We Can't Win Unless We Nation-Build

In his American Spectator article attacking nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq, Jed Babbin dismisses the only effective strategy for victory.

Last week here at FrumForum, I explained that nation-building is a necessary and integral part of the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan. “We nation-build,” I observed “because before we can leave Afghanistan, we need indigenous Afghan security forces and governmental entities to whom we can entrust authority and responsibility.”

No serious-minded military analyst or observer denies this; yet Jed Babbin, a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, tries in a post this morning at the American Spectator. Babbin fails, of course, and for several reasons:

1.      First, Babbin claims that the United States erred in Iraq and Afghanistan because we “chose a nation-building plan for post-war Iraq authored by Colin Powell and George Tenet over the plan for a brief invasion written by Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Myers. And, by default, nation-building was decided upon for Afghanistan as well.”

This is complete and utter nonsense. Babbin is carrying political water for Rumsfeld and Tenet, and, as a result, twists and distorts history.

In 2003 I was in Iraq serving as a Marine; and I can assure Babbin that the U.S. military’s intent was to knock off Hussein and then quickly exit the country. That is to say, we were following the Rumsfeld-Tenet playbook and losing because of it. Indeed, we had no intention of nation-building as part and parcel of a sustained counterinsurgency campaign.

In fact, it wasn’t really until the Gen. Petraeus-led surge in 2007 that the U.S. military fully and belatedly embraced a strategy of counterinsurgency. And it did this out of the crucible of necessity: because we had no other choice! Conventional military tactics simply were not working and, in fact, were failing miserably.

The situation in Iraq has since turned around dramatically; yet Babbin denies this reality. Instead, he points to the significant challenges and difficulties that still exist in Iraq and declares defeat. Ditto (and doubly so) for Afghanistan.

It is true that Iraq and Afghanistan have serious problems; and that they will not resemble the United States or Western Europe anytime soon. But that’s not the standard to which we ought to be holding these two troubled countries. That’s an impossible and ahistorical standard which refuses to accept the world as it is, and which denies incremental progress.

In truth, our goals are far less ambitious than Babbin and other critics suggest: It is not to remake Iraq and Afghanistan into some farfetched utopian image. It is, instead, to give the Iraqi and Afghan people a stable and representative government that is at peace with its neighbors and the world.

This is certainly achievable; however, it will take time. As I mentioned here at FrumForum on Friday, counterinsurgencies are long, messy and protracted affairs that typically take a decade or more to prosecute. We began waging a counterinsurgency in Iraq only three short years ago; and the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has yet to begin in earnest. Nonetheless, Babbin already is declaring defeat in both theaters of operation.

U.S. military leaders, of course, disagree with Babbin. For example, the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, told Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera on Sunday that he believes the U.S. military has the right strategy in place in Afghanistan and is poised for success. He noted, though, that the 101st does not yet have all of its brigades in theater, and that it will take time to succeed.

2.      But rather than pick a fight with Gen. Campbell, Gen. Petraeus and other senior military leaders who know better, Babbin declares war on the so-called neoconservatives. I say so-called because other than the grandfather of the neocons, the estimable Irving Kristol, Babbin conspicuously declines to name names. But the elder Kristol passed away last year and really never joined the fray over Iraq and Afghanistan.

So what “neoconservatives” is Babbin talking about? He doesn’t say, and with good reason: because in truth, the neocons are, for the most part, an historical memory. They are a media creation used to denote either Jewish conservatives and/or hawkish conservatives. I am not Jewish; however, I certainly am a hawk who believes in an assertive U.S. foreign policy backed up by the exercise of U.S. military power overseas.

But the original neoconservatives -- Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Thomas Sowell, Michael Novak, et al. -- were leftists who journeyed rightward, both intellectually and politically, from the far left to the mainstream right.

Today, by contrast, most so-called neoconservatives were (to borrow a phrase from Pat Buchanan) right from the beginning. And our ranks include myself, John Podhoretz, David Frum, Frederick W. Kagan, Jennifer Rubin, Bill Kristol, and even, I would submit, Rich Lowry, Jay Nordlinger, Fred Barnes, and other hawkish conservatives.

3.      Yet, Babbin claims to be even more hawkish than the so-called neoconservatives! Why, he wants to declare war against Islam itself and, by extension, all Islamic states, including Saudi Arabia (and presumably Indonesia, too?). Thus, he writes:

To defeat the terrorist groups -- and to divorce the terror-sponsoring nations from their chosen mission -- the ideology [of Islam] has to be attacked and defeated just as communism and Nazism were.

It is obvious, of course, that the culture of the Middle East is inherently problematic and inimical in certain respects to liberal democracy. But to declare war against all of Islam is prudentially unwise, tactically counterproductive, strategically stupid, and ethically wrong.

Islam, after all, is the world’s second-largest religion, with more than 1.5 billion adherents. And the vast majority of these Muslims live in peace and have no desire to wage jihad against the West. Indeed, the Center for Islamic Pluralism cites this passage from the Qur’an (2:62):

Surely, those who believe -- and the Jews and the Christians and the Sabians, whoever have faith with true hearts in Allah and in the Last-day and do good deeds -- their reward is with their Lord, and there shall be no fear for them nor any grief.

This is the type of moderate and tolerant Islamic sentiment that we ought to be highlighting and promoting. But Babbin apparently disagrees. He’d prefer, it seems, to make enemies of all who believe in Islam. This is foolish and wrong-headed. In the Cold War context, this would be akin to declaring war on all Russians and all Chinese -- as opposed to declaring war on the very small minority of diehard communists there.

By the same token, the United States has no quarrel with the vast majority of Muslims. They are our brothers and sisters in (monotheistic) faith. We are at war, however, with those very few Islamists who adhere to a radical interpretation of Islam that compels them to wage jihad against the West.

Babbin is right to decry the Obama administration’s refusal to describe our enemy as he really is. (The administration reportedly has forbidden, for instance, use of the terms “jihad” and “Islamic extremism.”) But Babbin’s understanding of the enemy is equally flawed. And his hostility to the so-called neoconservatives is ludicrous and nonsensical.

In truth, the “neoconservatives” are the only conservatives who have laid out a coherent and effective strategy to win the war against radical Islam. And, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup, I’d prefer Babbin just said thank you and went on his way. Otherwise, I suggest he pick up a weapon (or a pen!) and stand post. Because his broadside against the “neoconservatives,” and his desire to make enemies of all of Islam, are decidedly unhelpful to the cause.

You can follow John Guardiano on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano