Book Reviews

“All the Shah’s Men” Book Review

By PMEComplete on June 25, 2017

On November 4, 1979, shouts of “death to America” and “death to the Shah” roared from the streets of Tehran. Outside the American embassy throngs of radical Iranian students pushed against the embassies’ walls shouting in visceral disgust at the American diplomats inside. It wasn’t long before these students brazenly scaled the walls and stormed the embassy. In the harrowing hours after the American embassy was overrun, fifty-two Americans were taken hostage. They were paraded before cameras and broadcasted around the world by international news outlets. Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution which overthrew the Shah’s rule, refused to release the American hostages. They remained captive until January 20, 1981 when President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. For 444 days, Americans were kept in captivity, and the United States fumed with justifiable anger, resentment, and confusion. How could an event like this happen? What were the roots of the crisis in Tehran?

Iranian students scale the walls of the US embassy in Tehran. (Image source: Wikipedia)

In his 2003 book, “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror”, Stephen Kinzer attempts to lay the groundwork for an explanation. The story of how America became heavily involved in a plot to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh represents a fascinating chapter in American history, and one that is frequently overlooked and sadly misunderstood. “All the Shah’s Men” provides a broad overview of Iranian history to set the stage for Iran’s present-day resentment and mistrust of foreign powers. Mr. Kinzer harkens back to the era of the Persian empire “built by Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes” and remarks that Iranians possess an abiding sense of inspiration in “their heritage” (Kinzer 17-18). He also talks about the collective social consciousness and sense of justice that can be traced to the influence of Zoroastrianism in Persian history. At the same time, Kinzer underscores the fact that Iranian pride in their history and culture is also deeply rooted in their opposition to hostile invaders to include Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes, and Arab conquerors, who spread Islam to Iran. Furthermore, the form of Islam adopted by Iranians would be Shiite, which is a tradition rooted in the belief that Mohammad’s cousin Ali was the successor as caliph i.e. leader of the Islamic world. During the first quarter of the 20th century, Iran was ruled by a Turkic tribe known as the Qajars. When the Qajars were gone after 1925, Iran stood between “two great imperial powers, Britain and Russia” (Kinzer 28). Due to this position, Iran found itself within the crosshairs of world powers competing for ideological partners and foreign allies in the aftermath of World War II.

Who could forget Xerxes? You know, the dude from *300*! (Image Source: GQ )

A significant portion of Mr. Kinzer’s book involves the rise of Iranian nationalism embodied in the figure of Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh rallied his political support under the banner of opposition to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This was a British oil company located in Abadan on the Persian Gulf, and the British made no apologies about the conditions in which Iranian laborers worked and the paltry royalties which the Iranian government received from the company. “All the Shah’s Men” dives deep into the divisions and lack of compromise between the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and Iranian nationalists like Mossadegh. Mr. Kinzer suggests that the British maintained a colonial attitude that ruled out the idea of profit sharing or concessions to the Iranian government such as the ability to audit the company. The conflict between the British and Iranians brought the US deeper into the region and Middle Eastern affairs. Under President Harry Truman, the US had been an impartial arbiter in the conflict, and often urged Anglo-Iranian Oil to make concessions. However, events changed when President Eisenhower took office in 1953.

Partial image of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. (Image Source: Frontline)

President Truman tried to walk a fine line in the conflict. His diplomatic envoys were clearly frustrated with both sides unwillingness to compromise. The US watched their British allies overplay their hands in Iran until Mossadegh’s government nationalized the oil industry. Eventually, the British were expelled from Iran altogether. This did not stop them from maintaining their strategic patience, and applying the full weight of their economic power to squeeze the nascent Iranian oil industry out of world markets, which proved to be much easier than it would be for the US to attempt in the late 2000s. As Winston Churchill was re-elected British prime minister, there were even whispers of military action. However, military intervention never transpired. Instead, the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower opened a new window of opportunity for British interests in Iran.

To the extent that Eisenhower’s election fostered renewed British hope to overthrow Mossadegh, it was not due to anything that President Eisenhower said or believed about Iran prior to him assuming office. On the other hand, the Dulles brothers entered Washington as part of the new administration with John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State, and his brother Allen Dulles serving as Director of Central Intelligence. Mr. Kinzer asserts that the Dulles brothers’ worldview was shaped by the ideological conflict of the Cold War. They were the practitioners of a Soviet containment strategy that relied on intervention in countries which they saw as vulnerable to falling into the orbit of the Soviet Empire. Their first project was Iran.

Image of brothers Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles (Image Source: NYT)

Mr. Kinzer absolves President Eisenhower of much of the decision-making and responsibility for the 1953 coup. Instead, he sees the Dulles brothers as the principle architects. In terms of execution of the coup, the book digs into a CIA operative by the name of Kermit Roosevelt, a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. In a CIA mission called Operation Ajax, Roosevelt, a savvy, Middle East operative, charged forward with the plan to oust Mossadegh. Mr. Kinzer provides some details into how Roosevelt cut deals, paid mobs, and pulled at the delicate fringes of Iran’s political fault lines to make the coup a success. After paid civilians lay dead outside Mossadegh’s residence, Mr. Kinzer notes that they were “found with 500-rial notes still in their pockets,” which had been given to them through Roosevelt’s dozens of subagents (Kinzer 187).

Images from the 1953 coup. (Source: CNN)

While the events of the coup are well documented, Mr. Kinzer’s narrative lacks some pertinent details. He merely suggests that after nationalizing the oil industry Iran was left in an isolated economic situation, which created political unrest. But, this is an area that I felt needed more focus. There is a sharp transition from when the British leave, Iranian nationalism soars, and Mossadegh’s popularity seems well-established to Roosevelt and the CIA overthrowing the government literally in a single night. Although Roosevelt’s initial attempt at the coup failed, he gambled again and succeeded the second time. I wanted to read more about the shifting political situation in Iran. I also found myself wondering how Roosevelt had built a sophisticated network of agents that could allow him to mobilize a coup in one night. Somehow Roosevelt made it all happen as planned. As a result, Mohammad Reza Shah ruled the country for twenty-five years, and former prime minister Mossadegh spent his remaining years under house arrest.

The preface to Mr. Kinzer’s 2008 edition of “All the Shah’s Men” addresses what he calls the “folly of attacking Iran.” He wrote the preface in response to talk that existed in the Bush Administration and Defense Department about using military force against Iran. This was when Iran was under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was notoriously anti-Western and had even harsher opinions toward Israel. Mr. Kinzer’s conclusions are relevant in today’s political environment as Iran has been put “on notice” by the current administration. President Trump and has called Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. Ironically, President Trump has also reinstated a bust of Winston Churchill in the oval office. But, considering the 2015 US-Iran nuclear deal and Iran’s re-election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, Mr. Kinzer’s assertion that “there are a remarkable number of areas in which the United States and Iran might find common ground” should be taken seriously (Kinzer xix). His contention that the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh was a long-term strategic disaster comes through poignantly in his book, and it informs Mr. Kinzer’s policy stance towards Iran as being much less hawkish than the prevailing wisdom in Washington.

“All the Shah’s Men” is a fast-paced read. The history is interesting, and Mr. Kinzer’s writing style is captivating. This book could have been a lot longer, and readers who want more details on the Shah’s rule and the events leading to the revolution of 1979 will not find much here. But, Mr. Kinzer covers a lot of ground and illuminates a moment in history that continues to affect US foreign policy. It is unclear whether lessons have been learned from this period in history. There are members of the National Security Council (NSC) such as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the council’s senior director for intelligence, who have urged the use of CIA spies to try to do the same thing Roosevelt accomplished in 1953. But, these NSC members would be wise to recall the fact that twenty-five years after Roosevelt’s operation, Tehran’s streets teemed with chants of “death to America” prior to the American embassy being overrun. Will a second coup work? The historical record must be considered. For Mr. Kinzer’s part, his contribution to this record is powerful, and he concludes unequivocally that the 1953 coup “brought immeasurable tragedy to Iran, contributed to the rise of anti-American terror, and, in the end, greatly weakened the security of the United States” (Kinzer xxiii).

Source:

1. Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah’s Men. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008.

“How Terrorism Ends” Book Review

By PMEComplete on June 24, 2017

I am a sucker for a good “how-to” book. It seems like the market is saturated with these types of books from weight loss and relationships to cooking and personal finance. There is a “how-to” book for nearly everything that people care about on a personal level. But, in the world of counterterrorism, I could only find one pseudo “how-to” book. That is the question of “how terrorism ends?” The book that I found on this subject has some thoughts and excellent considerations. As a generic “how-to”, it is less prescriptive than a cooking recipe or an investment strategy. But, as a work of historical analysis, it provides insightful answers into how specific terrorist groups have ended. Overall, “How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns” by Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin is a phenomenal achievement, and a must read for anyone interested in counterterrorism and national security strategy. The subtitle of the book, “Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns” is the main thrust of Professor Cronin’s work. She uses a specific framework for understanding how the “decline and demise” has or has not happened for 457 terrorist groups classified as such by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT). Her model follows a six-part framework related to the end of terrorism: the capture or killing of the leader (decapitation), integration within a formal political process (negotiation), achievement of strategic objectives (success), implosion (failure), elimination through force (repression), and reorientation, which means the terrorist group transitions to a different activity such as crime, insurgency, or political activism. In her final chapter, she discusses how this framework specifically applies to al-Qaeda, which Kronin authoritatively states “will end” (Note: The book was published in 2009 prior to the rise of ISIS in its current state).

The brilliance of Professor Kronin’s book is that she draws on different historical examples of terrorist groups as diverse as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), radical student groups like the Weathermen, and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) to name a few. Professor Kronin does not advocate a specific strategy. In each section of her six-part framework, she focuses on different social, political, economic, and religious forces that either set the conditions for a terrorist group’s success or failure. If there is an enduring theme of her work, it is the extent to which terrorist groups seek to leverage the state’s response to their advantage. She claims that terrorism itself is a “weak tactic”, but its strength is driven by the bungled policy and strategic missteps that a state makes in attempting to fight “fire with fire.” Her theory is reminiscent of counterinsurgency expert, David Kilcullen, who argues in his book “The Accidental Guerilla” that western solutions to terrorism typically rely on a single-minded conventional military response instead of seeing the terrorist problem as one requiring better intelligence, improved law enforcement, selective use of force, and information operations to counter the narrative of terrorist groups.

3/6/1970 – Explosion and fire at 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village. NYTCREDIT: Neal Boenzi/The New York Times. (Source: Columbia Journalism School)

Professor Kronin defines terrorist groups as being political in nature, non-state actors, who disregard international laws and indiscriminately kill civilians and noncombatants. By its nature as a non-state actor, terrorism is tough to eliminate. Nevertheless, it does not present the same strategic and existential threats as a conventionally capable state actor such as North Korea, Russia, or China. That is what makes terrorism a complex issue to tackle. Solutions often defy state versus state logic. For example, killing the leader of a terrorist group seems to be an easy way to end it. But, Kronin explains that in many cases, the killing of a key leader will not have a decisive effect. She predicted this with al-Qaeda (the book was written prior to Bin Laden’s death). Although the death of Bin Laden was a major setback for al-Qaeda, Professor Kronin was correct that it did not end the group. This does not mean that a state shouldn’t kill the leader. But, by itself, decapitation is rarely the definitive solution, and terrorist groups can adapt beyond the cult of personality of a single leader. Professor Kronin does argue that in select cases capturing a terrorist leader has a more profound impact. This was true for Abimael Guzman, leader of Sendero Luminoso aka “The Shining Path”, a Marxist terrorist group in Peru that was responsible for the death of 69,000 people. Guzman was captured on September 12, 1992. When the terrorist leader was displayed wearing a prison jump suit in a cage and urging his followers to surrender their arms, Kronin explains that The Shining Path suffered a significant blow. In the years that followed “violence fell by 50 percent and continued to decline thereafter.” On the other hand, in cases such as Israel’s campaign of targeted killings of Palestinian terrorist leaders, Russia’s killing of Chechen leaders, and in the Philippines where Abu Sayyaf’s leadership has been killed, terrorism did not end rather persists as new leaders enthusiastically replace the old.

Leader Abimael Guzman of The Shining Path in prison. (Source: BBC)

With negotiations, Professor Kronin points out that terrorism and violence tend to increase during periods of negotiation. Negotiation is not a strategy that is used often, and with 457 terrorist groups studied, there were only 18% that negotiated. The IRA in Northern Ireland provides an example of negotiations working in the long run although there were many terrorist acts that took place in conjunction with negotiations throughout the 1990s. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is another example of negotiations causing spikes in violence. Professor Kronin explains that “the Palestinians began to see terrorist attacks as complementary to the peace process instead of at odds with it, because they believed that negotiations alone would never lead to Israel’s withdrawal” (Kronin 57). She also discusses the FARC terrorist group in Colombia. Negotiations with the FARC have been ongoing, and Kronin shows at another point in the book that the FARC also fell under the category of reorientation as they transitioned from a terrorist group to a criminal cartel. Furthermore, American funding for the “war on terror” significantly increased the Colombian government’s ability to pressure the FARC militarily and use better intelligence against the group. Between reorientation, repression and on-going negotiations events culminated in November 2016 when the FARC negotiated a formal peace agreement with the Colombian government. As of this writing, the peace agreement may prove to be one of the most successful examples of negotiations working between a state and a terrorist group turned criminal enterprise. The FARC is willingly disarming, former fighters are being granted full rights as citizens, and the group is being integrated into Colombia’s political establishment. In spite of criminal activity and political unrest that persists in Latin America, the western hemisphere has no formal wars being fought at this moment in world history.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (left) and FARC representative Timoleon Jimenez negotiate. (Source: CNN)

With terrorist groups that have achieved success, Professor Kronin explains that success largely depends upon the action of the state which the group opposes. She summarizes this by explaining, “When a campaign is well under way, two further conditions improve the odds for success: first, the state has to overreact in its response; second, the terrorist group has to capture the imagination of a broader audience, mobilize popular support, and gain strength” (Kronin 93). This happened to a limited extent in the case of the Israeli terrorist goup, Irgun (IZL), who carried out attacks on the British in Palestine during and after World War II. Irgun’s methods of attack were incredibly brutal and violent including two British soldiers being strangled and hung on July 30, 1947. In some cases, British soldiers mutilated bodies were booby-trapped causing injuries to responding British soldiers. The British government came under heavy domestic political pressure to withdraw its troops from Palestine, which was easy to justify considering a myriad of internal post-war political challenges. When the state of Israel was created in May 1948, Irgun was formally absorbed into the Israeli army. In so far as they achieved their strategic objectives, Irgun is an example of a successful terrorist group. Indeed, one of its leaders, Menachem Begin would eventually become the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.

Within the category of failure, which includes implosion, loss of operational control, and marginalization, Professor Kronin suggests that this is one of the better strategies for defeating al-Qaeda. However, this category was lighter on historical case studies, which presents a problem for the model as it suggests the inherent difficulty of the strategy. There is no immediate political payoff as there is with something like a strategy of repression or decapitation. Nevertheless, Kronin seems to think that in the case of al-Qaeda, the organization is vulnerable to imploding from internal fractionalization as well as loss of popular support due to their indiscriminate killing of innocent people to include many Muslims. On this note, I found myself wishing that Professor Kronin had spent several more years working on the book to examine the so-called Islamic State and offer perspective on how ISIS might end. I imagine that most of her conclusions for al-Qaeda would apply to ISIS. Recently, repression and the use of force has worked to take back territory from ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This presents an inverse challenge of reorientation. ISIS was a terrorist group that formed a state. A state actor is easier to target with conventional means. However, as they reorient from a terrorist state back to a dispersed terrorist network conventional force becomes challenging. Although destruction of the physical state of ISIS is undoubtedly important, I don’t anticipate from reading Professor Kronin’s book that loss of territory will bring about the end of ISIS. Like al-Qaeda, the group will scatter and reconstitute in other destabilized parts of the world’s Muslim communities (referred to as the “Umma” in al-Qaeda’s strategic blueprint, published in 2004 called “The Management of Savagery”). In fact, ISIS has already dispersed to parts of the world where they can take advantage of unstable governments and exploit a lack of rule of law.

ISIS Fighter carrying the groups black flag. (Source: PBS)

Concerning repression or using overwhelming force against a terrorist group, Professor Kronin offers the most skepticism. She explains the strategic objectives of a terrorist group as being provocation of the state, polarization, mobilization, or a combination of all three. She states that repression appears to be the logical and intuitive countermeasure to terrorism. But, what emerges from her analysis is that conventional response only benefits the state politically by fulfilling a sense of justice and that the state is “doing something” about the terrorist problem. However, that doesn’t mean repression is effective. Russia has spent years using overwhelming force against Chechen terrorists and have fought a full-scale insurgency in Chechnya, yet they have routinely been targeted by Chechen terrorists with an attack occurring in a subway station in Saint Petersburg as recently as April 2017. Professor Kronin does not suggest that use of force can’t work. She explains clearly that “repression succeeds when mobilizing the rightful forces of the state effectively against the violent perpetrators (and their supporters) within a community, without either catalyzing a larger countermobilization by that community or demobilization of the government’s own support” (Kronin 143). Thus, force has its rightful place in counterterrorist strategy. But, it will not be sufficient to deal with the problem as a whole. Like decapitation, it must be integrated into a broader strategy.

A terrorist attack on a Russian subway station on April 3, 2017 killed and wounded many civilians. (Source: New York Times)

Finally, with her analysis of al-Qaeda, Professor Kronin provides sobering insights. Unfortunately, religious based terrorist organizations are the most enduring with a group called the Hindu Thugs holding the record for survival at 600 years. Professor Kronin claims that al-Qaeda is unique due to its ability to use the internet and media for networking and propaganda. Structurally, al-Qaeda operates in a three-tiered system with the core members at the top followed by a diffuse network (al-Qaeda’s dispersed cells) and then those on the periphery (i.e. al-Qaeda inspired individuals). This presents a unique challenge because 21st century communication methods enable al-Qaeda to operate in a decentralized manner that can present significant problems to America and other nations. However, Professor Kronin also explains that this decentralization may also be the group’s critical vulnerability as it can cause fractionalization and loss of operational control. Therefore, we see the genesis of a strategy that the US has attempted to varying degrees of success namely the selective targeting of terrorist networks. Unfortunately, this strategy has evolved with experience, and many hard lessons. Warfighting (MCDP-1) describes war as the “extension of both policy and politics with the addition of military force” (MCDP-1 23). Thus, from the beginning, the “war on terror” was a paradoxically mismanaged strategy as America automatically bestowed political legitimacy on a terrorist group by declaring war on them. This is the mentality that Professor Kronin is determined to break. A terrorist group is not a state with conventional capabilities, and to respond to it as such can have disastrous consequences for the state and enormous benefits for terrorist groups. Defeating terrorism takes patience and a clear understanding of the nature of the threat. It involves careful study and strategic analysis. Professor Kronin has made a significant contribution toward that goal. The question remains whether the decision-makers in Washington will translate historical lessons into effective policy. Additionally, it is foolish to wish away the inevitability of another terrorist attack either by a lone gunman or a determined cell. The strategic response should also be calculated based on lessons learned. While answers may not be clear and tough solutions may not win votes, at the very least, merely asking the question, “how does terrorism end?” could be the first step on the road to better strategy.

Sources:

Cronin, Audrey Kurth. How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2009. Print.
Warfighting. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1997. Print.

War in the Shadows: “Confront and Conceal” Book Review

By PMEComplete on June 18, 2017

I can still remember the exact moment when I heard the news that American Special Forces killed the world’s most notorious terrorist leader in a raid that took place deep inside Pakistan. It was a Sunday night, and I was sitting in a barracks room in Quantico, Virginia. I remember word spreading rapidly around base as President Obama prepared to make the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by an elite team of Navy SEALs. I received a phone call from my family at the exact moment that I was turning on my computer to read the breaking news. After President Obama’s address to the nation calling the killing of Bin Laden “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda,” I felt an overwhelming sense of elation and relief. The events of 9/11 had been a turning point in my life in which I vowed to serve my country in the armed services. Finally, the man that US intelligence had pursued for years had met swift and deadly justice. In the weeks that followed, I read and learned more about the details of the raid on the Abbottabad compound, which is located a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy. However, it wasn’t until I read David Sanger’s book, “Confront and Conceal”, that I truly grasped the strategic scope and vast complexities of President Obama’s decision to send US Special Forces to conduct an early morning raid on May 2, 2011.

In his book “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power”, David Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, has written a detailed and fast-moving account of President Obama’s first term foreign policy. As I read this book nearly five years after its original publication date (2012), it is interesting to see how many of the challenges, successes, and failures of Obama’s first term have developed over the subsequent years. We now know that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the treasure trove of data taken from the raid has not brought an end to al-Qaeda nor did it prevent the spread of another equally nihilistic, radical terror group in the form of the so-called Islamic State. But, it is interesting to read Sanger’s account of the Obama administration’s handling of events in Iran, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, along with the desire to get out of the Middle East and focus on “pivoting” US strategy toward the Pacific.

Sanger is an exceptional journalist, and there is nothing about his book that seeks to either overly praise the Obama administration or sharply criticize it. President Obama comes across as a competent commander-in-chief, who is carefully analytic and at times aggressive. However, as the events of the Arab Spring show, he was also selective in his use of American force and his appetite for risk in different crises. We can only speculate what an intervention against Syria and the use of force against Bashar al-Assad might have done to stop the catastrophic bloodshed and the refugee crisis that ensued. While these historic counterfactuals are merely speculative, Sanger points out that the decision to avoid Syrian intervention as opposed to what happened in Libya was simply a matter of cost and strategic calculation. An intervention in Syria would have been too expensive and would have most likely sucked the US into another Middle Eastern quagmire. Meanwhile, any action against Syria would have been vetoed by Russia and China in a UN security council resolution. Indeed, Syria houses a Russian naval base, and Vladimir Putin’s contribution of Russian military assistance has turned the direction of the Syrian civil war in favor of the Assad government. Nonetheless, it is refreshing to read a book that analyzes the spectrum of issues to include second and third order effects of decisions and indecisions that the Obama administration made without the typical polemics that one finds on either the Obama-hating right or the Obama can do-no wrong left. For people who appreciate straightforward foreign policy analysis, this book is as good as it gets.

There are some parts of the book that pack a strong punch. The chapter entitled “Olympic Games” by itself makes the book worth purchasing. I have read WSJ reporter Jay Solomon’s book, “The Iran Wars”, because I am fascinated by the sanctions, cyber weapons, and assassinations that were used by the US and Israel to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “The Iran Wars” delves deep into the specifics of the financial war against Iran. However, David Sanger’s book examines the use of cyber weapons, and explores the covert program called “Olympic Games” with fascinating details. Sanger provides the Obama administration’s rationale to use cyber weapons based on fears that a war between Israel and Iran was imminent if Iran’s nuclear development continued. Several years after the deployment of the Stuxnet malware, the US and Iran struck a nuclear deal. Thus, one can appreciate the extent to which the diplomatic landscape changed in a few years after the assassination of Iranian scientists, the breakdown of centrifuges, and the use of economic sanctions. After all the Middle East seemed on the brink of an impending conflict between Iran and its neighbors. However, while the 2015 nuclear agreement led to a reprieve in tensions, it has not stopped the present-day escalation of conflict between Iran and the Gulf States notably Saudi Arabia in the form of a proxy war in Yemen. Furthermore, the Iranian incursion into Iraq could set the stage for a land route from Iran directly to Syria and Lebanon both of which are on Israel’s border.

Ahmadinejad tours a nuclear facility. (Image from LA Times)

As one reads “Confront and Conceal”, the narrative flows in a sequential manner based on the myriad of strategic choices that were made in Obama’s formative first four years. It begins with the desire of the administration to shift from war in Iraq to what President Obama believed should have been the focus of effort in Afghanistan. Thus, Sanger gets into the details of a troop escalation that ultimately brought the total number of American troops in Afghanistan to roughly 100,000. Additionally, under Obama, the “war on terror” was replaced by the explicit objective of defeating al-Qaeda. Sanger has a very balanced analysis of how the Obama administration danced around the legality of drone strikes and the escalation of drone attacks within Pakistan, a sovereign, nuclear power, who consistently argued that American drones killed its civilian population. From Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, it seemed like the Middle East could not have become any more complex. But, when a young Tunisian man committed an act of self-immolation as an act protest against the Tunisian government, events seemed to rapidly spiral into what is now called the “Arab Spring.” The Arab Spring saw the US depose another dictator in Muammar Gaddafi, the long-time Libyan strongman, who met his end trying to evade air strikes and rebel forces in a drainage pipe on October 20, 2011. Meanwhile in Egypt, Sanger describes the tensions that developed as internal pressures mounted against Hosni Mubarak. The US eventually broke with Mubarak, and Sanger recounts the decision that culminated in a phone conversation that President Obama had in which he told the former Egyptian President in unequivocal terms that it was time to step down.

Egyptian Revolution (Image from The Atlantic)

The last part of “Confront and Conceal” deals with a rising China and the enduring threat posed by North Korea. Several years later, US and North Korean tensions have not abated. The same problems that the Obama administration faced are now on the plate of President Trump and his National Security Council. However, the situation with China seems neutral if not improved. One must give President Obama credit for the “pivot” to the Pacific to focus on the threat of a rising Chinese military power. Perhaps I am personally biased as I was directly involved in executing this strategy as I deployed to Darwin, Australia in 2015. While the pivot to the Pacific did not halt China’s economic and military development, it did reinforce the strong relationship that the US had with traditional allies in the region, and assured them that the US was committed to protecting international norms and maritime security. To this end, China may have balked in the face of America’s bold return to the region. At least for now. Sanger describes that at a minimum, US strategic commitment to the region galvanized a segment of Chinese internal politics, which sought to check the militant nationalism of its military establishment. Sanger articulates this point with an enlightening anecdote in which during a January 2011 visit to Beijing, Defense Secretary Bob Gates discovers that a Chinese military show of force with J-20 Stealth Fighter jets was meant as message to Chinese President Hu Jintao rather than himself.

North Korean missile tests. (Image from Al-Jazeera)

“Confront and Conceal” remains an important book as we survey the landscape of foreign policy in 2017. At the time of publication, it would have been difficult to predict that parts of Syria and Iraq would be overrun by a terrorist group or that Russia would annex Crimea or that a reality television star, whose political career was born in the tasteless lie of the birther movement, would become President of the United States, but that is how things have played out. “Confront and Conceal” does foster a nostalgia for President Obama’s finer qualities as commander-in-chief namely his attention to detail, thorough analysis, and boldness for risk. At the same time, one can see in his desire to steer the US out of conflicts in the Middle East, the foundation for failures and inaction that would cause the region to simmer in the chaos we see today. Nevertheless, Sanger’s book is insightful and well-written. It will inevitably allow people to look at this short period in American foreign policy history and ask themselves “what if” for many years to come.

Book Review: The Iran Wars

By PMEComplete on April 23, 2017

Since 1979 the United States and Iran have engaged in a war that has existed in the shadows. While there has not been direct military confrontation, each nation has engaged the other through the use of proxies, spies, cyberattacks, and economic sanctions. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has described Iran as the world’s biggest “state sponsor of terror.” If one explores the record of terrorist groups Iran has supported to include Hezbollah, then Secretary Mattis is correct. Indeed, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 represented the largest number of Marines killed in a single day since the battle of Iwo Jima. Thus, it is remarkable that nearly 35 years after the American embassy was taken hostage in Tehran, a milestone nuclear agreement would be negotiated with an Iranian regime that reserves the moniker “great Satan” for the United States. In the book Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East, Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon explores the evolution of the conflict, the rise of Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. attempts to sabotage it, the details of the nuclear agreement, and offers some perspective on the long-term implications. Although the book is short on covering hostilities throughout the 1980’s, Mr. Solomon digs into the conflicts that have defined the Middle East over the last 15 years with a wide range of knowledge and insight into how Iran has sought to shape events in the region.

One of the major themes of the book is the extent to which distrust pervades the fraught relationship between the U.S. and Iran. At times, there have been moments in which rapprochement seemed to be a possibility. But, these moments were fleeting in the face of historical animosity and skepticism of the other side’s intentions. For instance, Mr. Solomon mentions a period after 9/11 in which the U.S. and Iran seemed to have a common enemy in the Taliban in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too long after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan that Iran was placed in “the axis of evil.” The extent to which the U.S. miscalculated how Iran might benefit from an invasion of Iraq is explored in the book. Mr. Solomon explains that there were neoconservatives within the Bush administration, who hoped overthrowing Saddam Hussein would lead to the establishment of a Shia government that could counter Iran’s influence. However, the exact opposite happened, and Iran was able to capitalize on post-invasion Iraq by expanding their reach inside the country. Mr. Solomon describes how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force are used to spread the revolution and help Iran achieve its strategic objectives not only within Iraq but also Syria, Lebanon, and Palestinian territories. The Iran Wars shows the extent to which U.S. planners continually underestimate the complexity of Middle Eastern events while overlooking the multitude of intentions and shapeshifting alliances that allow Iran to adapt to circumstances and consolidate power.

In spite of U.S. setbacks in the early 2000s and significant strategic missteps, there were successes that ultimately laid the groundwork for driving the Iranians to negotiate. The best chapter of Mr. Solomon’s book contains an in-depth look at the nature of America’s financial war against Iran. This chapter’s major lesson was the extent to which America was able to use an “irregular” form of warfare to achieve its policy aims. Mr. Solomon chronicles several notable individuals to include Stuart Levy, undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence from 2004-2011, along with Robert Morganthau, New York County district attorney from 1975-2009. These individuals sought to use their power to completely shut Iran out of the global banking systems. America’s ability to systematically isolate Iran economically led to the collapse of the rial by as much as 40% in a single trading day. Industries throughout Iran were shuttered. Oil exports dropped significantly as Iran was cut out of European and Asian markets and left in a state of financial desperation. The book emphasizes how complicated this process was, and is instructive on the difficulty of enforcing sanctions to achieve their full effect.

With Iran on the brink of financial ruin, Mr. Solomon turns his focus to the Obama administration and the extent to which they pursued the nuclear agreement. The Obama doctrine stood in stark contrast to that of Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush who took a harder line against Iran. But, even as President Obama was seeking to reach out to Tehran and work toward better relations, there were many events within Iran and the Middle East that presented hurdles to this delicate process. The first of these was Iran’s “Green Movement” in which hard line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected under widespread controversy and claims of corruption. As Iranian protestors took to the streets, President Obama faced the dilemma of supporting the protests and inflaming tensions with the current Iranian regime or backing down and allowing events to play out without U.S. influence. The latter course of action was taken. This would foreshadow decisions that occurred several years later during the Arab Spring and subsequent Syrian Civil War. Mr. Solomon suggests that in an effort to prevent any possible derailment of the nuclear agreement, the Obama administration decided not to enforce established “red lines” that might hinder progress toward a nuclear agreement. This was based on the calculation that Iran as a major backer of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would withdraw from talks if any military action was taken against Assad’s regime.

With the deal itself, Mr. Solomon provides an impressive amount of insight. The book loosely argues that the Obama administration wanted desperately to achieve an agreement and was willing to offer concessions along the way to make it happen. This occurred often to the ire of French leaders, who believed the U.S. was giving too much ground and not exerting the leverage that they held due to sanctions. Mr. Solomon seems sympathetic to this viewpoint, yet he does not report the facts in a partisan or ideological manner. In the end, he is balanced in his reporting by suggesting that the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry truly believed that the nuclear agreement helped prevent a war between Iran and Israel.

The Iran Wars not only does a fantastic job covering the development of the 2015 nuclear agreement and the terms of it, but the book is also remarkable for its ability to present the complexity of Middle Eastern events and relationships. In this regard, President Obama’s personal letter to Ayatollah Khamenei to work with Iran to battle ISIS signifies how nuanced the fault lines of Middle Eastern affairs truly are. However, if there is one major point to be taken away from the book, it is the extent to which Iran had the patience and knowledge of the U.S. political system to use it against itself. Mr. Obama has left office, yet Ayatollah Khamenei remains and the spirit of the Iranian revolution still pervades Iran’s most formidable state institutions to include the IRGC. President Obama’s signature foreign policy agreement had a timeline associated with it, but even as a new U.S. administration ponders re-negotiating the terms, one can see how precarious the agreement truly is. U.S. diplomats negotiated with Iranians who spoke English and were educated in the U.S. Their knowledge of America’s political system should have been obvious. For the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran that have faced Democrat and Republican administrations for the past 35 years, changing presidential administrations is nothing new. They can wait, outlast, and quietly continue to spread their power and influence.

Book Review: The New Tsar

By PMEComplete on March 24, 2017

At the beginning of Steven Lee Myers’ book The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, there is a quote about Putin’s love for the martial arts that seems to foreshadow the future Russian president’s foreign policy attitudes. Myers writes, “The martial arts transformed his life, giving him the means of asserting himself against larger, tougher boys.” I immediately wrote “NATO” and “the West” on the margin of the page. In many ways, this theme dominates Myers’ assessment of Vladimir Putin. In this well-written biography, the Russian president appears to have a perpetual chip on his shoulder. What emerges is the portrait of a distrustful, brooding autocrat, whose political career has been built on standing up to Russia’s external enemies both real and imagined. Although Putin initially appeared to represent a glimmer of hope that the post-Soviet Union reforms of the 1990’s would continue, these hopes quickly eroded in his first term as president. Putin’s decisions to consolidate the authoritarian power of the state, crackdown on political dissent, and ultimately violate the sovereignty of an independent nation would be influenced by many significant domestic and international events to include Russia’s war on terrorism, perpetual disagreements with western leaders, the struggles of an economy closely tied to the fluctuations of oil and gas prices, and a new ethno-nationalist Eurasian ideology.

Mr. Myers’ biography begins with Putin’s time as a KGB agent. During his KGB career, he was stationed in Dresden where he was tasked with gathering “intelligence and recruiting agents who had access to the West.” Several key points from Putin’s KGB experience relate to how the collapse of the Soviet Union made him deeply skeptical of what he saw as “mob rule” in the political turmoil that unfolded. With this experience branded into his consciousness, the author wants to show how Putin’s overall contempt for democracy is tied to his fear of mob rule. As a bureaucrat, prime minister, and president, Putin believes fundamentally in the power of the state and prioritizes it over the will of the people. Furthermore, under Putin, Russia has become an anti-democracy that poses as a democracy. There is a “contract” between the people and the state in which the state offers security and stability, but the people must not criticize its actions in pursuit of that goal. Putin’s rule is not totalitarian. It is autocratic, and most Russians have learned to accept it.

Considering Putin’s deep distrust of western style democracy, it is easy to understand why events like Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution were upsetting to him on a personal level. Furthermore, this incident fueled Putin’s theories that America was to blame for the political movement as part of the Bush doctrine to promote democracy throughout the world. Blaming America for political instability continued even into Putin’s 2012 return to the presidency when he thought Hillary Clinton and the State Department instigated protests in Russia. Furthermore, one can clearly see that Putin’s anti-democratic attitude accounts for the stark foreign policy differences between Russia and the United States. Myers writes “there existed a dark association in [Putin’s] mind between aspirations for democracy and the rise of radicalism.” This illustrates why Putin opposed America’s overthrow of Saddam in Iraq, the overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya, and why he has fought against attempts to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. When it comes to governance, Myers asserts that the Russian president believes that “people cannot be entrusted with the power to choose their own leaders except in the most carefully controlled process.”

The New Tsar also contains details on Russia’s war on terrorism and the war against Chechen insurgents. When Putin became prime minister, there was a brutal war taking place in Chechnya. Putin’s popularity among Russian citizens soared due to his handling of the war, which was characterized by “banging the hell out of the bandits.” This also hardened Putin’s stance towards America and Europe as international pressure was placed on Russia for human rights abuses and suspected war crimes. As the war in Chechnya raged, Russia faced its own war on terror with a string of apartment bombings in multiple cities, which claimed hundreds of lives and wounded over a thousand citizens. These bombings were followed by the Moscow Theater siege in October 2002. Then nearly two years later, Russia suffered the horrific hostage crisis at School No. 1 in Beslan, a small town in North Ossetia. These dark events strengthened Putin’s determination to consolidate the power of the state for security reasons. Myers concludes that Putin was not nostalgic for the Soviet Union as it was dominated by the Communist Party, but he writes that “Putin seemed to blame the siege in Beslan on Russia’s inability to preserve the strength that made the Soviet Union he remembered as a boy so strong and respected.”

Myers book digs into high-profile events such as the “Yukos affair” in which Putin ultimately imprisoned Russia’s wealthiest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for what Myers concludes was the crime of being “the wrong kind of oligarch.” The book details several of the most notorious suspected assassinations to include that of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Aleksandr Litvinenko. Myers provides useful facts and anecdotes related to Putin’s handling of political dissenters particularly with the case of the Pussy Riot group. Other notable moments of the biography include the issues surrounding the planning and development of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Also, Myers includes the most recent international dust-ups with the U.S. over Edward Snowden and the Obama administration’s “red line” in Syria.

Finally, the book closes with the war in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Myers explains the skillful way in which Russia blended hard and soft power to influence the events in their favor. The use of irregular warfare tactics to include the infamous “little green men,” information operations and cyberattacks was done in a manner that gave Russia deniability. Ultimately, Putin’s objective was to reassert Russian influence and to halt NATO expansion, which Putin continually fears is creeping closer to Russia’s border. Myers explains that Ukraine holds significant historical meaning for Russians. The attempt to reconsolidate Ukraine within the Russian sphere of influence is part of what Myers calls Putin’s Eurasian ideology. Thus, what we have witnessed with the rise and reign of Vladimir Putin is the emergence of an ideological hardliner who sees himself as the leader of a broad pan-Eurasian Union that is committed to countering the ideas and influence of the West. While this may serve Putin’s political interests at home, it has left the world with renewed tensions eerily reminiscent of the Cold War. That is where the book ends, but follow-on editions would likely include the conclusion by seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia deliberately meddled in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. After reading The New Tsar, the reader can see that the hacking and leaks intended to create uncertainty and division in the U.S. electoral process have the specter of Vladimir Putin all over it.

My Share of the Task by General Stanley McChrystal

By PMEComplete on February 16, 2017

I approached reading General Stanley McChrystal’s memoir, My Share of the Task, with high expectations. I tend to read a lot of memoirs from high ranking military leaders with noted observations on some of the habits and techniques that made them successful. While a lot of people are awed by General McChrystal’s one meal a day and his rigorous daily exercise, I found that his success as a leader can be summarized in one word: Passion. General McChrystal’s passion for his soldiers and the men and women he served with nearly overwhelms (in a good way) the reader on each page. It becomes very clear to the reader that General McChrystal’s passion for service and passion for command was the bedrock upon which he was not only personally successful but also drove the success of the units that he led. Furthermore, it cannot be understated how his wife and his family supported him in his demanding profession. The gratitude that he feels toward his family is also clear throughout the book, and he has no illusions that without his families unwavering support, he would not have been able to accomplish his “share of the task.”

Throughout the book, I appreciated General McChrystal’s candor. He wasn’t too proud to admit occasional mistakes, and he explicitly states that there were times when he had to figure out his own style of leadership. He mentions that occasionally he would try to find his direction between being too kind and too harsh. Ultimately, he learned that there was a value in just being consistent. I made note of those small nuggets of wisdom that permeate the book. Additionally, General McChrystal continually mentions his love for history and reading. He applied sharp analysis to a multitude of situations by simply reading books and resources that could give him context to the complexity of certain situations. He fits a pattern of extraordinary military readers who are voracious readers.

Throughout the book, I took away lessons on building teams by knowing your soldiers and employing them in accordance with their capabilities. Additionally, General McChrystal built strong teams through trust. The book becomes exceptionally thrilling in the chapters in which his team hunted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In some of the most critical moments during the hunt for the terrorist ringleader, General McChrystal displayed a high level of trust in the judgment of his subordinates. This includes moments in which he wanted to act on some intelligence, but had the patience to trust the advice of a subordinate in his task force named J.C. In a critical moment during the hunt for Zarqawi, J.C. advised tactical patience to which McChryatal agreed. The decision paid off not too long after he displayed trust in J.C.’s judgment. Furthermore, on the Zarqawi takedown, I was interested in the conduct of the interrogations and how the interrogators got some of the key detainees talk. In what I came to recognize as McChrystal’s style, the interrogations were successful due to the rapport and trust that the interrogators built with high level detainees. They learned about some of these detainees personally, and managed to leverage their egos and idiosyncratic behavior traits to their advantage. Overall, I loved reading about McChrystal’s time in Iraq as JSOC commander. It was impressive to hear how he constructed his own network to defeat the insurgent network. He clearly had a strong sense of the need to streamline the cycle of intelligence gathering and used it to drive operational tempo. The results speak for themselves in Iraq. General McChrystal personally drove the pace of operations through his relentless drive and unwavering work ethic.

The chapters on Afghanistan are informative as well. General McChrystal clearly had his work cut out for him from the beginning. He sought to replicate many of the principles that made him and his team successful in Iraq. The reader also sees him thrust into a new role in which for better or worse he was forced to handle the political dynamics that came with the role of ISAF commander. But, he managed to succeed despite some of these early setbacks, and ultimately secured a similar surge of troops in Afghanistan to accomplish the new counterinsurgency strategy. One senses the overwhelming nature of the task and the immense heartaches and pains of trying to turn the Afghan situation around. It feels abrupt, which it was due to the release of the career damning Rolling Stone article. General McChrystal doesn’t make any excuses or apologies for it though. In the end, he left his command and the Army, and after reading about the challenges and burdens placed upon him in over thirty years of hard service, the reader can sympathize with his wife, Annie, who at the book’s conclusion, felt a sense of relief once her husband’s journey in the Army came to an end.

General McChrystal’s legacy continues in the military today. His actions as JSOC commander deserve careful study, and will be canonized in American military history. Through his personal example of leadership and his unrelenting passion for his soldiers and his country, General McChrystal will endure on the roster of great American military leaders. This book is devoid of bravado. It is a testament to the straightforwardness and humility of a man who embodies service and sacrifice to his soldiers and a grateful nation.

Book Reviews

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

JOIN THE ELITE