Dr Renad Mansour
Good afternoon. Welcome everybody to this members event, lunchtime afternoon talk. The title is Unintended Consequences? Foreign Intervention in the Middle East. My name is Renad Mansour. I’m a Research Fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme. Very delighted to have with us three very distinguished speakers to talk about the issue, which is quite a big issue. So, hopefully, we’ll be able to get through what is this issue in the next hour. First, to my left, Emma Sky, a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for International Affairs at Yale and she was, from 2003 to 2010, based primarily in Iraq, working with General Odierno, and the US Command Forces. She’s recently written a book, which we’ll discuss to some extent today, and the book, which is on sale over there, and Emma has kindly agreed to sign a few copies of the book after the event. The book is entitled In a Time of Monsters: Travels Through a Middle East in Revolt. Next to Emma, Jonathan Steele, Chief Correspondent for The Guardian for many years, and aside from the Middle East, has worked in Russia as well, but spent quite a few years in the Middle East, and is an authority to speak on the relationship between the West and the Middle East, vis-à-vis foreign intervention. And last, but certainly not least, my boss, Lina Khatib. That’s part of the orientation. She is the Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
Before we begin, just a few housekeeping notes. Just so you know that the event today is livestreamed, which means that the Chatham House Rule does not apply. I just also want to please ask you all to put your phones on silent, but encourage you all to tweet, using the hashtag #CHEvents to tweet if, you know, if you hear something that you think the world should know. Other than that, we are beginning – we will start, and I wanted to start first with Emma. Emma, fascinating book, very clearly, you know, you’re well-travelled, you’ve been to many different Middle Eastern countries on your trips, and stationed quite, you know, prominently in one, Iraq. And you make this argument, you make this argument, through your storytelling, that there is some connection between the military intervention in Iraq, but also, more widely in the region, to what we’re seeing in London today with Brexit and the vote to leave the European Union, and also, to some extent, this kind of populism that leads to someone like Donald Trump becoming President of the US. So, because this is Chatham House, and we like to, kind of, in-depth – move more in-depth into the academic side of things, can you, to some – you know, in the six or seven minutes that you have, connect the dots a bit? How, you know, how are your travels and your experiences, and your academic thoughts, how did the intervention, more directly, lead to some of these big consequences in London and Washington?
Emma Sky
Renad, thank you very much. So, in 2003, the coalition policies in Iraq, in terms of disbanding the military, dissolving the Ba’ath Party, collapsed the state of Iraq and led to civil war, and in the chaos of civil war, Al-Qaeda in Iraq was able to flourish. Now, that whole period between 2007-2009, that we call the surge, brought an end to the civil war, which, for reasons I can go into later, and the defeat of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. But Iraq then unravelled again when Maliki remained in power, despite not winning the 2010 national elections, and his sectarian policies led to or created the conditions that enabled ISIS to rise up out of the ashes of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and proclaim itself the defender of the Sunnis against the Iranian-backed sectarian regime of Nouri al-Maliki.
So, what impact did the Iraq War have on the region? I think the Iraq War changed the balance of power in the region in Iran’s favour, and this triggered geopolitical competition, and the instrumentalization of sect. The Iraq War left the West with deep scars. You saw when Obama came – became President, he signalled his intent to withdraw from the Middle East and pivot towards Asia, leaving a power vacuum in the region. And the Arab Spring, I don’t think the Arab Spring had anything to do with the Iraq War and foreign intervention. I think it was a response to the breakdown of the social contract in Arab states, corruption, lack of jobs, but everything came to a head in Syria, during the Arab Spring. So, the violent response of Bashar al-Assad to the young, peaceful demonstrators, you saw ISIS was able to take root, not only in Iraq, but in Syria as well, the regional proxy war. Saudi and Gulf countries felt that, you know, that America had given Iraq to Iran, and so they started supporting different actors inside Syria, and Iran started supporting different actors inside Syria, and there was a weak Western response.
In Syria, half a million people killed, half the country displaced from their homes, and what happens in the Middle East doesn’t stay in the Middle East. Refugees, ISIS are not contained in the region, and when you saw that flood of refugees into Europe, it played into the hands of populist Politicians. Obviously, there were already problems with economic stagnation in Europe, and Politicians, right-wing ones, grabbed hold of this, and you’ll remember Nigel Farage standing in front of that poster, massive poster of Middle Eastern refugees on the Croatia-Slovenia border. An implication he was making was clear, that unless the UK took back control of its borders, these refugees would flood into Britain. I think the Iraq War, and this is my last point, I think the Iraq War also contributed to loss of trust in elites in the West, and in the establishment.
In the UK, it’s frequently cited as an example that the elites don’t have better knowledge or judgement than the general public. Tony Blair took the country to war against the will of the majority of Brits. I think he would have gone down as one of the greatest Prime Ministers, if not for the Iraq war. The Iraq War tarnished his image, his reputation, and that of that, sort of, Third Way New Labour.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you, thanks. Moving on, and we’ll have a chance to have a discussion with everybody later, but moving onto Jonathan, this idea of unintended versus unforeseen consequences, obviously, military intervention, or just foreign intervention in the Middle East comes in different shapes: military, economic, covert, the CNN effect, and sort of more soft-power types of intervention, but, nonetheless, the Middle East has clearly been a region that has been a hot topic and a focus of what would be the Western Governments, Europe and North America. So, could you, sort of, based on your experiences, and thinkings and meetings in the region, kind of, elaborate more on this idea of the difference between unintended and unforeseen consequences of – and blowback of intervention?
Jonathan Steele
That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Dr Renad Mansour
I wonder how.
Jonathan Steele
It’s pretty clear that when they were planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that George Bush and Tony Blair didn’t intend many of the things which actually happened subsequently. The emergence of armed militias, the outbreak of sectarian violence, which led to appalling massacres, the spread of Iranian influences Emma’s talked about across the Iraqi political spectrum. But if you just say that these things were unintended, you risk being a little bit bland, I think, ‘cause the word ‘unintended’ gives the impression that all these consequences were unfortunate by-products of the invasion, and that Bush and Blair carried no real blame. It’s almost as though these unintended consequences were on the same level as a natural disaster, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake. All very tragic, but ultimately, nobody’s fault. However, if you ask whether these unintended consequences could or should have been foreseen, you’re in much more relevant territory, I think.
Did Bush and Blair not foresee that Iraq would very probably be torn by sectarian tensions, and that the occupation armies would face massive armed resistance? Didn’t they realise that Iran would benefit, to a huge degree, by having Shia Islamists become the dominant players in post-Saddam Iraq? Now, if Blair didn’t predict any of this, what about their Advisors, here in Whitehall, in the Foreign Office, the so-called Arabists? Amazingly, and I might say shamefully, the Arabists in the Foreign Office did not foresee these things, because – we know this, because, thanks to the Chilcott inquiry, we have a huge cache, hundreds of notes, minutes of meetings, strategy papers from within the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, and the Cabinet Office, and none of these papers, anywhere in this Whitehall cache of documentation, is there a strategy paper which forecast that there would be armed resistance to US and UK occupation from Iraqi nationalists, Shia, as well as Sunni. Nowhere is there a paper which spelt out that Iran would increase its influence. It’s incredible that they didn’t foresee this.
Now, when Tony Blair appeared before the Chilcott inquiry himself, he argued that these developments could only be seen with hindsight. But this is nonsense. In November 2002, four months before the invasion, Jack Straw persuaded Blair to invite six academics to Downing Street. They pointed out that there were tremendous intercommunal tensions in Iraq, the Western invaders would not be welcomed, that they would find few allies, except among the Kurds, that Iraqis were suspicious of the West because of the hardship caused by sanctions, and that Islamic nationalism was a powerful force in Iraq.
Foreign Analysts made the same points. Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, told the UN Security Council, before the invasion, quoting, “The use of force can arouse rancour and hatred, and fuel a clash of identities and cultures.” So, there you have it. The consequences were foreseeable, and they were in fact foreseen. Now, I’ve concentrated on Iraq because it was the first of the three disastrous interventions, Western-supported interventions of the last decade and a half in the Middle East. The calamitous consequences of the Iraq invasion should’ve made Politicians much more cautious about using force again, to engineer regime change in other Arab countries. Yet, in 2011, we had NATO’s intervention in Libya, causing chaos there. A year later, we had the catastrophic intervention in Syria.
Now, of course, the Syrian intervention by Britain and the US may have been on a much smaller and less dramatic scale, military scale, than the interventions in Iraq or Libya. There was no aerial campaign of bombing, for example, obviously, but US and UK support for the armed opposition against Assad has resulted in massive destruction and loss of life. I remember talking to Syrians in Damascus in 2012, when the fighting was still in its infancy, and ISIS had not yet appeared on the battlefield. Many Syrians were worried about the consequences of the conflict becoming militarised and violent, if people took up guns against the Assad regime and confronted the Syrian security forces. They were worried that their country would be engulfed in civil war, and become a pawn in a regional proxy conflict. How right they were.
The Iraqi Administration and the British Government, the David Cameron Government, gave the armed Syrian opposition military, financial and diplomatic support, and encouraged them to believe that a full-scale air assault on the Libyan model was possible, and possibly just round the corner. Something that Hillary Clinton backed, for example. British Government and the American Government condoned the backing which Turkey and its Gulf allies gave for foreign jihadis to travel to Syria, to fight against the Assad army. Vice President, US Vice President Joe Biden put it in 2014, and I’m quoting, “The Turks, the Saudis and the Emiratis were so determined to take down Assad, and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,” end of quote. And then he correctly concluded that this had ended up by helping militants linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Now, of course, Assad also bears a huge share of blame for the terrible killing of civilians and the displacement of millions of Syrians, inside their own country and abroad, and Emma’s talked about the refugee crisis. But Western policymakers should have realised that Syria wasn’t like Egypt or Tunisia. They should’ve foreseen that Assad would be absolutely ruthless in resisting occupa – opposition. They perhaps could not have foreseen that Iran and Russia would intervene in Assad’s defence in quite so massive a way as they did, but they should’ve rest – realised – Western Governments should have realised that the armed opposition was making a terrible mistake in thinking it could outgun the Syrian Government’s security forces, and succeed in toppling the Assad regime by force. So, the lesson is clear, and this is my last point, military intervention for the sake of regime change is hardly ever a wise policy, both in the Middle East or anywhere else in the modern world. The negative consequences will almost always outweigh the positive benefits, which the intervention is intended to bring. Yet, even now, we see hawks in Washington intent on implementing plans to attack Iran. I sincerely hope they come to their senses and see what a disaster yet another ill thought out intervention in the Middle East would be. Thank you.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you, Jonathan. A really good point that I want to come back to, this idea of it being unforeseen, or whether it being foreseen and why it is that some decisions are made against what would be very logical, for a room like this, when it comes to the policy world, but before that, moving onto Lina, and this is a nice transition, because Jonathan ended with Syria, which is somewhere that you have been, sort of, leading our programme, Chatham House’s Syria work, on. And, on the question of intervention, it’s obviously been a big question. Can – what – is there any type of intervention that can, sort of, work in the Middle East? Have – did the West intervene, as Jonathan says, through other channels, or – what are your thoughts on whether intervention at all could work in the region?
Dr Lina Khatib
Well, I’ve been saying this for the last few years now, it’s not black and white. At the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, I personally was against intervention, in the very, very early days, ‘cause, at that time, there was an opportunity to bring what was then a crisis toward some sort of diplomatic conclusion, and that would result in a compromise, perhaps not ideal, but at least it would have spared lots of lives. But at the time, there was no appetite in Washington to really go very far in engaging diplomatically on Syria, and I personally think part of the reason was that the Obama administration was very keen to broker a deal with Iran on the nuclear issue, and although John Kerry has denied that the two issues have ever been linked, I don’t buy it. I think they, at the time, the American Administration did not want to engage in any act that could jeopardise the potential for a deal to be brokered. So, there was no wish to engage the Iranians on anything.
And why am I mentioning the Iranians? Because, very early on in the conflict, it was Iran that leapt to Assad’s aid and told him, “Listen, we crushed the Green Movement in Iran in 2009. You need to be very forceful and crush your own movement here, against you, because look at what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, and you don’t want to end up in the same kind of boat.” So, it was Iran that act, at that time, as an Advisor for Assad. So, the West lost the moment of diplomatic intervention at that time. Not enough was being done to try to push for a compromise. Afterwards, when the conflict turned violent, we need to, from that moment onwards, look at intervention in a different way, because there is, in the UN, provision for international intervention under Chapter 7, and that was never really used, because the UN Security Council, obviously, you have Russia and China with the veto power. So, we never got anywhere, in terms of having international consensus on the need for international intervention, but there are legal means of doing so.
So, I’m personally not someone who is anti-interventionist as a matter of principle, but what I’m against is reckless intervention. So, the Iraq invasion of 2003 was an illegal intervention, should not have happened in the first place. Syria is a different story. My problem is, when I see people talk about the Middle East as if all the countries in the region are the same, as if the context in Iraq and Syria and Libya and elsewhere is the same, and to talk about intervention as if, again, it’s the same in every case. No, it’s not. You need to look at the particular circumstances in each case, and these change over time. So, I’m someone who changed my mind from being anti-intervention in 2011 to being pro-intervention afterwards, especially when Obama declared his red-line statement about the use of chemical weapons. I think, at that time, he should’ve intervened, because otherwise the US, you know, was going to lose its credibility, and that’s exactly what ended up happening. He chose not to intervene, despite making this threat, which led the Assad regime to believe that it can do pretty much whatever it likes.
So, what happened with the West and what it did in Syria, which Jonathan is describing as intervention, is that there was inadequate support for the opposition. So, the idea is, if in the West you’ve decided and you’ve declared that Assad should go, then you need to commit resources to come up with a comprehensive strategy, in order to basically carry this towards, you know, towards the end goal, otherwise it’s completely useless. To just give the opposition just enough military resources to keep them going, but not allow them to really win, and then blame them for not winning, and blame them for not being organised, is basically setting them up for failure, and this is unfortunately what happened with Syria. So, there was never anything done at the scale it should have been. No diplomacy at the scale it should have been, and no, when the time came for the West to, you know, especially the UK and US, to engage militarily, it was done at the very low level that only contributed to the continuation of the conflict, and making it bloodier.
The other issue is when we talk about foreign intervention, we’re often thinking about the West, but of course, Russia and Iran in Syria have been intervening a lot more than, you know, Western countries put together, frankly. And we shouldn’t, whenever we think foreign intervention, exclude these other actors that are also engaging in damaging ways. So, this is basically the, you know – the, kind of, morale of the story is rhetoric and action need to, kind of, match, because otherwise, this is – the gap between the two is what has made the situation worse in Syria. And also, without intervention, it has also made the situation worse, even in places like Egypt, where you have lots of rhetoric about respecting the rights of the people with, again, no diplomacy or economic pressure put in order to pressure the regime in Egypt to, kind of, behave and, sometimes, inaction, can be more costly than action.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you. Thanks, Lina. Before we open it up, there’s been a few themes that I think it would be good to get your thoughts on, beginning with Emma. A bit of, you know, reaction to your thoughts was: how – to what extent is it intended, foreseen? To what extent does this overall incompetence lead to some of these decisions, but also, this need to hit the attack button without really understanding the consequences or foreseeing? And, to some – what extent, not to get into conspiracies of course, is there that other side to it too, that they understand the consequences, but they don’t prioritise certain consequences over other consequences, in your experiences in Iraq and the Middle East?
Emma Sky
Well, if you look at 2003, I think when you’re part of the occupation, things look very different if you’re an Academic or a Journalist covering it. So, I think, you know, from the outside, things often look like conspiracy. On the inside, you have a lot of people who are working very hard trying to do the right thing. In 2003, the coalition was advised by a group of Iraqi exiles. Now, these exiles, they had, you know, been working with intelligence services in the US and the UK for a period. The most prominent of which was, of course, Ahmed Chalabi, and the vision that the leadership of the coalition had of Iraq came through what the exiles were telling them. And it was the exiles who very much pushed for de-Ba’athification, and who pushed for dissolving the military, ‘cause they wanted to come back and be the leaders of the new Iraq, and they didn’t want competitive from those who were there before.
Dr Renad Mansour
Just to – was it foreseen by the Americans and the Brits that these group of leaders who had not lived in Iraq for 20/30 years who were very clearly politically motivated to gain power were, kind of, pushing their own agendas? And was there too much trust given to these group of exiled elites who had their own interests, that may have not been the interest of the Iraqis living in Iraq?
Emma Sky
I’m sure there was, but as you well know, Iraq had been closed off from the rest of the world. So, people – there wasn’t good research. There wasn’t that body of knowledge that you would imagine. Now, there were senior people in the State Department, like Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who said, “Don’t do it, shouldn’t go there.” Jeremy Greenstock, from the UK, was aware of what might happen, but when you look at Ambassador Bremer, his belief was that to create a new Iraq it couldn’t be created on the foundations of the old Iraq, so that the Ba’ath Party really needed to be dissolved. He didn’t expect it to go down, de-Ba’athification to go down as deep as it did go down. Ahmed Chalabi took over, and it went down very deep. So, that’s how that happened, but that was a decision under the Bush Administration. When you look at the Obama Administration, I think the main mistake they made in Iraq was in 2010, a very closely fought national election, which Iraqiya comes out as a winning block, with 91 seats, and Maliki’s State of Law with 89 seats. And instead of upholding the rights of the winning block to have first go at trying to form the new Government, consistent with the Parliamentary system, consistent with Iraq’s Constitution, the US said, “Look, Iraq’s not ready for democracy. Iraq needs a Shia strongman. Maliki’s our man,” and this was Joe Biden speaking. He said, basically, “Maliki will allow us to keep a small contingent of US forces in Iraq, after the security agreement expires in 2011, and maintaining the status quo is the quickest way of ensuring a Government in Iraq is formed ahead of the US midterm election.” So, I think that was the critical mistake of the Obama Administration. They failed to keep Maliki – it was the Iranians who saw the opportunity, and they kept him in.
Dr Renad Mansour
Okay. Jonathan, picking up where Emma – Obama’s made mistakes in Iraq, but he said, at the time, his biggest regret was intervention in Libya, and he felt that that was one of his biggest foreign policy blunders. Picking up on what Lina described earlier of when, perhaps, intervention can be justified, what are your thoughts on, sort of, the international law, and its use through intervention, or can intervention be justified in the Middle East in some contexts, and what are those situations?
Jonathan Steele
Well, I think they’re two different things. One is whether an intervention is legal, which it was in the case of Libya, and it wasn’t in the case of Iraq, and perhaps wasn’t in the case of Syria, ‘cause there’s never been a UN Security Council resolution about that that was passed unanimously. But my point is not so much the legality or the legitimacy, but the practicality and the effectiveness of intervention, and that’s where I disagree with Lina. You’re saying there wasn’t enough intervention in Syria, and Obama did just enough to keep the war ticking over, but not enough to win it. And my doubt, serious doubt, based on the experience of Iraq, is even if they’d gone in with massive air power, shock and awe, like they did in Baghdad, would it have made the country better? I think it would’ve made the country far worse, and not forgetting the fact, which you did touch on, that, in the Syria case, unlike in the Iraq case, there was Russia, was backing Assad. Russia was not backing Saddam Hussain. So, there was no fear of a superpower clash between the US and Russia and the Iraq invasion, but there would’ve been if the US and Britain had come in heavily in a military way against Assad in favour of the democratic opposition. So, I think it would’ve been highly risky and very dubious that we’d be in a better place now than we are already.
Dr Lina Khatib
Can I just say? But the Russians weren’t there in the beginning in this way. Russia really, I think, took advantage of the vacuum left by the West, and increased its own intervention in Syria, and then intervened itself militarily in 2015. We have to remember, it only started intervening militarily in 2015, not in 2011. Iran was there from the beginning, but Russia came later, and I think if it hadn’t been for the Western vacuum, Russia would not have taken advantage of this opening in order to assert itself as a superpower once more. So, again, it’s Western inaction that paved the way for Russia to do this. I don’t think, from the beginning, Russia would have been crazy enough to counter a massive American-led military campaign in Syria.
Jonathan Steele
Russia was arming Assad. Even if it wasn’t militarily engaged itself, it was massively supplying arms, in a way that it wasn’t supplying…
Dr Lina Khatib
Yeah, but always since the Soviet Union days.
Jonathan Steele
…Saddam Hussain in the same way.
Dr Renad Mansour
Okay. I’m going to open up the floor to the audience, but very fascinating debate. If I could ask you to please state your name and affiliation, other than Chatham House Member, which everyone has to be to be in this room. Yes.
Majid Aslan
Thank you, and my name is Majid Aslan. I am a Member at Chatham House and a PhD student at King’s College. My question is for Dr Khatib. You mentioned that intervening in Syria would have been – you would’ve favoured that had it happened back in 2011. My question is also a little bit along the lines of Jonathan. How would such an intervention have been any different than the one that happened in Iraq in 2003? Or how would’ve the consequences of such an intervention been any different, especially given the big sectarian amalgam in Syria as well? So, I’m just interested to know your thoughts a bit on that. Thank you.
Dr Renad Mansour
We’ll take a few. Yes, please.
Euan Grant
Yeah, thank you very much. Euan Grant, I’m a Customs and Border Control Consultant, who’s worked in Jordan and the ex-Soviet countries. I’ve seen international organisation, Political Advisors, some of whom are very good, but many who are not in Emma Sky’s league by any means. My question for Emma Sky is the disbandment of the army. Why, given the lessons of history, from 1945 and before that, did so many get taken in by the Iraqi exiles? Because the lessons of our history, you have to, however reluctantly, you have to have some kind of state framework to build on, and Iraq was an armed co – you have to start with the army. And for everyone, really, a rhetorical Devil’s advocate question for Mr Steele, to get the debate going, what would you say to the argument that what you’re saying may, in practice, give a green light to Iranian and, in future, Russian, but particularly Chinese hardmen in that they feel, basically, the West is decadent and won’t stand up for vital interests, or, indeed, friends, maybe nasty friends, and those nasty friends will decide, “We’ve got to start doing a deal with other nasty guys.” Thank you.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you. So, we’ll come back, ‘cause there are three questions, and I think the three of you could cover it. This question, really, the first one to Lina, you know, put aside the legal stuff, to what extent would have intervention in Syria been similar to the, sort of, backlash that happened in intervention in Iraq?
Dr Lina Khatib
Yeah. First of all, I wasn’t pro-intervention in 2011. I made that clear. I was anti-intervention at the time, ‘cause there was no need, in the beginning, as far as I could see it. It was a peaceful uprising led with indifference by the Government, and then a level of violence, and then the violence escalated, but, for a period of time, you know, it could’ve been solved differently. In any case, what I’m saying is after Obama made the statement about using chemical weapons as a red line, then that’s it. For me, that was the point of no return. I find myself, as a pragmatist, then forced to say, “Okay, if you’ve made this promise, you have to carry it through,” and he didn’t. At that time, I was in Lebanon, that summer when chemical weapons were used, and everybody was expecting an imminent attack, and I was visiting Beirut and then, funnily enough, right after I had to go to the White House in DC. So, while in Beirut, I could see, visibly, lots of regime affiliated Syrians, who were fleeing to Lebanon from Syria, reporting that lots of army bases were being evacuated, and that there was panic within regime ranks in Syria, because they took it seriously. They felt an American attack is going to happen and at that time, no one leapt to Assad’s help in a big way. You know, this was the summer of 2013, we did not see Russia suddenly send more weapons, we did not see, at the time, you know, an increase in Iranian support. In fact, everybody was really scared, and it was only after nothing happened, then everyone felt, “Okay, now we can do whatever we like,” basically.
So, that’s where it’s different. I think that moment, which that was it, you only get this one chance, that was lost forever, and, you know, afterwards, the rest is history. How it would’ve been different, I think, what you mentioned, the sectarian issue, Syria is not Iraq. I honestly am very fed up with people going, “Oh, but in Iraq this happened, so in Syria” – they’re not the same country. Syria never had the sectarian problem that Iraq has. The Syrian issue was instrumentalised, mainly by the Assad regime, after the conflict turned into a proper, you know, full-on war, because it’s in the interest of the regime to use sectarianism to divide people and to create, basically, a jihadist problem, frankly, that I don’t know how many people in this audience know, that the Assad regime itself contributed to the rise of jihadism in Syria, because the narrative of the regime, from the beginning was, “It’s either me or these jihadists. This is not up for a peaceful uprising, these are jihadists destabilising the country.” So, he let out of jail, in 2011, lots of Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists, and let them just run around, and that’s how, you know, we saw Jabhat al-Nusra, etc., form in Syria. So, the sectarian issue is something that is new.
I’m not saying there was never any problems in Syria, but it’s not the same context as Iraq. So, playing out the Iraq scenario and saying, “Syria would have ended up the same,” no, because it’s not the same. And because the regime, despite the Soviet-supplied weapons, and later the Russian-supplied weapons, the Syrian army was never as strong, and, therefore – plus, you had lots of defections, mass defections from the Syrian army, as a result of the uprising. So, again, you did not have the regime capacity to engage in the kind of violence that, with all the retreat, frankly, of all the external actors in the West, allowed the regime to do later on. So, I think it’s difficult, always, you know, to talk, kind of, with the benefit of hindsight and what if, you know, because I can’t say for sure that any of the things I’m saying now would have actually happened. But I think, you know, the key thing to remember is Syria has a very particular set of circumstances that, basically, meant it was largely let down, whereas, in the case of Iraq, it wasn’t just let down, it was also deliberately messed up from the beginning.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you. Emma, to you, the question about the disbandment of the army, but, kind of, more broader, can you touch on, you know, this came up earlier, if you speak to the Americans they say it was these exiles, and they’re the ones who were telling us what to do, and Bremer, in his book, says, “These Iraqi MPs never showed up to work, they weren’t serious, they weren’t effective.” Kind of, the blame is on the Iraqis. You speak to the Iraqis and they’re like, “The Americans came, they just gave us cash, and they created this system of corruption,” right, by just throwing all that money into Iraq, and not really going – building institutions in the way. So, ultimately, who is to blame for when it goes wrong?
Emma Sky
You know, there’s enough blame to go round, everyone has agency in this. I just want to pick up, you know, when people talk about Iraq and sectarianism, you know, when we arrived in Iraq in 2003, a third of Baghdad was intermarried Sunni-Shia. So, I think it’s important to realise that these people, it’s a multicultural, multi-ethnic society that has been living together for centuries upon centuries upon centuries. What happened in 03 was the state collapsed, and the new elite bargain was made on the basis of sect and ethnicity for the first time in Iraq’s history. So, that institutionalised difference, in the absence of an overriding state, it played to sub-identities.
Going back to the question on the army. So, before we invaded, we dropped fliers across the country, telling the Iraqi army not to fight, and, basically, most of the Europe – most of the Iraqi military hated Saddam and was not prepared to die for him. They didn’t fight. When you look at what units that put up some resistance, it was Republican Guards, but the Iraqi army as a whole didn’t fight. They went home and they waited to be called back to barracks.
Now, the US army, in its plans, had all these plans to call them back, but somehow, and we’re not quite sure where this order was taken, Bremer blames Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld blames Bremer, but somehow, in the midst of all this, it was decided that, no, Iraq wouldn’t have a big army again, it would just have a small, professional army that would be built by scratch by the US. They even tried to get them to march like the Americans, and that was a bit hard. They’re used to, like, marching like the Brits, so what – and then the insurgency kicked in, and it was, “Oh God, we need more security forces.” So, then, the decision was made to build up the Iraqi army again into a much bigger force, and this meant recruiting back a lot of the people who’d been dismissed from the old Iraqi army.
Now, by that stage, obviously, a percentage had gone to join different bits of the Resistance. So, some had gone to join nationalist opposition, others Islamist opposition, and some ended up with jihadi organisations such as Al-Qaeda. And what was the question on corruption? Who’s to blame for corruption?
Dr Renad Mansour
Everyone. You answered it.
Emma Sky
What can I say? I mean, everyone is willing to blame others for it, but when you look at the extent of corruption today, Iraq is, what, in the top ten most corrupt countries? Where is all that money going? How come you’ve got elites that see the state as something to extract wealth from? And I think this goes back to it being a rentier economy. It gets its money from oil rather than from the labour and the taxes paid by the people, and so you see the resource curse.
Dr Renad Mansour
Okay and Jonathan, there was a question that’d be good to get your thoughts on. It’s really a question, and within IR, sort of, as a discipline, there’s this idea of realpolitik, and how there’s an impression that perhaps Russia or China are more successful in the Middle East because they could be more interventionist, particularly with Russia, vis-à-vis Syria, whereas America’s, kind of, half-in, half-out approach is creating this vacuum, creating a green light, I think was the word that was used, to allow those more realpolitik countries to be more successful. But at the same time, we’re describing a blowback to intervention. So, presumably then, the countries that are engaging will also face the same blowback in Russia for over-extending an intervention?
Jonathan Steele
Well, exactly. I mean, and you talk about international relations, IR. There is this concept of power abhors a vacuum, like nature abhors a vacuum. I think this is a highly contentious and questionable notion, although it’s sort of international relations 101, you’re told that. But that is not true. I mean, there are lots of vacuums around the world, and there isn’t military intervention going on all over the place. People intervene through diplomatic pressure, diplomatic engagement, through economic aid, through aid, humanitarian aid, through diplomacy, through trade. I mean, there’s all kinds of intervention. It doesn’t follow that – and it’s not always competitive. If it’s to do with aid coming in after an international disaster, superpowers can be working together instead of against each other. So, this – I think one has to question these simplistic quote, “Truths,” so we’re told, always operate. I mean, Iran, of course, is influential in Syria, because of some sectarian reasons, and, obviously, they’re in the same region, but would China suddenly start intervening in Syria if – I mean, it’s beyond – beggars belief. You know, Russia is intervening for not a military thing, but Russians aren’t particularly like Palestinians, and they don’t have a long-term future, probably, Russia’s influence in Syria. So, I think one has to question all this stuff about, “If we’re not there the other people would be there, and they’re nasty people. We’re nice people.”
Dr Renad Mansour
Yes, please, and then we’ll come to the next. Yeah, please, yeah.
Saad Jada
Yeah, thank you. The name is Saad Jada, Member of Chatham House, and represented the Iraqi community in Britain at one time. Now, it’s a question to Ms Sky. The unwritten rulebook, if you want to destroy a nation, you do the following: you invade it, you open its borders, you dismantle its security forces, you send half the population home, because half the population were members of the Ba’ath Party. Then, install a group that belong to a particular sect who are incompetent to be in charge. Now, there has been a lot of talk about the reasons for the invasion, that it was a mistake, that it was weapons of mass destruction, threat to the West and all that. We, deep down, believe that there was an agenda by a particular group…
Dr Renad Mansour
Sorry, can you just ask a question?
Saad Jada
So, my question is, do you not believe that it was an interest of a particular group that that country is destroyed, it’s eliminated, its existence, as a force in the Middle East and an influence in the Middle East, would be eliminated? It’s not a matter of going to remove Saddam and introduce democracy, and…
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you.
Saad Jada
…a better life for the people.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you. Thank you. Yes, a question here.
Leah
Hi, my name is Leah, I work at SRM, which does due diligence and crisis management, and my question – I’m not sure who to address it to, because it involves points raised by all three speakers, and it’s about other forms of intervention. For example, recently, the UK said that it would ban the political wing of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which, I mean, I believe is a form of, maybe, soft intervention, or – because it has the ability to have consequences in the country, and, just, how would you compare these consequences? Possibly economic, possibly, you know – or, maybe, politically, in terms of all the sectarian tensions there. Do you think these consequences of soft interventionism could be as bad as military intervention? Thanks.
Dr Renad Mansour
Yes, and just one more question here, and then we’ll have one more chance, hopefully, to come back. Yeah.
Isabelle
Hi, Isabelle, from the British Council. Again, sort of, directed at all the speakers, and this is based on what you were talking about, a vacuum that potentially Russia exploited and then intervened. I was just interested to find out that if the UK and the US had intervened at, sort of, an earlier stage, would it have changed Russia’s response? So, would – do you think Russia would still have intervened, given that they would’ve been likely to have vetoed any suggestion of intervention at the UN Security Council? Thanks.
Dr Renad Mansour
Thank you. So, we’re going to quickly reply and have one more round of questions on that side. So, Emma, the first question was to you. Was the intention, the intended consequence of invading Iraq to destroy the country?
Emma Sky
Saad, I don’t think that was the intended consequence of the West. I assume you’re asking about Iran.
Saad Jada
No, I think the…
Dr Renad Mansour
I think he’s talking about the West.
Saad Jada
…intention, the plan comes from the United States, not from Iraq.
Emma Sky
You know, the architects of the Iraq War, the American architects of the Iraq War had this dream, the end of the Cold War, it was about muscular US foreign policy. They were going to set the worlds to right using American military might. And for whatever reasons, they thought of Iraq as, like, the pilot project for this, and they believed that if you overthrow Saddam, Iraq will become a democracy, that will have a demonstration effect on the region, and it will lead to peace with Israel. That was their thinking. And on the Iranian side, obviously, they had different ambitions, because Iraq had been a big threat to them, and they had an interest in seeing Saddam removed, and they were giving some of the faulty intelligence that went to the Iraqi exiles, that then was used by the Americans to justify – false information used to justify the invention, but there was – as far as I know, I’ve never come across anyone, in the US or the UK, who set out to destroy Iraq. That was never the intent. So, you can look at it and say, “Oh my God, you know, all this confirmation bias. Did they really have these crazy ideas?” It was a period of neoconservativism, America’s unipolar power, no other country to push back on it, and you can look and see what the Iraq War has done to America. It’s brought about the end of Pax Americana prematurely. It has changed the region, but not in ways they envisaged, and now you’ve got Iran coming up against Israel inside Syria. So, it’s hardly brought about peace in the Middle East. So, these are the unintended consequences. You can look at Iraq War as the catalyst for the end of Pax Americana, and the failure to stem the bloodshed in Syria as the evidence of this. The whole idea of an international community has really disappeared. There’s been complete impunity for use of chemicals, for blowing up hospitals, for all of that. This was never the intent.
Dr Renad Mansour
I think, sometimes, incompetence is hard to, sort of, gauge, and sometimes what may seem like grandmaster conspiracies are actually just a lot of incompetent individuals in powerful positions, but nobody can believe that that’s the case in places like the White House or the Pentagon or the Government here. Jonathan, there was a few questions about – there was one about Russia in Syria, but also, this idea of using terrorism as a label, and is having a terrorist, global terror list itself a form of intervention?
Jonathan Steele
Yes, that is definitely true, and I wanted, just, to come onto your point. I mean, I would agree with Emma that there was no plan to destroy Iraq as such, but there was a plan to de – regime change, to get rid of an anti-Israeli leader. Saddam Hussain was considered to be a major threat to Israel. So, you said peace with Israel. I would say getting rid of anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli leaderships, which is why they don’t want the Iranian regime to last much longer either. So, that’s the point, the Zionists defending Zionism defending Israeli policy, Government policy is a huge factor in American policy, as we’ve seen. I mean, Netanyahu didn’t want the invasion of – well, it wasn’t Netanyahu at that stage, I think it was Sharon, in 2003, didn’t want the invasion of Iraq. He thought Iran was the main enemy and he thought they’d got the wrong country, and the Americans said, “Don’t worry, we’ll come to Iran after we’ve done Iraq.” So, that was – they dealt with it that way.
But I just wanted to comment on the Russian point, and take issue, I’m afraid, once again, with Lina. The Russian – Obama didn’t – when the red-line was breached with the chemical weapons, it isn’t that nothing was done. Russia came forward with John Kerry and produced an agreement for the total chemical disarmament of Syria. I mean, okay, now, it turns out that Assad cheated and kept some stocks behind, but that wasn’t known at the time. It was censored by the Organisation of Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, checked all these things out and they logged out how many chemical weapons had been taken out, and they helped to dismantle it, and it appeared to have been successful. So, it isn’t that nothing happened as a result of Obama’s threat. There was action, diplomatic action, by Russia, which intervened on the right side, on this occasion, but you’re talking about listing countries as terrorism – terrorist is a very dangerous thing. I mean, we see it now in the Kurdish areas of Northern Syria. You know, suddenly Erdoğan’s claiming that these Syrian democratic forces, which have held together with ISIS in Syria are terrorists, and because they’re linked to the PKK. I mean, it’s ridiculous. One should be much more careful about banning people or banning organisations. You have to dialogue with these people, talk to them. Some of them can be negotiated with. Some of them may be beyond the pale. Once you start negotiating you can find that out, but just to ban people in advance is ridiculous, in my view.
Dr Lina Khatib
Well, once again, the whole chemical weapons thing. Did anyone really, really believe that Assad was going to actually not cheat, or Russia? I mean, really, I know people who worked on the ground with the UN at that time on the campaign, and it’s not public knowledge, this is a public event, but I can tell you that transgressions were well noted by the same people who were deployed to supposedly be getting rid of the chemical weapons. So, from day one, this was a game, and, yes, Russia intervened diplomatically, you say, in the right way. I say that wasn’t the right way. If it had been done without cheating, then yes, but from the very beginning, this was Russia’s way of averting a military attack, because a military attack would have not worked in Russia’s favour at that time. It was not and has never wanted to confront the US militarily. That’s why they have a deconflicting – deconfliction line, even right now, when it comes to Syria, so that no accidents do happen.
So, I think we have to just bear in mind that putting good faith in bad regimes to investigate their own transgressions is never a good idea, and I will say the same applies to what’s happening in Saudi Arabia today, for example, with the Khashoggi investigation. You can’t just let countries investigate their own, which takes me to the question about Hezbollah. We all know, come on, that there is no such thing as a distinction between the military wing and the political wing, we all know that, but in politics and diplomacy, this is all a game. Use words like ‘victory’. What does victory mean? Hezbollah declares victory against Israel in 2006, now, Iran declares victory for Assad, just two days ago. President Trump declares victory against ISIS. What does this mean? Words like ‘victory’, it’s all used, you know, in order to be very self-serving. Same thing in Syria. When people have, for the last few years, brokered supposed ceasefires and declared them to be successful, when we all know that the bombings continued throughout every single ceasefire that had been announced, you know, under UN hospices, but again, people want them to, kind of, be seen as successful, in order to serve certain political agendas.
So, I will say, for Hezbollah, this distinction was made so that the UK, for example, and other European countries, could continue doing business with Lebanon, because Hezbollah is a key part of the political environment in Lebanon. What would the UK do if, say, the Lebanese Foreign Minister is chosen from Hezbollah at some point? It’s a difficult situation, you know. So, we know that the distinction was only done to serve certain political purposes, but the reality is, it’s not there.
Now, why has this happened now? It’s because of a lot of Israeli lobbying going on, with American blessing, and it’s all part of the package of putting pressure on Iran. It’s a simple as that. So, I don’t see military intervention against Iran happening any time soon. I don’t think anyone has the appetite for that, frankly, not even Israel, not the United States, but what is happening is, seeking different methods of engagement. You call it, is this intervention? I don’t think it’s intervention. I think it is, again, part of politics. It’s putting economic pressure on Iran, trying to cut as many of its sources of income as possible, and we know that Hezbollah has been engaging in lots of activities around the world of a criminal nature, in order to fund itself, which, of course, falls under the same umbrella of, kind of, Iran’s economic clandestine activities. So, that’s what’s happening. Is it more damaging? I think, in this particular case, I don’t see how it is damaging to monitor international criminal activity, but what I think is not helpful is, again, going from one extreme of pretending that no distinction happens, to the other extreme of saying, “Oh, this is now a terrorist org” – it’s like, how are you actually going to deal with it beyond the economic issue? It’s going to just make things a bit complicated, I think, for the UK.
Dr Renad Mansour
I think we’re out of time, sadly. Could we take another round?
Staff
We have only three minutes.
Dr Renad Mansour
Oh, can we take – we have – okay, one 30-second question from that side, and yes, please.
Robert Gardner
Robert Gardner, Chatham House, and I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. The future of the Kurds in Syria and in Iraq, please?
Dr Renad Mansour
We’ll end with the Kurds. Future of the Kurds, whether they have any allies in the West, or elsewhere? Anyone, anyone?
Emma Sky
I can talk Kurds in Iraq and also, Kurds in Syria.
Dr Renad Mansour
One minute each.
Emma Sky
One minute each. The Kurds have always, for the last 100 years, had difficulty about a unified leadership and where their borders are going to be. I think President Barzani, it was President Barzani a year or so ago, he really believed that through the fight against ISIS, the Iraqi Kurds were at their strongest position. They had received weapons directly from international forces, and they had taken over all the disputed territories, including Kirkuk, and he thought now is the time to make the move for independence, and he expected he would get support from the West. There were some people in the West who told him that, but it wasn’t necessarily the Governments, and so he made that move. No Iraqi Prime Minister could afford to lose Kirkuk, and so, the pushback was really quite strong and so the Kurds have been pushed back to their 2003 borders, and they’ve lost a lot of what they had gained post-2003.
Today, you’ve still got all of this intra-Kurdish competition, and that allows other players, particularly Iran, to play one off against the other, but also, Baghdad. So, I see them muddling on in Iraq.
Dr Renad Mansour
I think [inaudible – 58:30] has a new fault line. It seems like the internal tensions are quite stronger this time.
Emma Sky
Yes, yeah, they’re getting stronger, aren’t they? It’s not…
Dr Renad Mansour
Yeah, yeah, either or both on Syria?
Dr Lina Khatib
Yeah, the future of Kurds in Syria. Sadly, they’re going to be let down by the regime, because now they’ve had no choice but to, kind of, pivot towards the regime because they’re feeling that the US might effectively abandon them if they remove all troops, because this would make the Kurds vulnerable. There’s a lot of pressure by Turkey that’s continuing, which means that having autonomy is something that’s never going to be, I think, acceptable for Turkey. And, Assad, despite his promises, I don’t think he’s going to give them a sense of autonomy in the way they envision further down the line. So, I’m afraid, yet more disappointment.
Jonathan Steele
And I think they’ve been betrayed by both Russia and, potentially now, by the US, because Russia, initially, was helping the Kurds in Syria and North East Syria before the Americans got in there, and then they’ve allowed Turkey to invade Afrin, and take out half the population, or more than half the population of Kurds who used to live there, and thanks to the green light that Putin gave to Erdoğan. So, I’m afraid the Kurds have a long history of being betrayed by their bigger powers, which they think are their allies, and it has not yet stopped.
Dr Renad Mansour
I think one of the chapters, “No Friends But the Mountains,” is the famous Kurdish saying. Just, thank you everybody for coming. Thank you to Emma, to Lina and to Jonathan. Thank you to [inaudible – 59:58] and Liv and the Exile Relations Team for their support. If you’re interested in these kind of conversations, the book is there, as well as our programme, the Middle East North Africa Programme, where we try and engage in these big, sort of, policy questions frequently. So, please sign up. Thank you very much [applause].
