CDI
Terrorism Expert Michael Donovan: One war is enough in the Middle
East
Michael Donovan is a research analyst at the Center for Defense Information with
responsibility for Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern
Affairs. He came to CDI in 2001 as a key contributor to the Center’s Terrorism
Project. Dr. Donovan’s areas of expertise include security issues in the Middle
East, Iran, Iraq, terrorism, Islam, nonproliferation issues, and U.S. foreign
policy. Currently, Dr. Donovan is Project Leader for CDI’s Eye on Iraq. He received a BA in
Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2000, he was
awarded a Ph.D. in History from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. His doctoral
dissertation examined U.S.-Iranian relations and political stability in Iran. This interview was
prepared for Agentura.Ru Studies
and Research Centre / ASRC /.
- Was there any connection between
al-Qaida and Saddam’s regime?
- I think independent analysts in Washington disagree when the [Bush]
administration insinuated that a link existed between al-Qaida and Saddam
Hussein. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite: Most professional analysts
believe that there were concurring reasons why those two entities wouldn’t get
along together. Saddam was an ardent secularist, and Saddam and Osama bin Laden
were known to dislike each other; they had strictly different world views. The
irony, of course, is that in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq, al-Qaida has apparently
established some kind of presence in Iraq, or at least established
common cause with some of the insurgent entities fighting in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi
being the most prominent example. [Zarqawi] and al-Qaida have declared a common
cause in fighting the American presence in Iraq. To a certain extent,
that was to be expected because throughout the Islamic world the American
presence in Iraq is going to be seen as
an occupation army…
- What about pre-occupation Iraq; was there any contact
among groups not linked to the Baathist regime?
- There was a small group in
northern Iraq called Ansar al-Islam
that apparently had some kind of vague and tenuous connection with al-Qaida.
They were an Islamic fundamentalist group…
- Were they associated with Saddam?
- Well, the neo-conservatives in Washington pointed out that Saddam
had occasionally kept pretty close tabs on them. And so, the neo-conservatives
use that as an explanation for a link. I think that link was really tenuous; if
Saddam had any kind of liaison with them, or was keeping tabs on them, it was
probably just to make sure they didn’t get him in trouble…But they were
supposed to have had a link with al-Qaida, although I’ve never seen any hard
and fast evidence…
- Why has al-Qaida shifted its
fighting front from Afghanistan to Iraq?
- think the answer to that is pretty
obvious. The United States is in Iraq. According to al-Qaida,
that’s were the enemy is. The Taliban is essentially a forgotten entity in Afghanistan; it’s no more…Recently,
you’ve begun to see signs where some old Taliban figures have come back in and
taken advantage of amnesty offers, and that sort of thing. That’s not to say
that Afghanistan is a paradise of
stability right now, because it’s not. Western troops don’t operate beyond Kabul, but to a certain extent
- while warlordism is a real problem in other parts of the country - to a
certain extent, Afghanistan is working right now.
It’s not perfect and there are still some major problems, but it’s
working. So I would suspect that there’s less of a base for al-Qaida to go in
and hit Western targets.
There are plenty of Western targets
in Iraq…It’s a target-rich environment, and what’s more, it’s good PR, because
you are going to fight the occupation of an Islamic land. So, it’s much more
effective PR; it’s a much more effective recruiting tool; it’s where the fight
is. That being said, it’s still a real open question as to how many foreign
fighters are now fighting in Iraq.
I don’t think anybody knows; but I don’t think it’s a very big proportion of
those doing the fighting.
Iraq
is largely a national insurgency, being fought be Iraqis who don’t like their
country being occupied.
- Along ethnic lines, who is doing
the fighting?
- I think most of the people doing
the fighting are Sunnis. Because they are the ones that stand to lose the most.
I think that right now the Kurds and the Shiites are quietly and ambivalently
acquiescent in American occupation because they have something to gain from it.
Once they feel their position has been solidified, especially the Shiites, they
may call for the American withdrawal from Iraq.
- Are there any chances of the
conflict sliding into a civil war?
- The chances are there. It’s hard
to put a number on them. But I think that the chances are there. I think that
right now the Shia community… their patience is being exhausted by these daily
car bombs and high casualties. And that’s one of the real problems with the
American military strategy on the ground. They have yet to be successful in
situating security forces between the insurgency and the larger population;
they focus too much on search-and-destroy missions, instead of just
establishing safe areas…
- Has there been any finger-pointing
on the part of the United States,
any insinuation perhaps: “hey, don’t blame us; it’s the Sunnis that are doing
this to you?”
- I think that there is an
appreciation that the sooner [Americans] can train up genuine and capable Iraqi
security forces to deal with the Iraqi insurgency, the better things will be,
because the Iraqis are the best equipped to do it. Americans aren’t cosmopolitan
enough to know who is an insurgent and who’s not in Iraq.
The problem is that so far American
officials have really exaggerated the number of Iraqis they’ve trained up and
also I think underestimated the difficulty that they’re having in doing this.
It’s going to be a while, but I think that’s
part of the major problem of the military’s strategy. They need to stop these
search-and-destroy efforts and allow the Iraqis to do that; what [Americans]
need to do is help the population feel safe.
- Does the fact that hostage-taking
is more prevalent in Iraq
than in Afghanistan
have to do with the fact that there are more people now in Iraq?
- I think so. There’s a greater
presence of Americans; it’s more of a war-zone; it’s more unstable; in Afghanistan,
there’s probably a potential to take hostages, but I think that a lot of the
NGOs aren’t out there operating in areas where there is simply no control. The
security force only operates in Kabul.
The rest of the country is under some tenuous control by the Afghan army or,
more likely, it’s under the local warlord’s jurisdiction. So, I just don’t
think you see a lot of NGOs or people going out there in harm’s way.
Iraq
is a big, dangerous place with lots of people, lots of insurgents, lots of
Americans, lots of NGOs, so there are more targets, more potential for that.
- Who are the Iraqi guerillas
exactly?
- Nobody knows for sure. What is
fair to say, it’s sort of a broad amalgam of different people who normally in
the light of day wouldn’t agree with each other on anything, but because they
are there fighting the Americans they have common cause for a common front. I
think that the majority of fighters are just disgruntled Iraqis, predominantly
Sunni; there might be ex-Baathists, there might not be ex-Baathists. The Sunnis
have the most to lose. Iraq
has been turned upside down in terms of social and political structures. Then I
suspect there is a healthy dose of ex-Baathists who are simply fighting because
their system has been destroyed, they don’t know what else to do; some of them
may still be loyal to Saddam Hussein. Then, I think there is probably a small
minority of foreign fighters…These are the guys who, much like in Afghanistan
in the 80s during the Soviet occupation, have been recruited from all around
the Middle East and are going to Iraq to fight the infidel occupation of Muslim
land. These are the guys who are going to identify strongly with Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaida. These are probably the guys who are most willing to
undertake suicide missions, because they have the religious fervor that you are
not going to see among the secular Iraqi insurgents…
- What’s the reason for the US
media’s silence on Afghanistan…
- I don’t think there is any
conspiracy to keep Afghanistan
out of the news. I just think there is less news to report. I think that things
are pretty quiet…
If [Osama bin Laden] is indeed still
in the mountainous [border] region of Pakistan,
then maybe al-Qaida doesn’t want to ferment a lot of problems in Afghanistan
right now. If he is hiding right across the border in the mountains, the last
thing they probably would want to do is give the United
States a lot of reasons to turn their
attention back to that area.
Like I said, Afghanistan
to a certain extent - it’s not perfect, it’s far from stable - but progress is
being made. The elections, I think, were a success. And that really undercuts
the support that al-Qaida and the Taliban are probably going to be able to
muster.
- What are the chances that the United
States will take aggressive action against
other countries in the region?
- Very slim to none. The United
States is already fighting a war in the Middle
East, and one war is enough. I don’t think there will be any public
support whatsoever and certainly no international support for the United
States to invade Syria
or Iran.
Also, the simple practical truth is that the American military is being
stretched very thin and is showing signs of stress. There simply aren’t the
physical resources to invade another country. That doesn’t mean they might not
consider some kind of tactical air-strike operation surrounding nuclear
facilities or something like that… I’m talking about some time down the road,
if there is not some kind of give on negotiations with Iran
with respect to the nuclear issue…
The military options in Iran
are all exceedingly bad…Finally, you have to consider the fact that American
fortunes in Iraq
are very much dependent on the good-will of the Iranians, who have a lot of
influence in Iraq…
