Under läsning av Philip H. Gordon, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East (St. Martin’s Press 2020) noteras att “US bomb Syria: one dead, several injured in airstrikes, Joe Biden’s first military action” , samtidigt som “Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell of Notre Dame Law School criticized the US attack as a violation of international law.”
Gordon var en medlem av Obama-administrationen 2009 – 2015. Och vet vad han skriver om.
I The New York Times Book Review skriver Andrew Bacevich: “Losing the Long Game recounts American efforts over the past seven decades to get rid of annoying regimes in the greater Middle East and to install in their place something more to Washington’s liking…his criticisms are devastating.”
Boken innehåller åtta kapitel vilka ger en fingervisning om USA:s fullständiga misslyckanden i Mellanöstern efter andra världskriget:
Kapitel 1. ”Original Sin: Iran, 1953”,
Kapitel 2. “’We Won’: Afghanistan, 1979–92”,
Kapitel 3. “’We Have Turned a Corner’: Afghanistan, 2001”,
Kapitel 4. “’Mission Accomplished’: Iraq, 2003”,
Kapitel 5. “’The Transition Must Begin Now’: Egypt, 2011”,
Kapitel 6. “’We Came, We Saw, He Died’: Libya, 2011”
Lapitel 7. “’Assad Must Go’: Syria, 2011 …”
Sammanfattning: “Why Regime Change in the Middle East Always Goes Wrong”.
Boken handlar alltså om “regime change”, det vill säga hur USA söker få bort misshagliga ledare i Mellanöstern, och få tillsatt vänligt sinnade (det vill säga sådana som gör vad USA vill). Som framgår av bokens sammanfattning går det alltid fel. Vilket spår president Biden väljer, återstår att se, men inledningen är inte lovande.
Metoderna har varierat: “sponsoring a military coup, providing covert or overt military assistance to opposition groups, invading and occupying, invading and not occupying, providing airpower to opposition forces, and relying on diplomacy, rhetoric, and sanctions alone.” Vad som är gemensamt “is that they invariably failed to achieve their ultimate goals, produced a range of unintended—and often catastrophic—consequences, carried extraordinary financial and human costs, and in many cases left both the target country and the United States worse off than they were before.” Tilläggas ska att ofta har USA:s ageranden varit flagranta brott mot internationell rätt. Gorton lyfter här fram kritiker, som ser “the United States as an imperialist, mercantilist power that undermines world order and international law by seeking material gain at the expense of weaker states, often contending that ‘the search for markets, and for access to natural resources, is as central to American history as it has been to the history of every great power in every age.’” Samtidigt ska sägas att Gorton är en anhängare av så kallade humanitära interventioner och interventioner när vissa intressen står på spel, något som är olagligt om de inte är sanktionerade av FN:s säkerhetsråd.
Utredningen i kapitel 1 är övertygande. USA:s och CIA:s ansvar för kuppen i Iran 1953, som än i dag påverkar situationen i Iran, har man försökt tona ner, men “it is […] impossible to deny the reality that the United States played a major—and by now long-admitted—role in overthrowing the Iranian government in 1953, and that the intervention had disastrous longer-term consequences not just for the Iranian people but ultimately for the United States itself.”
President Carters beslöt sommaren 1979 att ge militär support till antikommunistiska rebeller i Afghanistan, då “Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski favored tougher measures to increase the costs on Moscow for backing the communist government”. Tidigare samma år hade Sovjetunionen invaderat landet. Och Brzezinski “saw the invasion as an opportunity ‘to finally sow shit in [the Soviets’] backyard’”. Ronald Reagan, som tog över som president 1981, “had criticized Carter’s response to the Soviet invasion as weak.” Och han fortsatte att förse guerillan med vapen, för att 1985 slå fast att nu gällde det att “removal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the restoration of its independent status. According to [CIA-chefen] Robert Gates, the ‘new objective’ was ‘to win.’” Året efter fick rebellerna ”infrared, shoulder-fired Stinger missile.” 269 sovjetiska helikoptrar och plan sköts ned. 1988 började Sovjetunionen att dra sig ur landet och en löpsedel i New York löd: “How the Good Guys Won in Afghanistan” Samtidigt, “ fighters from across the Muslim world—largely from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Algeria—continued to flock to Afghanistan, drawn by the opportunity to wage a jihad that would expel the infidels from Muslim lands.” Och “the Saudi national airline even gave a 75 percent discount to Saudis who traveled to join the jihad.” Talibanerna tog över 1996. President Bush den yngre gav efter 9/11 2001 “an ultimatum directly to the Taliban: deliver to the United States all the leaders of al Qaeda, release unjustly imprisoned foreign nationals, close every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and hand over every terrorist and those supporting them, or be removed from power.” Ett krig startade, kallat “Enduring Freedom”, som fortfarande pågår. Militärhistorikern Andrew Bacevich noterar och citeras i boken: “That instigating large-scale war in Afghanistan might entail long-term hazards for the United States exceeded the imaginative capacity of U.S. policymakers.”
2003 proklamerade en känd hök i USA att krigen Afghanistan och Irak “have been won decisively and honorably”. Det senare kriget hade inletts i april samma år och avslutades först 2011 när president Obama tog hem trupperna. ” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (två realister), accurately predicted […] in February 2003 that because ‘the United States would have to occupy Iraq for years, the actual cost of this war would likely be larger’ than the administration expected and that ‘because most of the world thinks war is a mistake, we would likely get little help from other countries.’” Som kontrast citeras i boken ett stort antal “experter” som förespråkade militärt våld och såg framför sig en snar ljusnande framtid. ”Under USA:s drygt åtta år långa närvaro hade nära 4 500 amerikanska soldater fått sätta livet till och långt över 100 000 civila irakier hade dödats. USA lämnade efter sig ett land präglat av våld, terrorism och etnisk splittring.”
Och Gorton noterar: “Eleven years after the initial U.S. invasion, Iraq not only was not a free, stable, and functioning democracy but was being attacked from within by an extremist movement that was even more violent, repressive, and hostile to the United States than Saddam.” Av boken framgår att USA:s Irakpolitik har varit en katastrof.
Efter ett kapitel om hur Obama intrigerade i Egypten och lyckades få bort president Mubarak från makten 2011, kommer en målande beskrivning av USA:s excesser i Libyen samma år. Utrikesminister Hillary Clinton var nöjd när hon proklamerade: “We Came, We Saw, He Died”
Gorton antecknar: “I initially detected little appetite among top administration officials for military action in Libya. But I also recall going down to the State Department gym for a late evening workout that second week of March, seeing a parade of politicians and pundits on CNN calling for U.S. military action, and realizing that the pressure to act militarily was only going to grow.” Och han erinrar om att “Trump would later call the Libya intervention a ‘disaster’ and deny ever having called for it; in fact he argued passionately in favor of it—and insisted it would be quick and easy—at the time.”
Vice presidenten Joe Biden och försvarsministern Robert Gates var dock skeptiska. Biden “worried not just about the ‘day after’ but the ‘decade after.’” Gates var än mer tveksam: Han frågade sina kollegor: “Can I finish the two wars I’m already in before you guys go looking for a third one?” Noterbart är att den nuvarande utrikesministern Antony Blinken var för en militär insats. Medan Obama var tveksam men föll till föga.
Gortons slutsats: “To be sure, even if NATO hadn’t intervened, other supporters of the Libyan opposition, such as Qatar and other Gulf states, might have armed and financed the rebels, but even that scenario would likely have been far less destructive than the conflict that broke out after Qadhafi’s overthrow.” Även här har alltså USA:s Mellanöstern-politik varit totalt misslyckad.
Vad är författarens slutsats om USA:s agerande i Syrien?
”Not long after I took over the Middle East portfolio at the White House in March 2013, one of the government’s most experienced Syria hands assured me that Assad would be gone by Christmas.” Som vi vet har det inte skett. Och några militära interventioner med trupp vågade man sig inte på. Obama bad CIA ta fram exempel på lyckade fall med att militärt utrusta en opposition. Några sådana kunde man dock inte finna! Trots att John Kerry med flera önskade en militär lösning vad gällde Assad, stod Obama fast; även författaren tillhörde motståndarsidan.
Senare, då anklagelser om att regimen använt kemiska vapen, kom Obamaadministrationen, trots att man inte fick britterna med sig, att avfyra ” dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles […] from five Arleigh Burke–class destroyers in the Mediterranean”.
Trump kom senare att anklaga Obama: Bakgrunden var att Obama hade varnat (”a red line”) Assad att inte använda kemiska vapen. “If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line in the Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago!”
Gorton fortsätter: “By mid-2014, it was becoming increasingly clear that U.S. policy was not working, and was not going to work. The decision to try to overthrow Assad had unleashed forces that U.S. officials had not foreseen and did not have the power to control.”
I boken skildras hur Moskva kom att förhindra Assad från att falla ”and a demonstration that opposition escalation would be met by counter-escalation unless the United States and others were prepared to counter-escalate in turn, which they were not.”
För president Trump var “the Islamic State […] a ‘far bigger problem than Assad,’ that it was ‘madness, and idiocy’ to be fighting both of them at the same time.” “Getting rid of Assad was certainly not anything Trump was going to expend blood or treasure— or risk confrontation with Russia.”
Boken avslutas med följande slutsatser:
“Removing a Regime Is the ‘Easy Part’”
“Security Vacuums Can Be Even Worse Than Repressive Regimes”
“Locals Don’t Always Welcome ‘Liberators’”
“’Clients’ Have Their Own Interests”
“Regional Spoilers Thwart Success”
“Unintended Consequences Are Inevitable”
“Regime Change Creates Moral Hazard”
“Americans Don’t Know Enough About the Middle East”
“U.S. Staying Power Is Limited”
“Democracy Is Elusive, Especially in the Middle East”
– Even Lots of Money and Troops Are Not Enough