James Dobbins, one of America's foremost security analysts, speaks to Khaled Dawoud about the situation in Iraq and Iran, and the US efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East Ambassador James Dobbins directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation, a major think tank in the United States that offers its services to the Department of Defense as well as many nations worldwide, including Arab countries. He has held senior State Department and White House posts, and handled a variety of crisis management assignments as the Clinton administration's special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. He is the principal author of the two-volume Rand History of Nation Building. In the wake of 11 September 2001, Ambassador Dobbins was designated as the Bush administration's representative to the Afghan opposition. He helped organise and then represented the US at the Bonn Conference where a new Afghan government was formed. On 16 December 2001, he raised the flag of the newly reopened US embassy in Kabul. Nearly two and half years after the Iraq war started, where do you see the situation now, particularly amidst this heated debate between Bush administration officials, who insist progress is being made, and a growing domestic opposition that do not trust such claims? Support for the war is certainly dropping among the American public. The number of people who think the war was not a good idea in the first place has grown, and is now a majority. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who thought the war wasn't a good idea in the first place who also think that a premature American withdrawal would make the situation even worse. So I think there is a majority of people who believe we should stay, even though there is also a majority who think it was a mistake we intervened in the first place. On the ground, in Iraq, where does it really stand? Is as bad we see everyday on TV, or is there some progress being made? I think the security situation is as bad as you see it everyday in TV. There are parts of the country that are relatively quiet. But there are significant parts of the country, particularly the capital, that still are very violent, and we see that everyday, and that's a fairly accurate, if not necessarily, complete picture. The economic reconstruction has gone very slowly. By and large, one can say the economy is now running as it was before the intervention, but it certainly hasn't taken off or improved in the manner most people expected, and in the manner that the amounts of assistance that have been provided would normally allow. And that again is a function of the inadequate security. On the political side, there certainly has been some progress. You had elections, you have a freely elected government in office; you have had open discussions on the constitution, a debate within society. On the other hand, there is still a strong polarisation; tensions between the major communal and ethnic groups are increasing, not decreasing. The violence in the country is becoming increasingly inter-communal. In other words, it is not just everybody shooting at the Americans, it is now Shias and Sunnis shooting at each other, and that's worrisome over the longer term. I think the situation with respect to the constitution is not that encouraging. One had hoped that it would become a device for uniting the major communities, but that doesn't seem to have been the case. The Kurds and Shias seem to have been able to come to an accommodation, which is better than nothing. Some Sunni concerns were accommodated, in part because of the US intervention, including the intervention of the president. How is this going to affect US plans for withdrawal from Iraq? We have conflicting statements on that. Some people say four years, five years, 10 years. Where do you see it? I don't think the administration has made any decisions regarding a withdrawal schedule. I think there was a hope that it could begin reducing the level of forces next year, as Iraqi security forces became more competent. And I think that's still a possibility. But it would appear that with the difficulties over the constitution, the talk of continued high levels of insurgency, a continued high level of violence, significant reductions are going to be difficult. Iraqi security forces are being trained, and equipped, and will certainly become more numerous and more competent. The real question is whether they will have a competent direction at the national level, whether there will be an effective command and control system, whether the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense and the national security structure at the top will provide adequate guidance and control to these forces. As an expert in nation building, you have been through that before in Kosovo and Albania. What went wrong in Iraq? Is it the lack of proper planning before the war, failed expectations, or maybe the war was not necessary in the first place? I think a lot of things went wrong. I think in terms of the nation building aspect of it, the administration went in with an unrealistic set of expectations, and inadequate planning for eventualities that were quiet likely, and which in fact occurred. They made the assumption that the Iraqi state, the Iraqi institutions, and the Iraqi security forces would remain intact, and will remain effectively able to provide for public security, even after the fall of the regime. They didn't anticipate that when the regime fell, the state itself would collapse, the security forces would evaporate. It was Paul Bremer, head of the now dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority, who decided to dissolve the Iraqi army. The Iraqi army had already dissolved at that point. In other words, it had gone home, it wasn't waiting at its barracks to be told what to do. It had gone home. So his choice was whether to reconstitute an army that had dissolved, or effectively acknowledge its dissolution, and create a new one. I think the real mistake was not so much to dissolve the army, but to have done so in a way that didn't provide a safety net for the individuals involved. In these nation building type operations, there is a standard process, called disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, which means you don't simply send the former combatants home, you provide them a framework for their future. You provide them vocational training, you integrate them in a new security structure, or you otherwise provide a basis for them to support their families and create a new life. If you don't do that, they become a problem. They are trained, they are people who are trained in the use of arms, and if they are unoccupied and have a grievance, they are going to become a problem. With the communal situation now in Iraq, it is even becoming more difficult to know who is in control, the Shias or the Kurds? In the units that the US is training, there is a fairly clear command and control structure, at least, at the basic level. But when you start getting to the higher levels, or when you start talking about the militia elements, some of which were incorporated in the military, it becomes less clear. And there certainly are units that are now incorporated into the police and the military who may have divided loyalties, who may largely be looking to family, clan, ethnic or religious authorities for their guidance. If I might move to Iran, I know that you have personally dealt with Iranian officials in preparation for the Afghanistan war. There is a lot of talk now about a possible confrontation between the US and Iran over the nuclear issue. How serious do you think this talk is? I think it is serious in the long term. I don't think it is a confrontation that the US administration is going to be looking to move towards any time soon. It has its hands full in Iraq; I think it will continue to pursue a multilateral effort with respect to Iran. It is going to continue working with the Europeans. But it is possible that there will be a step up of pressure on Iran, but I think it is likely to be economic, not military pressure. With this busy agenda, Iraq, the so-called war against terror, and now Iran, do you really see any possibility that the US would exert efforts to reach a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinians? The general view seems to be that both the Israeli and Palestinian political processes are at a state where neither of them is likely, in the short term, to be ready to make new concessions. Therefore, one is going to have to tread water, try to make sure the situation does not get worse, but not initiate any major new initiatives until the political situation in both Palestine and Israel has clarified somehow. The issue of democracy and spreading freedom in the region seems to be a top item on the Bush administration's agenda. To what extent do you see this call as influencing the region so far? Well, I think it has had some positive reverberations. I think there have certainly been some positive developments in Lebanon, and you are having a freer election in Egypt than you have had in the past, although I don't think it will meet international standards by any means. On the other hand, I think that the emphasis on democratisation has been somewhat exaggerated, and in some cases not entirely helpful. I think that democratisation is certainly an important component of a more stable Iraq, for instance. But there are issues, including power sharing among the major communal groups there, including sovereignty, territorial integrity, stability in the region, which are also important. And I think a balanced policy needs to acknowledge that there are number of different considerations that need to be brought to bear. And I think that more emphasis on some of those other considerations would be more likely to secure the support of Iraq's neighbours. How far do you think the US is serious in pushing for democracy in certain parts of the Arab world, even if that led to groups that actually oppose US policy in the region taking power -- Islamist extremist groups, some might say? I think that the United States is serious in that it would like to see a long-term evolution towards democracy in the region as a whole. Obviously, it's a lot easier for the administration to push for democracy in hostile regimes like Syria or Iran, or in occupied regimes like Palestine or Iraq, than it is in friendly regimes like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. That said, I think that the United States has shown in other regions of the world that it is possible to both maintain acceptable relations with important states and, over time, promote their democratisation. I think we saw this in South Korea, over several decades, I think we saw it throughout Latin America, I think we saw it through much of the Far East over the last 20 years. So I think the idea that the Middle East somehow should be exempted from a global emphasis on democratisation is wrong, and I think that this administration has recognised that previous administrations have not paid enough attention to that aspect of policy. On the other hand, you can go too far in the other direction, and I don't think that this is going to solve all your problems, or that it's going to solve any of your problems, very quickly. Finally, is the world safer since President Bush launched his war on Iraq and ongoing war against terror? No, I don't think it is. I think that Al-Qaeda has metamorphosed from a powerful but limited geographically, and organisationally limited, structure, to a much broader, less well defined, but in some respect more threatening, movement of extremists across many societies. I think Iraq has become a training ground and a breeding ground for terrorists, and it is also a point in which the United States is more exposed, and therefore a more tempting target for terrorists.
