So what did the Ayatollah say about the insecurity in Iraq? Reuters reports that Iranian state television quoted him telling Talibani that:

The first step to resolve the insecurity in Iraq is the withdrawal of the occupiers and handing over the security issues to the Iraqi government, which is backed by the people.

Some U.S. agents in the region are the middle men for implementing American policies and creating an insecure Iraq … Supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and igniting insecurity … will be very dangerous for America’s agents and also the region.

Oh dear. This doesn’t bode well for those advocating engagement with the Iranians to persuade them to help the coalition in Iraq.
Khamenei is essentially claiming that the U.S. government is deliberately fuelling the violence and instability in Iraq as part of a policy to split that country into small powerless mini-states. These weak mini-states, so the theory goes, are desirable to Washington because they would not be able to pose a significant threat to Israel or the West. It is claimed that this has been the objective of the occupation from the beginning. This is, as Middle East watchers will know, a hugely widespread meme inside Iraq and in the wider region. Many Shiite Iraqis, for example, believe that the attack on the shrine in Samarra back in February was the work of “U.S. agents” attempting to destabilise the country.

Sitting comfortably in front of my computer in my pyjamas in a room which will certainly not be bombed, mortared, raided by U.S. troops looking for insurgents or attacked from the air in an attempt to destroy a nuclear weapons programme which may or may not exist, the theory doesn’t make much sense.

First of all, there’s the oil. Those who dismiss the idea that the invasion was ever about oil often use the word “fungible” and also the words “barking leftist moonbats”. Unfortunately for those taking that view, the man himself has explicitly referenced Iraq’s oil as part of his motivation. The great game has always been about who controls and who profits from the world’s natural resources and this is no different. Opening up Iraq’s oil sector to Western companies (a nationalised industry under Saddam and subject to sanctions) was always part of the plan. The insecurity plaguing Iraq today has put a bloody great spanner in those works. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

And then there’s the politics. You could look at the statements made by Bush and his supporters on their desire to preserve Iraq as a unified political entity or at the hiding the Republicans received in the mid-term elections but there’s a simpler way. Two words: Mission Accomplished. That speech and that banner were wholly inconsistent with a policy which was intended to deliberately foment violence, instability and the disintegration of Iraq. What has happened since Bush’s Top Gun moment just wasn’t the plan. If it had been, you can be sure that Karl Rove would not have allowed the President to stand in front of that now excruciatingly embarrassing banner.

The plan really was to create western friendly government in the Middle East which would act as a beacon of freedom in the region and to enable Western companies to access Iraq’s oil in order to exploit the largest known undeveloped deposits of oil in the world. It isn’t going to well.

From the point of view of Iran’s Supreme leader, or indeed the average Iraqi in the street, it is easy to see why this is difficult to believe. Even before all this began, the United States was obviously not the most trusted of entities in the Middle East. Specific to Iraq, Bush senior’s decision to leave the Shiites hanging out to dry after calling on them to rise up against Saddam was not something easily forgotten. Likewise, the sanctions which destroyed Iraq’s economy throughout the Nineties provoked much anti-American feeling. Bush Senior decided not to remove Saddam in 1991 in large part because he had been advised that what would follow would most likely be worse. American troops, he knew, would not be welcomed with sweets and flowers. The idea that Bush Junior, after the first Gulf War and years of sanctions had exacerbated these tensions, expected the occupation to be a marvel of sweetness and light is extremely difficult to believe. Surely the President of the most powerful country in the world could not be so ignorant to the realities of the situation? Well, yes, it appears that he was. But it’s not difficult to see why people have a problem accepting this.

Perhaps more importantly, the invasion was justified by a tissue of misrepresentations and outright lies. Any Muslim living in the Middle East would have immediately appreciated that an alliance between Saddam and al-Qaeda was an inherently ridiculous notion. The Bush administration’s constant implication that such an alliance existed did great damage to any shred of credibility which Bush might still have maintained.

And then there’s the fabled Weapons of Mass Destruction. Whether you believe that the claims made before the war were lies knowingly told or not is almost irrelevant in this context.

(For the record, the Bush administration claimed to know for sure that Saddam had WMD. “We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat” was Rumsfeld’s memorable phrase. At the time, I remember wondering why he hadn’t told the U.N. inspectors if he knew where the WMD were and concluding that he was full of shit. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t changed my opinion in the intervening period.)

What is important is that this justification for the invasion did not ultimately hold water. Bush supporters may be prepare to give him the benefit of the doubt as far as the reasons for this but very many people, myself included, are not. How many of those living in Iraq or Iran would? And how many have concluded that he’s an unscrupulous liar?

In such a circumstance, it is easy to see why so many people simply do not believe Bush when he says he wants a peaceful, stable democratic Iraq. In the Middle East, George Bush’s administration is seen by many as the least trustworthy, least honest, most Machiavellian and most militarily belligerent American government ever to meddle in the affairs of the region. And that is quite an achievement.

The enormous distrust which Bush’s Iraq misadventure has created will permeate international relations for a very long time to come. That, rather than the tragic mess which Iraq has become, may yet be the most serious implication of this sorry affair.

(None of the above, by the way, is meant to suggest that the continuing presence of coalition troops isn’t at least partly responsible for the escalating violence and instability in Iraq. I’m very much of the opinion that it is. What I don’t accept is that this is a deliberate policy.)

Here’s a non-specific example of a particularly common error. Let’s say that A is a defined characteristic or experience and that X is a particular act. We do a study and discover that every single person who commits act X has first conformed to characteristic A. Can we conclude that characteristic A causes act X?

No, we bloody well can’t.

Let’s try a real example. Characteristic A will be defined as those who have smoked cannabis. Act X will be injecting heroin. In that example, studies have shown that almost all injectors of heroin were cannabis smokers first. I’ve seen any number of politicians say that this proves that cannabis is a “gateway drug” but it is a conclusion which cannot be drawn.

Here’s another example. Characteristic A will be defined as those who have smoked cigarettes. Act X will be injecting heroin. In that example, studies have shown that almost all injectors of heroin were cigarette smokers first. Now if you’re a smoker and you think I’m wrong in the previous example, you might be starting to feel unease here. Doesn’t this prove that tobacco is also a “gateway drug”? No, it bloody well doesn’t.

Here’s a third example. Characteristic A will be defined as those who have eaten bread. Act X will be injecting heroin. In that example, studies have shown that almost all injectors of heroin were eaters of bread first. To suggest a causal linkage there would be patently absurd; bread is not a “gateway” to hard drugs. But almost every heroin user was a bread eater first.

I do love a good reductio ad absurdum (not least because it’s just about the only Latin I know). The point is that plugging in a stupid example demonstrates that the original assumption, which still holds true in the ridiculous example, is false. And in this example, the reason is fairly obvious. The vast majority of bread eaters do not go on to inject heroin.

The fact that all people who commit act X first exhibited characteristic A says almost nothing about any causal relationship which might exist between them. In the first example, the “proof” of a causal relationship seems plausible to some people because it confirms their already held view. In the third, we’ll all instantly dismiss it because we all know it’s ridiculous but the same logical “proof” is used in both cases. If one conclusion is valid then the other must be too.

Here’s a final example. Characteristic A will be defined as those who believe in a version of Islam. Act X will be suicide bombing. In that example, studies have shown that almost all suicide bombers believed in a version of Islam first. (Let’s just put aside whether we believe this claim is true or not and assume that it is for the purposes of this post.) Would that prove that a belief in a version of Islam causes suicide bombing?

No, it bloody well wouldn’t.

* I’m dissatisfied with that other word. This is only in improvement in that it isn’t that other word.

Those who define terrorism as the deliberate killing of innocent civilians might find it difficult to argue that this al Qaeda suicide bomb attack was terrorism but let’s not get into the difficulty of defining terrorism here. What is now beyond dispute is that this attack was organised and carried out under the umbrella of the al Qaeda organisation. Bin Laden himself is thought to have selected the target and provided the money necessary to carry out the attack.

It is self-evident that in order to successfully tackle someone like bin Laden, it is vital that we understand his goals, methods and strategies. In the 6^th Century BC, Sun Tzu wrote that “if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles”. For all the talk of the new nature of today’s threats, this is as relevant today as it was two and a half thousand years ago.

So what was bin Laden hoping to achieve when he organised the attack on the USS Cole? The answer can be found in the section on the USS Cole in the 9/11 Commission Report (on page 191 of this extremely large pdf).

Back in Afghanistan, bin Laden anticipated U.S. military retaliation… He ordered the evacuation of al Qaeda’s Kandahar airport compound and fled…

There was no American strike. In February 2001, a source reported that an individual who he identified as the big instructor (probably a reference to bin Laden) complained frequently that the U.S. had not yet attacked. According to the source, bin Laden wanted the United States to attack and if it did not he would launch something bigger.

Note the date. Sadly, while the new Bush administration were not paying enough attention to the many warnings they’d been given, that is exactly what happened next. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this passage is a damning indictment of the failures of that administration (as Keith Olbermann points out in this report which I also include as the via for the quotation).

But the key point here is what this reveals about bin Laden’s intentions. Can it be true that bin Laden wanted the United States to attack Afghanistan? It’s clear that this does not match bin Laden’s public pronouncements on the subject. In those, he expresses his profound opposition to any Western military presence in Muslim countries and rages against the killing of fellow Muslims by the United States military. Why then would he want the U.S. to attack?

It’s not so very difficult to unravel; it’s the difference between propaganda and truth. While trying to keep this post non-confrontational, I have to say that I am constantly taken aback by the way some supporters of the “war” on terror take bin Laden’s public statements at face value. He’s evil incarnate but he’s also telling the unblemished truth in his public messages?
Ultimately bin Laden is opposed to Western occupation of Muslim lands so he is telling the truth in one sense. But he’s very much a long game player; he knows that he is not in a position to wield real power in any Muslim country in the short term. As such, he is deliberately attempting to provoke and exploit U.S. military action against Muslim countries in order generate support for his cause. Bin Laden, unlike our own leaders, understands the motivating power of the concept of resistance to foreign occupation among many Muslims.

Zawahiri, in a letter to Zarqawi in Iraq in July 2005, put it like this:

The Muslim masses-for many reasons… do not rally except against an outside occupying enemy, especially if the enemy is firstly Jewish, and secondly American. This, in my limited opinion, is the reason for the popular support that the mujahedeen enjoy in Iraq, by the grace of God.

In that letter, Zawahiri was essentially warning Zarqawi that support for the “resistance” in Iraq was dependent on the motivating factor of the U.S. military presence; without it, he warned, “it doesn’t appear that the Mujahedeen, much less the al-Qaida in the Land of Two Rivers, will lay claim to governance [of Iraq]”.

In the same, way, bin Laden knew that U.S. military action against Afghanistan would rally some among the “Muslim masses” to his cause. That was the main purpose of the attack on the USS Cole and the attacks which were to follow on September 11^th 2001.

This is the very foundation of al Qaeda’s strategy and it is a classic asymmetric warfare technique. For all the hype and hysteria, a group like al Qaeda has only limited power; they did not and do have the tremendous power of a strong nation state at their disposal and their only real ally was the dysfunctional Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In such a position of weakness, the most effective tactic is to seek to turn the power of your enemies against them. By provoking the United States into attacking and occupying Muslim countries, bin Laden has used their own military power as a hugely effective recruiting tool for himself and his associates. That was always the underlying plan.
In that respect, the “war” on terror, and associated rising hostility towards Muslims in many Western countries, has delivered more than bin Laden could ever have hoped for.

Of course, bin Laden’s actual strategies should be no more a straightjacket to our actions than his spurious public pronouncements. As I said at the start, what is important when creating strategies to deal with al Qaeda is that these strategies are built on an understanding of what they are trying to achieve and how they are trying to achieve it. The very nature of the “war” on terror indicates that this vital understanding has eluded our leaders.

It is worth taking a moment to consider the implications of the above. Bin Laden deliberately sought to provoke the United States government into attacking and killing Muslims for the purpose of spreading his own propaganda. He’s not on the side of justice for Muslims around the world; he’s not on anyone’s side but his own (and that of his warped totalitarian ideology) and he doesn’t care how many Muslims get killed as a result of his actions. In fact, certainly in the short to medium term, the more Muslims the American’s kill, the happier he’ll be.

That central truth, which should be at the forefront of all efforts to stop the spread of his insidious propaganda, has been largely obscured by the “war” on terror, the dangerously unsophisticated, deadly and counter-productive approach adopted by the American and British governments.

The issue can be seen as one of consistency. The Euston Manifesto is scathing in its condemnation of terrorism and those who would “understand” it. As Professor Geras puts it:

We express our opposition to terrorism and to indulgently “understanding” (where this means condoning) it because it is thought to be motivated by legitimate grievances.

This is a perfectly sensible view.

The key to my agreement is the use of the word “condone” and it’s interesting that Norm has included that only in brackets. The Manifesto does not go out of its way to explicitly make this distinction between condoning and understanding in the same way. For example, in the Elaborations to the manifesto, we have this:

We repudiate the way of thinking according to which the events of September 11, 2001 were America’s deserved comeuppance, or “understandable” in the light of legitimate grievances resulting from US foreign policy.

It is wrong to condemn those who wish to “understand” what motivates people to commit terrorism; it seems clear that understanding these issues will be the key to dealing with them. Too often, the manifesto and its supporters appear to be more interested in silencing anyone who would dare analysis and investigate the reasons for such attacks, by bandying about unjustified accusations of apologism or support for these objectionable acts, than in conducting the much needed debate on these issues.

Norm’s use of the word “condone” however, makes his premise one I’d be happy to support. I am in principle, you see, opposed to all forms of political violence. I condemn acts of violent terrorism directed against civilians unreservedly. At the same time, it is vital that we understand the reasons why these acts occur. In this, although Norm does not state the latter explicitly, he appears to agree.

The problem of consistency with the Euston Manifesto relates to the authors’ views with regard to another form of political violence. Clausewitz famously described war as “a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means” and it is the attitude of the manifesto towards war which is a cause for concern.

In article 10), “a new internationalism”, the manifesto says this:

We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the “common life” of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a “responsibility to protect”.

This has been carefully written and sounds eminently sensible on first reading but a consideration of the implications lead to some troubling conclusions. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the effect of article 10) would be to lower the limits which international law imposes on states who wish to resort to political violence – to conduct war, in other words. While the humanitarian motives of the authors appears laudable, their willingness to support this form of political violence reveals a lack of understanding of the horrors of war. It further reveals a naïve optimism in the power of state sponsored political violence to solve humanitarian crises.
As I said above, I am in principle opposed to all forms of political violence. This includes state violence which, history suggests, is responsible for the deaths of many times more innocents than terrorism (I am not strictly a pacifist though – I do believe that war as a last resort of self-defence can be justified). International law has a crucial role to play in restricting the power of states to wage war and democratic nations should be at the forefront of moves to make war an absolute last resort. The Euston Manifesto authors, by arguing for a reduction in the limits to the restrictions placed on states to resort to political violence, are not able to make this same claim.

While not explicitly stated, the position of the Euston Manifesto is this:

We express our support for war and indulgently “understand” (where this means condone) it when it is thought (by us) to be motivated by legitimate grievances.

For this reason, many people believe that the Euston Manifesto is pro-war. I certainly do. And I certainly won’t be signing it.

(This post is an extension of a comment on the CiF article.)

So say Mr Blair’s supporters. Blair himself has again made this point today at his monthly press conference. Pedantically, it isn’t even slightly true, of course. In the United Kingdom, we don’t elect the executive; we elect MPs to the legislature. The party with the largest representation in parliament then supplies the executive according to their own rules. In the case of the Labour Party, the last leadership election was held twelve years ago. As an exercise in democracy, it’s hardly inspiring.

This is not to say that many people who voted for a Labour MP last May would not have voted for Tony Blair to be Prime Minister given the choice; I’m sure many would have done exactly that. How many, it’s impossible to tell.

That’s the problem with Blair’s current claim. Our electoral system just does not provide any meaningful answer as to who the electorate believes should be Prime Minister. Once every four or five years, we’re allowed to place a cross in a box. There are a myriad of issues to consider when we make the decision as who we should vote for ranging from local constituency issues to national policies to the personal qualities and the integrity of the leaders of the parties. Perhaps there are too many issues at stake to be able to adequately express them with one cross.

The question is then, should we introduce elections for the executive and give voters a real independent choice on this matter? Should we constitutionally separate the powers of the executive from those of the legislature and hold entirely separate democratic elections to decide their makeup?

A democratically elected Prime Minister would genuinely be able to state that they personally, rather than their party, had been given a mandate to govern by the electorate. Pundits and commentators would find it more difficult to legitimately call for the resignation of such an elected executive and this might make it more secure over the course of their term in office.

This obviously has pitfalls as well as advantages. There is the possibility that an elected Prime Minister, precisely because of their democratic mandate, would be able to exert even more power than is currently available. This might be countered by ensuring that the powers held by the executive are clearly expressed and defined constitutionally. The executive would obviously be elected under FPTP. The legislature, elected through a representative voting system such as STV (at a separate time perhaps), could then hold the executive to account in a way which is representative of the full range of public opinion.

Currently, the party of the prime minister will almost always have a clear majority in parliament. His powers of patronage, as well as issues of loyalty to the party, make it very difficult for members of his own party to oppose any proposals he puts forward. This has given rise, as we know, to the feeling that the executive can act essentially as an elective dictatorship; it can make law without proper scrutiny and consideration being given to the proposals it puts forward as long as it can convince (some might say bribe and bully) its own MPs not to oppose them.

And, because of the inbuilt majority enjoyed by the executive, it need not concern itself in any way with the opinions of the opposition parties. These parties currently represent more than 60% of those who voted at the last election.

This curious form of democracy is, I’d argue, essentially flawed. An elected executive, obligated to seek the approval of a separately elected and representative legislature, might go some way towards addressing these concerns.