United States. This alliance allowed the United States to hunt down jihadist leaders and systematically disrupt jihadist networks while arming the Sunnis to the point that only a unified Shiite segment with consolidated command of the security forces could destroy them — and even then, only with considerable effort and bloodshed.

But despite the marked shift in Iraq since the surge, the security gains remain fragile, the political situation tenuous and the prospects of an Iraq not dominated by Iran limited. In other words, for all the achievements of the surge, and despite the significant reduction in American forces in the country, the situation in Iraq — and the balance of power in the region — is still unresolved.

The Afghanistan Campaign

With this understanding of the 2007 surge in Iraq in mind, let us examine the current surge of troops into Afghanistan. In Iraq, the United States was forced to shift its objective from installing a pro-American regime in Baghdad to preventing the wholesale domination of the country by Iran (a work still in progress). In Afghanistan, the problem is the opposite. The initial American objective in Afghanistan was to disrupt and destroy al Qaeda, and while certain key individuals remain at large, the apex leadership of what was once al Qaeda has been eviscerated and no longer presents a strategic threat. This physical threat now comes more from al Qaeda “franchises” like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula andal Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

In other words, while the original objective was never achieved in Iraq and the United States has been scrambling to re-establish a semblance of the old balance of power, the original American objective has effectively been achieved in Afghanistan (though the effort is ongoing). Most of what remains of the original al Qaeda prime that the United States set out to destroy in 2001 now resides in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Despite — or perhaps because of — the remarkably heterogeneous demography of Afghanistan, there is no sectarian card to play. Nor is there a regional rival, as there is in Iraq with Iran, that U.S. grand strategy dictates must be prevented from dominating the country. Indeed, an Afghanistan dominated by Pakistan is both largely inevitable and perfectly acceptable to Washington under the right conditions.

The long-term American geopolitical interest in Afghanistan has always been and remains limited: to prevent the country from ever again serving as a safe haven for transnational terrorists. While counterterrorism efforts on both sides of the border are ongoing, the primary strategic objective for the United States in Afghanistan is the establishment of a government that does not espouse transnational jihadism and provide sanctuary for its adherents and one that allows limited counterterrorism efforts to continue indefinitely.

Al Qaeda itself has little to do with this objective in Afghanistan anymore. The challenge now is crafting circumstances in the country that are sufficient to safeguard American interests. Given this objective, the enemy in Afghanistan is no longer al Qaeda. It is the Taliban, which controlled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and provided sanctuary for al Qaeda until the United States and the Northern Alliance ousted them from power. (It is important to note that the Taliban were not defeated in 2001. Faced with a superior force, they declined combat and refused to fight on American terms, only to resurge after American attention shifted to Iraq.) But it is not the Afghan Taliban per se that the United States is opposed to, it is their support for transnational Islamist jihadists — something to which the movement does not necessarily have a deep-seated, non-negotiable commitment.

As a grassroots insurgency, the Taliban enjoy a broad following across the country, particularly among the Pashtun, the single-largest demographic segment in the country (roughly 40 percent of the population). The movement has proved capable of maintaining internal discipline (recent efforts to hive off “reconcilable” elements have shown little tangible progress) while remaining a diffuse and multifaceted entity with considerable local appeal across a variety of communities. For many in Afghanistan, the Taliban represent a local Afghan agenda and its brand of more severe Islamism — while hardly universal — appeals to a significant swath of Afghan society. The Taliban’s militias were once Afghanistan’s government-sponsored military force. And as a light-infantry force both appropriate for and intimately familiar with the rugged Afghan countryside, the Taliban enjoy superior knowledge of the terrain and people as well as superior intelligence (including intelligence from compromised elements of the Afghan security forces). The Taliban are particularly well-suited for waging a protracted insurgency and they perceive themselves as winning this one — which they are.

Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency

The Taliban are winning in Afghanistan because they are not losing. The United States is losing because it is not winning. This is the reality of waging a counterinsurgency. The ultimate objective of the insurgent is a negative one: to deny victory — to survive, to evade decisive combat and to prevent the counterinsurgent from achieving victory. Conversely, the counterinsurgent has the much more daunting and affirmative task of forcing decisive combat in order to end hostilities. It is, after all, far easier to disrupt governance and provoke instability than it is to govern and provide stability.

This makes the timetables dictated by political realities in ISAF troop-contributing nations extremely problematic. Counterinsurgency efforts are not won or lost on a timetable compatible with the current political climate at home. Admittedly, the attempt is not to win the counterinsurgency in the next year or the next three years (the U.S. timetable calls for troop withdrawals to begin in July 2011). Rather, the strategy is now one of “Vietnamization”, in which indigenous forces are assembled and trained to assume responsibility for waging the counterinsurgency with sufficient skill and malleability to serve American interests.

But the effort to which the bulk of ISAF troops are being dedicated and the effort in which the ISAF hopes to demonstrate progress for domestic consumption is the counterinsurgency mission, not the counterterrorism one. This effort, specifically, is taking place in key population centers and particularly in the Taliban’s core turf in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the country’s restive south. The efforts in Helmand and Kandahar were never going to be easy — they were chosen specifically because they are Taliban strongholds. But even with the extra influx of troops and the prioritization of operations there, progress has proved elusive and slower than expected. The fact is, the counterinsurgency effort is plagued with a series of critical shortcomings that have traditionally proved pivotal to success in such efforts.

Integration

The heart of the problem is twofold. First, the core strengths of the Taliban as a guerrilla force are undisputed, and the United States and its allies are unwilling to dedicate the resources and effort necessary to fully defeat it. To be clear, this would not be a matter of a few more years or a few more thousand troops, but a decade or more of forces and resources being sustained in Afghanistan at not only immense immediate cost but also immense opportunity cost to American interests elsewhere in the world. In reality (if not officially), the end objective now appears to be political accommodation with the Afghan Taliban and their integration into the regime in Kabul.

The idea originally was to take advantage of the diffuse and multifaceted nature of the Taliban and hive off so-called “reconcilable elements,” separating the run-of-the-mill Taliban from the hard-liners. The objective would be to integrate the former while making the situation more desperate for the latter. But from the beginning, both Kabul and Islamabad saw this sort of localized, grassroots solution as neither sufficient nor in keeping with their longer-term interests.

While some localized changing of sides has certainly taken place (in both directions, with some Afghan government figures going over to the Taliban), the Afghan Taliban movement has proved to have considerable internal discipline that is no doubt bolstered by the widespread belief that it is only a matter of time before the foreigners leave. This makes the long-term incentive to remain loyal to the Taliban — or, at the very least, not to so starkly break from them that only brutal reprisal awaits when the foreign forces leave — very difficult to resist. So the negotiation effort has shifted more into the hands of Kabul and Islamabad, both of which favor a comprehensive agreement with the Afghan Taliban’s senior leadership.

Compelling the Enemy to Negotiate

And this is where the second aspect of the problem comes into play. While special operations forces have been successful in capturing or killing some Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis have so far continued to provide only grudging and limited assistance, and there is no Afghan analogy to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq. In addition to building up indigenous government forces, the focus of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is on securing the country’s key population centers, thereby denying the Taliban key bases of support. The idea is that, as the Taliban continue to decline decisive combat and resort to harassing attacks, local loyalties will have shifted by the time ISAF forces leave and strengthened Afghan security forces will be able to manage a weakened Taliban movement.

However, this entails much more than just temporarily clearing Taliban fighters out of key population centers. The ISAF has made a concerted effort to secure and protect such areas (including Kandahar, the second-largest city in Afghanistan) from surreptitious intimidation as well as overt violence and to guarantee not just stability but also jobs and adequate governance. But the strategy requires that such transformations become entrenched and durable on an extremely short timetable in a national population that is anything but homogenous. Indeed, all three aspects of the ISAF’s concept of operations — shifting local loyalties, weakening the Taliban and putting capable Afghan security forces in place — are proving problematic.

The underlying point here is that the United States does not intend to defeat the Taliban; it seeks merely to draw them into serious negotiations. While deception and feints are an inherent part of waging war, the history of warfare shows that seeking to convince the enemy to negotiate without being dedicated to his physical and psychological destruction can be perilous territory. The failed attempt by the United States to drive North Vietnam to the negotiating table through the Linebacker air campaigns is an infamous case in point. Like those bombing campaigns, current U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan appear to lack the credibility to be compelling — much less forceful enough to bring the Taliban to the table.

The application of military power, as Clausewitz taught, must be both commensurate with the nation’s political objectives and targeted at the enemy’s will to resist. The Taliban’s will to resist is unlikely to be altered by an abstract threat to key bases of support, especially one that may or may not materialize years from now — and, in particular, when the Taliban genuinely doubt both the efficacy of the concept of operations and the national resolve. In any event, this is ultimately a political calculation. The application of military force to that calculation must be tailored in such a way as to bring the enemy to its knees — to force the enemy off balance, strike at his center of power and exploit critical vulnerabilities.

To be effective, this must be done relentlessly, at a tempo to which the enemy cannot adapt. This is done to force the enemy not to negotiate but to seriously contemplate defeat — and thereby seek negotiation out of fear of that defeat. Although Pakistan has intensified its counterinsurgency efforts on its side of the border, an international border and the Taliban’s ability to take refuge on the far side of it further restricts, as it did in Vietnam, the American ability to target and pressure its adversary. So far, nothing that has been achieved appears to have resonated with the Taliban as a threat too dangerous and pressing to wait out.
Political accommodation can be the result of both fear and opportunity. Force of arms is meant to provide the former. And the heart of the problem for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan is that the counterinsurgency strategy does not target the Taliban directly and relentlessly to create a sense of immediate, visceral and overwhelming threat. By failing to do so, the military means remain not only out of sync with the political objectives but also, given the resources and time the United States is willing to dedicate to Afghanistan, fundamentally incompatible. As an insurgent force, the Taliban is elusive, agile and able to seamlessly maneuver within the indigenous population even if only a portion of the population actively supports it. The Taliban is a formidable enemy. As such, they are making the political outcome appear unachievable by force of arms — or at least the force of arms that political realities and geopolitical constraints dictate.

As one boy, in tow of a man he called “my lord,” told the Reuters reporter: “Once I grow up, I will be an owner, and I will have my own boys.”

Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times.

Source Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL#ixzz0yFBsuz4j

THE RAPE OF INDIA

David Kostinchuk <dkost@mb.sympatico.ca>

“THE RAPE OF INDIA”

In the article ” The Jungle Of Christ” I discussed the plans of the television evangelists and their assault on India. In this article I will deal with this subject in a more detailed perspective.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines rape as: 1. take by force. 2. commit rape on. fig. forcible interference with institutions, country, etc.

The rape of India is done in a model similar to a military model used to invade, occupy, control, or subjugate a population of a given country. Intelligence is considered essential to invading a country; language, religion, culture, etc. are some of the variables considered. Division among the given population is considered essential to gain political control once inside the country. Religion can be the key variable to accomplish this. Division of wealth, social status, ethnic diversity, etc. are also variables that influence division of the population of a given country.

At the present time North India is considered the core target of evangelists in their effort of world evangelism. They justify this to Christians by using derogatory remarks like ” 900 million Hindus are spiritual bondage” (Baptist Press 10/99) or “900 million people lost in the hopeless darkness of Hinduism” (Baptist Press 11/99)

North India is a major population and political center. It is also considered the religious hub of India, the most socially deprived, has the lowest literacy rate, having the smallest percentage of Christians in its population as well as having immense research done on the population. The evangelists consider Hindus in North India as being the most accessible target in their plan for world wide evangelism. In addition there is the added incentive of having a Muslim population of 140 million.

The AD2000 movement uses terms such as “spy out the land and its inhabitants” to get an accurate complete picture of opportunities and challenges of India. They have coined the terms PLUG, PREM and NICE to describe their goals and methodology. PLUG refers to the target group. People in every language, urban center and geographic division. PREM refers to the techniques to use. Offering prayer, research must be done and utilized effectively on the target group, an evangelist must be the catalyst to provoke change and action and to encourage ministries and their efforts to convert non Christians. NICE refers to how the work is to be done. Networking, taking initiative when the movement is slowing down, using an evangelist to speed action in evangelizing and to encourage existing groups and cohorts in their efforts to convert people to Christianity. ( http://www.ad2000.org/uters3.htm )

The Gospel For Christ and The Indian Missionary Association have put together books to help evangelists evangelize India. The evangelists are also using information from The Anthropological Society of India’s work on ethno-graphic studies which has been considered essential in facilitating the evangelism efforts. This has been used to such a degree that the diverse language groups of India have been divided into PIN codes. ( These are similar to ZIP codes in the USA that divide the country into mailing districts.) The ability to send evangelists that are familiar to language, culture, etc. greatly facilitates the speed at which evangelism is able to develop and is cost effective since tactics can be formed at the home base which saves costly mistakes in the field.
ad2000 ( http://www.ad2000.org/uters2.htm )

The Christian Broadcasting Network has a splinter group that is called The Joshua Project. Their target is 2.2 billion people in 1685 groups that are divided into Affinity Blocks and Gateway Clusters. Affinity groups are groups of people who have bonding of language, religion, politics and culture. Usually there is one culture that is dominate in the block. People clusters are people that are closely related in name or culture so they are clustered together. These groups usually consist of populations of over one million. There goal is to have at least one hundred Christians or more in every group of over 10,000 people. Joshua Project ( http://www.ad2000.org/ )

There are too many evangelist groups in India to cover in this article however; I will discuss a few of them to give a picture of how they proliferate.

The Indian Prayer + Fellowship Association has a goal to reach all non Christians to start cell groups. They have contacted over 16,000 houses, made almost 900 home contacts and over 1700 personal contacts. Their goal is to start cell groups than attach a full gospel group or plant a church if needed.They also supply tracts, literature etc. Indian Prayer And Fellowship Association ( http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy )

Partners International has the goal of training indigenous people to evangelize others. They are training a Christian who has converted to Christianity every 13 minutes. They claim planting a church every ten hours in Asia and Africa. ( http://www.partnersintl.org/aboutpi/welcome.html )

The southern Baptists plan to have 4,700 southern Baptists working with millions of international partners. Their goal is to have 15,000 career missionaries, 50,000 volunteers, and 1,000 southern Baptist college grads every year. The length of service for the college grads is to be two years. ( Baptist Press 11/22/99)

The evangelists strategy for North India includes treating Indian missions and Indian evangelists as equal considering that India has a strong GNP and a growing middle class. Due to the large population base the evangelists strategy includes dividing up the population base into smaller target groups such as women estimated to number 487 million or girls under 15 which is estimated to number 158 million. They plan to use literacy programs o target the illiterate which is estimated to be 48% of the population. They also plan to supply the Indian church with tools such as translators, humanitarian relief, etc. so the churches can become self sustaining and would not need outside assistance. ( http://www.gem-werc.org/mmrc9812.htm)

The evangelists India outreach teams -hbi ministries international India provide schools, orphanages, medical centers etc. In a six week period outreach teams ministered to 19,000 children and taught Hindu and Muslim students in Christian schools. ( http://www.gospel.net/hbi/iot/ )

Dr. Houtsma of World Outreach Ministries stated that he has helped train 160,000 national ministers to continue his work when he leaves. He is targeting Jammu, Vyara, Ludhiana, etc. ( http://www.wo.org/ )

One of the variables in training indigenous missionaries is the decreased cost to support missionaries. A foreign missionary cost at least $66,000 a year to support. Native missionaries cost approximately $600 a year. This greatly decreases the cost of evangelizing. Christian Aid. ( http://www.christianaid.org/ )

Native missionaries now do 90% of the work in starting churches. These people are more effective in converting people because They understand the language, customs, culture, etc. In addition recent converts are often more zealous in their efforts to convert people to their way of thinking. Hundreds of thousands of zealous converts can also have a sever profound influences on the political system that is in effect.

The reader of this article should be aware of the fact that these students could be influenced toward Christianity by their teachers. In addition orphanages can be the breeding ground for future evangelists. In an orphanage children could be brainwashed and conditioned during school and after school. The children in an orphanage can have their social life controlled after school so they only socialize with evangelists. These children have no family or other people outside of the evangelists to look after their welfare so they can easily be programmed.

It is interesting though sad to see the results that might occur as the evangelists enter their last stage of evangelism in India. You can see considerable backlash against evangelism as stated in the newspapers. Evangelists cry to the politicians, civil right groups and newspapers in the West.

Some questions must be asked though. Do evangelists have the right to disrupt society, culture, religion, and the family of people in other countries? Do people have the right to combat the attack on the culture, etc. of their country?

I would welcome any comments or feedback on this article.

David Kostinchuk

VISIT MY WEBSITE: PEOPLE UNITED FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
http://www3.mb.sympatico.ca/~dkost/index.htm

GEOPOLITICS OF USA - ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP

 

In geopolitics, we are frequently confornted with what appears to be a great deal of movement. Sometimes it is current geopolitical reality breaking apart and a new one emerging.

 

Sometimes it is simply meaningless motion in a fixed geographical reality - nothing more than illusion of maneuver generated for political reasons as players maneuver within a fixed framework for minor advantage or internal political reasons. In other words, we need to distinguish between geopolitics and politics.

Nowhere it is more important than in the Middle East, which has come to be defined in terms of Arab-Israeli equations for reasons I fully don’t understand. Leaving that aside, in recent months we have seen a lot of endless happenings and rumours of happenings. The current impasse between US and Israel, Flotilla Crisis, Iran’s outbursts against Israel, Turkey is no longer a trusted ally, etc. Israel has always been invoked as an ally of US against “War on Terror” (though this term is no longer used) - or even the very reason why US is in the war in first place. Some will say that Israel maneuvered the US into Iraq to serve its own purpose. Some will say it orchestrated 9/11 for its own ends. Others will say that , had US supported Israel more resolutely, there would have been no 9/11.

There is probably no relationship on which people have more diverging views than on that between US and Israel. This seems to be an opportune time to consider the geopolitics of US-Israeli relationship.

Let us begin with some obvious political points. There is relatively small Jewish community in the United States, though its political influence is magnified by its strategic location in critical states like New York and the fact that it is more actively involved in politics than some other ethnic groups.

The Jewish community, as tends to be the case with groups, is deeply divided on many issues. It tends to be united on one issue - Israel - but not with the same intensity as in the past, nor with even semblance of agreement on the specifics. The American Jewish community is as divided as the Israeli Jewish community, with a large segment of people who don’t care much. At the same time, this community donates a huge amount of money to American and Israeli organizations, including groups that lobby on behalf of Israeli issues in Washington. These lobbying entities lean toward the right wing of Israel’s political spectrum, in large part because the Israeli right has tended to govern in the past generation and these groups tend to follow the dominant Israeli strand. It is also because American Jews who contribute to Israel lobby organizations lean right in both Israeli and American politics.

The Israel lobby, which has a great deal of money and experience, is extremely influential in Washington. For decades now, it has done a good job of ensuring that Israeli interests are attended to in Washington, and certainly on some issues it has skewed US policy on the Middle East.

There are however two important questions. The first is whether this is in any way unique. Is a strong Israel lobby an unprecedented intrusion into foreign policy? The key question though, is whether Israeli interests diverge from US interests to the extent that the Israel lobby is taking US foreign policy in directions it wouldn’t go otherwise, in directions that counter the US national interest.

Begin with the first question. Prior to both world wars there was extensive debate on whether the US should intervene in the war. In both cases, the British government lobbied extensively for US intervention on behalf of UK. The British made two arguments. The first was that US shared a heritage with England - code for the idea that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants should stand with white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The second was that there was a fundamental political affinity between British and US democracy from German authoritarianism.

Many Americans, including President Franklin Roosevelt, believed both the arguments. The British lobby was quite powerful. There was German lobby as well, but it lacked the numbers, the money and the traditions to draw on.

But from geopolitical viewpoint, both the arguments were very weak. The US and UK not only were separate countries, they had fought some bitter wars over the question. As for political institutions, geopolitics as a method, is fairly insensitive to the moral claims of regimes. It works on the basis of interest. On that basis, an intervention on behalf of UK in both wars made sense because it provided a relatively low cost way of preventing Germany from dominating Europe and challenging American sea power. In the end, it wasn’t the lobbying interest, massive though it was, but geopolitical necessity that drove US intervention.

The second question, then is: Has the Israel lobby caused the US to act in ways that contravene US interests? For example, by getting the US to support Israel, did it turn Arab world against the Americans? Did it support Israel against Palestinians, thereby generate an Islamist radicalism that led to 9/11? Did it manipulate US policy on Iraq so that US invaded Iraq on behalf of Israel? These allegations have all been made. If true, they are very serious charges.

It is important to remember that US-Israeli ties were not extraordinarily close prior to 1967. President Harry Truman recognized Israel, but the US had not provided major military aid and support. Israel, always in need of an outside supply of weapons, first depended on the Soviet Union, which shipped via Czechoslovakia. When the Soviets realized that Israeli socialists were anti-Soviet as well, they dropped Israel.

Israel’s next patron was France. France was fighting to hold on to Algeria and maintain its influence in Lebanon and Syria, both former French protectorates. The French saw Israel as a natural ally. It was France that really created the Israeli air force and provided the first technology for Israeli nuclear weapons.

The US was actively hostile to Israel during this period. In 1956, following Gamal Abdul Nasser’s seizure of power in Egypt, Cairo nationalized the Suez Canal. Without the canal, the British Empire was finished, and ultimately the French were as well. UK and France worked secretly with Israel, and Israel invaded the Sinai. Then, in order to protect the Suez Canal from and Israeli-Egyptian war, a Franco-British force parachuted in to seize the canal. President Dwight Eisenhower forced the British and French to withdraw - as well as the Israelis. US Israeli relations remained chilly for quite some time.

The break point with France came in 1967. The Israelis, under pressure from Egypt, decided to invade Egypt, Jordan and Syria - ignoring French President Charles de Gaulle’s demand that they do not do so. As a result, France broke its alignment with Israel.

This was a critical moment in US-Israeli relationship. Israel needed a source of weaponry as its national security needs vastly outstripped its industrial base. It was at this point that the Israeli lobby in the United States became critical. Israel wanted a relationship with the US and Israeli lobby brought tremendous pressure to bear, picturing Israel as a heroic, embattled democracy, surrounded by bloodthirsty neighbours, badly needing US help. President Lyndon B. Johnson, bogged down in Vietnam and wanting to shore up his base, saw a popular cause in Israel and tilted toward it.

But there were critical strategic issues as well. Syria and Iraq had both shifted into pro-Soviet group, as had Egypt. Some have argued that, had US not supported Israel, this would not have happened. This, however, runs in face of history. It was US that forced the Israeli out of Sinai in 1956, but the Egyptians moved into the Soviet camp anyway. The argument that it was uncritical support for Israel that caused anti-Americanism in the Arab world doesn’t hold ground either. The Egyptians became anti-American in spite of an essentially anti-Israeli position in 1956. By 1957 Egypt was a Soviet ally.

The Americans ultimately tilted toward Israel because of this reason, not the other way round. Egypt was not only providing the Soviets with naval and air bases, it also was running covert operations in the Arabian Peninsula to bring down the conservative sheikdoms there, including Saudi’s. The Soviets were seen as using Egypt as base of operations against US. Syria was seen as another dangerous radical power, along with Iraq. The defense of the Arabian Peninsula from radical, pro-Soviet Arab movements, as well as the defense of Jordan, became a central interest of US.

Israel was seen as contribution by threatening the security of both Egypt and Syria. The Saudi fear of PLO was palpable. Riyadh saw the Soviet inspired liberation movements as threatening to Saudi’s survival. Israel was engaged in a covert war against PLO and related groups, and that was exactly what the Saudis wanted from late 1960s until early 1980s. Israel’s covert capability against PLO, coupled with its overt military power against Egypt and Syria, was very much in the American interest and that of its Arab allies. It was a low cost solution to some very difficult strategic problems at a time when US was either in Vietnam or recovering from the war.

The occupation of the Sinai, the West Bank and Golan Heights in 1967 was not in US interest. The US wanted Israel to carry out its mission against Soviet backed paramitlitaries and tie down Egypt and Syria, but the occupation was not seen as part of the mission. The Israelis intially expected to convert their occupation of the territories into peace treaty, but that only happend much later, with Egypt. At Khartoum summit in 1967, the Arabs delivered the famous 3 NOes: NO NEGOTIATIONS, NO RECOGNITION & NO PEACE. Israel became an occupying power.

The claim has been made that if US had forced Israelis out of Gaza and West Bank, then it would receive credit and peace would follow. There are 3 problems with that theory:

1. Israelis did not occupy these areas prior to 1967 and there was no peace then,
2. groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah have said that a withdrawal would not end the state of war with Israel, and therefore,
3. the withdrawal would create friction with Israel without any clear payoff from the Arabs.

It must be remembered that Egypt and Jordan have both signed peace treaties with Israel and does not seem to care about the Palestinians. The Saudis have never risked a thing for the Palestinians, nor have Iranians. The Syrians have, but they are far more interested in investing in Beirut hotels than in invading Israel. No Arab state is interested in the Palestinians, except for those that are actively hostile. There is Arab and Islamic public opinion and non state organizations, but none would be satisfied with an Israeli withdrawal. They want Israel destroyed. Even if US withdrew all support for Israel, however, Israel would not be destroyed. The radical Arabs do not want withdrawal; they want destruction. And the moderate Arabs don’t care about the Palestinians beyond rhetoric.

Noe getting to the heart of the matter. If US broke all ties with Israel, would the US geopolitical situation be improved? In other words, if it broke with Israel, would Iran or al Qaeda come to view US in a different way? Critics of the Israel lobby argue that,except for the Israeli lobby’s influence, the US would be much secure.

Al Qaeda does not perceive Israel by itself as its central problem. Its goal is the resurrection of the caliphate - and it sees US support for muslim regimes as the central problem. If US abandoned Israel, al Qaeda would still confront US support for countries such as Egypt, Saudi and Pakistan. For al Qaeda, Israel is an important issue, but for US to soothe al Qaeda, it would have to abandon not only Israel but also its allies in Middle East. As for Iran, the Iranian rhetoric has never matched its action. During Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian military purchased weapons and parts from the Israelis. It was more delighted than anyone when Israel destroyed the Iraqi  nuclear reactor in 1981. Iran’s problem with US is its presence in Iraq, its naval presence in Persian Gulf and its support for the Kurds. If Israel disappeared from the world map, Iran’s problems would still remain the same.

It has been said that Israelis inspired the US invasion of Iraq. There is no doubt that Israel was pleased when, after 9/11, US saw itself as an anti-Islamist power. Let me clarify that, benefitting from something does not mean you caused it. However, it has never been clear that Israelis were all that enthusiastic about invading Iraq. Neoconservative Jews like Paul Wolfowitz were enthusiastic, as were non Jews like Dick Cheney. But the Israeli view of a US invasion of Iraq was at the most mixed, and to some extent dubious. The Israelis liked the Iran-Iraq balance of power and were close allies of Turkey, which certainly opposed the invasion. The claim that Israel supported the invasion comes from those who mistake neoconservatives, many of whom are Jews who support Israel, with Israeli foreign policy, which was much more nuanced that the neoconservatives. The Israelis were not at all clear about what the Americans were doing in Iraq, but they were in no position to complain.

Israeli-US relations have gone through three phases. From 1948 to 1967, the US supported the Israel’s right to exist but was not its patron. In the 1967-1991 period, the Israelis were a key American asset in the Cold War. From 1991- the present, the relationship has remained close and little bumpy lately but it is not pivotal to either country. Whether it will remain in the 3rd phase or the relationship will enter into a new phase, only time can say. The fact is US cannot help Israel with Hezbollah or Hamas. The Israelis cannot help US in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the relationship were severed, it would have remarkably little impact on either country - though keeping the relationship is more valuable than severing it.

To sum up:

There is a powerful Jewish, pro Israel lobby in Washington, though it was not very successful in first 20 years or so of Israel’s history. When US policy toward Israel swung in 1967 it has far more to do with geopolitical interests than with lobbying. The US needed help with Egypt and Syria and Israel could provide it. Lobbying appeared to be the key, but it wasn’t; geopolitical necessity was. Egypt was anti-American even when US was anti-Israeli. Al Qaeda would be anti-American even if the US were anti-Israel. Rhetoric aside, Iran has never taken direct action against Israel and nor does it seem to be a real possibility.(existential threat notwithstanding- I will cover that part in my next note).

Portraying the Israeli lobby as super powerful behooves 2 groups: Critics of US Middle Eastern policy and the Israel lobby itself. Critics get to say the US relationship with Israel is the result of manipulation and corruption. Thus, they get to avoid discussing the actual history of Israel, US and Middle East.

The lobby benefits by projecting robust power because one of its jobs is to raise funds - and the image of a killer lobby opens a lot more pockets than does the idea that both Israel and US are simply pursuing their geopolitical interests and that things would go on pretty much the same even without slick lobbying.

The great irony is that the critics of US policy and the Israeli lobby both want to believe in the same myth - that great powers can be manipulated to harm themselves by crafty politicians.

The British did not get US into the World Wars, it was not anti-Nazism that led US to war, similarly the Israelis aren’t maneuvering the Americans into being pro-Israel. Beyond its ability to exert itself on small things, Israeli lobby is powerful in influencing Washington to do what it is going to do anyway.

What happens next in Afghanistan or Iraq  is not up to the Israeli lobby - though Israeli lobby and Saudi Embassy have a different story for it.