Libya & the U.S. - An Opportunistic History and a Historic Opportunity

It is always interesting to see the historical analogies brought forth by politicians and pundits. This week it's been 1979, and not without good cause. That was the last time a U.S. Ambassador was murdered on the job, and of course after President Carter allowed the exiled Shah of Iran into the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was taken over by revolutionaries backed by the new sovereign government, who then held U.S. diplomats hostage for well over a year.  Carter had resisted granting permission for some time in spite of constant pressure from Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, John McCloy, Zbigniew Brzezinski and their acolytes. In the end, as the Shah's diagnosis was suspected to be cancer, the President relented and granted entry. A good retelling of the story by one of those taken hostage in Tehran can be found in the online journal American Diplomacy.

The Carter administration's late and failed attempt to rescue the hostage through limited military action was a strong blow against America's global reputation, and helped to seal his defeat in the subsequent election. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, was uncritical of the president after the failed hostage rescue attempt and called for national unity.  Now, the analogies between 1979 and this past week's events in Egypt and Libya have been repeated often (suspending for rhetoric's sake the far reaching differences between the situations in Egypt and Libya).  There are Islamists, an embassy, and a Democrat U.S. president.  For now I will focus on Libya.

I would like to offer an alternative historical analysis, all the while emphasizing that no political analogies are a perfect match to the situations to which they are being compared.  The 1979 takeover of the embassy in Iran did have a specific aspect in common with the 2012 Libyan strike on the U.S. embassy -- both appear to be in direct response to U.S. actions.  In 1979, it was the permission granted for the Shah to enter the United States.  In 2012, there is talk of the Libyan strike being in retaliation for the killing of a top al Qaeda figure, a Libyan, by the United States.  One might be tempted to add the revolutionary contexts in the two countries as another point of commonality. However, the Iranian takeover the embassy was a part of the revolution. In Libya, the United States enjoys widespread support among the Libyan people who, in post-revolution elections, elected a non-Islamist government that is aiding the United States in investigating the attack. It was a strike against the revolution by globalized terrorists, not a part of the revolution.  The situation in Egypt is far less settled even than in Libya. In Egypt, I am not convinced the revolution is over, and this week's events is evidence.  As I said in my previous post, there are many as yet unanswered questions, and I hope we find answers and learn the right lessons.

The politics of the American presidential election have unsurprisingly entered the scene, as each side attempts to frame the questions and control the messages facing the voting public.  The incumbent president has a great deal to answer for, given the confidence with which he planned to help stabilize this volatile region, and his actions over the coming weeks and months will have some impact on the election. The details will determine to what degree this impact is felt. The Romney campaign is trying to paint the Obama administration as weak and misguided, though I have not heard the alternative strategies the Obama administration should have taken.  Should he have protected Ghadafi and Mubarak?  What about the argument that was floated publicly by some conservatives, declaring the Arab Spring a vindication of, or even a result of, President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda"? But in the past 24 hours Gov. Sarah Palin was on television saying that the promotion of democracy in the Middle East and North African regions is an unrealistic proposition.  Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and Sen. John McCain had a tense discussion in which McCain accurately depicted the situation in Libya while Hannity seemed unable to tell the difference between Egypt and Libya.  So, while important details are needed to answer specific questions about intelligence and embassy security, as a political issue I only seem to get confused as to what it is the president's critics offer as an alternative plan, or even a cogent criticism.

Let's take a look at timeline of instances, rather than just one, extending our perspective from a single historical analogy (the 1979 Iranian revolution) to a chronology of events that, because of Iran's support for Hezbollah, can be seen to be an extension of the Iranian revolution as well as the early developments of the global Islamist terrorism we still face today.  Much importance has often been assigned to the fact that in spite of an agreement to release them earlier, the American hostages were not released by the Iranian revolutionaries until after President Reagan had taken the oath of office.  There will always be debate about the reasons behind these developments, but ultimately it's not a very important point.  What is significant is that Islamist terrorism continued, even accelerated and expanded, over the years following the Iranian revolution, and it's my thesis that we benefit from realizing the historical similarities or connections between the developments of the 1980s and today, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).  First, an abridged summary --

1981 Libyan Air Force learns lesson from challenging USAF

June 1982 Israel invades Lebanon, bombing Beirut

                SecState Haig and then Shulz want US involved in peace process

                SecDef Weinberger and JCS do not want to deploy troops

                Reagan finds middle ground, sends 800 Marines in August 1982

                                PLO fighters leave, U.S. troops withdrawn

                

 September 1982  700 refugees killed by militia with close ties to Israel

                                  US troops ordered back on shore

April 1983 Hezbollah truck bombs US Embassy Beirut, 17 Americans killed, including 8 CIA

                  Attacks continue. Reagan orders shelling of militia camps

October 23, 1983 Marine barracks at Beirut airport bombed – 241 servicemen killed, mostly               Marines.    Over 100 wounded.  More US shelling in response. Baker, Weinberger and JCS want troops removed.

December 12, 1983 US Embassy in Kuwait bombed, 6 killed, 80 injured

February 1984 remaining troops removed from Beirut

Libyan international terrorism continues 1985-6 in Rome, Vienna, Berlin; Reagan drops 60 tons of bombs on Tripoli, Qaddafi lives and two days later 3 U.S. employees of the American University in Beirut are murdered for the state purpose of revenge for the attack on Tripoli. (The history.com link in the preceding sentence is from 1986, just linked for a quick summary. It includes the often reported death of Qaddafi's 15 month old adopted daughter as a result of the American raid. During the 2011 revolution, it was revealed that the now-grown woman was not killed and was never formally adopted by the long time dictator).

1988 Pan Am 103 bombed over Lockerbie, killing 270, including 189 Americans. Qaddafi stayed in power until 2011.

A more global look at acts of terrorism and war from 1979 to 1988 can be found here.

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So where do we go with this?  Thousands of Libyans fought against us and for al Qaeda in Iraq, and since then many have moved on to Syria and are contributing to the overthrow of Assad with who knows what to come after he's gone.  After losing the revolution at home, a reported 12,000 Libyan fighters carried their weapons to Mali, a country that has seen rising expectations dashed hard on the rocks of tribal and religious warfare.  For decades the Libyan people have suffered under the cloud of the terrorism-sponsoring Qaddafi and now find their homeland and young men subject to non-state terrorism recruitment and a country flooded with arms. 

Where we go is to continue assessing U.S. geopolitical interests in Libya. I believe we are still looking at a historic opportunity to both stabilize Libya, thereby protecting the energy infrastructure and squeezing out another cell of al Qaeda, as well as to assist an incipient democracy take hold. As a principal stakeholder in the geopolitics of the Middle East and North Africa for over fifty years, the United States has inevitably been dragged into the tribal, sectarian, and political-economic struggles of the region.  The targeting of U.S. embassies is not a recently invented tactic, as the abridged summary above illustrates, and I'm only writing about the MENA region, whereas there were attacks on U.S. installations in Europe and Latin America as well.  It's part of being a global power. President Reagan is widely praised for taking action against Libya, but those doing the praising also claim that the bombing of Tripoli silenced Qaddafi, taking Libya out of the terrorist picture. The historical evidence shows otherwise, particularly the 189 Americans killed on Pam Am 103.  Furthermore, throughout the 1980s just as today the Libyan situation has dual qualities: in many ways it stands apart, for example, the current differences between Libya and Egypt, but has also been part and parcel of the broader MENA geopolitical environment. In the 1980s, Americans were killed in Beirut in retaliation for the American bombing of Tripoli.  The US embassies in Beirut and in Kuwait were attacked, and for all of its sincere support of Israel, President Reagan issued harsh words and demands against Prime Minister Begin as Israel's invasion of Lebanon was conducted with a fury that mocked the laws of war.  Reagan's cabinet was heavily divided on the right course of action.  The same dilemmas would plague all subsequent administrations, and will plague the administrations of the near future as well, regardless of partisan control of the White House and of debates over defense spending.

President Obama's handling of the current situation can affect the upcoming election, or at least will be on the minds of his political handlers, just as previous political handlers worried about the effects of policy on voters' decisions.  We all hope stability can be restored without mass destruction. But regardless of the electoral outcome in November, the Commander-in-Chief will have to manage these affairs under conditions we cannot wholly control.

I repeat a theme from my last post: The U.S. government cannot determine which groups will rise and which will fail in foreign cultures, though as in Libya the U.S. can be an important factor in shaping the outcomes.

North Africa -- Chaos and Consequences

Let us not forget that the fundamental theory of chaos is one of consequences -- the butterfly effect, as is often cited.  Slight variations in initial conditions lead to widely varying and non-linear effects over time. The introduction of chaos theory (and in particular deterministic chaos theory) into social sciences has had mixed results, as succinctly summarized here. Its application to policy making is difficult as well, because unlike in its use in mathematics and physical sciences, chaos theory cannot specify which initial social-political condition will have precisely what effects. However, ultimately chaos theory is about the search for order and provides us with a general path along which we can focus our attention on finding order within disorder and on tracing the multiple and non-linear strands of causes and effects.

So let's look at Egypt and the events of the past few days. We need more answers. Many many more answers. I finally succumbed and signed up for a Twitter account (@GrangerGreg). My first tweet was an expression of condolence for the family of our slain foreign service officers and military support staff.  My second was a reply in the form of a question to the State Department, which is putting out multiple tweets denying any validity or justification for the violence in both Egypt and Libya.  My question was based on what I have to call rumors as I cannot independently confirm; it has been alleged that the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, forbade Marines whose duty it is to protect the Embassy from carrying live ammunition.  I want to reiterate that this has been mentioned and repeated in a few online blogs, and that repeating an allegation does not make it true. If it is true, the Ambassador should be recalled to Washington and possibly removed from her position.  There are other factors that are beyond the Ambassador's control -- such as a Diplomatic Security Service that is stretched too thin and long-standing disagreements between security personnel and State public affairs officers over the need for and images created by high levels of security. And of course direct responsibility for any insecurity, damage, and loss of life belongs to the perpetrators, be they religious fanatics, football hooligans or willingly manipulated unemployed youths, as seems to be the composition of the Egyptian protestors.  But if the no-live-ammo allegation is true, and especially if it can be shown that this directly constrained the ability to protect the Embassy and its personnel in Cairo, then there must be accountability. The effects of one policy change, regardless of intent, are potentially very strongly felt, particularly in the context of a country in revolution.

More broadly, there are serious questions about the Egyptian government that require answers. The history of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has clearly not prepared the group for governance, and yet this is the most highly organized body in Egyptian civil society so all others would likely be even worse.  The problem as I see it, however, is that stable governance that respects human rights in Egypt is entirely possible, but only through pragmatism.  The elected government in power, however, cannot find the appropriate balance between ideology and practicality -- and unfortunately it seems to be the ideological side of the equation that's dominant.

There are calls for cutting off U.S. aid to Egypt, and I understand the sentiment. I would caution, first, against conflating Libya and Egypt. It appears that the Libyan government is helping the United States and the vast majority of Libyans want to be on the side of the United States. Focusing on Egypt, the answer may not be to simply cut off all aid. We need more information about the military side of Egypt's government. We know that the military has taken action against Islamist militants in the Sinai -- and that the President reacted by firing the military leadership. The United States has faced similar dilemmas before: We preach democracy, including civilian governance and respect for human rights, however, we have often sided with military juntas, elevating stability over democracy. It's Realpolitik, and should always be controversial, even if taking such an amoral stance leads to the right outcomes. In the age of instant communications and global media, what is different from the past is that should we adopt the Egyptian military as our principal client and support an advancement of their role in decision-making and governance, and then there arises news of military abuses of civil society, the blowback could be tremendous in a country of 80 million. The Egyptian populace's view of the United States seems to be a far cry from that of the Libyans' affection for Americans.  In a phone call with President Morsi yesterday, President Obama was told that the U.S. Embassy will receive necessary security cooperation.  There is much room for skepticism. If the elected government does not stabilize the situation, there is increased likelihood that the military will attempt to do so. The decision of the United States to support one or the other could make the difference and improve the situation, but in any case there will be unintended consequences to manage and attempts at blowback to rollback, possibly with force -- and another air war is unlikely to do the trick.

I have defended President Obama's method of waging war against al Qaeda.  The terrorist organization has transformed significantly into a network of proliferating organizations and in many cases into leaderless small group or single-individual operations.  I have ongoing research into how the idea of chaoplexic warfare, which combines elements of chaos theory and complexity science, is useful in understanding these developments.  The president's heightened reliance on drone warfare, Special Operations Forces, and local anti-jihadist fighters in Africa is the right mix, though success is difficult to measure and many challenges persist.  The fact that groups such as AQIM, AQAP, al-Shabab that represented the key nodes in a growing networked al Qaeda, are themselves unable to effectively control offshoots from their organizations illustrates that the terrorist group will continue to change and that U.S. policies are contributing to this instability by continually assaulting any attempt at terrorist leadership.  I also do not have high expectations for this or any other U.S. president when it comes to controlling events in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. The vague demands for "American leadership" in these situations fall flat when one tries to figure out just what that means.  These are not our revolutions, though they do hold repercussions for our interests. But the notion that President Obama (or President Romney) can somehow exercise leadership over foreign populations in a time of revolution is absurd, and many informed commentaries on Egypt suggest that the Egyptian tendency toward conspiracy theories makes it even less likely that this nation in chaos will see any reason to follow the leadership of an outsider (when they can't even figure out leadership in country). This does not mean the United States cannot shape some events, and we can certainly create conditions that offer incentives and disincentives for Egyptians to consider -- the threat to financial assistance and the arrival of U.S. warships and Marines are good examples. If Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood can cooperate internationally, can convince at least the less fanatical protestors that their concerns will be addressed, and can work with its military to marginalize religious fanatics, we could see a quietening over the next week or so.  If not, we will either see larger and more violent protests and/or a larger and more aggressive military stabilization policy.  The United States cannot deterministically engineer the outcomes, but with the right mix of initial conditions, we can increase the probability of favorable outcomes.

I have not received a reply to my State Department tweet.

Links to Helpful Graphs on Consumer Finances and Gas Prices

Handy blogs with helpful graphs. Dig around each site for additional data.

First, on financial issues :

From the American Bankruptcy Institute, a collection of great charts on a variety of consumer finance issues: Chart of the Day

I had heard mention of the Calculated Risk Blog but just getting around to  looking it over. For example, see this new piece on recent trends in consumer debt -- good news in the debt management department:

See: Calculated Risk Blog

Here is the CRBlog's Graph Gallery

Switching gears, here is an interactive chart that allows us to compare gas prices nationally and across cities, states, and times.  See Historical Gas Prices page.