ما الذي يجب أن يسأل قبل الحرب التالية

بقلم: باول بيلار

واشنطن بوست - 4/2/2007

يجب عدم السماح للأشخاص الذين أحضرونا للعراق بتحديد الأسئلة

What to Ask Before the Next War

Don't Let the People Who Brought Us Iraq Define the Questions

By Paul R. Pillar

Sunday, February 4, 2007 ; Page B07

Imagine that the famously flawed intelligence judgments about Iraq 's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been correct. What difference would that have made to the American effort in Iraq ?

The Bush administration would have had fewer rhetorical difficulties in defending its decision to go to war, even though any discoveries of weapons programs would have confirmed nothing about the use to which Saddam Hussein might someday have put such weapons or whether Iraq would eventually have acquired nuclear weapons

But the war itself would be the same agonizing ordeal. An insurgency driven by motives having nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and little to do with Hussein would still be going on.

Iraq 's sectarian divisions and intolerant political culture would still have pushed it into civil war. Iraq would still have become the latest and biggest jihad, winning recruits and donors for al-Qaeda and boosting the militant Islamic movement worldwide. And the United States would still be suffering the same drain of blood and treasure in Iraq and most of the same damage to its global standing and relationships.

This thought experiment highlights how problems with the policy process (or, rather, the lack of a process) that led the United States into the Iraq quagmire went beyond the administration's manipulation of intelligence on weapons programs and terrorist relationships. The administration so successfully shaped the policy question around its chosen selling points involving these two issues that what passed for a national debate gave little attention to important questions about the likely nature and consequences of a war. The debate was largely reduced to contemplating the terms of a pseudo-syllogism: Hussein has weapons of mass destruction; Hussein supports terrorism; therefore, we must use force to remove Hussein.

Now, an accelerating debate about Iran and its nuclear program shows signs of the same dangerous reductionism. Some argue for an airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities sooner rather than later. Whether the Bush administration will act on such advice in the next two years is uncertain, but it is taking confrontational steps, including augmenting forces in the Persian Gulf and raiding an Iranian consulate, that increase the chance of heightened tension escalating into a military clash.

A long argument over many barely addressed issues would be needed to get from a belief that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons to a conclusion that a military strike, or even policies that increase the risk of U.S.-Iranian hostilities, is advisable. One issue is the uncertainty of the intelligence about Iran 's nuclear program, although this is getting some discussion thanks to the recriminations about the intelligence on Iraq .

Other questions that need answering include:

What would be the urgency of taking forceful action, given that the announced estimate is that Iran is still several years from acquiring a nuclear weapon?

How malleable (and how well-defined) are Tehran 's intentions, and what changes in Washington 's policy might lead Tehran to abandon a weapons program? Even if Tehran 's intentions do not change, what other options would impede or slow its nuclear program? If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, how would that change its behavior and affect U.S. interests? In particular, why would deterrence, which has kept nuclear peace with other adversaries, not work with Iran ?

The likely hardening, concealment and dispersal of Iran 's nuclear facilities raise questions about the impact any military strike would have on the program. How much would Iran 's nuclear efforts be set back, especially given that bombs are not very good at destroying knowledge and expertise? Would the Iranian response be appreciably different from that of Iraq after Israel bombed its nuclear reactor in 1981 ( Iraq redoubled its nuclear efforts while turning to different methods for producing fissile material)?

The most neglected questions concern other consequences of a U.S. strike or any other U.S.-Iranian combat, even if such combat did not lead to a prolonged occupation. How would Tehran respond to an act of war? What terrorism might it launch against the United States ? How would it exploit U.S. vulnerabilities next door in Iraq , where it has barely begun to exploit the influence it has assiduously been cultivating? What other military action might it take, with the risk of a wider war in the Persian Gulf ?

Other effects concern Iranian politics. How much would the direct assertion of U.S. hostility strengthen Iranian hard-liners, whose policies are partly premised on such hostility? How much would it add to all Iranians' list of historical grievances against the United States and adversely affect relations with future governments?

Broader regional and global ramifications include the impact on the oil market, whether other Middle Eastern nations would be less willing to cooperate with the United States and the prospect of exacerbating the damage the Iraq war already has dealt to U.S. standing worldwide.

Some might argue that the worst case that could ensue from an Iranian nuclear weapon is so bad that it trumps all other considerations. But there is no more reason than there was with Iraq to consider the worst case of only one side of the policy equation. And the worst case that could result from U.S.-Iranian combat is plenty frightening: thousands of Americans dead from retaliatory terrorist attacks, a broader war in the Persian Gulf , $150-per-barrel oil, a global recession and more.

That's not the most likely case -- neither is a vision of Iranian-generated mushroom clouds -- but it is plausible that substantial portions of that scenario would materialize.

Avoiding the next military folly in the Middle East requires that the agenda for analysis and debate not be so severely and tendentiously truncated as before Iraq . Not only must proponents of military action not be allowed to manipulate the answers, they also should not be allowed to define the questions.

The writer, a former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia , teaches security studies at Georgetown University .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020201551_2.html

ـ

ـ

من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ