Ex-generals don't want war czar
job, no sir By Ehsan Ahrari
In the latest twist in its quest for a
winning strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
administration of US President George W Bush is
eager to create the position of a "high-powered
czar" to oversee wars in those countries. But when
offered the job, three retired four-star generals
turned down the White House.
Maybe the
generals know something about these wars that
makes them not want the job.
The three
generals approached were John "Jack" J Sheehan,
Jack Keane and Joseph W Ralston. Of these, only
General Sheehan
spoke publicly about his
reasons for rejecting the position. He said Vice
President Dick Cheney and his advisers are too
powerful and committed to continue the wars,
especially the one in Iraq. Given their power and
influence over Bush, no pragmatic solution of
getting out of these wars can be developed.
Sheehan added, "The very fundamental issue
is, they don't know where the hell they're going.
So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and
eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks.'"
The US perspective toward resolving any
major and obdurate problem is to create the office
of a "czar". The late president Richard Nixon
created an energy czar in the 1970s. But America's
energy dependency on international oil has only
increased since then.
The troubled issue
of depoliticizing and centralizing intelligence in
the aftermath of the intense controversy stemming
from the US decision to invade Iraq resulted in
one of the most significant recommendations of the
9-11 Commission: to appoint an "intelligence
czar". Even though that recommendation resulted in
the creation of the office of the director of
national intelligence, the problems that
originally led to the controversy have not gone
away.
A czar's strength is that the person
operates on the basis of centralized authority and
makes quick and major decisions through direct
access to the president, and has high national and
international visibility. In principle, these are
sound reasons, but they don't address the major
problem related to the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
The chief problem, simply put, is
that those wars are not going well for the United
States and in both countries the US and the West
are perceived as occupiers of the land of Islam.
That reality focuses all the opposition forces on
one issue: to bring about the ouster of the
occupiers. That is the primary reason the highly
touted counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq may well
not work.
All counterinsurgency strategies
are aimed at creating a wedge between guerrilla
fighters and the populace. But the occupying
troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan have had
difficulty in doing this - there have been
numerous incidents of civilians killed in
indiscriminate attacks and heavy-handed raids on
houses, let alone mistreatment of prisoners. The
occupiers are perceived more as the enemy than as
friendly forces and, more important, as "enemies
of Islam" - something that plays into the hands of
al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.
From
the perspectives of the three retired generals,
the most problematic issue is the refusal of Bush
to listen to the growing chorus calling for the
withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This reality
assigns a powerful conditionality that not one of
the generals is prepared to accept - that they
would have been hired for the sole purpose of
continuing the wars.
That was the thinking
behind Sheehan's observation that "they don't know
where the hell they're going". Not even General
Keane, who has expressed support for the surge
strategy in Iraq, could be tempted under these
circumstances.
Sheehan summed up the mood:
"There's the residue of the Cheney view - 'We're
going to win, al-Qaeda's there' - that justifies
anything we did ... And then there's the
pragmatist view - how the hell do we get out of
Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with
the [Cheney] view are still in the positions of
most influence."
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